The research project that induced the Dermoid (Fig. 1) installation investigates the making of di... more The research project that induced the Dermoid (Fig. 1) installation investigates the making of digital tools by which architects and engineers can work intelligently with material performance. Working with wood as a material, we were especially interested how the bend and flex of wood, can become an active parameter in the digital design process. Traditional building structures facilitate load bearing through a correlation of compressive and tensile forces passing loads linearly through the building envelope. However, materials hold ...
Abstract The Responsive Acoustic Surfaces workshop project described here sought new understandin... more Abstract The Responsive Acoustic Surfaces workshop project described here sought new understandings about the interaction between geometry and sound in the arena of sound scattering. This paper reports on the challenges associated with modelling, simulating, fabricating and measuring this phenomenon using both physical and digital models at three distinct scales. The results suggest hyperboloid geometry, while difficult to fabricate, facilitates sound scattering.
This PhD thesis grounds itself upon two implicitly time-based assumptions:
1. Change is inevitabl... more This PhD thesis grounds itself upon two implicitly time-based assumptions: 1. Change is inevitable 2. Design is an iterative process Herbert Simon posits design as an engine of change. He states that design activity is the devising of ‘courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ [Simon, 1996, p.111]. Applied against a timeline, synthesised preferred situations become existing situations – the logical conclusion being that design and synthesis should be re-iterated in light of new preferred situations. This defines a circular relationship that could continue indefinitely. The design activity both hypothesises and defines possible ‘environments’, comprising further sources of change. According to the early twentieth century model of physics proposed by Willard Gibbs, these sources must be considered as both dynamic and contingent. Gibbs’ model lays the ground for modern physics. It is a dramatic shift from the long held, and applied, Newtonian position in which physics claimed to deal with certainty [Wiener, 1950, pp.13-21]. Dynamic uncertainty reinforces the argument for continual design evaluation and iteration.
This thesis is a speculation on, and exploration of, the inherent potentials and implications contained in the notion of a continuous circular design activity. The thesis constructs the arguments for, introduces, explores, and tests the conceptual framework of the Persistent Model in which design activity is not arrested in relation to the constructed artefact with which it is associated. Rather, it is allowed to persist, allowing a direct dialogue between representation and the represented. The implementation of this concept leads to artefacts and spaces that are qualitatively different, as Persistent Modelling provides a ground upon which particular time-based attributes can be exhibited – most notably, adaptation.
The implementation of this framework necessitates a re-examination of the process and concerns of architectural design.
The sub-text of the thesis is to remember that the activity of design is itself designed.
The relationship between representation and the represented is examined here through the notion o... more The relationship between representation and the represented is examined here through the notion of persistent modelling. This notion is not novel to the activity of architectural design if it is considered as describing a continued active and iterative engagement with design concerns – an evident characteristic of architectural practice.
But the persistence in persistent modelling can also be understood to apply in other ways, reflecting and anticipating extended roles for representation. This book identifies three principle areas in which these extensions are becoming apparent within contemporary practice: the duration of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented; the means, methods and media through which representations are constructed and used; and what it is that is being represented.
Featuring contributions from some of the world’s most advanced thinkers on this subject, this book makes essential reading for anyone considering new ways of thinking about architecture. In drawing upon both historical and contemporary perspectives this book provides evidence of the ways in which relations between representation and the represented continue to be reconsidered. It also provides critical insight into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together with an examination of the implications their use has within the territories of architectural design, realisation and experience.
A monograph by sixteen*(makers) that catalogues, discusses and reflects through five critical ess... more A monograph by sixteen*(makers) that catalogues, discusses and reflects through five critical essays upon the design, fabrication and construction of a folded steel shelter for Kielder forest, Northumberland, UK
CITA works documents over 40 projects, events and research collaborations conducted between 2005 ... more CITA works documents over 40 projects, events and research collaborations conducted between 2005 and 2014 by the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA). Through individual project descriptions accompanied by photographic documentation and design drawings, CITA works provides readers with insights into our design-led practice-based architectural research which queries how computation challenges the way we think, design and build architecture. With essays by Professor Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (Head of CITA), and Dr. Jane Burry (Head of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT) the work is contextualised within the field of digital architectural design practice. These essays also identify the emerging questions and maturing methods that continue to inform CITA’s research within this territory. CITA works marks the first 10 years of our research effort and acknowledges the institutions, practices, companies and individuals that have participated, contributed and collaborated with us along the way.
CITAstudio yearbook.
CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master'... more CITAstudio yearbook.
CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master's Programme at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. With a focus on digital design and material fabrication the programme questions how computation is changing our spatial, representational and material cultures. Through hands-on experimentation and production the programme emphasises learning-through-doing as a principle method for exploring computation as a means to pursue speculative design, experimental fabrication, material actuation and complex modelling.
Two sets of models and prototypes demonstrating the material, spatial and structural development ... more Two sets of models and prototypes demonstrating the material, spatial and structural development of the persistent model projects. These exhibits were part of a larger collection of models exhibited by CITA within the group show.
Tensegrity structures and Inflatable membranes can be considered analogous.
