Fissures

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Fissures' was a computational design project by Biothing, the experimental practice of Alisa Andrasek with Jose Sanchez. Initially created as a proposal for a port terminal in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, it was subsequently shown as a video exhibit at the Multiversités Créatives group exhibition at Centre Pompidou. The project responded to the expression 'multiversity:' a keyword for a generation of designers who enter into infinite calculations and networks. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Through their observation of the living world, Biothing deduced that it is not composition that generates architectural form but rather the dynamic processes within which structural, performative and material elements are at work. 'Fissures' used the formation of natural coastlines and their complex articulation through multiple orders of scale to reflect the tectonics of the building. It was synthesised with the logic of multi-agent systems based on flocking behaviours. The result was a façade design resonating the complexity of natural behaviour but unnatural in form. This work demonstrates Andrasek's ongoing research into the generative potential of computational design systems, in a search for the materialisation of the phenomenal - that which is perceived by the senses - by including imperceptible entities, resulting in a new strangeness of emerging effects. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: Biothing was invited by Centre Pompidou to contribute to the exhibition. One of the world's most significant cultural institutions, Pompidou has several projects by Andrasek in its permanent collection. As 1 of 15 projects that represented ground-breaking experimentation and research in architecture, design, new technologies and social innovation, 'Fissures' was shown alongside works by other leading figures in the field such as Achim Menges, Neri Oxman and Andrew Kudless.