At 4:15 A.M., it breathed

in. It awoke to the faint burning of a flickering blue light in its gullet and a general feeling of indigestion. It rested fitfully, as if it had eaten a bad meal the night before, with the persistent feeling that an agitated animal was living in its gut. The irritation of a muffled grinding sound from within itself continued, until it was inevitable that the day would

begin in the dark. Its surface began glowing as electrical

impulses crisscrossed its skin. Warm water began coursing through the capillary tubes beneath its surface and its body walls began to radiate heat. The acrid smell of brewing coffee wafted from its pores as its skin began

breathing out the previous night's stench. Its iridescent skin shone

as the morning's coating of dew formed on its metallic curves. It would be several hours before the sun rose and penetrated its scaly protective skin for the first few hours of the day. Until then, squeaking with the sounds of an awakening digestion system, it would twitch and hum in its earthen nest, warming and activating from the inside out.

EVDA 621 INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN THEORIESCASE STUDY: THE EMBRYOLOGICAL HOUSE, GREG LYNNPART-3: TECHNIQUE

Instructor: Graham Livesey, Vera Parlac, Joshua M. TaronLangjing XuNov. 22, 2011

THE

EMBR

YOLO

GIC

AL

HO

USE

, GR

EG L

YNN

The architectural implications of the Deleuzian concept of deterritorialization were well recognized by Lynn, who instrumentalized the concept in an effort to open architecture to more profound affiliation with material, structural, economic and cultural systems outside of its boundaries. Deterritorialization is fundamental to the process of becoming a multiplicity according to Lynn: "The loss of internal boundaries allows both the influence of external events within the organism and the expansion of the interior outward."

The following diagram includes: the prime concept Lynn proposed to instrumentalize and participate with the world it engages;

the structure method the House employ in order to operate and support the free variation;

the mutation which the Embryological House occurs in the entire system;

the computer approach and the workflow of the Embryological House.

OUTLINE

THE

EMBR

YOLO

GIC

AL

HO

USE

, GR

EG L

YNN

CONCEPT&STRUCTURE INTERPRETATION

modern house: kit-of-house Lynn's Biological approach 3D modulation

T h e E m b r y o l o g i c a l H o u s e represents a new approach to fabrication and growth. Historically, a modern house would be thought of as a kit-of-parts. Each part is distinct and discreet, and people customize the house through the addition or subtraction of parts from the kit. L y n n ’ s i n t e n t i o n i s t o t a k e a m o r e b i o l o g i c a l a p p r o a c h , where there would be no discreet components. They'd all be in the same morphospace–the same form-space–so that a change in any component would inflect every other component within the system.

The structural concept of it comes from the auto and airplane industry. It's an integral shell and frame—a monocoque shell, which means that the structural members can be lighter and thinner and the shell ties it all together, making it into a rigid skin.The Embryological House has a double skin. The first skin, which is the building enclosure, is built of aluminum and glass. The second skin, a shading skin, is a system of strips, almost like a Venetian blind, but in 3-D, wrapping around the contours of the house.

THE

EMBR

YOLO

GIC

AL

HO

USE

, GR

EG L

YNN

MUTATION

The Embryological House, through its incorporation of calculus-based logics, gains a whole new order of connectivities, such that a change in one coordinate point sends a ripple of change through the entire structure. The pliancy afforded by calculus based relations allow a flexible, responsive connection between landscape and house as well. “The surface envelopes are connected to the ground so that any alteration in the object is transmitted outward into the landscape. Lynn's concept of the smooth mixture as an integration of elements which vary in kind due to external forces (Bergson also refers to the qualitative multiplicity as contracted as opposed to relaxed or extended quantitative multiplicities) and his understanding of smooth mixtures as bodies in which changes at the local scale have global consequences: “If I change one thing that would have been a second or third level decision it can ripple through the entire structure and change every aspect of the building including the control geometry” thus owe much of their conceptual development to Bergson's qualitative multiplicity.

THE

EMBR

YOLO

GIC

AL

HO

USE

, GR

EG L

YNN

WORKFLOW

primitive

site

force

multi

iges studies

Microstation interface Maya interface

Digital Modeling

Blending Tool result in Maya

Microstation was used to set up the basic geometry of the House. Control points were attached to an ovoid volume composed of 12 primitive curves(ovoid object in bottom-left quadrant).The control points were manipulated to distort the curves (articulated as splines).

"Blending tool" in Maya was used to animate the House's transformation through its key iterations. This created a potentially infinite numver of intermediate forms.

Digital modeling was also used to produce physical outputs of Embryological House: in this case, a mould for creation of vacuum–formed models.

deformed

forces+site

maya

surfaceg-code prototype

house

prototype

site+housebitmap.00

bitmap.01

animate.avi

animate.uncompress

maya animationmel

2D planssectionroof animate.mpeg

photo.00photo.01photo.02 eps

pdfprintcnc illustrator.3D

biennale biennale prototype

decomposed

THE

EMBR

YOLO

GIC

AL

HO

USE

, GR

EG L

YNN

REFERENCE

Reference: 1, Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.2, Lynn, Greg. “Greg Lynn: Embryological Houses,” AD "Contemporary Processes in Architecture" 70, 3, London: John Wiley & Son, 2000: 26-35.3, AD. “Deconstruction at the Tate Gallery.” AD “Deconstruction” (1988): 7.4, Karen Burns, Greg lynn's Embryological House Project: The "Technology" and Metaphors of Metorsm of Architecture5, The Premise of Recombinant Architecture, Benjamin H. Bratton, http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0304/msg00011.html6, www.glform.com7, Anthony Vilder, "The Building in Pain, The body and Architecture in Post-Modern Culture"8, Lawrence Bird, " Re-Animating Greg Lynn's Embryological House: A Case Study in Digital Design Preservation, The MIT Press (June 2010).