They can both be des... more Tensegrity structures and Inflatable membranes can be considered analogous.
They can both be described as pressure based systems in which a coherent envelope is tensioned through compressive force in order to achieve a state of self-equilibrium. Persistent Model #2 is a full-scale speculative prototype that employs two classes of inflatable component – one ‘hard’, irreversible and pre-inflated (metal); one ‘soft’, reversible and continually pressurized (laminate foil). The principles of tensegrity are evident at two distinct scales.
Persistent Model #2 adopts the topology of Kenneth Snelson’s Planar Weave tensegrity (which met an untimely end after a gust of New York wind blew it off the parapet of his York Avenue studio during a photographic session in 1960). Particular characteristics of Planar Weave are reconsidered with an architectural sensibility that searches to establish synergies between structural logic, component demands and material dynamics, as well as addressing issues of skin and local specificity through the fabrication of variety.
Persistent Model #2 builds upon an existing body of research knowledge developed at CITA in free-form metal inflation, the notion of Persistent Modelling and a sustained critical investigation of the roles digital tools can play in extending the ways in which we think, design, realise and experience architecture.
This project investigates the role of under-specified models to support adaptive strategies in ar... more This project investigates the role of under-specified models to support adaptive strategies in architectural design. This may at first seem counter-intuitive as the activity of design is generally regarded as aiming towards greater degrees of specificity, especially when focusing upon issues of realisation. However, under-specified models find real traction as a means for dealing with situations in which there is incomplete information, continual change, unpredictability, uncertainty and the need to manage multiple criteria that are often conflicting – conditions which are endemic to both architectural design and use. Computational approaches provide a basis for establishing these models, allowing them to continually re-calculate, adapt and exhibit different states in the face of a design context undergoing continual change. A pneumatically activated tensile skin provides a limited material analogue to the computational space of representation. It has the ability to change state, expressed through active shading in relation to specific geographical location, time of year and changing interior demand. The project draws a critical distinction between the need for high degrees of specificity at the level of material assignment and organisation, and the need to remain under-specified in terms of response to its context. Through the use of under-specified models the system is able to remain provisional over extended time whilst finding specificity ‘in-action’ at any point in time. The system, which should be understood as a material and computational hybrid, is continually adapting and negotiating the interface between internal demand and exterior environment. It manifests a restless specificity.
Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of e... more Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of extending natural life by creating hybrids or mixed societies that are built from natural and artificial components. In this paper we motivate and present the research program of the project flora robotica. Our objective is to develop and to investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce architectural artifacts and living spaces. These robot-plant bio-hybrids create synergies that allow for new functions of plants and robots. They also create novel design opportunities for an architecture that fuses the design and construction phase. The bio-hybrid is an example of mixed societies between ‘hard artificial and ‘wet natural life, which enables an interaction between natural and artificial ecologies. They form an embodied, self-organizing, and distributed cognitive system which is supposed to grow and develop over long periods of time resulting in the creation of meaningful architectural structures. A key idea is to assign equal roles to robots and plants in order to create a highly integrated, symbiotic system. Besides the gain of knowledge, this project has the objective to create a bio-hybrid system with a defined function and application – growing architectural artifacts.
Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented proj... more Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented projects employ the ability to model force and flow to parameterize and calculate material properties. According to Beylerian and Ritter material performance is today regarded as one of the richest sources of innovation. By understanding materials not as static or inanimate, but as engaged by complex behaviours and performances, a new dimension of design potentials can be unleashed.
The notion of a new digital-material practice, in which the design and detailing of materials are directly linked to the design and detailing of buildings, provides the framework for an emerging field of architectural research. Aiming to innovate structural thinking and create better and more sustainable material usage, these new material practices rely on the ability to compute complex inter-scalar dependencies and link these directly to digital fabrication. However appropriate methods and techniques are just surfacing and need further development as they remain sequential in nature and lack an understanding of the inter-scalar relationship within material organization.
The research project that induced the Dermoid installation investigates the making of digital too... more The research project that induced the Dermoid installation investigates the making of digital tools by which architects and engineers can work intelligently with material performance. Working with wood as a material, we were especially interested in how the bend and flex of wood can become an active parameter in the digital design process.
The research project that induced the Dermoid (Fig. 1) installation investigates the making of di... more The research project that induced the Dermoid (Fig. 1) installation investigates the making of digital tools by which architects and engineers can work intelligently with material performance. Working with wood as a material, we were especially interested how the bend and flex of wood, can become an active parameter in the digital design process. Traditional building structures facilitate load bearing through a correlation of compressive and tensile forces passing loads linearly through the building envelope. However, materials hold ...
Abstract The Responsive Acoustic Surfaces workshop project described here sought new understandin... more Abstract The Responsive Acoustic Surfaces workshop project described here sought new understandings about the interaction between geometry and sound in the arena of sound scattering. This paper reports on the challenges associated with modelling, simulating, fabricating and measuring this phenomenon using both physical and digital models at three distinct scales. The results suggest hyperboloid geometry, while difficult to fabricate, facilitates sound scattering.
