I've got videos too

After a lot of fiddling with the settings between the programs, I finally got the exporting/importing/rendering to work. Here they are:

Final Right Side on White



Final Right Side Wireframe



Final Left Side on Black



Final Left Side Wireframe



Final Left Side on White

Some Sexier Images

These are images taken from the lofted lines that I created in the last take. Instead of triangulating the lines myself, I let the computer make some smooth curves for me.

The Hidden Dimension

I think a good complementary counterpoint to the readings surrounding the cognitives of architectural experience is the book The Hidden Dimension, by Edward T. Hall. Particularly useful would be its chapters on the implied spaces of the human body, the thresholds of comfort, and the perception of space and dimensions that are not purely visual or tactile.

Here's a link to Amazon for it

Cognitives of Architecture

Reaction to "Lines and Linearity: Problems in Architectural Theory" by Catherine Ingraham, "Potential Performative Effects" by Ali Rahim, and "Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge" by Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier

I noticed a general attention of the three articles about what I consider the human filter. I guess cognition, vision, interpretation all fit into that. Catherine Ingraham mentions that "architecture depends on the orthogonalities of intentions, creativity, and intuition" and that the "humanist world is mapped rather than constructed". She is bringing about the question of the separation between physical space and perceived space, and the relativity of the world's physical properties considering the necessary filter through the human eye and cognition. I would argue that the mapped humanist world is in fact the constructed world, since, like Ingraham mentions, there is a backward relationship between what is mapped by the individual and what is constructed by the same. According to Ingraham, "we would not have the category of 'real world' were it not for its contrapuntal relation to representation". The line is a highly economical apparatus for our interpretation of the world. In a general perspective, all design is to some extent the human attempt to intellectually and ideally physically organize the world to its ideal linearity. 

I see Ingraham's comment on contemporary theory's suggestions that architecture is as dematerialized as our system of languages and must employ itself as a critique of contemporary theoretician. "Potential Performative Effects" refers to the advances of technology as a tool for design process through the automative processes of technology to create new effects. While the linearity of traditional architecture described by Ingraham is very predetermined, Rahim's "contemporary processes allow for exploration of the possibilities". While our innate characteristic to use lines to determine space perceived and determine space created by lines has led architectural design for most of our history, Rahim argues that contemporary cultural production allows for the future to not be preconceived. I see Rahim's article as an idealized manifesto for what I have noticed to be the gestalt of academic architects looking for organic design processes. The dichotomy between Rahim's manifesto and most academic designs has been the interpretation of the "unlimited potential in the system which [grows] in complexity, [evolves] and [forms] mutual associations between site stimuli and event". Rahim talks of a potential for new architecture that is functionally associated with contextual function, not necessarily aesthetically associated with contextual function. The technologically facilitated architecture should be more organic, alive even, albeit not sculpturally avant-garde  per se. I found the possibilities of ecological specificity, flexible organization, and gradients between extremes the most potentially useful facilitations of contemporary techniques.

I think the aesthetic relation between the supposed organic architecture look and its function relates to Perez-Gomez and Pelletier's observations of the "perspective hinge", since "architectural conception and realization usually assume a one-to-one correspondence between the represented idea and the final building". They speak of the visual necessity to create order and meaning to space, interrelated to music and art. They relate the human attempt at order as the natural characteristic of desire in our souls. To seek what we desire gives us an objective and reason to take action in life. Taking into consideration desire as part of the design process, I cannot hold it against an architect that attempts to symbolize his desire to create an organic contextual building through sculptural means, but I would love to see more architecture that takes advantage of our technologies not only for lustful aesthetics, but for unconsciously perceived functionality since we had not just one but five senses to relate our designs to.

Modeling of Splices

This is the triangulated 3d model of the splices of my serve according to my limbs. The blue planes are my front view, the green are my side view. The video shows how it came about.

Lines and lines

Big Pile o' Stuff

This is the accumulation of all the lines formed by all the relationships I could find in my body, here's how I came up with them:


Vertical lines according to my posture from my feet to my head, blue is the left side, red is the right side


Vertical Lines according to my joints and limbs, turquoise is my right side, yellow is my left side



Horizontal lines according to my joints



Spacing between my hands

Serve Analysis

Serve Front Video


Serve Side


Serve Front Stacked Splices


Serve Side Stacked Splices


Serve Splices Spaced Out Equally

Reaction to Lynn's Folds, Bodies & Blobs

Something that crossed my mind through all the talk of static architecture versus dynamic motion based forces - architecture's role in the built environment might just be to be static. The mention of forces and vectors creating attractions for the movement of splines and particles made me wonder why we must translate the spline into a physical object if the spline itself is not physical itself. We could consider the dynamics of the indefinite, or live loads, of a structure to be the spline. The movement of people through a building can be determined by the very static positions of the architecture. The motions that are created imply a space, an interaction between definite and indefinite energy - the static and dynamic. The first part of our project studies the space created during a particular time by the motion of a body. My project analyzes a tennis serve motion. The rules of a tennis match create implied space through lines on the ground. If my foot steps over that line it has crossed a threshold that will penalize me in the match. I did not physically trespass a plane or volume, it is visually and chronologically designed. The misinterpretation that the ability to create a visual aid to understand the implied space created by a body forces us to rethink the shape and constraints of the physical environment is an extrapolation gone awry. A tennis match draws a close parallel to the interpretation of space by one of Prof. Eisenbach's students during her summer course two summers ago. She created planes and spaces with her body according to sticks on the ground. If one were to splice her movements and occupy the space she created through the time of the performance one would have an interesting sculpture that would provide the same information as the performance itself in a different form. Yet, it in no ways implies that we must create a structure that encloses that space. This is a jump that architects often take with their desire to control space and function. The studies of animation and non-static forms can very well be used as guidelines for design, just as the designed form can be used as a guideline for function. Basically, the new technology available to us today provides us more information than ever before, we must now work to analyze and properly utilize this information to design, not just try to replace our analytical abilities to the computer.