RESEARCH | ulakha-architects

RESEARCHES

Parametric Design

Parametric design is a process based on algorithmic thinking that enables the expression of parameters and rules that, together, define, encode and clarify the relationship between design intent and design response. Parametric design is a paradigm in design where the relationship between elements is used to manipulate and inform the design of complex geometries and structures.

Parametric modeling systems can be divided into two main types:

Propagation-based systems where one computes from known to unknowns with a dataflow model.
Constraint systems which solve sets of continuous and discrete constraints.

Form-finding is one of the strategies implemented through propagation-based systems. The idea behind form-finding is to optimize certain design goals against a set of design constraints.

Agent-Based Design

An agent-based model (ABM) is a class of computational models for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) with a view to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. It combines elements of game theory, complex systems, emergence, computational sociology, multi-agent systems, and evolutionary programming.

Agent-based models consist of dynamically interacting rule-based agents. The systems within which they interact can create real-world-like complexity. Typically agents are situated in space and time and reside in networks or in lattice-like neighborhoods.

Endemic Interstices

Endemic Interstices targets the production of proto-architectural entities as a bottom up system with the capacity to self structure, adapt and co-evolve within the environment considering natural resources as part of a tectonic system. The project aims to create synthetic ecologies by harvesting the physics of natural processes not only as a design generator but also as a tool for fabricating complex formations by computation of matter. More specifically the main driver of our thesis is a nonlinear fabrication technique that utilises cracks in clay soil as a formwork for casting intricate structures. By programming the material behaviour and exposing it to certain environmental condition we are able to control the emergence of a wide range of crack patterns which are responsible for different performative qualities such as structural stability, solar shading and airflow modulation consequent to their morphological features of different size, density and porosity. The deployment of the system on site employes earth works protocols and Top-Down construction techniques in order to achieve a temporary scaffold. These features and qualities are explored through physical experiments and digital simulations at various scales. As a result, different crack morphologies are articulated together into a new tectonic language.

Team: Alexandre Kuroda, Dağhan Çam, Karoly Markos, Ulak Ha

Directed by Alisa Andrasek, Jose Sanchez