Digital Fabrications Architectural And Material Techniques .
,---,--- " - --,------ --- -- ---'----' ,:c --". , -Digital FabricationsArchitectural andMaterial TechniquesLisa Iwamoto
. . . -. . . . . . . . .Architecture continually informs and is informedfabrication and the material practices it has shapedby its modes of representation and construction,and revitalized.This book is unique because it concentratesand emerging technologies are rapidly expandingon work designed and built by emerging and newlywhat we conceive to be formally, spatially, anddefined practices that, with a do-it-yourself attitude,materially possible. Digital fabrication, in particular,regularly pioneer techniques and experiment withhas spurred a design revolution, yielding a wealth offabrication processes on a small scale. The meansarchitectural invention and innovation. How designsby which these projects were realized are within theuse digital fabrication and material techniques toreach of many practitioners and students. Here,calibrate between virtual model and physical artifactthe architectural project is a form of applied designis the subject of this book.research. These architects seek to leverage digitalIn "Translations from Drawing to Building;'design and manufacturing for perceptual, spatial,Robin Evans expands on the inevitable separationand formal effect. The projects center on a mode ofarchitects encounter between drawing, the traditionalinquiry whose method of making ultimately formsmedium of design, and building, the final outcomethe design aesthetic. Many of the practitioners teachof their work.l As he describes it, great inventionas well and bring their interests into the classroom,occurs in this gap. Like traditional drawing, digitaloffering the architecture student an opportunity toproduction is a generative medium that comes with"do it" as well. For this reason, some excellent studentits own host of restraints and possibilities. Digitalprojects have been included in the pages that follow.practices have the potential to narrow the gapThe book is organized according to types ofbetween representation and building, affording adigital fabrication techniques that have emerged overhypothetically seamless connection between designthe past fifteen years: sectioning, tessellating, folding,and making. As with any design process, however,contouring, and forming. Each section introducesthere are invariably gaps among the modes ofthe basics of the featured technique through amaking. And, as with all tools of production, thedescription of pioneering case studies, after whichvery techniques that open these investigations havethere is a collection of projects demonstrating howtheir own sets of constraints and gear particular waysarchitects have manipulated the tectonic method forof working. In the best cases, such as those shown indesign. Naturally, the projects overstep the chapterthis book, innovation is born out of this fissure anddefinitions: many combine two or three techniques.advances design.The distinctions nevertheless structure andDigital Fabrications: Architectural and MaterialTechniques documents architecturally innovativecontextualize the work, so that the projects gainprojects realized through digital design -------------------004/005Introductionperhaps never more so than now, when digital media- ! ,.specificity in light of the others.Lastly, this book aims to show both workingconstructive processes. By way of several ground method and final results, documentingbreaking projects, it offers a brief and informativeworking drawings, templates, and materialbackground to the rise of digital fabrication inprototypes. Books on digital design tend to bearchitecture, providing insight into why it has sparkedhighly technical, focused on documenting a fewthe imagination of a new generation of designers.large building projects in great detail or elseIt also contains practical information about the typesspeculating more broadly on the implications ofof tools and technologies architects most frequentlydigital fabrication for the future of the profession.use for digital fabrication. The bulk of the book,Missing from these efforts is a visually excitinghowever, is devoted to illustrating projects thatcollection of smaller built projects focused onreveal the design ingenuity that arises from digitaldesign.Digital Fabrications does just that and willbe of interest to anyone who wants to know howdigital fabrication works, why architects use it, andhow it promotes innovative design.BackgroundIt is inconceivable today to imagine designingbuildings without the use of computers. They areused at every step of the architectural process,from conceptual design to construction. Three dimensional modeling and visualization, generativeform finding, scripted modulation systems, structuraland thermal analyses, project management andcoordination, and file-to-factory production are justsome of the digital practices employed by architectsand building consultants. Digital fabrication is oftenone of the final stages of this process, and it is verymuch what it sounds like: a way of making that usesdigital data to control a fabrication process. Fallingunder the umbrella of computer-aided design andmanufacturing (CAD/CAM), it relies on computer driven machine tools to build or cut parts.CAD/CAM has been a mainstay of industrialdesign and engineering and of manufacturingindustries-particularly the automotive andaerospace industries-for more than a half century.Parts ranging from engine blocks to cell phones aredesigned and built using 3D-computer-modelingsoftware. Scaled models are made quickly, usingrapid-prototyping machines that turn out accuratephysical models from the computerized