Courses, News
Wood Proto-architecture III: Integrating Design Computation and Materialization
“It is a question of surrendering to the wood, then following where it leads by connecting operations to a materiality, instead of imposing a form upon a matter.”
— Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
Description
The advanced research studio “Wood Proto-architecture 3.0,” will investigate the generative potential of material systems and fabrication processes in architecture. This studio will explore collaborative design principles for a specific fabrication and construction process, which was studied and developed in the context of the research studios “Wood Proto-architecture 1.0 and 2.0,” through prototyping scaled installations. The aim of this research studio is to develop [Augmented] robotic fabrication to construct experimental timber structures at the school of architecture.
The studio will introduce students to the concept of integrative design computation in architecture. This concept is three-fold: exploring material systems, developing computational design tool, and investigating related fabrication tools. The proposed material system is wood as an anisotropic material with high-performance and adaptation. One challenge of this studio will be the development of a computational framework to integrate material characteristics with related fabrication processes into a design computation method. In addition to exploring material system this research studio will investigate advanced fabrication processes such as robotic fabrication, as a generative driver in design processes. Students will collaborate in fabrication and assembly processes through Mixed reality (MR) technologies, such as Microsoft HoloLens headset to apply their design intention in real-time.
Students will explore a design space, as a parametric space, through a generative design tool to geometrically differentiate and parameterize timber wood structures (such as wood joinery systems). The design explorations are constrained to the fabrication space and material characteristics. The process of form generation in a parametric design space is concurrent with robotic/CNC fabrication of small-scale prototypes. In addition, students will analyze the structural behavior of their prototypes to feed back the simulation results into their design. Prototyping scaled model will help students to understand the process of constructing a one-to-one demonstrator.
Students can work in groups of three. They will be needed to actively take part in design development, fabrication, assembly, and documentation of the project during the fall semester.
This studio includes three workshops: 1) computational design workshop, which will discuss about integrative computational tools, such as Autodesk Fusion 360 to sketch, design, simulate and manufacture a design concept; 2) robotic 3d printing workshop, which will introduce advanced robotic controls to explore the experimental robotic fabrication in design; and 3) Mixed reality workshop, which will introduce the HoloLens Headset to integrate design, fabrication and assembly of final installation through mixed reality technologies.
Selected Project
Robotic Serpentine Wall | Developed by: Leah Kirssin, Bay Penny, Trenton Rhodes
Image Credit
O. Cleary, A. Roletter, E. Fentress, University of Virginia, 2019.
Courses, News
Behavioral Robotic Fabrication
“A system is “soft” when it is flexible, adaptable, and evolving, when it is complex and maintained by a dense network of active information or feedback loops, or, put in a more general way, when a system is able to sustain a certain quotient of sensitive, quasi-random flow.”
— Soft systems, Sanford Kwinter.
Description
Advances in design computation methods and fabrication processes provide new possibilities for designers to explore the manifestation of form in terms of materialization. Form manifestation can be investigated through behavioral approaches that are associated with basic material characteristics and fabrication parameters. Behavior-based approaches expand the design solution space, which previously was unavailable for designers restricted to top-down processes. Behavioral fabrication is a bottom-up process of integrating fabrication constraints and capacities into design processes.
The elective course “Behavioral Robotic Fabrication” introduced students to behavioral fabrication in architectural design. Students learned basic robotic fabrication processes that have been applied in architectural design thus far. Students were introduced to advanced robotic controls for digital fabrication and explored experimental robotic fabrication processes in art and architectural design. Accordingly, students gained practical experience in robotic fabrication by working with an industrial-scale robot, KUKA KR AGILUS.
This course focused on behavioral aspects of robotic fabrication processes, such as on-line, responsive, or interactive robotic controls. Students investigated different types of robotic fabrication tools (end-effectors) to build a custom end effector. Through sensory systems, students developed a soft system to adapt the physical realm of fabrication to the digital design environment.
Image Credit
G. Brugnaro, ICD, University of Stuttgart, 2015.
Courses, News
Wood Proto-architecture II: Integrating Design Computation and Materialization
“It is a question of surrendering to the wood, then following where it leads by connecting operations to a materiality, instead of imposing a form upon a matter.”
— A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
Description
The research studio “Wood Proto-architecture II” investigated the generative potential of material systems and fabrication processes in architecture. This studio aimed to explore integrative design computation, which unfolds specific material gestalt and related performative capacities without differentiating between processes of computational form generation and physical materialization. This studio will focus on the design and construction of research installations at the School of Architecture. Following “Wood Proto-architecture I” offered in Fall 2018, students will continue to explore wood material properties and digital fabrication processes to prototype scaled installations.
The studio introduced students to the concept of integrative design computation in architecture. This concept is two-fold: developing material systems and exploring related fabrication tools. The proposed material system is wood, a material with high performance and adaptation. Students investigated the anisotropic and hygroscopic nature of wood to understand tectonic potentials of wood morphology in design processes. Concurrent with developing material systems, students explored the potential of digital fabrication tools, such as robotic fabrication and CNC routing, as generative drivers in design processes.
Synthesizing these two agencies was further explored by developing a computational design framework to minimize the gap between formation and materialization. To achieve this, students developed computational design strategies and conducted a series of small-scale experiments. Students then applied the refined version of their experiments to prototyping a meso-scale installation.
This studio was supported by the elective course “Behavioral Robotic Fabrication,” which introduced students to fabrication agency in the design processes.
Selected Project
Hygrosensitive Kinetic Façade | Developed by: Mingyue Nan, Zhenfang Chen, Liwei Liu, 2019.
Image Credit
Y. Fong, K. Gordon, N. Grimes, M. Ye, University of Virginia, 2018.
Courses, News
Introduction to Computational Design and Construction
“The manifest form—that which appears—is the result of a computational interaction between internal rules and external (morphogenetic) pressures that, themselves, originate in other adjacent forms (ecology). The (pre-concrete) internal rules comprise, in their activity, an embedded form, what is today clearly understood and described by the term algorithm.”
— Who is afraid of formalism?, Sanford Kwinter.
Description
The elective course “Introduction to Computational Design and Construction” was complementary to the advanced research studio “Wood Proto-architecture I”, offered the same year. Advances in computational design and fabrication techniques provide new possibilities for designers to explore the manifestation and materialization of form. This course introduced students to these methods in design and construction. These approaches allow architects to consider material and fabrication characteristics in the early stages of the design process.
This course provided students with basic knowledge of developing computational design techniques in architecture that can be seamlessly integrated into design and fabrication processes. This introduction enhanced students’ knowledge in computational design by developing associative and algorithmic design strategies. Students investigated relatively simple mathematical and physical principles to generate complex geometries in the context of proto-architecture. This generative approach provided an algorithmic understanding of developing physical materialization.
Concurrently, the course focused on digital fabrication processes that integrate computational manufacturing techniques’ limitations and possibilities into design processes. Students learned robotic fabrication and advanced robotic control for digital fabrication. Accordingly, students gained hands-on experience working with the industrial-scale robot, KUKA KR AGILUS. Thus, students were introduced to a fabrication-driven method that provides a new approach in the design of complex geometric forms.
Image Credit
J. Höll and G. Kazlachev, ICD, University of Stuttgart, 2013/14.
