Guallart Architects- Ocean Plaza

OCEAN PLAZA- Guallart Architects

The project for the artificial rocks in Taiwan grew out of two traditions: on the one hand that of the Japanese Zen garden in which various natural rocks are surrounded by an expanse of raked gravel in such a way that both their form and their position generate tension; on the other, that of the large expanses of timber decking that are found in ports around the world, on which people can relax by the sea.
We decided to look for a set of geometric rules common to all the rocks in a family. Having established that most rocks are more or less pyramidal, with inflections toward the centre of their edges, it was decided to start with a cube and define take 20 points on its surface that could be used to create pyramidal elements with triangulated surfaces similar to the original rocks.

The system starts with the data of the basic cube, these dimensions distort the cube in the 8v, starting always from the centroid of the bottom of the cube. Introducing here a new parameter—the angle between the axes of the centroid of our cube—in order to generate the first families, we can now explore the family of the right angle.

The next step is to define the points to be modified; at this stage the points are only modified in terms of their connection. Using a spreadsheet, a series of formulas enables us to calculate the midpoint, the intersection between two lines, the lines between two midpoints and finally the midpoint of these new lines to generate new points (pg1) on the basis of the first set of connection relations, using in each case the formula that serves to find a new point. The resulting data are then interrelated with a 3D programme that recognizes the coordinates of each point and the activation of more or fewer points. Finally, in order to create more irregular configurations, new parameters of deformation are introduced, now with a polar system and based on the centroid. The result is a parametric rock that is configured in terms of its number of faces and connections, on the basis of a simple cube.