TECHNE Issue 02

The second issue of TECHNE, an annual publication of student work from the Department of Architecture at the New York City College of Technology. Edited by faculty members Ting Chin, Michael Duddy, and Jason Montgomery, this issue includes contributions from Danny Batista, Jason Sai Hung, Heidi Cherubin, Michelle Yang, Laura Calle, Carlos Jacome, Carolina Walters, Hito Rodriguez, Carlin Baez, Brendan Sigvardsson Cooney, Mimu Sakuma, Anton Sukaj, Marie Baretsky, Tatiana Zheludkova, Moises Reyes, Brendan Edwards, Desiree Andrade, Felipe Arellano, Shadeen Dixon, Tam Huiying, Melissa Benitez, Carlos Jacome, Kilton Shehu, Daniel Mego, Marie Baretsky, Jin Chen, Heraldi Sadmojo, Luiza De Souza, Kate Sanko, Bertol Dragani, Charles Happel, Rithol Clytus, Maria Genao, Bertoli Dragani, Jason Ng, Michelle Matthews, Anastasiia Shaiukova, Enny Filpo, Vladislav Valentinov, Raymond Jimenez, Catherine Brito, Andrea Garrido, Genaro Cobar, Batista Rodriguez, and Nicole Ordonez. Table of Contents: INTRODUCTIONS Introduction Ting Chin, Assistant Professor--p. 7 Abstraction and Architecture Jason Montgomery, Assistant Professor--p. 801 DIAGRAMMING--p. 16 02 ITERATION--p. 30 03 MODELING/ MASSING--p. 42 04 REPRESENTATION--p. 54 05 DESIGN CONCEPT--p. 98 06 THE CITY--p. 124On the Abstract and the Real in the Urban Architecture Design Studio Amira Joelson, Associate Adjunct Professor--p. 128 Reflection on the City and Urban Design Bertol Dragani, Third Year Student--p. 131 07 DIGITAL DESIGN--p. 15

Geometry to Build Models, Models to Visualize Geometry

In the seventeenth century, Guarino Guarini, mathematician and architect, affirmed that architecture, a discipline that primarily deals with measures, relies on geometry: therefore, the architect needs to know at least its basic principles. On behalf of Guarini’s words, we designed a set of interdisciplinary teaching experiences, between mathematics (via a calculus course) and drawing (via our Architectural Drawing and Survey Laboratory courses) that we proposed to first-year under graduate students studying for an Architecture degree. The tasks concern mathematical and representational issues about vaulted roofing systems and are based on the use of physical models in conjunction with digital tools, in order to make the cognitive geometric process more effective, thus following a consolidated tradition of both disciplines

Computational Thinking across the Curriculum: A Conceptual Framework

We describe a framework for implementing computational thinking in a broad variety of general education courses. The framework is designed to be used by faculty without formal training in information technology in order to understand and integrate computational thinking into their own general education courses. The framework includes examples of computational thinking in a variety of general education courses, as well as sample in-class activities, assignments, and other assessments for the courses. The examples in the different courses are related and differentiated using categories taken from Peter Denning’s Great Principles of Computing, so that similar types of computational thinking appearing in different contexts are brought together. This aids understanding of the computational thinking found in the courses and provides a template for future work on new course materials

Three-dimensional interpretation of an imperfect line drawing.

