Generate An Ancient-Modern Urban Complex in Historical Area in Beijing

Introduction

Frei Otto's wool experiment in 1988 was intended to reduce the total length of the direct path at each destination, while keeping the loop factor in a relatively low range. The straight line between two points will be bent and appropriately overlapped to generate a new plane combination form. If it is taken as a unit system of the city, a more experiential city cell composed of the shortest path will be obtained. Taking the design scheme of the future residential unit of the Hudson City Square in Zaha, New York as an example, during the design process of this project, due to the limitations of the site and urban requirements, there is a certain physical isolation between the urban area and the Hudson River in Manhattan. Therefore, the urban plane design strategy of this project is to propose a highly connected three residential network through the urban reef, and by attaching necessary urban supporting functions, For example, commercial and entertainment functions eliminate the discontinuity of local ground and physical isolation at planning scale in the city. The design strategy of this project is to use the wool experiment principle to form a new urban texture by controlling the tension and repulsion of control points.

Based on this, wool yarn can be used to deal with complex urban space, especially the reconstruction of hutong streets in Beijing's historic city area, which can lead to a surprising effect. The insert of wool line principle into the generative design process will enable the design to create a reasonable and organic activity space while retaining the traditional architectural temperament of the site.

（This is my school project of Architectural Design Studio in 2021Spring.)

Concept

Theoretical Operation Steps of Wool

Site analysis

Based on the actual site problems, the hot spots and potential nodes in the site are analyzed.

Extract control points

If you want to use wool algorithm, you need to obtain a certain control point network. According to the site information obtained in the first step, the important control points needed are deduced and classified.

Calculation of control points

According to the control point network obtained in the previous step, the software simulates the force between each point. We can see that by changing the gravity and repulsion, the shape of the line will change, thus generating a new traffic network and urban texture.

Procedures（In Rhino & Grasshopper）

Design

Reflections

The results of the wool experiment optimize the traffic network, but also divide the preliminary spatial texture of the scheme. Different lines can be used as the theoretical basis for block cutting. The final plan plane and shape can be obtained without changing the spatial combination shape. If the whole process is promoted, it can be used to generate game scenes and virtual reality scenes.