Future fabrication of architecture
The impact of digital design and fabrication techniques on architecture is already far-reaching. The integration of digitally generated data to produce precise and complex geometry, to direct making and assembly processes, and exploit material performance is returning architects to a position that had disappeared with the masterbuilders of medieval times. The future of digital fabrication in architecture therefore implies rich and varied dialogue of exploration, invention and application. The seminal Fabrication conference held at the University of Waterloo in Cambridge, Ontario in 2004 may be recognized as a major impetus in this movement, which has been further substantiated by various events, projects and exhibitions – perhaps most significantly the FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture conference held at The Bartlett School of Architecture in London in 2011. The latter provided a global summit and update from many of the leading figures, practices and organizations immersed in this joint quest for creativity, proving just how far and wide the developments have been in such a short period of time. The multiplicity of contemporary approaches in digital fabrication is considerable, but the recurrent theme of how we collaborate and best apply our design intelligence remains essential to these endeavours.
Perhaps the most immediate transformation for digital fabrication is connected to the widespread availability and mobility of the equipment and techniques. It is now possible for designers to own, and even self-assemble, 3D printers and for design offices and architectural practices to accommodate these along with CNC manufacturing processes as an extended part of their studio. Such facilities were prohibitively expensive only a decade ago. This development, coupled with increasingly user-friendly graphic interfaces on software platforms, is allowing a broader community of designers to experiment with fabrication processes. Architecture schools have generally been quick to adopt CAD/CAM resources and students and researchers continue to push the limits of existing technologies in pursuit of knowledge and further development. Moreover, digital fabrication methods have already had, and will continue to have, major implications for the design, production and delivery of buildings. This will become particularly relevant if such techniques are to be used to generate and build designs on a large scale. Therefore, the intelligence within these systems and how it may be developed, whether embodied artificially or physically – such as to inform assembly and building protocols, or to enable performative functionality and dynamic behaviour – are also paramount. This issue is especially important given the direct relationship, and feedback potential, between design and construction data that is intrinsic to digital fabrication approaches.
A further area of investigation is the behaviour of materials and their potential to be computational tools in themselves, enabling responsiveness. Experimentation with the molecular structure of materials and their performance characteristics under different conditions is already a feature of some research projects included in this publication but therein lie more unchartered territories and untapped knowledge. Integrating material behaviour with detailed geometrical data may facilitate a level of material computation that will transform construction processes and allow responsive properties at the scale of material substructure and organization to be factored into design intent.
The architectural projects currently underway reinforce these various trajectories and suggest the ways in which this ever-mutating and increasingly influential area of development may continue to crosspollinate with other disciplines, flourish and inspire. The more designers who embrace these opportunities, the greater the degree of knowledge transfer and application of digital fabrication that will arise.
The breakthroughs in ubiquitous computing may be enriched by the increasing accessibility and affordability of digital fabrication equipment. Products such as the
Thing-O-Matic® by Makerbot Industries enable designers to assemble a 3D printer kit for personal manufacturing.
Case study Responsive architectural surfaces
µ:) Microhappy/Marilena Skavara – Adaptive Fa[CA]de, 2009.
Adaptive Fa[CA]de is an emergent, adaptive building skin that aims to provide optimum light levels to an interior. The project was developed as part of Marilena Skavara’s MSc thesis in Adaptive Architecture and Computation at the Bartlett. Using the computational and behavioural characteristics of Cellular Automata (CA) coupled with artificial intelligence, it gradually ‘learns’ from its own errors to inform future behaviour.
A, B, C AND D 3D printing facilitated fabrication of the tile supports, which were then connected on pivot joints and wired up to servo motors.
E, F, G, H, I AND J The various patterns performed by the façade in response to surrounding light levels help the design behave as a ‘living skin’. Developed to provide optimal light intensity to the interior, the kinetic interplay, as light source and levels change, posits an engaging area of potential application for performative architecture.
Case study Digital fabrication on the move
Gramazio & Kohler – Pike Loop, Manhattan, New York, 2009.
