AHO WORKS Studies 2012
Diploma Porjects
Master of Architecture
SEASIDE SECOND HOME
JoAkiM Hoen
Supervisor: Michael Hensel
Seaside Second Home
aims to create a model for digitally conceived and fabricated houses to
highlight how contextual parameters can be the main drivers of design. Processes, which lead
to the final architectural design, are prioritised.
Greg Lynn argued in 1999 that we should design in an animate environment, where form is a
result of ambient forces over time. To do this efficiently we need to employ computational strate-
gies for simulation of these environments as well as means to analyse and alter form accordingly.
This project attempts to integrate contextual data and human dimensions in the digital con-
ception of a series of second homes. Homes are designed as specific responses to particular
sites found along the Norwegian coastline, characterised by bare rocks, marine climate and
spectacular views.
Instead of designing a single discrete cabin, the project establishes data structures, describing
the relationship between the various needs of the inhabitants and the extrinsic data that artic-
ulates the layers of the building envelope.
A series of custom software tools were developed. The first set interfaced withMeteorologisk
Institutt and Statens Kartverk to effectively gather and prepare weather and LIDAR-data for
use in the design process. The next used this data in a generative process leading to a similar
but different designs for each site.
Spatial ideas based on a continuous vertical space divided by inclined floors and ceilings that
block or provide visual contact were developed simultaneously. The concept challenges not only
the way we look at the floor but the cellular room arrangement that according to Robin Evans
in
Figures, Doors and Passages
has been predominant in our dwellings for the last 500 years.
MASter of ArcHitecture
