January 23, 2017

SIVA Visit

Department of Architecture faculty members Brian Johnson and Kimo Griggs traveled to Shanghai, China in September, where they taught a two week Digital Practice Workshop and presented at a Design Education Summit hosted by the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art (SIVA) with a panel of educators from around the world. The workshop was the brainchild of recent MS (Design Computing) graduate Teng Teng, who has a part time appointment teaching design computing at SIVA on top of a practice position in Hong Kong with Callison/RTKL.  Three groups of students had worked with Rhino and Grasshopper over the summer, tutored remotely by Teng. During the workshop they developed designs representing the three areas of focus for SIVA’s design program: architecture, landscape architecture, and interior architecture. The designs were then prototyped at a small scale using laser-cutter and CNC technology. Refined, parts were fabricated at full size by a combination of local CNC shops and SIVA CNC facilities. The cut pieces were delivered to the school in a matter of hours and assembled by the students (and supervising faculty) over the course of a couple of hectic days (nothing ever fits exactly right the first time). At the end of the event, students presented their work to the Institute’s administration and were, in turn, presented with signed mementos of the project (CNC cut, of course!).  Later we learned that the projects have been acquired by the Shanghai Museum of Trade for public display.

The images shown here show the students at work, the prototyping steps, and the final projects: a couch with a touch of landscaping, an intimate garden pavilion, and a building entry canopy.