This PhD thesis grounds itself upon two implicitly time-based assumptions:
1. Change is inevitabl... more This PhD thesis grounds itself upon two implicitly time-based assumptions: 1. Change is inevitable 2. Design is an iterative process Herbert Simon posits design as an engine of change. He states that design activity is the devising of ‘courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ [Simon, 1996, p.111]. Applied against a timeline, synthesised preferred situations become existing situations – the logical conclusion being that design and synthesis should be re-iterated in light of new preferred situations. This defines a circular relationship that could continue indefinitely. The design activity both hypothesises and defines possible ‘environments’, comprising further sources of change. According to the early twentieth century model of physics proposed by Willard Gibbs, these sources must be considered as both dynamic and contingent. Gibbs’ model lays the ground for modern physics. It is a dramatic shift from the long held, and applied, Newtonian position in which physics claimed to deal with certainty [Wiener, 1950, pp.13-21]. Dynamic uncertainty reinforces the argument for continual design evaluation and iteration.
This thesis is a speculation on, and exploration of, the inherent potentials and implications contained in the notion of a continuous circular design activity. The thesis constructs the arguments for, introduces, explores, and tests the conceptual framework of the Persistent Model in which design activity is not arrested in relation to the constructed artefact with which it is associated. Rather, it is allowed to persist, allowing a direct dialogue between representation and the represented. The implementation of this concept leads to artefacts and spaces that are qualitatively different, as Persistent Modelling provides a ground upon which particular time-based attributes can be exhibited – most notably, adaptation.
The implementation of this framework necessitates a re-examination of the process and concerns of architectural design.
The sub-text of the thesis is to remember that the activity of design is itself designed.
The relationship between representation and the represented is examined here through the notion o... more The relationship between representation and the represented is examined here through the notion of persistent modelling. This notion is not novel to the activity of architectural design if it is considered as describing a continued active and iterative engagement with design concerns – an evident characteristic of architectural practice.
But the persistence in persistent modelling can also be understood to apply in other ways, reflecting and anticipating extended roles for representation. This book identifies three principle areas in which these extensions are becoming apparent within contemporary practice: the duration of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented; the means, methods and media through which representations are constructed and used; and what it is that is being represented.
Featuring contributions from some of the world’s most advanced thinkers on this subject, this book makes essential reading for anyone considering new ways of thinking about architecture. In drawing upon both historical and contemporary perspectives this book provides evidence of the ways in which relations between representation and the represented continue to be reconsidered. It also provides critical insight into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together with an examination of the implications their use has within the territories of architectural design, realisation and experience.
A monograph by sixteen*(makers) that catalogues, discusses and reflects through five critical ess... more A monograph by sixteen*(makers) that catalogues, discusses and reflects through five critical essays upon the design, fabrication and construction of a folded steel shelter for Kielder forest, Northumberland, UK
CITA works documents over 40 projects, events and research collaborations conducted between 2005 ... more CITA works documents over 40 projects, events and research collaborations conducted between 2005 and 2014 by the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA). Through individual project descriptions accompanied by photographic documentation and design drawings, CITA works provides readers with insights into our design-led practice-based architectural research which queries how computation challenges the way we think, design and build architecture. With essays by Professor Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (Head of CITA), and Dr. Jane Burry (Head of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT) the work is contextualised within the field of digital architectural design practice. These essays also identify the emerging questions and maturing methods that continue to inform CITA’s research within this territory. CITA works marks the first 10 years of our research effort and acknowledges the institutions, practices, companies and individuals that have participated, contributed and collaborated with us along the way.
CITAstudio yearbook.
CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master'... more CITAstudio yearbook.
CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master's Programme at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. With a focus on digital design and material fabrication the programme questions how computation is changing our spatial, representational and material cultures. Through hands-on experimentation and production the programme emphasises learning-through-doing as a principle method for exploring computation as a means to pursue speculative design, experimental fabrication, material actuation and complex modelling.
Two sets of models and prototypes demonstrating the material, spatial and structural development ... more Two sets of models and prototypes demonstrating the material, spatial and structural development of the persistent model projects. These exhibits were part of a larger collection of models exhibited by CITA within the group show.
Tensegrity structures and Inflatable membranes can be considered analogous.
They can both be des... more Tensegrity structures and Inflatable membranes can be considered analogous.
They can both be described as pressure based systems in which a coherent envelope is tensioned through compressive force in order to achieve a state of self-equilibrium. Persistent Model #2 is a full-scale speculative prototype that employs two classes of inflatable component – one ‘hard’, irreversible and pre-inflated (metal); one ‘soft’, reversible and continually pressurized (laminate foil). The principles of tensegrity are evident at two distinct scales.
Persistent Model #2 adopts the topology of Kenneth Snelson’s Planar Weave tensegrity (which met an untimely end after a gust of New York wind blew it off the parapet of his York Avenue studio during a photographic session in 1960). Particular characteristics of Planar Weave are reconsidered with an architectural sensibility that searches to establish synergies between structural logic, component demands and material dynamics, as well as addressing issues of skin and local specificity through the fabrication of variety.
Persistent Model #2 builds upon an existing body of research knowledge developed at CITA in free-form metal inflation, the notion of Persistent Modelling and a sustained critical investigation of the roles digital tools can play in extending the ways in which we think, design, realise and experience architecture.
