Looking Outwards 03: Computational Fabrication

Today, I took a look at Project Aguahoja, a project done by the MIT media lab. The main focus of this project is waste reduction. Because so much of what we create ends up being waste, never to be used again, MIT media lab started a project where the grown and the made unite. They “aim to subvert the industrial, vicious cycle of material extraction and obsolescence through the creation of biopolymer composites that exhibit tunable mechanical and optical properties, and respond to their environments in ways that are impossible to achieve with their synthetic counterparts”. This is achieved through three parts, but I wanted to focus on the software and wetware designed by the Mediated Matter group. The Aguahoja Pavillion 1 can be programmed to degrade in water. This was especially inspiring to me because sustainability and technology can be mutually beneficial, and this project captures exactly that. The different structures that Aguahoja Pavillion 1 is made of are 3D printed from biomaterials and closely resemble natural structures. They didn’t disclose the programming used to create the structures, but I would have to guess that they used a series of equations to create a procedurally generated structure.

Project Aguahola