Final Project - Proposal

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from the project brief.......


//Intent//
Apply and extend what you have learned about Digital Project through its application.
Option1 - Continue with a case study and modify it.
Option2 - Use this final project for your studio project (or a past studio project).

//Tasks//
Your project must develop each week.




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proposal.

i intend to utilize the option 2 scheme, in order to develop the final project in conjunction with my thesis work, which was a goal of mine for choosing paramod during the final semester. my thesis revolves around the design of a house, responsive to environmental conditions, mainly heat, wind and light, and how this informs the internal comfort of the space (think reyner banham and philippe rahm).

the house is a modern reinterpretation of a dogtrot house, sited in a northern climate, such as michigan, where the extremes of summer warmth and winter cold are experienced fully. the house is responsive to these extreme conditions by taking on two forms that inform the interior space and adapt it to a varied living condition from summer to winter.

the winter form is a solid, compressed, and secure form, that closes off the opening of the dogtrot space, creating a smaller living space condensed around the hearth which leads to greater ease of heating, as well as presenting the return of domesticity focused around the hearth.





the summer form presents a "cracked" open form, that breaks the solid shell of the winterized condition, allowing for distilled light, cooling breezes, and a much greater volume of space, contrasting the tight and compact winter condition. the summer form also opens the dogtrot breezeway to the air allowing for additional cooling and separation of the active living zone with the sleeping quarters.





the fabric skins in the joint and "cracked" zones is where i envision digital project presenting itself. these fabric zones allow for a very controlled shape condition through the utilization of shape memory alloys (sma). sma's are a metal that have two chemical phases, hot and cold, allowing severe and extreme distortion of the metal's shape, yet maintaining the ability to return to its original shape upon heating (whether through temperature or electrical current). these fabric zones, laced with sma's, offer the potential in design to be surfaces that can change based upon external heat conditions, or a desire to open up to allow light and winds through.



my hope for digital project, is to create realistic situations of these sma fabric walls and how i can control openings and shapes. one option is for the skin to be a sort of scale like membrane, that opens up the scales as the sma's move. i think digital project could be utilized in this scenario to script openings within the scales that are more open at certain locations, or less open in others.