Emergent Form from Structural Optimisation of the Voronoi Polyhedra Structure

In the course of the exploration of computational means in the architectural design process, in order to investigate more complex, adaptive geometries, the Voronoi diagram has recently gained some attention, being a three-dimensional space-filling structure which is modular but not repetitive. The project looks at the Voronoi diagram as a load-bearing structure, and whether it can be useful for structural optimisation. Hereby the edges of the Voronoi polyhedra are regarded as structural members of a statical system, which then is assessed by structural analysis software. Results seem to indicate that the Voronoi approach produces a very specific structural as well as spatial type of order. Through the dislocation of the Voronoi cells, the statical structure becomes more complex through emergent topology changes, and the initially simple spatial system becomes much more complex through emerging adjacencies and interconnections between spaces. The characteristics of the emerging form, however, lie rather in the complexity how shifted spaces and parts are fitted together, than in a radical overall emergent geometry. Spatially as well as a structurally, the form moves from a simple modular repetitive system towards a more complex adaptive one, with interconnected parts which cannot stand alone but rather form an organic whole

Urban identity through quantifiable spatial attributes: coherence and dispersion of local identity through the automated comparative analysis of building block plans

This analysis investigates whether and to what degree quantifiable spatial attrib-utes, as expressed in plan representations, can capture elements related to the ex-perience of spatial identity. By combining different methods of shape and spatial analysis it attempts to quantify spatial attributes, predominantly derived from plans, in order to illustrate patterns of interrelations between spaces through an ob-jective automated process. The study focuses on the scale of the urban block as the basic modular unit for the formation of urban configurations and the issue of spa-tial identity is perceived through consistency and differentiation within and amongst urban neighbourhoods

Governance of the world food system and crisis prevention

The present study offers a framework, rooted in Disaster Studies. The next few sections will first discuss the analytical tool box, which we have largely drawn from Disaster Studies. Thereafter the food regime will be looked into in the quantitative (food security, Section 3.1) and qualitative sense (food safety, Section 3.2), and the actors and rules and regulations for international food aid discussed. It will become clear that the private sector has a key role to play in both categories. Chapter 4 calls attention to the increasing complexities and uncertainties in the global food system that complicate food governance. To get anything done at all, a simplification seems necessary, such as declaring a food problem a safety issue

Weyl multiplets of N=2 conformal supergravity in five Dimensions

We construct the Weyl multiplets of N=2 conformal supergravity in five dimensions. We show that there exist two different versions of the Weyl multiplet, which contain the same gauge fields but differ in the matter field content: the Standard Weyl multiplet and the Dilaton Weyl multiplet. At the linearized level we obtain the transformation rules for the Dilaton Weyl multiplet by coupling it to the multiplet of currents corresponding to an on-shell vector multiplet. We construct the full non-linear transformation rules for both multiplets by gauging the D=5 superconformal algebra F^2(4). We show that the Dilaton Weyl multiplet can also be obtained by solving the equations of motion for an improved vector multiplet coupled to the Standard Weyl multiplet.Comment: 40 pages, v2: note added and minor corrections; v3: corrections in (3.19-23); v4: + sign added in (3.19

Embedding Branes in Flat Two-time Spaces

We show how non-near horizon, non-dilatonic $p$-brane theories can be obtained from two embedding constraints in a flat higher dimensional space with 2 time directions. In particular this includes the construction of D3 branes from a flat 12-dimensional action, and M2 and M5 branes from 13 dimensions. The worldvolume actions are found in terms of fields defined in the embedding space, with the constraints enforced by Lagrange multipliers.Comment: LaTex, 8 pages. Contribution to the TMR Conference on Quantum aspects of gauge theories, supersymmetry and unification. Paris, 1-7 September 199

Student Recital: Clifford Derix, Baritone

Kemp Recital Hall Saturday Evening November 19, 1994 6:00 p.m

Das Rennpferd. Historische Perspektiven auf Zucht und Führung seit dem 18. Jahrhundert

This article examines the continuing close relationship between racehorse and man since the eighteenth century and thus sets a counterpoint to the theory of the horse age coming to an end. There are two bodily practices that are characteristic of this special human-animal relationship: breeding and leadership. Both practices illustrate the fundamental significance of the racehorse for human beings and the interaction between them. Racehorses were a field of experimentation and a resource for deriving concepts of purity and refinement, communication and leadership. They remained a prestige object and were a means of acquiring certain qualities that set “horse people” apart from others

An analysis of the Poly-dimensionality of living: an experiment in the application of 3-dimensional self-organising maps to evolve form.

The architect and sculptor Fredrick Kiesler opposed the linear mechanics of modernity. As so efficiently defined in Margarette Shutte Lihotsky’s Frankfurt kitchen, his work expressed the ‘act of body motion’, in the view that people inhabit buildings in a dynamic and vicissitudinous way. Representative of a world essentially understood to be deterministic and ordered, the Frankfurt Kitchen encapsulated the dweller in a standardised, industrial environment. Opposed to the scientific ordering of task management, Kiesler argued that the linearly devised two-dimensional methodology of architectural design is out of context with the dynamic of living and developed his ideas in the endless house; a form in which its inhabitants could live in a poly-dimensional way. This work focuses on the development of a design process, which may reflect the character and sinuous properties of an individual’s pattern of living. The study will develop a process, investigating the application of self-organising maps as a tool for the definition of space, towards a result which is emergent. The parameters that define an individual’s pattern of living, will be instigated in an array of three-dimensional self-organising activity maps, towards the development of form