The synergy between the research and practice of Gramazio & Kohler has enabled the development of innovative fabrication processes and their implementation in architectural design. Pike Loop is a 22m-long structure made of brick, the most traditional building material in New York, and was designed for installation on site by an industrial robot from a movable truck trailer. Over 7,000 bricks aggregate to form an infinite loop that weaves along the pedestrian island. The continuous form and homogeneous expression of the structure can only be achieved through on-site digital fabrication. The structure is built using the robotic fabrication unit R-O-B housed in a transportable freight container. R-O-B was shipped from Switzerland to New York and loaded onto a low-bed trailer for transport and on-site fabrication. Moving the truck trailer shifts the 4.5m work area of R-O-B along the site in order to build the complete structure.
A Positioned in situ, the robotic fabrication unit carries out a programmed test to check its operability.
B More than 7,000 bricks form an ‘infinite’ loop along the pedestrian island.
C As each brick is laid within the choreographed composition, the ‘woven’ wall’s form emerges.
D The precision of the robotic operations is illustrated here as the complex geometry of the design is replicated on site.
E In changing rhythms, the loop lifts off the ground and intersects with itself at peaks and valleys.
F The digitally designed brick structure is further articulated using a weighted compressing and tensioning of the brick bond. Where the loop ‘flies’, the bond becomes stretched and thus lighter; where it brings loads to the ground it becomes jagged and heavier, thus wider and more stable.
G The completed installation.
Case study Embedded intelligence in self-assembly systems
Skylar Tibbits – Logic Matter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010.
The research of Skylar Tibbits addresses the contrast between current modes of assembly and the output of digital design tools to develop responses to the increasing complexity of the built environment. The central theme of his work is self-assembly in relation to the future of manufacturing, production and construction. The Logic Matter project is a system of passive mechanical digital logic modules for self-guided assembly of large-scale structures. In contrast to existing systems in self-reconfigurable robotics, Logic Matter introduces scalability, robustness, redundancy and local heuristics to achieve passive assembly. This is developed as a mechanical module that implements digital NAND logic as an effective tool for encoding local and global assembly sequences. Logic Matter seeks to facilitate material computing and material-provided commands for the user whilst utilizing the power of digital information for precise in construction.
Right-angle tetrahedron demonstrating the functionality of a NAND gate through input, output and gate decisions. Output A and Output B are the two output faces, either [0] or [1]. Input A and Input B are the two input faces. The input faces can both receive either [0] or [1] at any time. The input faces will dictate the decision in the Gate unit as to which face (Output A [1] or Output B [0]) will be utilized, directly based on the NAND truth table.
The self-assembly system enables considerable variation in the programmable sequences of growth. Binary gradient sequences and resultant spatial output. Orange units are inputs equal to 1 whilst grey units are gates.
4 Logic Matter modules demonstrating programmability of base configuration.
60 unit working prototype demonstrating 3D singlepath and user programmability. Grey units behave as NAND gates while white units are inputs.
Case study Computational materiality as integrative approach
Phil Ayres – The Persistent Model, CITA, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, 2009–12.
This research project led by Phil Ayres at the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA), investigates a design strategy that couples representation and artefact in a circular relationship as a means of managing indeterminacy throughout the various phases of architectural activity, namely: design, fabrication/construction and occupancy/use. This proposition maintains the instrumental capacity of representation as a space of speculation and specification, while addressing issues pertaining to the ideal, predictive and pre-determined characteristics of representational methods in relation to contexts of use that tend towards the endemically dynamic and contingent.
The Persistent Model considers the site of indeterminacy as the fabric of the construct itself. Free-form metal inflation provides a conceptually congruent material veil to these concerns. It is a procedure through which outcomes deviate from initializing representations with greater or lesser degrees of predictability – a result of a sensitive dependency established between material behaviour and the nature of the imposed geometry. This deviation requires feedback mechanisms for the artefact to re-inform the representation.
