Introduction
Hyperbody’s MSc 1 studio inspires its students to rethink conventional architectural design process in order to creatively challenge the contemporary culture, society and technology, and their relation to architecture. The studio operates at the scale of an architectural intervention in a complex architectural and urban context. The studio design framework specifically challenges students to develop an architectural process that can keep up with the actual needs, desires and activities of people in a rapidly changing world. Such a process can only be validated by participants in the project - users, stakeholders and designers - actual people who judge the state of the design process against their actual needs.
In 2012 the leading theme for Hyperbody student projects is the “Internet of things and people”. All projects will deal with increased connectivity between people and technologically augmented “things”: devices, vehicles or building components, altogether constituting vibrant architectural ecosystems. In the spring semester, Hyperbody MSc1 embarks on a project dealing with the design, fabrication, erection and operation of an architectural intervention situated in Amsterdam, on the former NDSM shipyard area. The site offers ample opportunities to study interaction patterns among its diverse actors, while at the same time encourages new interaction scenarios, enhancement of active participation, radical transformation and augmentation of current spatial organisation on site. The general goal set for the project is to provide additional 50,000m3 of build space on the NDSM wharf and use this space to largely increase the amount of active users and inhabitants of the area. What architectural means need to be provided to achieve this goal, so that the site doesn’t loose any of its current qualities, but that it consistently gains new qualities, flourishes and continues to grow? This goal is to be distributed among students. Each student is responsible for a fraction of the architectural volume to be realised, developed on location of choice within the NDSM wharf. All projects together form a dense network of interrelated architectural interventions. Each student identifies, researches and consequently answers to a different set of architectural, societal or cultural problems and opportunities (challenges) . Following this, individual projects develop specific connections to both direct and remote context of the project; people, buildings or objects.
Each project in itself can also be treated as an system of people and objects, forming a vibrant architectural ecology. Such ecologies operate in a dense field of locally interrelated discrete parametric points, directly linked to local environmental and spatial parameters of the site (hot<>cold temperature gradients among others).
Throughout the duration of the semester, individual projects can form clusters, allowing for stronger integration of individual interventions and sharing of skills of their designers. The entire studio process is seen as a design research activity. It starts by individually defining problems and opportunities related to design location. The initial design concept is a hypothesis on how these problems and opportunities can be architecturally resolved. Following the initial concept, prototypes are developed to validate that concept and to prove its feasibility. In an iterative manner, through a cycle of design divergence and convergence the final project is reached. It is to be seen as a proven theory, ready to be realised and used.
The MSc1 design challenge is closely related to the MSc2 and MSc3 Hyperbody design assignment. MSc2 students in the second quarter of the semester develop a full-scale, complete pavilion prototype on adjacent location (additional sector). MSc3 students design the long-term intervention onto the NDSM site, partially based on what MSc1 projects design as the initial step. In this process, the RDM campus in Rotterdam hosting Hyperbody robotic fabrication lab plays a key role and serves as a test ground for the full-scale prototypes.
