291_Dinorah Martinez Schulte: Flextructure
Dinorah Martinez Schulte from Mexico City, Mexico: "‘I BELIEVE THAT IN ORDER FOR ARCHITECTURE TO BE EFFECTIVE, WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE THE ISSUES OF OUR CONTEXT THROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF ARCHITECTURE AS A HOLISTIC SYSTEM, OR A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPACIAL COMPOSITION AND SOCIETY. AND AS SUCH, FIND PATTERNS AND CREATE ALGORITHMIC SYSTEMS TO FORM THE MOST OPTIMAL SOLUTIONS THAT ANSWER TO A NECESSITY AND PROVIDING BENEFITS FOR OUR SOCIETY. AS ARCHITECTS, WE ARE NOT JUST DESIGNERS, WE ARE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY THINKERS WHO ARE CONCERNED TO SOLVE ALL THE NECESSITIES THROUGH OUR DESIGNS. ARCHITECTURE IS THE ART OF CREATING AND SELLING THE EXPERIENCE OF INHABITING A SPACE.’
Hailing from Mexico City, Mexico, Dinorah is an extremely passionate about cities and architectural design. She wants to make cities a better place by carefully analyzing them in order to find specific solutions suitable for the exact place. With degrees in architecture and urban planning from Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. She complemented her Architecture studies by attending as study abroad at University of Technology Sydney (2015). She began his professional career with working as Media and Communication Director at Rojkind Arquitectos, (2016-2017; rojkindarquitectos.com), Junior Architect at a leading Mexico firm, Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos (2017; sordomadaleno.com), six month internship at MAD Architects, Beijing China (2017; i-mad.com), and lastly Junior Urbanism at Arquitectura 911 S.C. (2018; arq911.com)
Her interests lie in exploring the relationships between technology and architecture applicable in the creative process and design. Shaped by her working experiences she is determined to bring an international perspective to her academic, professional, and creative work. A versatile and driven architect, she has worked and volunteered in fields spanning from international development to design. Her interests lie in exploring the relationships between technology and architecture applicable in the creative process and design. Shaped by my working experiences, I determined to bring an international perspective to my academic, professional, and creative work. A versatile and driven architect, She has worked and volunteer in fields of international context for development to design. She also concluded her postgraduate specialization in Creative Design Code at Universidad CENTRO Diseño, Cine y Televisión (2018).”
Website: https://www.dinorahmschulte.com/
University: CENTRO Diseño, Cine y Televisión
Professor(s): Yoshi Fukumori (RKFK), Eduardo Obieta and Eduardo Ramirez (FABLABDF.MX)
Name of Project: Flextructure
Project Description: Mexico City is characterized by profound and constant change. No one knows for sure where the city is heading, but there is no turning back. The situation is determined by the coexistence towards the old and the new. All destruction of the old implies, in essence, creation of something new. even though this, often, still stands as something misunderstood and disconnected from the daily rhythm of the city. But perhaps the very fact of speaking of the "city" is a euphemism, since in it diverse cities coexist, especially in the minds of the inhabitants. - Bern Scherer. CoRe, Reconstruct Dialogue, 2017
The earthquakes of September 7 and 19, 2017 left social, urban, architectural, patrimonial, historical, and economic effects. They give us the guide for contemporary architects and designers to take this as an opportunity to innovate and investigate new systems of construction. Therefore, from a study and analysis that was made from understanding that they are earthquakes, how they behave, generate and anti-seismic structures both current and in the history of humanity, we could see that the main problem that resolves the Question: Why do the buildings fall? Is it the "soil-structure" relationship, that we answered together with the support of Benjamín Romano, winner of the 2018 International High Rise with the Torre Reforma. Therefore, this thesis, from that study and complementing with a geometric research on the concept of tessellations and various geometric exercises, we focused mainly on the analysis and study of the most resistant and deformable natural structure in the world. The cobwebs , which, various explorations were made to study/understand its mechanical and physical properties; as well as, reinterpreting the information to contemporary structural systems. In order to be able to replicate these strategies for the future manufacturer of contemporary system of construction. They need to respond to the capacities of webs nowadays in nature, which resist natural disasters like the earthquakes. Productive form of alignment where the spider acts as a model of behavior and as active agents of production.
Traditionally, architectural design has been dominated by top-down design methods, which generally subordinate the material and manufacturing considerations for the geometry learned. While bottom-up strategies have been increasingly explored in design processes, such as biomimetic approaches, they often follow a top-down manufacturing solution. Unlike conventional design methods, both the design development and the materialization process can be considered equal design engines through the use of biomimetic design principles and the simultaneous development of new manufacturing methods (La Magna et al., 2013 ; Menges, 2013). Biomimetic approaches have shown significant potential for design implementations through their systemic complexity and multiple logics (Gruber 2011). The morphological principles of natural organisms are absorbed and transferred to architectural applications for their performative geometries and their functional integration. Evolutionary biological processes offer a remarkable example for the integration of multiple requirements in the morphogenetic process. The research was carried out in several studies. The first exploration consisted in studying how flexible structures work with flexible materials (clips). The experimentation from a digital process, gave us as a result that when using square modules are easily deformed, but when adding a triangular module, tension is created and its deformation is prevented by the properties of the geometry.
The second experiment was based on studying a tarantula of orange baboon species (Pterinochilus murinus) is a species of tarantula of the genus Pterinochilus, belonging to the family Theraphosidae. It can be found on the African continent, specifically in the central and southern regions of Africa. This species was chosen for its ability to make cobwebs in a short time and its dense web was studied in the original container.
Therefore we seek to map the natural process of weaving the web with a methodology where from an exploration where 3 modules of 15 x 15 cm were made which, first Zaha (the tarantula) wove in the module with the intention of manipulating and Mapping the natural weaving process of the web in a period of 1 to 3 weeks. Simulating the process until solidifying the final result identifying its 3 elements that form it: 1. Shape (The morphology of the cobweb) 2. Material (The spider's web) 3. Production (The behavior of the weaving of the web).
Finally, we concluded with a study of a flexible node where we observed and analyzed the tension, flexibility and adaptation according to different behaviors, adding vertices and geometries that alter its natural state. In conclusion, we can observe the different physical and mechanical properties that make up the fabric of a web.
As observed in biological research, natural systems do not evolve as singular optimization solutions, but negotiate among numerous and often conflicting factors, providing a commitment that can meet a multitude of requirements, contrary to conventional optimization procedures (Knippers and Speck 2012). Similarly, advances in manufacturing methods have led to a steady growth of geometric design space for architectural applications, but rarely to new systems and other deconstruction technologies. The development of manufacturing strategies based on material behavior allows an early integration of manufacturing logic in the design process and an exploration of new structural typologies (Pottman 2013).
This project is dedicated to making an innovative proposal, redesigning a new strategy and structural system totally adaptable to any building scale and conditions, where the computational tools and technology are used to optimize a solution to the problems caused by a natural disaster. generate impact not only in architecture, but at the social level, by a new search for design strategies and structural criteria.
IMPACT: Social: Impact to find alternative solutions in case of natural disasters such as an earthquake through the relationship between design and nature. Architectural: Innovation in a new way to generate strategies to make architecture from the hand of computational tools and technology to optimize and find new solutions to needs that we live through design today. Economic: Generates new construction systems based on the behavior of nature, with natural materials and with less impact on the environment.
Instagram Username: @dinorahmschulte
