Folding Architecture

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Contents
The emergence of Folding Architecture
Folding Architecture definition

Folding structure
Folding Architecture Properties
Case study

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The emergence of Folding Architecture

Folding

is relatively an ancient
tendency in contemporary architecture.
Traditional cultures Japanese arthave used paper folding to create a
given result by using geometric folds
and crease patterns preferably without
the use of gluing or cutting the paper
medium. For instance, origami refers to
all types of paper folding and kirigami.
It is a precise design method. Paper
folding and paper cutting are very
playful way of designing, which offers
free leash to spontaneity and surprise
during the design process.

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Folding Architecture definition

Folding as a generative process in architectural
design is essentially experimental: agnostic,
non-liner and bottom up.
Our interest lies on the morphogenetic process,
the sequence of transformations that affect the
design object. Considering this an open and
dynamic development where the design evolves
with alternate periods of disequilibrium, we can
appreciate the function of folding as a design
generator by phase transition, that is, critical
thresholds where qualitative transformations
occur. Cut off from the continuum of the studio
process, four phase transitions are presented
further illustrating the case with a visual essay:
matter and functions, algorithms, spatialstructural-organizational
diagrams
and
architectural prototypes.

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Peter Eisenman - BFL

Software Limited
Bangalore - 1996

Transition1: Matter and Functions

Ivory Carton is introduction as quintessential
foldable material given the papers weight and
structural capacity. The task is to extensively
explore transformation of a single paper
surface continuity of the material. The papers
transformative origins are simple actions,
intuitive responses, delivered here as a list of
verbs ; fold, press, crease, pleat, score, cut,
pull, rotate, twist, revolve, wrap, pierce, hinge,
knot, weave, compress, unfold. In the early as
a diagram in Deleuzian terms, an abstract
machine by matter and function. Reading the
paperfold as a diagram, that does not
represent but rather constitutes a new type of
reality introduces architectural research into a
field of actualization.

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Transition2: Algorithms

The paperfold is a dynamic artefact,

unstable and evolving. It bares the
traces of activity that brings it into
being: scores, creases or incisions
drawn in the surface of the paper. The
paperfold unfolded, becomes a map of
its origination process. Repetitive
paper folding performances evolve
initial intuitive responses into primary
techniques:
triangulation,
stress
forming, stratification of folds, folds
within folds, or patterns like strips,
spline curves, spirals, or meanders.

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Transition3: spatial, structural and organizational

Diagrams
Space emerges in the paperfold during a
dynamic volume generation process. The
void bounded between the folds of the
paper manifests a curvilinear from that
cannot be exactly defined. Like its
delimiting surfaces it manifests increased
continuity despite its fragmentation.
Mapping the paperfold as a spatial diagram
requires an abstraction of spatial diagram
requires an abstraction of spatial relations.
Geometric characteristics are initially
irrelevant. Topological properties are
crucial to describe the space emerging in
the
paperfold;
proximity,
spatial
succession, enclosure and contiguity.

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Transition4: Architectural Prototypes

In design generative process by
folding, the architectural object is
not an a priori target to be achieved.
Given the educational context, the
spatial, structural and organizational
diagrams emerging in the process
are developed into architectural
prototypes. The task here is to
attribute architectural properties to
the diagram introduction parameters
of material, program and context.
Thus we can define here as
architectural prototype the spatial,
structural or
organizational
diagram that
has acquired
'architectural substance'

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Folding architecture ,concise genealogy of the

practice
Folding emerged as an architectural discourse aspiring to
become the new architecture of the end of the 20th century.
In the perspective of a concise genealogy we can consider the
architectural design profile .guest-edited by Greg Lynn .folding in
architecture its early manifesto .
the issue released in 1993comprises an
anthology of essays and projects by a
group of architects seeking an
alternative to the contradictory formal
logic of deconstructive and includes
among
others
Cobb.
Eisenman
.Gehry.Kipnis.Lynn
and
shirdel
.featunng an excerpt from Deleuze s at
that time recent English translation .the
fold .leibiz and the baroque .folding in
architecture .

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Draws philosophical substance from the work of Deleuze .a radical

understanding of Leibniz employing the baroque as atheoretical tool to
analyze contemporary artistic and intellectual movements.
Greg Lynn in his contribution to the above
issue .titled architectural curvilinearity the
folded .the pliant and the supple introduces
folding as third architectural response to
compels and disparate cultural and formal
contexts .operating neither by conflict and
contradiction as deconstruction nor by unity
and reconstruction as neo-classicm. New
modernism and regionalism .etymologically
relating complexity with pliancy the
architecture of the fold is considered a
cunning tactic for intensive integration of
difference within a heterogeneous yet
continuous system

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These geometries bend and stabilize with viscosity under pressure.

Where one would expect that an architect looking at catastrophes
would be interested in conflicts, ironically, architects are finding
new forms of dynamic stability in these diagrams.
The mutual interest in Thom's
diagrams points to a desire to be
involved with events which they cannot
predict. The primary innovation made
by those diagrams is the geometric
modeling of a multiplicity of possible
co-present events at any moment.
Thom's
morphogenesis
engages
seemingly
random
events
with
mathematical probability.