This project investigates the role of under-specified models to support adaptive strategies in ar... more This project investigates the role of under-specified models to support adaptive strategies in architectural design. This may at first seem counter-intuitive as the activity of design is generally regarded as aiming towards greater degrees of specificity, especially when focusing upon issues of realisation. However, under-specified models find real traction as a means for dealing with situations in which there is incomplete information, continual change, unpredictability, uncertainty and the need to manage multiple criteria that are often conflicting – conditions which are endemic to both architectural design and use. Computational approaches provide a basis for establishing these models, allowing them to continually re-calculate, adapt and exhibit different states in the face of a design context undergoing continual change. A pneumatically activated tensile skin provides a limited material analogue to the computational space of representation. It has the ability to change state, expressed through active shading in relation to specific geographical location, time of year and changing interior demand. The project draws a critical distinction between the need for high degrees of specificity at the level of material assignment and organisation, and the need to remain under-specified in terms of response to its context. Through the use of under-specified models the system is able to remain provisional over extended time whilst finding specificity ‘in-action’ at any point in time. The system, which should be understood as a material and computational hybrid, is continually adapting and negotiating the interface between internal demand and exterior environment. It manifests a restless specificity.
Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of e... more Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of extending natural life by creating hybrids or mixed societies that are built from natural and artificial components. In this paper we motivate and present the research program of the project flora robotica. Our objective is to develop and to investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce architectural artifacts and living spaces. These robot-plant bio-hybrids create synergies that allow for new functions of plants and robots. They also create novel design opportunities for an architecture that fuses the design and construction phase. The bio-hybrid is an example of mixed societies between ‘hard artificial and ‘wet natural life, which enables an interaction between natural and artificial ecologies. They form an embodied, self-organizing, and distributed cognitive system which is supposed to grow and develop over long periods of time resulting in the creation of meaningful architectural structures. A key idea is to assign equal roles to robots and plants in order to create a highly integrated, symbiotic system. Besides the gain of knowledge, this project has the objective to create a bio-hybrid system with a defined function and application – growing architectural artifacts.
Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented proj... more Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented projects employ the ability to model force and flow to parameterize and calculate material properties. According to Beylerian and Ritter material performance is today regarded as one of the richest sources of innovation. By understanding materials not as static or inanimate, but as engaged by complex behaviours and performances, a new dimension of design potentials can be unleashed.
The notion of a new digital-material practice, in which the design and detailing of materials are directly linked to the design and detailing of buildings, provides the framework for an emerging field of architectural research. Aiming to innovate structural thinking and create better and more sustainable material usage, these new material practices rely on the ability to compute complex inter-scalar dependencies and link these directly to digital fabrication. However appropriate methods and techniques are just surfacing and need further development as they remain sequential in nature and lack an understanding of the inter-scalar relationship within material organization.
The research project that induced the Dermoid installation investigates the making of digital too... more The research project that induced the Dermoid installation investigates the making of digital tools by which architects and engineers can work intelligently with material performance. Working with wood as a material, we were especially interested in how the bend and flex of wood can become an active parameter in the digital design process.
This article reports upon recent and initial explorations by the author in the hydroforming of st... more This article reports upon recent and initial explorations by the author in the hydroforming of steel. The material processes involved and the resulting artefacts are reflected upon, providing a ground from which to speculate about implications for architecture as both artefact and practice. The particular hydroforming procedure employed bears close similarity to that under investigation within the chair for CAAD at ETH. This article therefore also seeks to identify how the work presented differentiates itself from that being conducted in Zürich.
The simplicity in execution of the forming method belies a complex matrix of interactions occurring within, and between, scales of material organisation. Within certain limits, these interactions dramatically and irreversibly transform material and component attributes towards increased performance potentials and formal complexity. These transforms are steerable but not exclusively dependant upon profile geometry. The definition of geometry leading to physical outcome is familiar design territory.
The forming method can be arrested and resumed arbitrarily. The notion of an extended forming process presents interesting implications to the linear relationship that tends to bind the commonly distinguished phases of design, fabrication/construction and occupancy/use. It suggests a potential for active response in relation to demand. This, in turn, presents challenges to a design practice that is reliant upon methods of representation that tend towards the ideal, predictive and pre‐determined. This is less familiar design territory.
This work begins to define both a material language for, and a non‐deterministic design paradigm of, steered proclivity. A conceptual framework for this paradigm is sketched out and presented in the form of the Persistent Model.
The ensuing examination commences with an anecdote.
One of five critical essays discussing and reflecting upon the design, fabrication and constructi... more One of five critical essays discussing and reflecting upon the design, fabrication and construction of a folded steel structure for Kielder forest, Northumberland, UK
The Makings of an Architectural Model, Sep 25, 2012
This essay discusses models. It examines what models are, the roles models perform and suggests v... more This essay discusses models. It examines what models are, the roles models perform and suggests various intentions that underlie their construction and use. It discusses how models act as a conversational partner, and how they support various forms of conversation within the conversational activity of design.
