I designed LGB in Hernan Diaz Alonso's studio at Columbia University in 2003. It is one of the earliest examples of the use of subdivision surface modeling in architecture and the first example of the single surface branching structure that has become an increasingly popular design technique.
Between Form and Ornament
The goal of my research this semester has been to produce an architectural system that situates itself somewhere in the blurry space between structure, surface, form and ornament — hopefully that is beginning to come across in the work.
Topological Branching
One of the issues driving my work this semester is a frustration with the inadequacy of surfaces and their inherent thinness. I’m trying to find a way to make enclosure and space, not based on folded and curved planes, but with an idea of a thickened topology. I’m trying to develop something that can be inhabited, that has built in intelligence into how it organizes and structures itself, and whose operations open up new types of spatial and ornamental effects. The dense branching of the complex topology above is produced by the kinematic organization of multiple arrays of individual components and a subsequent phase shift of their topological order into one mega surface.