3. Non-standard design and mass customization
Before the implementation of digital technologies, in particular CAD/CAM systems, the construction and assembly processes used in architecture were a direct consequence of industrial manufacturing and the logic of mass production and standardization. To be economically viable, building components made throughout the twentieth century were for the most part geometrically simple and limited in terms of type, since both geometrical complexity and variety typically resulted in exponential cost implications. This situation has been transformed through digital fabrication methods, wherein the multiplicity and complexity of design elements has no correlation to economies or efficiencies of production. Rather than mass production, this change towards the making of unique, highly variable components has led to the concept of ‘mass customization’, through which ‘it is just as easy and cost-effective for a CNC milling machine to produce 1,000 unique objects as to produce 1,000 identical ones.’19 With this in mind, it is easy to understand that the vast growth in differentiated parts for architectural design, uncoupled from the historical association of cost increase, has afforded designers unprecedented opportunities. Intrinsic to the notion of mass customization is the idea of ‘non-standard’ components. In opposition to the standardization of building elements, digital fabrication methods allow and positively encourage the making of one-off, non-standard objects and components. In an architectural context, using non-standard elements – whether structural, façade, internal or otherwise – means that the possibilities of optimizing variance in relation to ecological and local criteria, alongside other design intentions and aesthetic decisions, are myriad. To further our knowledge and understanding of this potential, let us now consider a number of different digital fabrication approaches and their applications.
Non-standard design provided the primary area of research for Tim Marjot’s design thesis on mass customized housing that could be delivered using a ‘justin-time’ system of manufacture. The scale model shows non-standard façade panels – each altered in response to aesthetic choices, daylighting conditions and thermal capacity as required – that form an integrated surface. The detail view of the bricks highlights the complexity of the modular panels’ geometry as they articulate an array of components.
Case study Pushing the limits of computational detail and ornament
Michael Hansmeyer – The Subdivided Column, 2010–11.
This project involves the design of a new column order based on subdivision processes. It explores how subdivision can define and embellish the column with an elaborate system of ornamentation. An abstracted Doric column is used as an input form to the subdivision processes. This geometric description conveys topological information about the form to be generated. The input form is tagged, allowing the subdivision process to distinguish between individual components. This enables a heterogeneous application of the process, with distinct local parameter settings. The result is a series of columns that exhibit both highly specific local conditions and an overall coherence and continuity. The ornament is in continuous flow, yet consists of distinct local formations. The complexity of ‘column’ contrasts with the simplicity of its generative process.
The processes can be understood by considering their two parts: topological rules and weighting rules. The topological rules specify how to obtain the combinatorics of the refined mesh from the combinatorics of the input mesh by generating new vertices, edges and faces. The weighting rules specify how to calculate the positions of these new vertices based on interpolation between vertices of the input mesh. By introducing parameters to allow for variations in these weighting rules, nonrounded forms with highly diverse attributes can be produced. Whereas the traditional weighting rules specify the positions of new vertices strictly as interpolations of previousgeneration vertices, these rules are amended to allow for extrusion along face, edge and vertex normals. It is primarily through these changes to the established schemes that the complex geometries in this project become possible.
A The subdivided columns exhibit an extraordinarily complex geometry. Each comprises between 4 million and 32 million faces. Not only do the valences of the vertices vary throughout their mesh, but surfaces frequently intersect each other. In addition, the surfaces are not necessarily continuous. Several fabrication options for a full-size, 3m-high column were considered. A first option, 3D printing, was deemed too expensive at this scale (most 3D printing applications are anyway unable to handle such large polygon counts). A second option was 6-axis CNC milling. This, however, would not have been able to reproduce the tight radii of the column’s concave and convex surfaces. The final consideration was a layered model. While labour-intensive to produce, it enables very accurate reproduction of the generated geometries.
B The column shown uses 2,700 slices of 1mm paperboard. Slices are hollowed out to reduce weight, and they have four consistent holes so that they can be positioned on steel rods. This not only facilitates their assembly and alignment, but provides the column with extra stability and precludes the need to glue slices together. The negative of the slices is saved to allow for future mould creation.
C A program was written specifically to compute the outlines of the subdivided columns at each layer. It intersected the surfaces of the form with a plane, to form a slice. The resulting intersection lines were combined into polygons, which in turn were filtered according to minimum area and a polygon-in polygon test. Further tests scanned for self-intersecting among the polygons, in which case an offset filter was applied. In addition, the minimum surface width of convex branches was regulated to ensure that pieces of the slice did not break off. The resulting outline was written to a file and sent to a laser printer.
Case study Non-standard fabrication and interactive surfaces
dECOi/Mark Goulthorpe – HypoSurface, various locations, 1999–present.
A First 9-actuator Hypo 1 prototype with spring-loaded pneumatic actuators and aluminum/rubber faceted skin.
B First multi-module testing of 560-actuator Hypo 2 prototype.
C, D AND E Sequential development of modular Hypo2 rubber and aluminum skin elements, from digital design to 1:1 physical prototypes.
The generation and development of a dynamic architectural surface is the driving force behind this ongoing project. Using a matrix of computercontrolled actuators, a large surface can be deformed at high speed, providing an immediately responsive formal plasticity. The architecture thus explored is reciprocally adaptive to people, or ‘alloplastic’. It develops an understanding of the effect of animate form, and enables a range of interactive systems to elicit various modes of engagement. These interactive interfaces are sophisticated parametric systems, presenting extraordinary nuance and differentiation to the generation of movement and sound: an extreme case study of multimedia digital architecture. The essential feature of HypoSurface is that it moves, opening up a new medium of animate form for the plastic arts and architecture. Through collaboration with specialist roboticists, mathematicians and programmers, dECOi developed the base system of pneumatic actuators via a series of evolving prototypes. The geometry and elasticity of the flexible surface, capable of deformation of 600mm with waves of 100km per hour, required focused consideration to evolve a highly performative modular rubberand-metal ‘voxel’. Perhaps of greater significance than the mechanical development has been the augmentation of the computational control systems to afford the level of interactivity required.
F TO Q Movement interactivity at BIO biotechnology conference, Boston, USA, 2006.