Three distinctions are drawn through which to develop this discussion of models in an architectural context. An examination of these distinctions serves to nuance particular characteristics and roles of models, the modelling activity itself and those engaged in it.
This introduction to 'Persistent Modelling – an extended role for architectural representation' i... more This introduction to 'Persistent Modelling – an extended role for architectural representation' identifies how the book probes the relationship between representation and the represented, in an architectural context. It discusses how the book presents an examination and discussion of historical, familiar contemporary and, perhaps, not so familiar emerging manifestations of this relation. What persists from this probing, fully intact, is that representation and the represented remain inextricably related in our contemporary and emerging practices. What comes into focus is that the nature of this relationship is becoming increasingly variegated. This is apparent in three principle areas; the duration of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented; the means, methods and media through which representations are constructed and used; what it is that is being represented.
Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented proj... more Investigating ways of integrating material performance as a design parameter, four presented projects employ the ability to model force and flow to parameterize and calculate material properties. According to Beylerian and Ritter material performance is today regarded as one of the richest sources of innovation. By understanding materials not as static or inanimate, but as engaged by complex behaviours and performances, a new dimension of design potentials can be unleashed.
The notion of a new digital-material practice, in which the design and detailing of materials are directly linked to the design and detailing of buildings, provides the framework for an emerging field of architectural research. Aiming to innovate structural thinking and create better and more sustainable material usage, these new material practices rely on the ability to compute complex inter-scalar dependencies and link these directly to digital fabrication. However appropriate methods and techniques are just surfacing and need further development as they remain sequential in nature and lack an understanding of the inter-scalar relationship within material organization.
Fabricate: Negotiating Design and Making, Feb 2014
Concerns with sustainability are providing an increasingly powerful impetus towards the investiga... more Concerns with sustainability are providing an increasingly powerful impetus towards the investigation of dynamic and adaptive architectures. This presents an increased overlap with the discipline of Robotics making collaboration between the two fields interesting and potentially fruitful. This paper presents cross-disciplinary work-in-progress that is investigating how standard materials might be organised and processed in novel ways to promote active physical transform of architectural structures and to assess the impact that multi-scalar shape change might have upon environmental performance. This work builds upon prior research investigating tensegrities and other pneumatics including free-form inflated metal.
Architecture and Movement: Understanding the User Experience, 2015
This contribution concerns itself with the design and realisation of architectures that operate w... more This contribution concerns itself with the design and realisation of architectures that operate with material dynamics. It presents this concern as a counter to the consideration of movement in architecture as something conceptualised from the position of the observer. The contribution draws upon research from the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) which has recently focused upon the investigation of materially active systems ranging from textile logics at architectural scale to bending active structures in both natural and synthetic fibre-based composites. These investigations have necessitated the development of synergetic relations between new conceptualisations, new methods of designing, new representational tools, and new material systems. This essay examines these issues through two inter-related research projects developed at CITA as part of a broader inquiry at the intersection between architecture (considered as both practice and spatial construct) and digital technologies.
Complexity & Simplicity: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe, 2016
Architecture that is responsive, adaptive, or interactive can contain active architectural elemen... more Architecture that is responsive, adaptive, or interactive can contain active architectural elements or robotic sensor-actuator systems. The consideration of architectural robotic elements that utilize distributed control and distributed communication allows for self-organization, emergence, and evolution on site in real-time. The potential complexity of behaviors in such architectural robotic systems requires design methodology able to encompass a range of possible outcomes, rather than a single solution. We present an approach of adopting an aspect of complexity science and applying it to the realm of computational design in architecture, specifically by considering the phase space and related concepts. We consider the scale and predictability of certain design characteristics, and originate the concept of a formation space extension to the phase space, for design to deal directly with materializations left by robot swarms or elements, rather than robots' internal states. We detail a case study examination of design methodology using the formation space concept for assessment and decision-making in the design of active architectural artifacts.
Proceedings of 1st International Workshop on Self-Organising Construction (SOCO), 2016
Self-organized construction with continuous, structured
building material, as opposed to modular ... more Self-organized construction with continuous, structured building material, as opposed to modular units, offers new challenges to the robot-based construction process and lends the opportunity for increased flexibility in constructed artifact properties, such as shape and deformation. As an example investigation, we look at continuous filaments organized into braided structures, within the context of bio-hybrids constructing architectural artifacts. We report the result of an early swarm robot experiment. The robots successfully constructed a braid in a self-organized process. The construction process can be extended by using different materials and by embedding sensors during the self-organized construction directly into the braided structure. In future work, we plan to apply dedicated braiding robot hardware and to construct sophisticated 3-d structures with local variability in patterns of filament interlacing.
This paper presents results from a wider study into pro viding displacement ventilation in urban ... more This paper presents results from a wider study into pro viding displacement ventilation in urban areas by taking air into buildings from the top without the use of fans. Results from large scale experimental work are given. These results indicate that ventilation airflows can be induced using gravity chillers and heaters in conditions where this type of installation would otherwise fail. The paper also describes initial experiments undertaken to see how far the same equipment can be used for heat recovery. One test installation was modelled using a pro prietary zonal model. A further zonal model was created to compare an assisted gravity system with a partially fan-driven system. This system failed on numerous occa sions during a hot summer. However, fans are shown to be advantageous in winter heat recovery. A hybrid sys tem is suggested for use under UK conditions.
