Page 11 - Are-You-a-Model?

13:35 Giulia Boller ETH Zürich
Heinz Isler’s small-scale physical models: An interplay between form and forces
In September 1959, at the founding conference of the International Association for Shell Structures, a 33-year-old Swiss engineer presented an inno- vative method for the conceptual design of shells based on the use of small-scale physical models. His name was Heinz Isler (1926 – 2009). The physi- cal models enabled Isler to control architectural as well as structural features while obtaining “elegant forms” with minimal use of material. Through them, he opened up endless possibilities of shape by con- trolling the relation between form and forces at a time when digital tools were not available.
Physical models helped Isler to reflect on his design, being constructed in multiple variations and on different scales for the same project. The pres- entation will look at Isler’s most complex free-form project – the company building Sicli SA in Geneva (1969) – through the multiple physical models fabri- cated in his laboratory. Isler used them as research technologies on a small scale. Indeed, not every physical model behaved in the same way: they were made with different materials, on different scales and for different purposes. The experiment worked if the model’s results could be scaled up linearly to foresee the full-scale behaviour. A wrong choice of material, technique and tool could cause wrong shapes and therefore wrong results. The presenta- tion will investigate the role of scale in Sicli’s phys- ical models at the different design stages, in their process of translation from one model to the other: from the initial concept to form-finding, until the full- scale building as a 1:1 physical model.
13:55 Carlotta Darò
ENSA Paris Malaquais and ETH Zürich
The acoustic scale: Immersive reduced spectacles
Acoustic models on a scale of 1:10 or 1:20 are ex- perimental objects that enable acoustic tests to be carried out by reducing the spatial parameters that define the behavior of sound: the volume of the room, the absorption coefficient of the materi- als and the public, the frequency of the sound sig- nal, up to the constitution of the air. This practice dates back to an earlier history (among others to Friedrich Spändoch in the 1930s) and is linked to the empirical tradition of testing acoustic vibration into circumscribed material milieux such as sand or liquids (of which the 1787 Klangfiguren by the phys- icist and musician Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni is a groundbreaking example), but also to a 19th-century tradition of synthetic translations of real space (the panorama, the diorama). Large scale models currently find systematic applications, surprisingly, in combination with numerical acoustic modeling. Thus, while numerical models are particularly used during the initial design phase, when the general form and basic principles of the project are still in the process of being investigated, physical models allow, in a second stage, the empirical testing of the material details that condition the final acoustic result. Experimentation using scale reproductions is based on an atmospheric understanding of space (sound, light, air, visual properties, textures, etc.). Taking this as a central argument, the paper aims to question different forms of representation and analysis of space by insisting on the complemen- tarity of measurable objective data and subjective methods of appreciation.
Giulia Boller is a scientific assistant and PhD student at the Chair of Structural Design at ETH Zürich (Switzerland). She is both an engineer and an architect. Her research interests lie at the interface between architectural and structural design, with a focus on tools and methods that integrate form, ma- terial aspects, and flow of forces. Giulia gained professional experience at Renzo Piano Building Workshop. She graduat- ed with honours in Building Engineering-Architecture at the University of Trento (Italy) in 2015.
Carlotta Darò is architectural historian, associate professor at the ENSA Paris Malaquais and currently guest researcher at ETH Zürich. Her work explores the subject of sound media and technologies in modern architecture. She is the author of Avant-gardes sonores en architecture (2013), Les murs du son: le poème électronique au Pavillon Philips (2015) and Paysage de lignes : esthétique et télécommunications (2022).
ARE YOU A MODEL? WEDNESDAY, 2.11.22 11