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Zaha Hadid Architects generated geometry through robotic-assisted design

“Thallus” by Zaha Hadid Architects in Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan,Italy

Thallus is a installation being part of the exhibition “White In The City” in Milan. The exhibition explored use of white color for art and architecture in the contemporary world. The structure is 3D printed using premium polylactide plastic. I think how the shape and pattern are generated is interesting. The pattern started with simple cylinders on surface and Six-axis robotic 3D-printing technology generated one continuous stroke connecting the each cylinder, which produced “calla lily”-like geometry on the surface. The design explores how the curve is guided along the surface and change its density and size through parametric boundaries.

What is interesting about ZHA’s Thallus was use algorithmic thinking to clarify the relationship between the design intent and design response. The geometry is clearly defined by certain rules within the boundary of parametric calculation also it successfully rendered its parametric relationship with the original cylinder shape and its final calla lily-like curve.

Link to Thallus

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For this topic I chose to look through Pinterest and picked this scaled 3D model of San Francisco.

I really am fascinated by this since it is quite literally a miniature model of San Francisco. It was made by members of Autodesk and Steelblue, by using, what I assume to be Autodesk’s Computer Aided Design (CAD) program (it is not clearly mentioned in the article). I particularly admire this since I have been exposed to CAD before, through my robotics team in high school. I was never quite proficient in it, but I managed to make and print some parts, though admittedly, the process of ensuring the right calculations and sizes and everything in CAD took me what seemed forever. That said, I cannot imagine how much time it would take to make a model of an entire city to scale. To make it to scale, the creators must have had to note somewhere all the sizes of actual buildings, roads, park, etc, and hen find the appropriate scaling measurements. Then they would actually have to CAD each individual building and part, which includes drawing and labeling several boxes and rectangles on CAD (as how I remember it). Then they would have to put it all together, to follow the shape of the actual city itself, and send it to the 3D printer. And although there isn’t an artistic value seen on the model, the art specific to the makers is in the hard work to make an accurate model through CAD and 3D printing.

Here is an article about the model:unveiling-the-largest-ever-3d-printed-model-of-san-francisco.html

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Video of Matthew Plummer-Fernandez’s Botcave workshop projects

#Good vs #Evil is a project made by Maxime Castelli for Matthew Plummer-Fernandez’s 2014 Botcave workshop. Using a modified racetrack game, this project advances cars along a track for each instance of #Good and #Evil that bots track on Twitter, with each car corresponding with the different hashtags. I find this project inspiring because not only is it an interesting physical representation of statistical data (I mean come one, racecars!), but it also updates in realtime, preventing it from staying a static representation. This method further emphasizes that the artwork is primarily focused in the algorithm itself as opposed to the product it creates because the product is potentially never completed! It can keep going on and on, culminating in a project more akin to a presentation than a product.

Image of the #Good vs #Evil racetrack

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Video of the GLASS II Installation Demonstration

GLASS II from Mediated Matter Group on Vimeo.

GLASS II is a 2017 3D printed glass installation demonstrated in Milan Design week and was made by The Mediated Matter Group. The installation is made out of a series of glass columns made from a computational framework that created each column’s unique form.

What I find incredibly cool about this project is how it pushes the boundaries of glass, a material used in everyday life. While the light aspect isn’t groundbreaking — light and glass has been used as art for a long time — the way they installed a moving light that creates kaleidoscopic images surrounds the columns makes for a further beautiful piece.

The algorithms used to generate these glass columns are, according to the group’s website, “a unique network of radial arrays made of arcs” and the forms are all “directly influenced by the constraints of the manufacturing platform and structural system.” This means that the higher the load on the column, the larger the column gets.

Click here further information on this project

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This chair is designed by a computer. (https://www.wired.com/2016/10/elbo-chair-autodesk-algorithm/)

Computing Optimal Form

If design is truly grounded in the sciences of human factors, then a singular optimal form is identifiable, achievable, and thus computable. The Elbo Chair is an algorithmically generated chair. “Arthur Harsuvanakit and Brittany Presten of Autodesk’s generative design lab created the chair, but they didn’t design it”.

Autodesk Project Dreamcatcher’s parametric algorithmic design. (https://autodeskresearch.com/projects/dreamcatcher)

According to the HFES (Human Factors and Ergonomics Society), many cognitive and physical anthropometric mathematical models already exist, and finding the right design solutions sometimes is a matter of solving an optimization equation. The Elbo chair is an example of an algorithmic optimization design process. By specifying an aesthetic seed “inspirational” from a Dutch chair CAD model, a weight bearing goal for humans, and the ergonomics that the chair must have arm clearances, the chair is thus algorithmically generated. The software keeps on iterating through the algorithm by shaving off dead weight, reducing joinery stress, and material usage. Without a human’s intervention, the design would have gotten bonnier and bonnier. The final result is a combination of algorithmic generation and human intuition. Ocassionally in the process of the software’s countless iteration, a human would pick a design which the software will once against propogate a new lineage of designs based off. “While the look and feel of the final object did not originate in the designer’s mind, it required the designer’s sign-off”. The final form is then CNC and assembled by hand.

