For the second edition of a competition launched in 2002 by the city of Busan, South Korea, the Busan International Architectural Competition (BIAC), the proposed theme was: The captured ocean. Redefining the urban seafront of Busan. Xefirotarch developed a project in “five key zones containing the potential for future modulation or growth.” These were distributed around this site over water and land and forming a network (transport, beaches, hotels, cultural activities, etc.) thus “creating an archipelago effect.” The stretched and fluid forms developed here resonate with both the neighboring flows on the sea and the perpetual circulation linked to the tourist migrations generated by the program. The multiple sequences of the architectural design process were inspired by the one used in film-making. For this project Xefirotarch had definitively developed evolutionary computational systems, based on the principle of simple cellular division through the utilization of scripts. In this research, the project tools (drawings, models, etc.) are products of the same digital matrix and illustrate the seamless integration of the conception and production phases. The model, a gutted structure, like an organism without organs or a digital skeleton was produced by rapid prototyping in stereolithography. The organic bloom-like structures, made deliberately “monstrous,” resemble the hypertrophied forms of a living system. With this project, Xefirotarch offers a demonstration of the new “metamorphic nature” of architecture and points the way towards a non-standard architecture, one of unique forms produced by digital machines on an industrial scale.
