Transformable, Folding Space

Abstract

A group of architectural students in an advanced computer applications course were asked to design a folding or transformable personal space. They were to approach the design using two metaphors - Origami (or papiroflexia ) and Transformer robot toys - in a digital environment. These are familiar ideas evident in toys and furniture. Students found this way of thinking about architectural design foreign and unusual. The results were tentative, but insightful. New architectural forms emerged out of the plasticity, temporality, and speed of the digital medium. Origami and Transformer robots are more than toys. Through them, the Bauhaus notion of point transforms into line, line into plane, plane into solid can now be stretched to include space generated from motion. The argument for conceptualizing and developing the design within a digital environment was that the operations implied by Origami and Transformers, can be carefully studied in this context. Both processes, or types of objects, are best understood in teens of change in time and space. Digital media offers the dynamic capabilities needed to study distortions, step transformations & movement.