FEATURED: RSD / SPLINE

SPLINE
design for the new Rotterdam School of Design (RSD)

by Martin Beck and Rongrui Chen

MA-Design Studio Project
Studio Prof. Niels Jonkhans
Apr.-Jul. 2013

GEDD: The project bases on the idea of the inhabitable bridge. The studies of megastructures (Yona Friedman, Konrad Wachsmann) and (historic) inhabitable bridge projects (From London Bridge to Zaha Hadid’s designs for London and Zaragoza) were the point of departure for the design of the new Rotterdam School of Design as a wide spanning bridge. All faculty buildings as well as accompanying service and leisure facilities are situated within a three-dimensional space frame that elegantly twists as it connects the stadpark and the Müllerpier in Rotterdam.
The structure of the bridge seems irregular but is defined by mathematical rules that generate the position of cross beams according to structural efficiency. The driving parameters for the calculation of the position of the bridge construction and the dimensioning of its individual members were the outline shape as defined by the (digital) mass model of the design as well as the position and approximation of weight of the internal functions.

Academic Focus: The project explores the urban and architectural potential of such a typology at its suggested location. It describes scenarios of use and examines their adequacy. It examines historic architectural ideas, accompanying theory (futuristic constructivism) and aims to adapt these ideas to fit a given programme. Special focus was given to selected realistic connotations, here the structural feasibility, to reasonably tie the futuristic idea to possible reality.
The ability to use contemporary design/construction software is in further spotlight of the MA-design studio.

Software: The software for generating the bridge construction was Grasshopper with its Karamba plug-in (Thanks to Moritz Heimrath of Bollinger-Grohmann engineers for specialist support!) while Rhino was used for 3D-drawing purposes. Visualisation was done with VRay (for Rhino) and all postproduction and layout with Adobe CS software.

(NJ)

Chinesische Übersetzung, Rongrui Chen:
这个项目基于“可居住的桥”的理念。它以巨构建筑（Yona Friedman, Konrad Wachsmann）以及（历史上）可居住桥体（从伦敦桥到扎哈哈迪德为伦敦和萨拉贡萨设计的作品）的研究为出发点，为新鹿特丹设计学院设计了一座大跨度的桥体。所有的教学楼以及相配套的服务和辅助设施都处在一个三维的空间构架内，它以优雅的姿态扭曲着连接了城市花园以及阿姆斯特丹 Müllerpier港口。
桥的结构似乎是无规则的，但是所有的横梁的位置都是通过数学演算，在以最高效率满足结构所需的情况下得出的。设计者在对内部功能区域划分以及所占比重大小做出考量后，通过数码建模得到了的用以计算桥梁施工位置的重要参数以及各个构件的尺寸大小。
这个项目探索了这一类建筑在这样地点时，在城市和建筑学中的所存在的潜力。他描述了不同功能下的场景并考验了它们的合理性。他测试了建筑史中的理念，伴随着理论——未来构建主义，并且旨在将这种理念融入所给予的项目。这一类设计的重点在于选择具有现实意义的内涵，在该作品中则指的是对结构上的可行性探讨，使得它能将未来派的理念结合到现实中。
MA-Design工作室将进一步关注使用当代设计∕建模软件的能力。
在软件应用方面：Grasshopper以及karramba插件用于桥梁结构计算及优化，(在此特别感谢Bollinger-Grohmann 工程师事务所Moritz Heimrath先生的专业支持！）Rhino用于3d制模绘图，Vray for Rhino用于可视化制图，排版以及后期制作使用了Adobe CS相关软件。

(NJ)

perspective as seen from the Nieuwe Maas