Branching Point is an educational and research initiative that has existed for several years, the main task of which is to explore modern views on design culture and promote high-tech advanced architecture. Within the framework of the workshop devoted to the topic "Interaction", its participants tried to find out how using parametric tools it is possible to conduct a large, complex project, "parallelizing" several stages of its development at once. The former Krasny Oktyabr factory was taken as a model territory - a place in Moscow where the creative cluster develops spontaneously and where there is an obvious problem of interaction of heterogeneous activities that occur here temporarily or permanently. According to the organizers of the workshop, this area is in dire need of systems that would interact between the city, the urban landscape, buildings, its shells and elements and people.
In order to most effectively solve this problem, within the framework of the workshop, four clusters were created, such parallel mini-laboratories, each of which is working on its own section of the problem. Thus, the issues of the general strategy for the development of the territory and interaction with the city became the topic of the DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE cluster (moderators: Daniyar Yusupov (S-Pb), Ekaterina Larina (S-Pb), Alexandra Boldyreva (Perm), and the cluster OBJECT (moderators: Maxim Malein (Moscow), Philip Katz (Moscow), Milan Stamenkovich (Moscow). Participants of the SKIN / FABRICATION cluster (moderators: Dimitri Demin (Germany), Daniel Piker and Brian Oknyansky (Great Britain)) dealt with the shell theme, and the group INTERACTIVE (moderators: Vadim Smakhtin (Moscow), Eduard Hayman (Moscow), Gia Jahaya (Sochi) studied the topic of interactive interaction between the environment, the shell and the person.
In total, about 60 people took part in the workshop held at Strelka. Moderators of the event tell in more detail what local tasks they set for themselves and how they solved these tasks.
Maxim Malein, OBJECT cluster moderator:
- We are engaged in the form. Initially, it was thought that the landscape cluster analyzes the urban planning situation on Strelka and draws up different maps. For example, a map of the activity of people at different times of the day on the territory of the arrow. With their help, we get at our disposal a certain dynamic landscape and place objects on it. An object can be anything - buildings, any walking routes - by air, by land. The point is that we are designing a so-called building prototype, an information model, with which we can then manipulate the initial values. This is parametric architecture. We record our actions in a sequential algorithm. Accordingly, if we change some initial value, the computer will recalculate it all by itself. In general, the task of the OBJECT cluster is to get a spectacular shape. And the SKIN / FABRICATION cluster will already figure out how to translate this form into reality.
Philip Katz, OBJECT cluster moderator:
- We strove to understand what is good and what is bad for a building or for a city, for space, for a person, finally. It is important for us to build a chain of logic for the development of a building: how it, for example, could develop, how it could seek space for itself. At the basic level, we make some kind of DNA of the building, which will not know where and what will be unknown. In the process of development, it understands where it should be and what it will be.
It is important that students begin to think about the development strategy, start looking for the logic of what is happening and start from it, and not from someone else's thoughts. I very often come across the fact that both developers and architects take often false statements for some principles and axioms. They said that it is necessary to do this, although it is not at all obvious. Here students, I hope, will think about what is really needed."
Vadim Smakhtin, moderator of the INTERACTIVE cluster:
- We have developed three projects aimed at solving the problems of the environment, which is now formed around Krasny Oktyabr. For example, we have solutions that will partially solve the problem of navigating a former factory. There is a solution that will allow us to solve the problem of empty spaces, there is a solution that will allow us to establish an implicit interaction with all members of a certain energy ecosystem, which is now available at Krasny Oktyabr. By the way, we recruited quite different people to work. We were interested in the interaction of various disciplines, both architects and other professions. We have people who are involved in management in companies that are close to the goals of our cluster. There are artists and electrical engineers. People of different professions are in constant conflict with each other. For example, architects and artists always argued with each other, the former approved the project, and the latter were in constant search, disrupted, altered, looked for new options. But the main thing is that it is this conflict that helps them move forward.
Daniyar Yusupov, moderator of the DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE cluster:
- The technology of the workshop lies in the fact that all levels of design have the same base of ideas about the project, based on information flows between clusters that occur in real time. Unlike the usual design method, here there is a refocusing and redistribution of efforts within this process, as a result of which we can get a better solution at the output. Another key point is that we comprehensively assess the resources of the territory and those necessary project actions that will allow them to be rehabilitated. It can be social, energy, and natural resources, even transport accessibility, anything at all.
In general, parametric design technology is quite widespread in the world, but is not yet very actively used in the profession of an architect. Young architects immediately put their trust in the new design culture because they see its effectiveness and depth. Many customers and consultants also understand what is at stake, and are increasingly involved in the process. But the middle segment (schools, design institutes, design organizations) are so entrenched in the existing method that they give up reluctantly and only partially, and even if they are interested, they understand that in their environment, in the existing system they will not be able to use it to the fullest … Those. here the main factor is openness. It is necessary to open the workshop from the inside out, and then all currents and energies will rush into it, and the new design culture will develop, take root and penetrate everywhere. It seems to me that this is more than real. By the middle of the century, parametric design will become the most common thing available to anyone, and instead of buying, say, sneakers in the supermarket, you can make them yourself using a small 3D printer.