data. Oncethe computer model is refined and completed, thedata are transferred to computer-controlled machinesthat make full-scale parts and molds from a range ofmaterials such as aluminum, steel, wood, and plastics.This computerized process streamlines production effectively blending upstream and downstreamprocesses that are typically compartmentalized,often eliminating intermediate steps between designand final production. There is the potential forarchitecture also to move more fluidly between designand construction. As Branko Kolarevic states,"This newfound ability to generate constructioninformation directly from design information,and not the complex curving forms, is whatdefines the most profound aspect of much of thecontemporary architecture."2Architects have been drawing digitally fornearly thirty years. CAD programs have made two dimensional drawing efficient, easy to edit, and, witha little practice, simple to do. Yet for many years, asthe process of making drawings steadily shifted frombeing analog to digital, the design of buildings didnot really reflect the change. CAD replaced drawingwith a parallel rule and lead pointer, but buildingslooked pretty much the same. This is perhaps notso surprising-one form of two-dimensionalrepresentation simply replaced another. It tookthree-dimensional-computer modeling and digitalfabrication to energize design thinking and expandthe boundaries of architectural form and construction.In a relatively short period of time, a networkof activities has grown up around digital fabrication.Inventive methods have emerged from project specific applications developed by a handful ofarchitects and fabricators. This inventiveness hasto do in part with restructuring the very processof construction. The work of Gehry Partners andits associated firm Gehry Technologies has playeda pivotal role in this regard. For them, digitalintegration was largely necessitated by the complexityof the building geometries.Gehry's office began using CAD/CAM processesin1989 to develop and then test the constructabilityof a building system for the Disney Concert Hall.As is usually the case in design, the process wasiterative and nonlinear. Initially, physical modelswere reverse-engineered using a digitizer to takecoordinates off a model's surface and import it intoa 3D digital environment. The design subsequentlymoved back and forth between physical and digitalsurface models-physical models for aesthetics,digital models for "system fit:' For this purpose Gehry'soffice adapted software from the aerospace industry,CATIA (Computer Aided Three DimensionalInteractive Application), to model the entire exterior ofthe concert hall.3 At that time the skin was conceived as
. . . . .Introductionstone and glass, and the office successfully producedcut-stone mock-ups, using tool paths for computer controlled milling machines derived from digitalsurface models. In other words, the digital model wastranslated directly into physical production by usingdigitally driven machines that essentially sculpted thestone surface through the cutting away of material.This building method revealed that the complexitiesand uniqueness of surface geometries did notsignificantly affect fabrication costs, and it is thisrealization, that one can make a series of uniquepieces with nearly the same effort as it requires tomass-produce identical ones, that forms a significantaspect of the computer-aided manufacturing thathas since been exploited for design effect.In 2002, Gehry Partners created GehryTechnologies to further develop Digital Project, aversion of CATIA adapted and specialized for theunique demands of complex architectural projects.Digital Project integrates numerous aspects of theconstruction process, including building codes, andmechanical, structural, and cost-criteria aspects.Gehry Technologies now acts as a consultant to GehryPartners, as well as to other architects, assisting withdigital construction and management. The companyis revolutionary in that it expands the role of thearchitect to include oversight of the building andconstruction-management process, much as it wasin the age of the master builder. In addition toGehry's, architectural offices such as Foster & Partners,Nicholas Grimshaw, and Bernhard Franken are forgingsimilar integrated project-delivery methods for large,complex projects. The focus of this book, however,is less on integration with the construction industryand more on another avenue of investigation taken byarchitects relative to digital fabrication: design-buildexperimentation at a one-to-one scale.Recent ExperimentationWe have experienced a fertile generation ofarchitecture focused on the expanding possibilitiesof material and formal production. Digital methodshave fundamentally shifted the discipline ofifI. : 006/007architecture, and many paths now characterize thisdesign arena. The architects included here arecommitted to employing the fluid potentials oftechnology to inform the design process and gearthe evolution of their designs, while theirexperimentation is remarkable for being on aone-to-one scale. This approach recognizes whatMichael Speaks has termed "design intelligence":"Making becomes knowledge or intelligence creation.In this way thinking and doing, design andfabrication, and prototype and final design becomeblurred, interactive, and part of a non-linear meansof innovation:'4 As it does for the large-scale work ofFrank Gehry and others, the digital environmentallows architects to take control of the buildingprocess. Several groundbreaking projects helpedinstigate this avenue of design research and shapea new generation of architects.Within a span of about five years beginningin the mid-1990s, a host of projects