Folding Architecture Properties

1. The fold the infinite work in process .not now to
conclude but how continue to bring to infinity .
2. The inside and the outside :infinity fold separates or
moves between matter and soul .the faade and the
closed room .the inside and the outside .
3. The high and low :being divided into folds .the fold
greatly expands on both sides thus connecting the high
and low .
4. The unfold :not as the contrary to the fold but as the
continuation of this act .
5. Textures :as resistance of the material the way a
material is folded constitutes its texture .
6. The paradigm : the fold of the fabric must not conceal
its formal expression .

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Ali Rahim - Variations - Islamabad - 2001

Greg Lynn - H2 House - 1996

Mark Goultorpe dECOI - Ether/I

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Mark Goultorpe dECOI - Paramorph - Londra - 1999

MVRDV - Sloterpark swimmimng-pool - 1994

Foldable structures: folding to give tensile

strength, Paper Tower by Shigeru Ban

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folding to give tensile strength as in building structure

On a tangible level, folding is most commonly referred to as in the
art of origami or the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes
representing objects. Planar folding incorporates the subtle
geometric transformations that allow a flat surface to be
transformed into a 3 dimensional structure. Thus, giving a new
platform for exploration of structural design via one that can carry
loads and contains tensile strength in a gravitational world.
Folding of forms can be of any type of surface or skeletal
structure. Even the softest most pliable material when folded in
certain configurations gives remarkably high tensile strength.
Often, soft materials are actually stronger while hard materials are
brittle.

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Thus, depending on the molecular

structure or composition of the material
one is folding, all forms can be transformed
into one of tensile strength. Since
structural integrity exists in all things, even
of the smallest element due to the nature of
charge particles.

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Folding in this case creates new geometries and connections to

create innovative load bearing designs. For example, membrane
folding is a fairly common transformation process that allows
plants to assume more than one spatial configuration. In
architecture it is referred to as a method of changing space
definition and enclosure. And is historically seen as the origins
of transformable architecture as close packs of membranes the
oldest form of portable home that is carried on a camels back.
(Liapi, 2002) Even tent structures that cover big market places
involve membrane folding. Similar to paper folding, the
significance of membrane is that it really has no thickness, soft,
pliable, planar, light, and when stretched, produces 3
dimensional stressed-skin structures which give surface
coverings or space definition elements.

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Tent structure via fabric when stretched is given tension to produce

strength. Hence, membrane folding can generate new methods of
structural representation. Such example can be seen in Shigeru
Ban's latest tensile structure erected on the South Bank in London
at the London Design Festival 09:
Shigeru Ban have been commissioned by
the organizers of The London Design Festival
to create installations for its annual Size +
Matter initiative. Using everyday materials to
create dramatic temporary installations, this
project challenges Ban to create tensile
structures with simple materials. Paper Tower
is displayed from 19 September, the opening
date of the Festival, until mid October.

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Study case

Folded-Plate Hut

REBSTOCK PARK

Study
case
The Ordrupgard

Neil Denari

REBSTOCK PARK

One of the first to articulate the postarchitectural style was Peter Eisenman.
In 1992 Eisenman submitted a proposal
for the redevelopment of Rebstock Park,
a 250-acre site on the perimeter of
Frankfurt. First developed in the mid-19th
century by Ernst May, the original
architecture of Rebstock Park employed
the once fashionable suburban solution
of the Siedlung: mass-produced blocks of
housing
and
commercial
areas
repetitively and densely staggered across
large peripheries of development without
interpenetrating streets or alleyways.

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Peter Eisenman Rebstock Park - 1990

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In order to trigger a new shape for Rebstock,
Eisenman first mapped the local geography of the
site using a 7x7 orthogonal grid, choosing the
number seven arbitrarily, simply to represent the
seven drawings of Thoms butterfly cusp series.
Eisenman then overlaid and shaped this grid to the
Rebstock ground plain in an attempt to establish
both spatial and temporal modulation. As a
second step, Eisenman superimposed another
unmodulated 7x7 orthogonal grid over the
modulated landscape grid and connected the
translated vertices between the two to produce a
warped surface which first appears to separate the
two grids rather than connect them. In a second
study of the two grids, Eisenman again connected
each vertex of the orthogonal grid to its
corresponding vertex of the landscape grid as well
as the vertex directly below it .

Diagram
of
Peter
Eisenmans creation of
the Rebstock Park fold,
displaying how the fold
emerged
when
each
vertex of the sevensqaure butterfly cusp
grid was attached to the
corresponding
and
adjacent vertices of the
modulated
groundplain
grid.

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The result of this second translation was that

another warped, netlike structure/surface
appears which suggests not an oppositional
relationship between the two figures, but
rather a construct of perpetual mediation
the fold. The topology of the fold became the
primary logic for Eisenman's new plan for
Rebstock. Eisenman then orthogonally
projected the original Siedlung footprint onto
the disrupted, multidimensional surface of
the fold such that the uniformly repeated
blocks of the Siedlung were distorted in
accordance with their position in the fold,
each building disrupted and disrupting within
the productive transformation of the grid.

