rocker-lange blog

Rocker-Lange Architects were invited to participate in the show “Parametric Prototypes: New Computational Paradigms in Architecture”, International Exhibition, Conference & Workshop. Xi’an, China, October 2009. The project on display investigates the role of versioning in contemporary theory and the practice of design.

The introduction of computation in architecture allowed for complex mathematical calculations and their visualization, which were for a long time simply too complex. Today, differential calculus – underlying most interactive 3D modeling software – has significantly informed the production and conceptualization of architecture. The upshot of this transformation is that we are now witnessing a shift from an architecture of modularity towards an architecture of seriality. The core idea of versioning exceeds simple variation between different parameterized design iterations; Versioning rather also operates at the micro-scale, within the structure and aesthetic of the digital design itself.

With the introduction of digital media, the conception of modularized architecture constructed out of nearly identical industrially mass-produced components, and thus Gropius’ thesis, that “The creation of [standardized] types […] is an effective tool to create better and cheaper with industrial production a new manifold of products,” has been challenged. Today, with the use of the computer and calculus-based software, architecture can instead be realized as parametric prototypes of a series. A series is a framework of parameters designed by the architect, within which a variety of design versions may be realized. Each of these design versions is unique and yet also part of the series. The parts assembling each of the series’ designs are no longer necessarily mass-produced but could rather be mass customized.

Our work furthermore calls for a critical assessment of differential calculus and its potential to challenge traditional modes of designing, producing, and constructing architecture and its milieu.

Rocker-Lange Architects are releasing their proposal for the “London Bridge 800: Inhabited Bridge” competition. The proposal for a Living Bridge over the River Thames was one of the schemes of the Living Bridge Competition for the 800’s aniversery of London Bridge, London. The scheme was selected by the jury to be included in several exhibitions in London and Manchester.

The proposal seeks to readdress the typology of the terraced house in a contemporary interpretation by implementing the concept of cross scalar variation to achieve varying programmatic and formal identity and a unique spatial configuration. On the other hand the scheme provides a uniform and holistic building envelope for the entire composition on London Bridge, ensuring a strong iconic identity for the structure and the city.

The bridge provides two main promenades that are situated on the perimeter of the bridge. While the east promenade is accessible to both, vehicles and pedestrians the west promenade is only accessible to pedestrians. Intervals of cross connectivity through the commercial folded landscape are structured by the terraced housing arrangement and generate an easy movement between the two promenades.

Rocker-Lange Architects were invited to participate in the exhibition Convergence 142 at the Ordos Museum of Art. The exhibition on architecture, urbanisation and globalisation will feature all 100 Villas for the Ordos 100 projects in Ordos, Inner Mongolia.

Rocker-Lange architects Ordos 100 project has been recently featured in MARK Magazine, Harvard Design Magazine and Architecture Avivre.

Rocker-Lange Architects were invited to participate in the exhibition “Ordos100, The inevitable cultural negotiations when building a city in the 21st Century” at ART Basel.
The exhibition on architecture, urbanisation and globalisation will feature all 100 Villas for the Ordos 100 projects in Ordos, Inner Mongolia.

During ART Basel

June 10th – 14th, 2009
Open daily 5PM-8PM

Opening June 10th, 5PM-8PM

www.ordos100basel.info

E-Halle Basel, Erlenstrasse 15
Switzerland
For directions: www.e-halle.ch

For more information: ordos@territorialagency.com

Professor Ingeborg M. Rocker, Rocker-Lange Architects – developed with students at the GSD, Harvard University a robotic built wall.

Student quotes:
“This was the best experience so far at the GSD: generating a digital design, fabricating a model and then building it in a 1:1 scale.”  Jeff LaBoskey

“A whole set of new challenges occurred when we started to build the design – and a constant re-adjustments of design and building process had to happen – overall great fun and a fantastic learning experience for all of us. The most rewarding is to be in the space we have created and to watch people experiencing it.” Misato Odanaka

“This is the type of experience for which I came to the GSD! More of this!” Teresa McWalters

Credits:
On the Bri-n-ck project, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design

Advisor:
Ingeborg M.Rocker

Leading Team:
Jeff LaBoskey
Misato Odanaka
Benjamin Franceschi
Teresa McWalters

Coding:
Jessica Rosenkrantz, Nervous System
Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, Nervous System
Christian J. Lange, Rocker-Lange Architects

Core Team:
Natalya Egon
Ricardo Munoz
Matthew Swaidan
Tory Wolcott

Team:
Masana Amamiya, Sen Ando, Ben Brady, Julian Bushman-Copp, Lindsay Chandler-Alexander, Brad Crane, Theodore Diehl, Elizabeth Farley, Matthew Fiely, Chelsea Garunay, Jeremy Jih, Tessa Kelly, Jeongyon Kim, Jessica Knobloch, Carl Koepcke, Annie Kountz, Eva Leung, Cara Liberatore, Lesley McTague. Paul Merrill, Brian Militana, Yuhka Miura, Jason Phipps, Alicia Taylor, Jessica Vaughn, Ka Yip

Special Thanks:
Stephen Hickey
Martin Bechthold

Funding:
Junior Faculty Grant and Preston Scott Cohen, Chair of the Architecture Department

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rocker-lange architects are releasing their design of a 1000 square meter Villa in Ordos Inner Mongolia, P.R. China.
The project called “Inside Out|Outside In” is part of the Ordos 100 project and discusses the relationship and fusion of interior and exterior space.
Rocker-Lange calls for an architecture of milieu that an architecture of the circumstances and conditions by which it is surrounded.
An Architecture of Milieu no longer strictly distinguishes between its inside and outside it rather considers itself as always at once on multiple scales inside and outside, as architecture and environment.

Consequently architecture and its environment are thought of not only as inside and outside of one another, but as zones of possible relationships, in which inside and outside vary and shift to accommodate changing seasons and usage patterns.
The Architecture of Milieu is an architecture of situation rather than site:

An indefinitely expandable and differentiable ribbon serves as the continuous organizational strategy, inscribing zones of different degrees of interior and exterior space vanishing the separation between them.
Especially in the widely varying Mongolian climate, seasonal usages of living areas may change dramatically between the cold winters and warm summers;
by creating an architecture which is interwoven with its surroundings, we allow the climate to work with the inhabitants, rather than against them.

rocker-lange architects where invited to take part in the Ordos 100 project, an urban development of 100 unique villas inthe cultural district ofthe city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia, China.

The project was initiated bythe Client, Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, the curatorFAKE Design, Ai Wei Wei studio, Beijing and architects Herzog & de Meuron, Basel.While FAKE Design,Ai Wei Wei studio developed the masterplan for the 100 parcels of land,Herzog & de Meuron selected 100 young architects from 27 countries around the globe. The project started in early April of 2008 with an architects symposium in Ordos. First villas are expected to be finished in late 2009.

Ingeborg M. Rocker of Rocker-Lange Architects announces her book “Computation in Command?” The book that discusses the implication of computation on the theory and praxis of architecture is expected to be published in Fall 2009.