Bus Terminal, San Francisco, USA, by Bin Lu and Joongsik Yang

Once again, I like pattern-based skins, namely these skins' ornamentations that are determined by patterning. In the present project, Mathematics play an essential role. Parametric design and Voronoi patterns are significant parts of this project of a new bus terminal near San Francisco's Bay Bridge.

San Francisco's Bus Terminal © Bin Lu and Joongsik Yang

This design proposal by Bin Lu and Joongsik Yang, both at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) explores various topics such as scripting, parametric design, and sustainable technologies. For Lu and Yang, these elements must be considered as design tool to create form through the analysis of environmental, urban, and economic data.

San Francisco's Bus Terminal © Bin Lu and Joongsik Yang

As one notices, Voronoi diagrams are in wide use in architecture. This skin is an example of Voronoi pattern-based envelope like that of Tim Wiscombe/Emergent's Civic Sports Center and 2013 National Games Arena. Here Voronoi cells impinged upon people's behaviors through the bus terminal space such as people coming to the bus station from different directions at various points in time to generate cells that determine the form of the envelope's patterns.

San Francisco's Bus Terminal © Bin Lu and Joongsik Yang

This leads to a sustainable tree-like structure with a honeycomb-like envelope opening to the sky. This efficient-energy design attracts solar energy, as Bin Lu and Joongsik Yang say.

Source: eVolo Magazine