Copenhagen Library | Student Project

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

School: Southern California Institute of Technology

Collaborator: Jacob Waas

Project Description: Typically, form is generated through a consideration of function and context. In this studio, however, forms were generated through image based (projection) modeling in which three dimensional form was determined by images collected from the site. Familiar forms, such as pitched roofs and large arched windows are articulated through an abstraction of light, saturation, and pixel values of the collected images. The overall massing indexes the simplified, yet familiar, architectural forms from contextual complacency to an abstracted reality.

The initial form was generated through a step-wise process of extrapolating image based information from Google Earth street views from around the site. The squared views from Google Earth were first abstracted to black and white, then projected from three intersecting faces of a cube, resulting in a three dimensional form corresponding to the three abstracted images.

The emerged form went through a prescribed set of transformations that had implications to the surface and spatial qualities. This experimental mode of architectural practice was an inside look at to how forms are capable of being generated using new software, and moreover, what are potential architectural applications that technology can provide.