Lecture's IaaC - IaaC Lecture Series 2008-2009 > Francesco Sacconi

13_02_09 “ArupAGU -Advanced Geometry Unit- The New Thinking: from Fractal to Fabrication” Francesco Sacconi Francesco Sacconi is a member of Arup AGU unit from year 2007 The Advanced Geometry Unit (AGU) is a research-focused design group within consultant engineers Arup. By examining the structural dynamics of everything from geometric shapes and patterns to naturally occurring phenomena, AGU strives to create exciting new architectural forms and solutions. Arup deputy chairman, Cecil Balmond, founded the AGU. It developed out of Balmond’s interest in the genesis of form and the overlap of science with art, using music, numbers and mathematics as vital sources The AGU’s approach is far from the narrowness of a formal Cartesian Modernist mind-set. Instead, Balmond welcomes irregularity, complexity, richness, in a way that is almost Baroque. He explains, “The Cartesian world is a limiting space, even though it is a good space: we use it and inhabit it. However, we know that there are other geometries. I want to resurrect geometry, in the best sense of the word, in the Greek sense, as a living organizational idea, with a philosophic root.” Image caption: AGU - Advanced Geometry Unit

http://www.arup.com/