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Papers by phil ayres
1. Change is inevitable
2. Design is an iterative process
Herbert Simon posits design as an engine of change. He states
that design activity is the devising of ‘courses of action aimed at
changing existing situations into preferred ones’ [Simon, 1996, p.111].
Applied against a timeline, synthesised preferred situations become existing situations – the logical conclusion being that design and synthesis should be re-iterated in light of new preferred situations. This defines a circular relationship that could continue indefinitely.
The design activity both hypothesises and defines possible
‘environments’, comprising further sources of change. According to the early twentieth century model of physics proposed by Willard Gibbs, these sources must be considered as both dynamic and contingent.
Gibbs’ model lays the ground for modern physics. It is a dramatic shift from the long held, and applied, Newtonian position in which physics claimed to deal with certainty [Wiener, 1950, pp.13-21].
Dynamic uncertainty reinforces the argument for continual design evaluation and iteration.
This thesis is a speculation on, and exploration of, the inherent
potentials and implications contained in the notion of a continuous circular design activity. The thesis constructs the arguments for, introduces, explores, and tests the conceptual framework of the Persistent Model in which design activity is not arrested in relation to the constructed artefact with which it is associated. Rather, it is allowed to persist, allowing a direct
dialogue between representation and the represented.
The implementation of this concept leads to artefacts and spaces that are qualitatively different, as Persistent Modelling provides a ground upon which particular time-based attributes can be exhibited – most notably, adaptation.
The implementation of this framework necessitates a re-examination of the process and concerns of architectural design.
The sub-text of the thesis is to remember that the activity of
design is itself designed.
books by phil ayres
But the persistence in persistent modelling can also be understood to apply in other ways, reflecting and anticipating extended roles for representation. This book identifies three principle areas in which these extensions are becoming apparent within contemporary practice: the duration of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented; the means, methods and media through which representations are constructed and used; and what it is that is being represented.
Featuring contributions from some of the world’s most advanced thinkers on this subject, this book makes essential reading for anyone considering new ways of thinking about architecture.
In drawing upon both historical and contemporary perspectives this book provides
evidence of the ways in which relations between representation and the represented continue to be reconsidered. It also provides critical insight into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together with an examination of the implications their use has within the territories of architectural design, realisation and experience.
Through individual project descriptions accompanied by photographic documentation and design drawings, CITA works provides readers with insights into our design-led practice-based architectural research which queries how computation challenges the way we think, design and build architecture.
With essays by Professor Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (Head of CITA), and Dr. Jane Burry (Head of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT) the work is contextualised within the field of digital architectural design practice. These essays also identify the emerging questions and maturing methods that continue to inform CITA’s research within this territory.
CITA works marks the first 10 years of our research effort and acknowledges the institutions, practices, companies and individuals that have participated, contributed and collaborated with us along the way.
CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master's Programme at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. With a focus on digital design and material fabrication the programme questions how computation is changing our spatial, representational and material cultures. Through hands-on experimentation and production the programme emphasises learning-through-doing as a principle method for exploring computation as a means to pursue speculative design, experimental fabrication, material actuation and complex modelling.
miscs by phil ayres
They can both be described as pressure based systems in which a coherent envelope is tensioned through compressive force in order to achieve a state of self-equilibrium. Persistent Model #2 is a full-scale speculative prototype that employs two classes of inflatable component – one ‘hard’, irreversible and pre-inflated (metal); one ‘soft’, reversible and continually pressurized (laminate foil). The principles of tensegrity are evident at two distinct scales.
Persistent Model #2 adopts the topology of Kenneth Snelson’s Planar Weave tensegrity (which met an untimely end after a gust of New York wind blew it off the parapet of his York Avenue studio during a photographic session in 1960). Particular characteristics of Planar Weave are reconsidered with an architectural sensibility that searches to establish synergies between structural logic, component demands and material dynamics, as well as addressing issues of skin
and local specificity through the fabrication of variety.
Persistent Model #2 builds upon an existing body of research knowledge developed at CITA in free-form metal inflation, the notion of Persistent Modelling and a sustained critical investigation of the roles digital tools can play in extending the ways in which we think, design, realise and experience architecture.
However, under-specified models find real traction as a means for dealing with situations in which there is incomplete information, continual change, unpredictability, uncertainty and the need to manage multiple criteria that are often conflicting – conditions which are endemic to both architectural design and use.
Computational approaches provide a basis for establishing these models, allowing them to continually re-calculate, adapt and exhibit different states in the face of a design context undergoing continual change.
A pneumatically activated tensile skin provides a limited material analogue to the computational space of representation. It has the ability to change state, expressed through active shading in relation to specific geographical location, time of year and changing interior demand.
