Fox Fridays: Processing (p5.js) Color & Code

This workshop would serve as an introduction to the Processing p5.js JavaScript library for creative coding platform. For students in my architecture design studio it would serve as a charette that will lead into our design brief. However, for students outside of my studio, and in other departments, the workshop will serve as a stand-alone introduction to Processing, with a user-friendly design brief aimed at using color, pattern, and simple interactive functions to generate flat compositions.

Takeaways

A working knowledge of Processing and its online support community. The ability to write simple scripts to generate graphic 2D patterns with simple interactive capabilities.

Cross-disciplinary connections

Processing is a visual-arts friendly introduction to coding. No background in code is required. However, Processing is an excellent tool for introducing artists, architects, and designers to what code can offer as a way of opening up the solution-space in a design process.

Instructor

Brendan Sullivan Shea is an architectural designer, researcher, and educator. His scholarly research and architectural practice explores new technologies and novel strategies of architectural representation, often incorporating analysis of architectural precedents and environmental phenomena as a foundational step in the production of computationally-assisted new works. He is a co-creator of Reimaging, a practice and platform that cultivates representational futures for architectural production, and of Roundhouse, a collaborative curatorial platform focused on facilitating public engagement with the cultural commons and urban sphere. Reimaging’s essays have been published in Project, ARPA, and POOL, and its design work has been exhibited at Center For Architecture NY, A+D Museum, and One Night Stand Los Angeles. The exhibits, workshops, and curatorial projects of Roundhouse have been supported by grants, fellowships, and residencies from the Graham Foundation, Wikipedia, LA as Subject, USC Special Collections, and WuHo.

Brendan holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University School of Architecture and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies, Summa Cum Laude, from the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at University of California Los Angeles. His graduate thesis “Reimaging Fabrication: How To Improvise With Robots” was awarded with distinction. He has tutored design studios and representation seminars at Texas Tech University and University of Southern California, as well as teaching design workshops upon invitation at Cal Poly Pomona Landscape Architecture, Escuela Libre de Arquitectura, The Free School of Architecture-LA, Space Saloon, Virtual Care Lab, Lios Labs, and the Spatial Awareness Network. He held the inaugural 2021 Research Fellowship at The School of Architecture (fka Taliesin West), 2022 MacDowell Fellowship, 2022 Research Residency from the onEarth Foundation, 2021 Artist Residency at the School of New Art Geographies, 2021 Artist Residency at Iowa Lakeside Lab, and 2020 Artist Residency at Oakes Creek Ranch. He has delivered public presentations stateside at ACSA, ARCC, and Land Arts of the American West, as well as internationally, at the Japanese Society of Architectural Informatics, University of Sydney College of Architecture & National University of Singapore Department of Architecture. He has served as a member of juries at architecture institutions including UCLA, USC, SCIARC, OTIS, TSOA, TTU, UNM, Cal Poly, and Woodbury. His scholarly writing has recently been published in journal articles, book chapters, and online essays including in Remote Practices: Architecture In Proximity (Lund Humphries, 2022), Earth Bits—Sensing the Planetary: Groundworks (MAAT Lisbon, 2021), and POOL Magazine (UCLA, 2020), while his design work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Lubbock, and Berlin.