Aggre-Culture

aggregation/aɡrɪˈɡeɪʃ(ə)n/

  • the formation of a number of things into a cluster (OR)
  • a cluster of things that have come or been brought together.

Aggregations are ubiquitous. This studio will use digital algorithmic techniques to draw wonderful aggregations with relative ease and use them to critique social aggregations.

Context and precedent

The studio will look at the radical and utopian precedents of the 1960’s such as Metabolism and Archigram that featured systemised high tech aggregations to handle urban growth and new ways of living. Additionally, we will look at experimental communities and institutions such as hippy communes, religious cults, off grid communities and prisons.

Process

Using digital algorithms, we will make many formal aggregations from living modules.

  • We will study how different relationships can make different arrangements.
  • We will choose from different iterations of patterns, and different permuations based on component changes.
  • We will critique these forms, by inputting living modules that have been developed from research into specific alternative forms of living.
  • We will run through a series of weekly filters in a process to build up speculations.

Agenda

To propose contemporary ways to live together, and critique the specificity of different types of communities and their pros and cons.

Brief

A rehabilitation clinic for white-collar workers & criminals, outside of Melbournes urban growth boundary, where occupants work as waste recyclers for the citys waste and manage a self-sustained agricultural system for food.

Outcomes

  • Students will be introduced to python coding and grasshopper in rhino and 3ds-max and learn how algorithms go together, and how to generate form with them. Students will become digitally proficient in cross-processing of different softwares. You will learn to control digital form from the ground up.
  • Additionally, students will learn important historical precedents, and learn to situate their contemporary relevance with critical faculty.
  • Students will learn how to critique and relate spatial qualities and social ambitions rigourously.