The project draws a critical distinction between the need for high degrees of specificity at the level of material assignment and organisation, and the need to remain under-specified in terms of response to its context. Through the use of under-specified models the system is able to remain provisional over extended time whilst finding specificity ‘in-action’ at any point in time. The system, which should be understood as a material and computational hybrid, is continually adapting and negotiating the interface between internal demand and exterior environment. It manifests a restless specificity.
natural and artificial components. In this paper we motivate and present the research program of the project flora robotica. Our objective is to develop and to investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce architectural artifacts and living spaces. These robot-plant bio-hybrids create synergies that allow for new functions of plants and robots.
They also create novel design opportunities for an architecture that fuses the design and construction phase. The bio-hybrid
is an example of mixed societies between ‘hard artificial and ‘wet natural life, which enables an interaction between natural and artificial ecologies. They form an embodied, self-organizing, and distributed cognitive system which is supposed to grow and develop over long periods of time resulting in the creation of meaningful architectural structures. A key idea is to assign equal roles to robots and plants in order to create a highly integrated, symbiotic system. Besides the gain of knowledge, this project has the objective to create a bio-hybrid system with a defined function and application – growing architectural artifacts.
inbooks by phil ayres
The notion of a new digital-material practice, in which the design and detailing of materials are directly linked to the design and detailing of buildings, provides the framework for an emerging field of architectural research. Aiming to innovate structural thinking and create better and more sustainable material usage, these new material practices rely on the ability to compute complex inter-scalar dependencies and link these directly to digital fabrication. However appropriate methods and techniques are just surfacing and need further development as they remain sequential in nature and lack an understanding of the inter-scalar relationship within material organization.
1. Change is inevitable
2. Design is an iterative process
Herbert Simon posits design as an engine of change. He states
that design activity is the devising of ‘courses of action aimed at
changing existing situations into preferred ones’ [Simon, 1996, p.111].
Applied against a timeline, synthesised preferred situations become existing situations – the logical conclusion being that design and synthesis should be re-iterated in light of new preferred situations. This defines a circular relationship that could continue indefinitely.
The design activity both hypothesises and defines possible
‘environments’, comprising further sources of change. According to the early twentieth century model of physics proposed by Willard Gibbs, these sources must be considered as both dynamic and contingent.
Gibbs’ model lays the ground for modern physics. It is a dramatic shift from the long held, and applied, Newtonian position in which physics claimed to deal with certainty [Wiener, 1950, pp.13-21].
Dynamic uncertainty reinforces the argument for continual design evaluation and iteration.
This thesis is a speculation on, and exploration of, the inherent
potentials and implications contained in the notion of a continuous circular design activity. The thesis constructs the arguments for, introduces, explores, and tests the conceptual framework of the Persistent Model in which design activity is not arrested in relation to the constructed artefact with which it is associated. Rather, it is allowed to persist, allowing a direct
dialogue between representation and the represented.
The implementation of this concept leads to artefacts and spaces that are qualitatively different, as Persistent Modelling provides a ground upon which particular time-based attributes can be exhibited – most notably, adaptation.
The implementation of this framework necessitates a re-examination of the process and concerns of architectural design.
The sub-text of the thesis is to remember that the activity of
design is itself designed.
But the persistence in persistent modelling can also be understood to apply in other ways, reflecting and anticipating extended roles for representation. This book identifies three principle areas in which these extensions are becoming apparent within contemporary practice: the duration of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented; the means, methods and media through which representations are constructed and used; and what it is that is being represented.
Featuring contributions from some of the world’s most advanced thinkers on this subject, this book makes essential reading for anyone considering new ways of thinking about architecture.
In drawing upon both historical and contemporary perspectives this book provides
evidence of the ways in which relations between representation and the represented continue to be reconsidered. It also provides critical insight into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together with an examination of the implications their use has within the territories of architectural design, realisation and experience.
Through individual project descriptions accompanied by photographic documentation and design drawings, CITA works provides readers with insights into our design-led practice-based architectural research which queries how computation challenges the way we think, design and build architecture.
With essays by Professor Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (Head of CITA), and Dr. Jane Burry (Head of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT) the work is contextualised within the field of digital architectural design practice. These essays also identify the emerging questions and maturing methods that continue to inform CITA’s research within this territory.
CITA works marks the first 10 years of our research effort and acknowledges the institutions, practices, companies and individuals that have participated, contributed and collaborated with us along the way.
CITAstudio: Computation in Architecture is a two year International Master's Programme at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. With a focus on digital design and material fabrication the programme questions how computation is changing our spatial, representational and material cultures. Through hands-on experimentation and production the programme emphasises learning-through-doing as a principle method for exploring computation as a means to pursue speculative design, experimental fabrication, material actuation and complex modelling.
They can both be described as pressure based systems in which a coherent envelope is tensioned through compressive force in order to achieve a state of self-equilibrium. Persistent Model #2 is a full-scale speculative prototype that employs two classes of inflatable component – one ‘hard’, irreversible and pre-inflated (metal); one ‘soft’, reversible and continually pressurized (laminate foil). The principles of tensegrity are evident at two distinct scales.
Persistent Model #2 adopts the topology of Kenneth Snelson’s Planar Weave tensegrity (which met an untimely end after a gust of New York wind blew it off the parapet of his York Avenue studio during a photographic session in 1960). Particular characteristics of Planar Weave are reconsidered with an architectural sensibility that searches to establish synergies between structural logic, component demands and material dynamics, as well as addressing issues of skin
and local specificity through the fabrication of variety.