The algorithm’s minimized joinery stress for human assembly after CNC fabrication.

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/elbo-chair-autodesk-algorithm/

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Woven Composites was a speculative research that was carried out from 2010 to 2012 by the design director Roland Snooks and the project team of Adrian Cortez, Michael Ferreyra, and Michael Murdock. The research consisted of experiments that provided insight into woven tectonics, which were generated through agentBody algorithms. Woven Composites is an ongoing research that attempts to study “the behavior of components or bodies which have architectural behavior encoded at a sub-agent level.” As the title of the research suggests, the works are composed of what seems to be a complex structure of interwoven elements. The creation of such intricate, plant-like structures that was possible through the process of computational digital fabrication is the most intriguing aspect of this research.

Roland Snooks’ website

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FreeSwim Prosthesis

The “FreeSwim” Prosthesis is a project by Stuart Baynes, an Industrial Design student at Victoria University in New Zealand. The idea behind the project is to utilize computational fabrication and 3-D printing technologies to help alleviate many of the difficulties amputees face in their day-to-day lives, which in this case would be swimming. The FreeSwim Prosthesis is specifically made to aim ‘trans-tibial’ amputees swim, it is a fin-like prosthetic that is attached to the leg, which in turn helps amputees propel themselves in the water and stay afloat, it also similarly helps them get in and out of the pool/water by themselves.

I find this project particularly interesting because it shows the full range of what computational fabrication, specifically 3-D printing, in this case, is capable of. There are so many possibilities out there to explore within the realm of computational fabrication, from architecture and designing furniture all the way to helping the physically disadvantaged.

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Underwood Pavilion / Muncie, Indiana / 2014

Construction Sequence

Pavilion and Human Scale

Underwood Pavilion

This project, created in 2014, located in Muncie, Indiana, is by professors Gernot Riether and Andrew Wit, working in a digital design build studio in Ball State State University in Indiana. The structure is composed of fifty-six three-strut tensegrity modules. By parametrically adjusting their dimensions, the designers were able to control both the curvature of the pavilion and the size and shape of several openings that frame views of the site. The structure is made of fifty-six three-strut tensegrity modules. The designers were able to control both the curvature of the pavilion and the size and shape of openings that frame views of the site by parametrically adjusting their dimensions (i think this is done through a 3d modelling program like Rhino and a parametric controller like Grasshopper). The tensile material wrapped over the rigid parametric structure, which makes it look more delicate and balanced as a space that considers the climate and users. It’s interesting to see how flexible this structure is, as it is made of modules, therefore it is easy to transport and change according to different sites or purposes; it is also capable of being moved and set up in other sites quickly, therefore creating destinations promptly.

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A project that caught my eye was Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer’s Arabesque Wall which is a 3D printed ten foot tall structure, that exhibits extreme detail and intricacy.

It took four days to sand print the separate parts of the structure, which were later assembled into the final form. The geometric, folding motifs were inspired by arabesques present in Islamic art and generated using iterative algorithms and custom software.

I’m inspired by this work because it incorporates styles that are traditionally achieved by human labor and makes them extraordinarily complicated, so much so, that a piece like this could take decades to finish. In the article, the artists discuss how architecture should “surprise, excite, and irritate.” I believe that they were successful in fulfilling those endeavors in this piece.

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Mohanned Iskanderani’s RAYGON

Created in 2016 by Mohanned Iskanderani, the RAYGON lamp is created solely from the parametric graphic algorithm editor, Grasshopper, so that as Iskanderani describes, “the computer is allowed to design as much as the designer is.”

What’s really astounding about this project is that while the script was created by hand, the actual form of the lamp was entirely computer-generated, and likely easily modifiable. With this, it allows further experimentation of customized intricate designs that would otherwise be difficult to manually create. Of course, Iskanderani still had a hand in creating the final lamp form, with his main goal being to create a lamp that projected a unique pattern to truly fill the space in which it resides. The final product is something that makes itself known not simply to make itself the focal point, but to enhance the room that surrounds it.

RAYGON is still under development, and not much information regarding it has been made available since its initial appearance, but is intended to be 3D printed in plastic and finished in some other material.

RAYGON earned an Honorable Mention in the 2016 VMODERN Furniture Design Competition. The project is also available to view on Behance.