Reading Response: Abstracting Craft - Malcom McCullough

A creation will carry certain characteristics of its media. The form and texture of an object will be determined by how the object is made. As put by McCullough,

“Hands also discover. They have a life of their own that leads them into explorations. For example, a sculptor’s feel for a material will suggest actions to try, and places to cut. Learning through the hands shapes creativity itself. ‘The hand is not the mind’s docile slave. It searches and experiments for its master’s benefit; it has all sorts of adventures; it tries its chance.’”
In this example intuition, as developed through experience or otherwise, guide the creation. But indeed, this intuition is informed by the material itself. The media has informed the artist. The material and the intuitive hand dance with the artist’s vision. The result is a creative synergy that produces something no one expected. This is what is interesting to me about hand made- The way a material can inform its artistic transformation.
In architecture this cannot be avoided. The pencil will inform the perspective, the 3D modeling program will inform the form finding (especially for beginners like me) and the collection of materials and their interaction will inform the model. Taking this raw product, refining it, letting the different products inform one another, making it more consistent and reliable across media, communicating it to the engineers, developers, clients, contractors, sub-con, and builders, this is the beauty of the challenge of architecture.
What then is the true manifestation of a vernacular architecture? Is it to design in the various media, retaining the rawness of the different modalities, and then building with the real material, accepting its wishes, letting it inform its own creation? This is intriguing to me. A truly ‘hand made’ building. Sounds fun to give a go.

Learning Digital Form Finding

First explorations in MaxonForm with Archicad. I began experimenting with organic shapes by folding a simple flat polygon using the soft selection live select tool.





Here I experimented with a thickness to the wall element whie attempting to making a dynamically curving form. I repeated the same element to create an archtitectural composition. Such repetitions make production simpler throughout the design/build process. If arranged with care, a sense of energry and discovery can be maintained even though the elements may be duplicates.




Flat slab polygon is folded and then duplicated into a more complex building form. Duplicating and overlapping is intriguing to me. In this instance the larg gaps in the overlap create large window openings. Fitting in window elements will be a challenge for later stage renderings and BIM drawings.














Again bending, repititon, overlap, but this time with thickness. The large scale of these forms reveal the imperfection in the thickness. I need to improve my techniques. Digital design is a quick and fun tool, but it gets heavier when expectations for consistancy begin to be placed on the design.