appeared thatclearly demonstrated the aesthetic merits of usingdigital devices. These include, among others,William Massie's concrete formwork, Greg Lynn'swaffle typologies, and Bernard Cache's surfacemanipulations, all of which will be discussed atgreater length in the chapter introductions. In seeingthese projects, one cannot deny that, in addition tothe professional, industrial, and economic benefitsassociated with CAD/CAM, building with thecomputer achieves unprecedented visual, material,and formal results. While the ingenuity of thefollowing projects goes far beyond the outwardappearance, the strong visual aspect neverthelessplays a significant role in sparking the imaginationof young designers. These early projects are theachievement most notably of architects with materialknow-how and a will to experiment-traits that havenow increasingly permeated design culture.To move from design to construction, it isnecessary to translate graphical data from two dimensional drawings and three-dimensional modelsinto digital data that a computer-numeric-controlled(CNC) machine can understand. This demands thatarchitects essentially learn a new language. Someaspects of this translation are relatively automaticand involve using machine-specific software; othersare very much in the purview of design. Decisionsas to which machine and method to use must marrydesign intent with machine capability. It has thereforebecome necessary for digitally savvy architects tounderstand how these tools work, what materials theyare best suited for, and where in the tooling processthe possibilities lie.Along these lines, architects have begun tocouple form with method and revisit tectonic systemsas a means to produce material effect. They seekto elevate standard building materials perceptuallythrough nonstandard fabrication processes. Surfacesform buildings, and they can do so through smooth,undifferentiated expanses, or they can be constructed,textured, assembled, patterned, ornamented, orotherwise articulated. Digital fabrication opensonto a sea of possibilities. Punching, laser cutting,water-jet cutting, CNC routing, and die cutting arejust some of the automated processes fueling thisdesign domain.Practically speaking, because buildings aremade from a series of parts, their assembly relies ontechniques of aggregating and manipulating two dimensional materials. Computer fabrication hasopened a realm for architects to perceptually heightenand make visible the nature of this accretion throughconstructed repetition and difference. The subtlevariation of a system of elements, the transformationof recognizable materials, and the visceral response,no less, to viewing the result of intensive materialaccumulation-often understood to be the purviewof the low arts or crafts-have been digitallyredefined into a vocabulary by which architecturallanguage is transformed. The projects shown inthis book expand on these digital productiontechniques and capitalize on material methods asa generator for design. The architects here areconcerned both with tectonics of assembly and withsynthetic surface and material effect. The results areextraordinary-intricate patterns, filtered light, orevocations of abstracted images at mural scale and all achieved through the aggregation of simplebuilding materials.The following chapters discuss architects whohave honed digital-fabrication techniques onspecific projects. Each discussion is accompanied bya detailed breakdown of the fabrication technique,providing insight into the recent projects featured ineach chapter. These are projects that concentrate onthe fertile realm of one-to-one-scale experimentation,which demands reciprocity between design andempirical innovation. The final outcomes hinge onthe ability to reconcile the developmental shifts inmaterial and working method. While the individualprojects naturally take on different emphases, thework consistently elucidates provocative liaisonsbetween digital production and making. Compellingdesign projects in and of themselves, they are bothtestaments to smaller-scale experimentation and thetesting grounds for buildings to come.
Sectioning
SectioningOrthographic projections-that is, plans andsections-are one of the most valuablerepresentational tools architects have at theirdisposal. They are an indispensable communicationand design device. They have also contributed toa prominent digital fabrication method. Withcomputer modeling, deriving sections is no longera necessarily two-dimensional drawing exercise. Infact, it is no longer an exercise in projection at allbut a process of taking cuts through a formedthree-dimensional object. As architects increasinglydesign with complex geometries, using sectioningas a method of taking numerous cross sectionsthrough a form has proven time and again aneffective and compelling technique. As in conventionalconstruction processes, information is translatedfrom .one format to another to communicatewith the builder-only in this case the builderis a machine.Rather than construct the surface itself,sectioning uses a series of profiles, the edges of whichfollow lines of surface geometry. The modelingsoftware's sectioning or contouring commands canalmost instantaneously cut parallel sections throughobjects at designated intervals. This effectivelystreamlines the process of making serialized, parallelsections. Architects have experimented with sectionalassemblies as a way to produce both surfaceand structure.While it is distinctly within the domain ofdigital techniques, sectioning has a long history inthe construction industry. It is commonly usedin airplane and shipbuilding to make the doublycurving surfaces associated with their respectivebuilt forms. Objects such as