A AND B Free-form metal inflation is a fabrication process that derives from hydroforming except no die is used to inform the sheet material. Instead, two sheets of metal are welded together to form a sealed cushion into which a fluid medium is introduced. This material organization inflates as the internal pressure increases, pushing the material beyond its elastic limit and into the phase of plastic deformation.
C Progressive Material Transform: the initial digital representation informs the cutting of the steel profiles that make up the cushions. This representation becomes redundant after inflation, requiring re-informing.
D Compound Movements: investigating jointing positions digitally to drive spatial development. Components are aggregated in such a manner that local transformations impact the overall compound.
E This early experiment with the hydroforming process to inflate metal took the structure to failure point so that material responses could be analyzed and incorporated into later stages of the project. As the inflation process continues, dramatic transformations occur to the components’ formal and performance properties resulting largely from permanent buckling.
As components are inflated they dramatically transform in formal and performance characteristics – these transformations are an outcome of material behaviour steered through imposed geometry. The simplicity of the forming process belies a complex matrix of interactions occurring within and between a variety of microstructures (atomic lattice and grains) and macrostructures (component and aggregate). The resultant coupling of digital and material creates a dialogue between iteration and transformation, which is simultaneously construct and process. The potential to gain further insight of material behaviours through such novel fabrication processes may subsequently inform how to best represent and guide these and establish their design criteria for greater application in architecture.
F Nested Feedback System: the environment of representation is nested within the environment of operation so that the ideal feeds into the actual, the actual feeds back to the ideal and a tempered ideal feeds back to the actual. Control is passed and shared through the feedback loop created.
G Constraint Context: sequential inflation constructs a sensitive site dependency which is monitored and creates a cybernetic loop as both parts of the system, digital and material, feedback to each other.
Digital fabrication signals a major shift in the way we may engage architectural design. The techniques used by digital fabrication require designers to rethink their design process, often developing novel methodologies and non-linear approaches. By allowing the generation, integration and strategies of creative ideas and manufacturing operations to inform each other in a meaningful way, the potential of digital fabrication may be fully realized. Key to this development is an interest in and exploration of materials and how design intent may be connected or expressed through their employment. The creative use of computation to develop digital tools has been integral to many of the projects featured in this book. Given that such tools provide the interface between design and fabrication, the experimentation and customization afforded by them should offer a wealth of opportunities for those willing to immerse themselves in their development. Indeed, the forays envisaged for one tool may lead to other applications resulting in further knowledge transfer and exploration. Therefore, tools should deepen our inquisitive nature rather than simply become reductive and convenient.
The Decibot is part of the larger *bot family of programmable folding chains by Skylar Tibbits. The *bot family contains electromechanical folding at varying lengths. This is the largest of the family with overall dimensions of 365 x 45 x 45cm unfolded and 91 x 91 x 91cm folded into a cube.
The opportunities afforded by digital fabrication have had a two-fold impact. Firstly, a new generation of innovative, motivated, highly skilled programmers and designers are engaging in a discourse with materials and fabrication processes with groundbreaking results. Secondly, the integration of digital design and fabrication technologies to deliver building components and systems through robust and streamlined digital workflows is growing steadily as the benefits of simultaneous and feedback mechanisms become more apparent. Perhaps most exciting of all, architectural designers are increasingly working in an interdisciplinary manner that, far from diluting their field, has led to advanced expertise, bringing them back into the processes of manufacture and construction, from which they had become distant. These shifts in the design and making of architecture are characterized by an abundant generosity in knowledge sharing and collaborative production. The growing influence of these technologies within architecture is evident in numerous exhibitions and an ever-expanding body of literature on the subject, as well as the gradual increase in digitally fabricated buildings and interventions in our cities, public spaces and landscapes.
Neri Oxman’s interdisciplinary research is deeply embedded in the production possibilities of techniques and material limits. Her Subterrain project explores the notion of material organization in relation to the distribution and magnitude of forces shaping a physical terrain. Analysis of material behaviour in relation to properties and performance allows the interaction between directional morphology and direction of various stresses to be modelled. This data is subsequently reconstructed using a CNC milling process and a variety of timbers to produce laminated structural composites that may inform larger uses in buildings.