Persistent Model #2 builds upon an existing body of research knowledge developed at CITA in free-form metal inflation, the notion of Persistent Modelling and a sustained critical investigation of the roles digital tools can play in extending the ways in which we think, design, realise and experience architecture.
However, under-specified models find real traction as a means for dealing with situations in which there is incomplete information, continual change, unpredictability, uncertainty and the need to manage multiple criteria that are often conflicting – conditions which are endemic to both architectural design and use.
Computational approaches provide a basis for establishing these models, allowing them to continually re-calculate, adapt and exhibit different states in the face of a design context undergoing continual change.
A pneumatically activated tensile skin provides a limited material analogue to the computational space of representation. It has the ability to change state, expressed through active shading in relation to specific geographical location, time of year and changing interior demand.
The project draws a critical distinction between the need for high degrees of specificity at the level of material assignment and organisation, and the need to remain under-specified in terms of response to its context. Through the use of under-specified models the system is able to remain provisional over extended time whilst finding specificity ‘in-action’ at any point in time. The system, which should be understood as a material and computational hybrid, is continually adapting and negotiating the interface between internal demand and exterior environment. It manifests a restless specificity.
natural and artificial components. In this paper we motivate and present the research program of the project flora robotica. Our objective is to develop and to investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce architectural artifacts and living spaces. These robot-plant bio-hybrids create synergies that allow for new functions of plants and robots.
They also create novel design opportunities for an architecture that fuses the design and construction phase. The bio-hybrid
is an example of mixed societies between ‘hard artificial and ‘wet natural life, which enables an interaction between natural and artificial ecologies. They form an embodied, self-organizing, and distributed cognitive system which is supposed to grow and develop over long periods of time resulting in the creation of meaningful architectural structures. A key idea is to assign equal roles to robots and plants in order to create a highly integrated, symbiotic system. Besides the gain of knowledge, this project has the objective to create a bio-hybrid system with a defined function and application – growing architectural artifacts.
The notion of a new digital-material practice, in which the design and detailing of materials are directly linked to the design and detailing of buildings, provides the framework for an emerging field of architectural research. Aiming to innovate structural thinking and create better and more sustainable material usage, these new material practices rely on the ability to compute complex inter-scalar dependencies and link these directly to digital fabrication. However appropriate methods and techniques are just surfacing and need further development as they remain sequential in nature and lack an understanding of the inter-scalar relationship within material organization.
The simplicity in execution of the forming method belies a complex matrix of interactions occurring within, and between, scales of material organisation. Within certain limits, these interactions dramatically and irreversibly transform material and component attributes towards increased performance potentials and formal complexity. These transforms are steerable but not exclusively dependant upon profile geometry. The definition of geometry leading to physical outcome is familiar design territory.
The forming method can be arrested and resumed arbitrarily. The notion of an extended forming process presents interesting implications to the linear relationship that tends to bind the commonly distinguished phases of design, fabrication/construction and occupancy/use. It suggests a potential for active response in relation to demand. This, in turn, presents challenges to a design practice that is reliant upon methods of representation that tend towards the ideal, predictive and pre‐determined. This is less familiar design territory.
This work begins to define both a material language for, and a non‐deterministic design paradigm of, steered proclivity. A conceptual framework for this paradigm is sketched out and presented in the form of the Persistent Model.
The ensuing examination commences with an anecdote.
It discusses how models act as a conversational partner, and how they support various forms of conversation within the conversational activity of design.
Three distinctions are drawn through which to develop this discussion of models in an architectural context. An examination of these distinctions serves to nuance particular characteristics and roles of models, the modelling activity itself and those engaged in it.
The notion of a new digital-material practice, in which the design and detailing of materials are directly linked to the design and detailing of buildings, provides the framework for an emerging field of architectural research. Aiming to innovate structural thinking and create better and more sustainable material usage, these new material practices rely on the ability to compute complex inter-scalar dependencies and link these directly to digital fabrication. However appropriate methods and techniques are just surfacing and need further development as they remain sequential in nature and lack an understanding of the inter-scalar relationship within material organization.
This paper presents cross-disciplinary work-in-progress that is investigating how standard materials might be organised and processed in novel ways to promote active physical transform of architectural structures and to assess the impact that multi-scalar shape change might have upon environmental performance.
This work builds upon prior research investigating tensegrities and other pneumatics including free-form inflated metal.
building material, as opposed to modular units, offers
new challenges to the robot-based construction process and
lends the opportunity for increased flexibility in constructed
artifact properties, such as shape and deformation. As an
example investigation, we look at continuous filaments organized
into braided structures, within the context of bio-hybrids
constructing architectural artifacts. We report the result of
an early swarm robot experiment. The robots successfully
constructed a braid in a self-organized process. The construction
process can be extended by using different materials and
by embedding sensors during the self-organized construction
directly into the braided structure. In future work, we plan
to apply dedicated braiding robot hardware and to construct
sophisticated 3-d structures with local variability in patterns
of filament interlacing.