Morpho Ecologies by Hensel, Menges and The Function of Form by Farshid Moussavi

Friday 27 November 2015

Hensel, Menges: Morpho Ecologies
The Function of Form by Farshid Moussavi

Michael Ulrich Hensel is a German architect, researcher, educator and writer

Achim Menges practice and research focuses on the development of integral design processes at the intersection of morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing that enables a highly articulated, performative built environment. His work is based on an interdisciplinary approach in collaboration with structural engineers, computer scientists, material scientists and biologists ( Menges 2016).

‘In our view one of the central tasks of architecture is to provide opportunities for habitation through specific material and energetic interventions in the physical environment. Correlating morphogenesis and ecology we have developed a new framework for architectural design that is firmly rooted within a biological paradigm and thus concerned with issues of high-level functionality and performance capacity. We have name this approach Morpho-Ecology’

                                    Achim Menges and Michael Hensel

Morphogenesis- Concerns the processes that control the organized spatial distribution of the cells which arises during the embryionic development of an organism, producing the characteristic forms of tissues, organs, and overall body anatomy. 

Material Systems- Their approach is based on the deliberate differentiation of material system and assemblies beyond the established catalogue of types.

‘When something has acquired a form it metamorphoses immediately into a new one’

Achim Menges and Michael Hensel

The Function of Form by Farshid Moussavi

Fashid Moussavi is Professor in the Department of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design and principal of Fashid Moussavi Architecture (FMA)

Moussavi choose to start the book The function of Form by the phrase 'Form follows function'. The book can be consider as a manual on structural systems and their capacity to produce forms. Moussavi, critique the relationship between function and form to reveal the construction in modernism. 

                                                                             Fig. 1

The exercise the presenters told us to do was to draw our dream house. Accordingly, I have drawn a penthouse floating on the sea.

Fig 2

The purpose of it was to examine what people would think to draw of and to evaluate the extent to which architecture students thought more simply than non- architecture

Achim Menges 2006 explores an alternative morphogenetic approach to design that unfolds morphological complexity and performative capacity from material constituents without differentiating between formation and materialization processes. This requires an understanding of form, material, structure and environment not as separate aspects , but rather as complex interrelations that are embedded in and explored through integral computational processes.

Reference:

Hensel, Michael, and Achim Menges. Morpho-Ecologies. London: Architectural Association, 2006. Print.

Menges and Hensel website http://www.achimmenges.net/?cat=269

Moussavi, Farshid, and Daniel Lopez. The Function Of Form. Barcelona: Actar, 2009. Print

Figures

Fig.1  https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2009/11/dznfunctionofform02.jpg
Fig.2 Drawing by Michael S