Eisenmans projection of the

original Siedlung footprint
onto the east-west orientation
of the fold

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Deleuzes idea of folding is more radical than origami, because

it contains no narrative, linear sequence; rather, in terms of
traditional vision, it contains a quality of the unseen. The grid
is therefore inflected by what cannot be seen by the subject: the
virtual field of possibilities indigenous to each site.

Neil Denari
Neil Denari also employs techniques of folding
to produce what he calls a localized
worldsheet,consisting of a single curving
sheetthat bends into itself, creating invelopes
or internal surfaces that merge seamlessly with
the exterior.
In projects such as his Vertical Smoothouse of
1997, Denari used his localized worldsheets to
transgress traditional binarisms of architecture
such as inner/outer. In all three projects, the
final architectural form was produced by the
interaction of outside forces with more
traditional forms of modernism in the affective
space of the site, thereby displacing the
architect subject as the anthropomorphic
interpreter of form.

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Eisenman describes this process of decentering: When the

environment is inscribed or folded in such a way, the individual no
longer remains the discursive function; the individual is no longer
required to understand or interpret space.

Longitudinal sectional perspective of Neil

Denaris 1998 Multisection Office Block
project. The laminar structure of Denaris
localized worldsheets serves as a single
continuously folded structure that mediates
between previous binaries such as
.inside/outside and vertical/horizontal

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Floor plan and local site plan for Neil Denaris

1993 Details Design Studio project, in which
Denari mapped the local flows of information.
The project was designed to act as a functional
wall that would divide act as an architectural
interface between the clerical and design
spaces of the Details company.
Final design for the Details Design Studio
project. The undulating sheet of Denaris design
is a physical model of information and
personnel flows around and through the office
space. The project creates an information
cipher that passes through the space, becoming
reified in form within the room itself.

The Ordrupgard

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The museum addition opened in the autumn 2005 following the

result of an invited competition among 7 architectural firms held in
2001. As the most striking difference from Zaha Hadids winning
scheme compared to the built reality the museum has become
somewhat shorter with the unloading facilities for temporary
exhibitions moved to the rear faade - conveniently out of sight
from of the main entrance on the western side of the addition.

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All visitors arriving from the north will be
met by a huge mound of earth almost
covering the tail or rear end of the snaillike structure with a grass covered
rampart in the lushly mature park. The
new main entrance appears a little too
discrete from the outside since it is
resting in the dark and partly hidden by a
tilted piece of blackish concrete as a
measure to transform the inside to the
exterior space.
It was lack of space and a less than ideal climate conditions in the
adjacent historic house dating from 1918 that demanded the new
extension that doubles the exhibition space allowing the excellent
collection of French Impressionism Art to be displayed in its entity for
the first time. The argument for an enlargement was widened to a claim
for also adding a new gallery for temporary exhibitions next to the
permanent one.

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From the outside the organic almost Art Nouveaux-like forms of the Hadid
addition are looking almost modest against its neighbouring villa since
they appear lower and darker like an appendix not really competing with
the architecture of its predecessor. And valued for its functionality the
addition is interesting by being cut in two by the reception space dividing
the permanent exhibition clearly from the temporary part.

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Another remarkable measure is the use of glassed corridors along the

outer borders of the protected exhibition spaces in the middle of the
building, since following the corridors the visitor has an excellent view to
the surrounding groves of trees. Focusing at the addition from the outside
the glassed facades also provide a more pleasant impression by
reflecting the surrounding greenery than the well protected cultural
bunker of concrete itself.

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Besides bearing the clear signature of their artistic Hadid origin the
Iraqi-born architect always insists on her buildings to be site specific.
By this notion she underscores that even if there will be some formal
resemblance between different works of hers every building is given a
specific relation to its surrounding landscape or neighbouring context
of utterly importance. And by belonging so strongly to their site none of
her buildings could be moved to another place without loosing its
relevance, she claims.

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Inside every gallery has a dynamic plan almost like a parallelogram, a form
that acts on the visitor like a gently push to move on while the different
spaces are weaving around each other in the most dynamic way.
The dynamic found in the galleries are
even repeated throughout the building
in the reception desk, sinks in the
restrooms, the solitary tilted wall
fragments and so on. Besides this
indirectly indication of direction the
museum guest could rely on the
consequence of the ceiling skylights
arranged in parallel rows along with the
lighting fixtures. Like most modern
museum spaces this one is in fact blind
folded to ensure the security of the
masterpieces in its core protected like
being a shrine.

Folded-Plate Hut

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Constructed for the Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009, the Folded Plate Hut is
one of the many temporary structures conceived by Ryuichi Ashizawa
Architects and located at Nakanoshima Park in Osaka. The origamiinspired hut which hosted concerts and theatrical events, consists of
folded wood panels with a dramatically-cantilevering roof, and is perched
at the edge of the waterfront.

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The rest of the complex lies a Bamboo Forest a series of structures

made from curved bamboo that acts as a floating roof covering.

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Thank You !
www.themegallery.com

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