BIODYNAMIC STRUCTURES
AA Visiting School @ CCA California College of the Art
Monday 12 to Wednesday 21 July, 2010

For the latest updates, schedule and images:
AA Microblog Site

*** Important Note: As of 25 June 2010 — The workshop is now FULL. 60 architects and designers from 20 countries around the world will be participating. Please check back here for workshop updates, images and related news. The final workshop discussion and exhibition (at CCA San Francisco) on 21 July, 5pm will be open to the public. 

Biodynamics is the study of the force and energy of dynamic processes on living organisms. Through simple mechanisms embedded within the material logic of natural systems, specific stimuli can activate a particular response. This response occurs in carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly-trap, which uses turgor pressure to trap small insects in order to feed, and worms, which by contracting differently oriented muscles, achieve movement. This ten-day intensive workshop, co-taught by the faculty of the Emergent Technologies and Design Programme at the AA and the faculty of Architecture and MEDIAlab at California College of the Arts, will explore active systems in nature, investigating biomimetic principles in order to analyze, design and fabricate prototypes that respond to electronic and environmental stimuli. Students will work in teams to research specific biological systems, extracting logics of organization, geometry, structure and mathematics. Advanced analysis, simulation, modeling and fabrication tools will be introduced in order to apply this information to the design of both passive and active responsive architectural systems. Investigation and application of robotics, sensors and actuators will be employed for the activation of the material system investigation through the construction of working responsive prototypes.

+ CONTENT TAGS: Biodynamic, Parametric, Scripted, Mimetic, Responsive, Interactive, Digitally Fabricated
+ SOFTWARE: Rhino, Grasshopper, Firefly, RhinoScript, Arduino, Processing

CORE FACULTY

Michael Weinstock (Academic Head, Director of Emergent Technologies Programme, AA London UK)
Christina Doumpioti, Evan Greenberg, Konstantinos Karatzas (Tutors, AA EmTech Programme, London UK)
Jason Kelly Johnson [Future Cities Lab], Andrew Kudless [Matsys] (CCA MediaLab Coordinators, SF CA)

ASSOCIATED FACULTY

George Jeronimidis (Director of Center for Biomimetics, University of Reading UK); Andrew Payne (LIFT Architects, Grasshopper Primer); Daniel Segraves (ASGG Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture); Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos (Studio Mode, NY); Daniel Piker (Kangaroo Project Live Physics)

ASSOCIATED LECTURERS

Thom Faulders (Faulders Studio, San Francisco CA); Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott (Iwamoto/Scott Architects, San Francisco CA); David Gissen (HTC Experiments/CCA); Ila Berman (CCA Director of Architecture); Wendy Ju(CCA/Stanford University); Andrew Sparks (CCA); Nataly Gattegno (Future Cities Lab, San Francisco CA);

ENROLLMENT INFORMATION
visit: http://sanfrancisco.aaschool.ac.uk/
(Workshops are non-credit. Enrollment is processed by the AA. Workshop will run the full 10 days.)

CCA Faculty Coordinators: Jason Kelly Johnson and Andrew Kudless

Facebook Group
twitter: bioworkshopsf

Contact
visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk or mlab@cca.edu