A map of the locations in the city of Houston were SPACE solar powered generators are installed.

Images from the Memory Cloud presentation at TAMU.

Re: Site, Artists

Metalab, Architecture + Fabrication

Memory Cloud is the winning commission awarded to RE:Site (Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton) and METALAB (Andrew Vrana, Joe Meppelink, Michael Gonzales and Thomas Behrman) by Texas A&M University for the new Memorial Student Center 12th Man Hall. Through a competition and short-list interview process the team demonstrated the ability to harness the potential of programmable LEDs, remote sensing, parametric design and digital fabrication to create an open ended narrative of the story of the University through animated silhouette imagery of past and real-time present student life on the campus. Texas A&M a place of deep traditions that are played out on the football field at every game and in the everyday lives of students will create the imagery that will be active within the layers of the LED matrix at different speeds and durations. Parametric design generated a unique cloud form that creates a landscape within the student center where monumental and ephemeral figures will pass through the space, blurring the distinction between the past and present.  Presentation Board

Facade Innovation:  Performance, Optimization and Integration

The ability of computational technology to inform facade design from novel geometries and enhanced environmental performance to rationalized component optimization and digital fabrication is creating new possibilities in the development of intelligent building skins.  The confluence of visible forces (structural, functional and physical) and invisible forces (cultural, political and temporal) can now be measured, managed and realized through the integration of enhanced information processing, cross-disciplinary material organization and computer assisted manufacturing ingenuity.  From a broad spectrum of expertise representing the professional, academic, applied research and engineering consultation community, the speakers participating in this discussion present a series of façade design case studies that articulate these forces of innovation in practice and lead the speculative dialogue on where this trend will head in the future.

Performative facade systems
Anna Dyson
Case Study:  Helioptix

Optimization of facade systems
Erik Verboon
Case Study:  King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture

Integration of facade systems
Phillip Anzalone
Case Study:  Columbia Building Intelligence Project

Metalab has been recognized with an AIA Houston Honor Award for Artist of the Year.  The award will be received at the AIA Annual Meeting on October 18th and will have a solo exhibition at Architecture Center Houston in May 2012.  Metalab recently created an interactive public art work in the new Houston Central Permitting Center through a commission from Houston Arts Alliance and City of Houston that integrates environmental sensing technology, algorithmic animation and digital fabrication.  Their work with the artists Dennis Oppenheim, Matthew Geller and Jaume Plensa has established them as an nationally recognized architecture and fabrication firm specializing in civic art installations.  Joe Meppelink and Andrew Vrana share this distinction with Sarah Hannah (UH School of Art MFA ’08) and Travis McCarra (UHCoA BArch ’09).

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