by Leung Kin Lap.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-72).ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.IABSTRACT --- p.IITABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.IIITABLE OF FIGURES --- p.IVChapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Contributions of the thesis --- p.2Chapter 1.2 --- Organization of the thesis --- p.4Chapter Chapter 2 --- Previous Work --- p.5Chapter 2.1 --- An overview of 3-D interpretation --- p.5Chapter 2.1.1 --- Multiple-View Clues --- p.5Chapter 2.1.2 --- Single-View Clues --- p.6Chapter 2.2 --- Line Drawing Interpretation --- p.7Chapter 2.2.1 --- Qualitative Interpretation --- p.7Chapter 2.2.2 --- Quantitative Interpretation --- p.10Chapter 2.3 --- Previous Methods of Quantitative Interpretation by Optimization --- p.12Chapter 2.3.1 --- Extremum Principle for Shape from Contour --- p.12Chapter 2.3.2 --- MSDA Algorithm --- p.14Chapter 2.4 --- Comments on Previous Work on Line Drawing Interpretation --- p.17Chapter Chapter 3 --- An Iterative Clustering Procedure for Imperfect Line Drawings --- p.18Chapter 3.1 --- Shape Constraints --- p.19Chapter 3.2 --- Problem Formulation --- p.20Chapter 3.3 --- Solution Steps --- p.25Chapter 3.4 --- Nearest-Neighbor Clustering Algorithm --- p.37Chapter 3.5 --- Discussion --- p.38Chapter Chapter 4 --- Experimental Results --- p.40Chapter 4.1 --- Synthetic Line Drawings --- p.40Chapter 4.2 --- Real Line Drawing --- p.42Chapter 4.2.1 --- Recovery of real images --- p.42Chapter Chapter 5 --- Conclusion and Future Work --- p.65Appendix A --- p.67Chapter A. 1 --- Gradient Space Concept --- p.67Chapter A. 2 --- Shading of images --- p.69Appendix B --- p.7

Cogeneration of mechanical, electrical, and software designs for printable robots from structural specifications

Abstract — Designing and fabricating new robotic systems i

Politics of Postmodern Multiculturalism in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival: Reconfiguring the Subject as a Nomad

In Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2006), an intriguing 128-page wordless sequence of sepia-toned images marketed to audiences ranging from middle school-age children to adults,1 readers become visually engaged in the main character’s struggle to navigate a nameless constructed geographic space—an imaginary New World. Fleeing his serpent-infested Old World homeland and leaving behind two females usually interpreted as his wife and daughter,2 the migrant protagonist settles in a New World multi-ethnic community that seamlessly meshes elements of the real with the fantastic. Strange creatures jump out of familiar domestic objects, invented alphabets adorn the walls of a typical cityscape, and peculiar foods are served on the dining tables of an everyday household. As Tan suggests on his website in ‘Comments on The Arrival,’ such blending of the ordinary and the imaginary, together with the book’s genre merging, ‘plants the readers...in the shoes of an immigrant character’ (Tan 2009). Something like migrants, readers are positioned to leave behind common understandings in attempts to decipher the new society. I argue that the narrative strategies of defamiliarisation and genre blurring, in juxtaposition with the text’s deployment of further postmodern techniques (such as conflicting or mutually-exclusive symbolic referents), challenge constructions of the subject as a stable, coherent entity with a clear cultural and geographic affiliation, representing the empowerment of the ex-centric. Specifically, I show that The Arrival, as an example of a postmodern text engaged in the ontological enterprise of decentralisation, promotes the nomadic subject as defined by Rosi Braidotti —a fractured, polyvalent form of self not tied to a specific nation, place or ideology (Braidotti 1994). As such, the narrative encourages its readers to celebrate a consciousness that resists discriminatory normative practices, thus opening a space for traditionally disadvantaged subjects, such as immigrants. &nbsp

The Child-to-Child (C2C) Method: Participatory Design for, with and by Children in a Children's Museum

In this paper, we present the Child-to-Child method (C2C) for co-designing with children for children. The method is illustrated using a design case, where an interactive space for young children in Children’s Museum was designed. A three dimensional interactive books are envisioned and explored with children, and consequently embedded into the “Book Nook” exhibit. This interactive environment, intended for young children aged 3-5, was developed and prototyped by an intergenerational design team. The paper reflects upon challenges and opportunities provided by working with C2C method and presents results of preliminary investigation of an interactive space design that employs a novel concept of a 3D book. Further, we argue that C2C method is indeed a participatory design method for, with and by children. Reprint of a paper published in: IADIS International Journal on WWW/Internet Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 92-113. Made available here with permission from IADIS. http://www.iadis.org