At the end of DS3, I had used the growth of bacteria in a petri dish as a visual analogy for how the site could develop in phases. Of course, it is now important to translate this into a more tangible and definite, but it is also important that this organic nature is not lost.
Bacterial growth sequence site plans from the end of DS3
Keen on the idea of having courtyards and lightwells as part of the development, I decided to test a first iteration based around having roughly 6m bays of vaults, with walkways around the perimeters of these at half of this depth, and with open courtyards in places in the middle. Immediately I could see that this had completely lost the language of the organic growth though leaving something very sterile and disconnected from the much more interesting and unique development work which had led up to this stage.
First iteration – a complete departure from the organic forms, losing a lot of the interesting and unique aspects of the project
After carrying out this iteration, I knew that this was the not the correct route to take. I decided to then go back to more research into natural forms to see if there were examples which had the qualities of organically expanding and spreading over an area whilst somehow being arranged in a way that could be translated into a system of vaulted bays.
After collecting many images from many different areas of the natural world, I decided to apply onto the site the ones which I found to be the most interesting. These were lichen, dried mud cracks, fungi gills, soap bubbles and leaf skeletons.
The lichen was most like the previous bacteria experiment, in that it had only spread to partially cover an area, and it also didn't have as clearly defined cells within it. The other four clearly divided up the space into such cells, instantly making them a more useful link to the vaulted systems, as natural cells could become an analogy for vaulted bays. The leaf skeleton had another layer of interest attached to it, as the lines can be seen as existing on different hierarchical levels. I thought that these could be used as an analogy for different levels of division on the site:
Top level – different phases of development.
Mid level – different areas of programme.
Bottom level – individual vaulted bays.
I then used photoshop to demonstrate different indicative phases of development on the site using each of these, by gradually revealing cells. These have all been done to gradually expand from a few initial starting points on the site, apart from the leaf skeleton, which has been done in phases of the levels of hierarchy described above. The penultimate phase of each is perhaps the most interesting, showing most of the site covered by leaving some areas as courtyards or clear areas between different parts of development on the site.
Natural phenomenon applied to the site to indicate incremental cellular expansion – (left to right) lichen, dried mud cracks, fungi gills, soap bubbles, leaf skeleton
Believing the leaf skeleton to be the best option for trying to move this forward, I began researching into Voronoi patterns which are closely related to this. Voronoi cells are based on 'seed' points, and the divisions between each cell are the bisectors between these points.
"A Voronoi diagram is a partition of a plane into regions close to each of a given set of objects."
Using this method, I could dictate a set of points which mark out different areas or different vaulted bays, and then generate its Voronoi diagram in Grasshopper. Then, the vertices of these cells would become the column locations. The animation below shows some of the key steps in my first investigation into using this method to develop the site.
Applying a Voronoi method to the site – (left to right) setting cell locations; generating Voronoi cells to be the vaulted bays, dividing into possible phases of development, carving out access and circulation, and removing cells for courtyards and access
Using a cellular logic like a Voronoi pattern lends itself perfectly not only to using a structural system of vaulted bays, but also to an incremental phased development, as irregular cells like these can be added on at any point with no limitations other than the boundaries of the site. It is also perfect for creating courtyards and lightwells, and for carving out access roads and paths through the site, as cells can be omitted wherever is required.
I feel that this is now a much more promising methodology for tackling the site plan and retaining the concepts that have led to this point. Now I will need to properly consider how it should be divided up in different phases and different areas of programme. There is an opportunity, which I haven't yet explored, to very the sizes of these cells to a great degree, in relation to the programme requirements of each area.
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