Helix-House 4: Sustainability

Building is responsible for about 8% of the CO2 emissions in the world, even growing, if fossiles burning is reduced by the rise of renewables. The making of cement produces CO² by the reduction of limestone and the heating to initiate the reduction. If  fossile fuels for heating are replaced by green H² , still the CO² from the reduction remains. In the best case this is clean enough to be used by other chemical processes. So we should get rid of the mass use of caementum which enabled for 2000 years wonderful architecture from the dome of the Pantheon to the Villa Savoye or even Ronchamps from Le Corbusier. 

Going back to the elder, naturally growing materials of as wood and materials made from it, is not necessarily a continuation of the architecture with concrete as dominant material. We should use the opportunity to reinvent as much as possible an architecture of wood  and wood composite materials, as https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holzbau indicates. A specific challenge for wood seems to bee the construction of high buildings as https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HoHo_Wien and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mj%C3%B8st%C3%A5rnet  Mjostarnet indicate. They demonstrate the technology of wood-concrete or wood alone to build high commercal buildings, but no new architecture. Another example of similiar, unspecific, hidden use of wood as material are the widespread wood-framed  private homes in North Amarica. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_material#Wood_and_timber . These are not specific buildings representing specific wood technology as for example, the historic Fachwerkhäuser in Europe. As "beton brut" we should be in search of "wood brut". This was one of the main ideas in my first helix-house projekt "Museum", hommage a Frank Lloyd Wright Guggenheim New York.

Coming back to my present helix-house I am convinced, that this an useful idea for a specific wood building. And I am convinced, that the german and austrian community for Holzbau will create with ideas like this a new "School for Holzbau" with worldwide influence. In the tradition of the Athens Charta, to solve the living requirements with big Unitees d'habitation, I could envision, that big wooden buildings could contribute a lot to the solution of sustainable living in the rising Megacities of Africa.

Digitalhaus statt Bauhaus-Neuaufguss

Es ist ein immer wieder geträumter Traum: ein neues Bauhaus, ein Neuaufguss, um den Erfolg der Ikone zu wiederholen.

Wir brauchen das nicht.

Was wir brauchen ist kein Bau-, sondern ein Digitalhaus. Ich habe nach einigen Ansätzen dazu vor zwei Tagen gewittert: das Bauhaus hatte Materialien wie Stein, Holz... Gewebe als innersten Ring in seinem Programm. Ziel im Zentrum: Bau. Beim Digitalhaus könnten Hardware, Software, Communication, Human Interface und Digital Economics an ihrer Stelle stehen. Ziel im Zentrum: Applikation.

Die didaktischen Bereiche des Programms beim Digitalhaus würden sich an der best practice mit Lehre und Labor der Welt orientieren. Entscheidend ist das Ziel: Applikation. Das müssen Dinge sein, die in Deutschland und der EU für den Weltmarkt heute gebraucht werden oder für die morgen ein Markt zu erwarten ist. Als wichtiges Feld führe ich beispielhaft das Smart Car an. Dazu gehört alles vom Betrieb und der Bedienung des Vehikels über Unerlässliches wie Navigation und Kommunikation bis hin zur Unterhaltung. Einen ersten Wurf dazu zeigt die Avantgarde Tesla, dem VW und andere mit eigenem (?) Profil folgen werden.

Ein weiteres wichtiges Feld der Applikation wird die Kommunikation sein, die in diesem Monaten durch die Pandemie einen starken Impuls bekommen hat: Telekooperation, Konferenzen, die mit künstlicher Intelligenz wir jenseits von Zoom eine virtuelle, dynamische Gruppe mit wechselnden Gesprächspartnern bieten.

Wie kann das Digitalhaus entstehen? Nach dem historischen Vorbild Bauhaus braucht es einen Mann oder eine Frau, welche die Rolle des Gropius einnimmt mit den vielen Facetten seiner Persönlichkeit, vorndran Vision und Charisma. Diese Persönlichkeit wird einen Mäzen finden, wie die Stadt Weimar im Aufbruch oder Dessau im Ausbau. Sie wird die Klippen, welche die HfG Ulm scheitern ließen, umschiffen.

Wie sehr ich das Deutschland und der EU wünsche!

 

Helix-House: 3.Design Principles

The basic idea of the design principle used for the helix-house relies on the application of a computer code for graphics to develop the main construction of the building.This may be considered as a fundamental change versus the square and cube-based conventional design. Therefore the design based on computer graphics and coding with mathematical functions seem to be more complicated and abstract. It is indeed loaded with coding, debugging and running the computer graphics program compared to the drawing of rectangels on paper or by the aid of a computer. However the interactive coding, drawing and evaluating the graphic result opens your mind to a higer level creativity. That is the point, you increase your creativity by coding. Your creativity has two levels, the code level and the graphic output level. I admit, you need some training to get satisfiying results. I personally developped this creative method since decades first as computer art, later named digital art and refined to my purpose as Codism or Codismus, described it in other posts in Steinblog. The method of Codism is with the facilities of trial and error beyond the drawing of the main construction of the building a mighty creative tool from the footprint of the building to details of the construction. 

To apply the principle of Codism to the design of a Helix-House we use harmonic functions as the Sine and Cosine function in the graphics program. We demonstrate this by the minimalistic program in a Basic language for Windows MS SmallBasic shown below.

This is the final Graphic output achieved by a video sequence by the code shown, published under htttp://smallbasic.com/program/RRK765 

As the graphics show only the helix building we continue drawing outside and inside:

The code is published http://smallbasic.com/program/PLC074 . To get an impression of  the power of this method, a hands on experience is required. As first step an installation of smallbasic on MS Windows may be used, implementing the codes 

To design a building, the steps coding and drawing are iterated to find the result required. It uses the ideas of Codismus I posted in my Steinblog. This is a fundamentally new approach or recipe in architecture beyond the common practice of square and cube basied design or imagination as, homage to Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim museum. It could be classified as a succesfull inspiration by nature, a snail house. Onother approach, e.g. used by Antonio Gaudi for the Sagrada Familia cathedral , is the use of mathematical models as catenaries.

To demonstrate the power of Codism as creative tool we apply it to find more interesting  footprints for a helix-house than the circle in our first example. 

In this study we modify the radius ra of the outside of the helix-house by a form factor "form" in steps from 0 to 2, where 0 is the circle use in our first example. The frequency of our harmonic function for modification is called multiple. We choose Sin^2 for the harmonic function and a multiple of 1. The resulting drawing shows how the circle is streched to the left and right. If we would use a multiple of 1.5 we would get a threefold increase of the radius to a three-leaf clover footprint.

To demonstrate the result we draw a helix-house with the widest form 2 as above, based on the following code:

This is the helix house with the three-leaf clover footprint, achieved by using multiple=1.5 only.

This closes the chapter on the design principles of the helix-house scheme in short.