airplane bodies andboat hulls are first defined sectionally as a series ofstructural ribs, then clad with a surface material.Lofting-the method that determines the shape ofthe cladding or surface panels by building betweencurved cross-sectional profiles-is analogous tolofting in digital software. Lofted surfaces can beunrolled into flat pieces or else geometricallyredescribed in section as curves along the surface.010/011This building technique was adopted in thepredigital era by architects such as Le Corbusier.The roof of the chapel at Ronchamp, for example likened to an airplane wing by the architect-isdesigned and built as a series of structural concreteribs, tied together laterally by crossbeams. A papermodel of the roof clearly shows the intentions forthe internal construction. The advantages of usingthis type of hollow construction are clear: it is alightweight structure that provides accurate edgeprofiles for a nonuniform shape on which to alignand support surface material, in this case thin shellsof concrete. In his book Ronchamp, Le Corbusierenumerates the unique constructional makeup ina manner that recalls the makeup of digitallyconstructed projects: "Seven strong, flat beams,17 em. thick, all different."lAnother architect who worked almost exclusivelywith forms that required nonstandard constructionwas Frederick Kiesler. Indeed he has become a posterchild of sorts for protoblob architecture. In thecontext of digital fabrication, his relevance has lessto do with the shapes of his buildings and more todo with his efforts to develop a method for buildinghis "endless" forms. It is not surprising that Kiesler'sendeavors in this regard have correlations with digitalconstruction. Although the truly organic form of hisEndless House was never realized, he did completeseveral projects, most notably Peggy Guggenheim'sArt of This Century gallery, in 1942. The gallerybespeaks his desire for a sentient architecture thatwould be responsive to its occupants' mercurialperceptions: the picture frames are suspended fromthe walls so as to interact with various viewersagainst a curved backdrop. Study sketches of thecurved wall and ceiling reveal sectional ribs thatare aestheti ized to resemble an airplane or othermachined framework. The curvature of the wall isconsistent along its length, so, unlike the ribs of LeCorbusier's chapel at Ronchamp, these are repetitive.What is similar about these projects is theiremployment of sectioning for constructional andgeometric purposes in the making of curved forms.CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:Example of cutting sections usingcontour command in Rhinoceros.Photo: L. IwamotoLe Corbusier, Chapelle Notre Damedu Haut de Ronchamp, 1950. Scaledmodel showing ri
digital fabrication for the future of the profession. Missing from these efforts is a visually exciting collection of smaller built projects focused on design. Digital Fabrications does just that and will be of interest to anyone who wants to know how digital fabrication works, why architects use it, a
Parts Catalogue 2020 Taylor Engineering & Fabrications Ltd Unit D, St Clements Road, Nechells, Birmingham, B7 5AF Tel: 0121 326 9035 - option 1 for refuse parts Precision Engineering and Coded Welding Suppliers of parts for refuse vehicles and bin lifting equipment www.taylorengineeringltd.co.uk . Tel: 0121 326 9035 - option 1
Troy Great, completed his apprenticeship at Bob Gould Fabrications in 1992 and has continued to work in the business since then. His passion for high-quality service and products has now been consolidated by his position as Managing Director. Tony Felesina has a long fa
Relatively few examples use aggregates in their unbound form as an architectural material system in their own right. The investigation of potential architectural applications however is both a very relevant and unexplored branch of design research. Loose granular systems are inherently different from other architectural construction systems.
Digital inclusion is defined in various ways and is often used interchangeably with terms such as digital skills, digital participation, digital competence, digital capability, digital engagement and digital literacy (Gann, 2019a). In their guide to digital inclusion for health and social care, NHS Digital (2019) describe digital
Baker Residential Centex Homes Continental Properties Country Classics Edgewood Properties Garden Homes . Ornamental Iron Works collection of fine custom architectural fabrications. Aluminum railings, in addition to providing a great . austerity or grand
Digital Media Middle East & Middle Eastern Digital Media Awards 29-30 Nov 2022 Riyadh Digital Media Africa & African Digital Media Awards 12-13 July 2022 Virtual Digital Media LATAM & LATAM Digital Media Awards 16-18 Nov 2022 Mexico City Digital Media India & Indian Digital Media Awards 08-10 Mar 2022 Virtual Digital Media Asia &
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STANDARDS These ARC Guidelines or Architectural Design Standards are intended as an overview of the design and construction process to be followed at Gran Paradiso. Other architectural requirements and restrictions on the use of your Lot are contained in the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for Gran Paradiso, recorded in the public records of Sarasota .
In addition, the answer key indicates the reading comprehension or vocabulary skill tested by each question . You may find this information useful when evaluating which questions students answered incorrectly and planning for the kinds of instructional help they may need . Scoring Responses The comprehension practice activities in this book include multiple-choice items and two kinds of .
