Lee-Su Huang
Lee-Su Huang received his Bachelor of Architecture from Feng-Chia University in Taiwan and his Master in Architecture degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He has practiced in Taiwan with various firms and in the United States with Preston Scott Cohen Inc. in Cambridge, and with LASSA Architects in Seoul, Korea. As co-founder and principal of SHO, his research and practice centers on digital design fabrication methodology, parametric design optimization strategies, kinetic/interactive architectural prototypes, and robotics. Lee-Su is currently an Associate Professor in Architecture at Lawrence Technological University College of Architecture+Design , teaching design studios and digital media / parametric modeling courses.
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Students learn by modeling elements in the sequence dictated by the program logic. Grids, Levels, Columns, Beams, Walls, Floors, Stairs, etc… follow the logic and dependencies dictated by the software developer overlords and the nomenclature represents very specific things in the context of the software.
Parameters and attributes embedded within the model geometry can confuse students to no end. However, as some are taught to swim or bike, sometimes you just gotta jump off the deep end. Greg Lynn’s treatise about treating the computer as a pet comes to mind, and to “cultivate an intuition into the behavior of computer-aided design systems and the mathematics behind them.
This investigation attempts to integrate the material efficiency and scalar advantages of tubes with the precision and repeatability of industrial robot-based formative fabrication. Utilizing a Kuka six-axis industrial robot and a two-axis positioner as a turntable, a custom 3d-printed gripper with pneumatic control enables gripping, rotation, and feeding into the external axis with a center die and an outer roller forming pin.
The computational workflow uses a Grasshopper6 parametric definition to reference simple polyline geometry and fillets the corners with a fixed diameter that corresponds to the static bending die. The filleted curve geometry is analyzed and broken down into straight sections which correspond to feed distance, and curved sections which correspond to bend angles. The geometry is parsed and sequenced into Kuka KRL7 code from Kuka|PRC for robot movement simulation, collision detection, as well as external axis instructions for the turntable and gripper.
As an on-going series of explorations meant to gradually scale up in size and complexity, the research uncovers possibilities for bundled and interwoven tubular structures that represent a paradigm shift in how tubular structures might be designed and fabricated in the future with minimal falsework and scaffolding.
To engage in this type of integrative making requires fundamental technical skills drawing from multiple disciplines including physical/digital fabrication and prototyping, digital/parametric modeling, mechanical engineering and design, as well as electrical engineering and circuit prototyping. For the aspiring design student, these unfamiliar topics can be significant hurdles to entering this fertile ground of design exploration. This paper serves up for comparison two separate approaches taken in course offerings that engage these issues, one in a research seminar context, one in a design studio/workshop context.
Students were asked to explore the design, simulation and fabrication of kinetic architectural prototypes, responsive building systems, and intelligent skins. Using Grasshopper, Firefly and the Arduino microcontroller as creative and technical tools, students were taught fundamental skills in electronical and mechanical prototyping to complement existing skills in digital modeling/fabrication. Starting out with simple sensors and actuator movements, students eventually developed a kinetic prototype that evolves and adapts to specific architectural desires. These were built as “actual-scale” physical/mechanical/electronical prototypes, accompanied with speculative drawings for deployment at an architectural scale.
Specific issues were identified both in the subject matter as well as advantages/disadvantages in course delivery structure. Students struggled with issues of scale in terms of projecting and adapting their prototypes to architectural assemblies at full scale, specifically the tectonic as well as mechanical and material implications of scaling up. Another primary learning experience was the realization that substantial iterative testing and prototyping needs to be an integral part of the development process. While models, drawings, and representation of architectural space can be abstract, fuzzy, and left open to interpretation, the precision and exactness required to make things work mechanically and electronically is literal and unforgiving; it either works or it doesn’t. Substantial time was spent dealing with mechanical issues of tolerance and friction, as well as developing control logics and linking electronic components in relation to one another.
Regarding the educational experience, parallels can be drawn with traditional 1:1 design/build projects where issues of budget, size, structure, scheduling, and constructability are at the forefront. This version of the relationship has more to do with issues of precision, experimentation and verification through iteration, while dealing with “real” mechanical and electronical materials in an alternate 1:1 sense. The overall pedagogical goal is to instill within students a “Maker” mentality of making things work on a technical level all the while maintaining criticality from a design viewpoint. This interweaving of techniques from multiple disciplines compares similarly to the integrative skills architects are required to wield in real practice, as well as the increasingly multi-disciplinary world of the future that requires agile thought, integration, and adaptation.
-Steven Holl
In architectural design education, we push our students to search for those elusive “qualities” of space in their work, and by extension to recognize and exploit the latent potential of poetic tectonic assemblies. The difficult balancing act of achieving Holl’s abstract expression through tactile execution is at the core of an architect’s skills in the realization of transcendent architecture. This paper presents a sequence of exercises that spans the first 8 weeks of an introductory graduate design studio that seeks to instill in students the ability to experiment, iterate, research, synthesize, articulate, and execute individual viewpoints on a design issue.
The project starts with a week-long exercise that is a purely speculative drawing of light and shadow, coupled with provisional notions of materiality and tectonics to uncover the latent possibilities of a phenomenological effects and poetics. This is a drawing executed at 1:1 scale and positioned intentionally in relationship to the human body.
The second phase spans three weeks and is an intense workshop of iterative material and assembly studies blatantly working with “real” building materials (as opposed to representative) and learning to use their specific material properties to manufacture material effects. Foregrounded by Marco Frascari’s seminal text Τhe Tell-The-Tale-Detail, it is in this phase that discussions of materiality, joinery, tectonics, and ultimately the detail, occur. Still 1:1 scale, these material assembly experiments are conceived of as bespoke material systems that harken back to the speculative light drawings and attempt to uncover that which is necessary to achieve those speculative effects.
Phase three takes these experiments and reimagines them at the scale of a building fragment, while introducing clearer notions of enclosure, aperture, and structural/tectonic systems. Simultaneously utilizing drawings that are analytical (axonometric) and atmospheric (toned orthographic plan and section) at representative scale, this study of a spatial intersection seeks to discover how the assembly can be instrumental in shaping space and engage issues of occupation, movement, time, and duration. A large physical model at ¾” =1’ scale is constructed, replicating the actual material assemblage as closely as possible (with constraints on linear and planar material dimensions to mimic real-world dimensional limits) to understand tectonic hierarchies and assembly sequences.
The fourth and final phase of the project culminates in a full-scale structurally self-sufficient construct, again using “real” materials in which students engage with issues of lead times, precision, tolerances, as well as an often-newfound respect for craft and labor. The constructs are left outdoors for several weeks to document their material effects as well as test how they weather in sun, wind, and rain, and a final discussion about lessons learned is conducted. Through all the efforts and processes that live between the latent and blatant methods of engaging design issues, the goal of the projects is to end up somewhere in between, in that elusive pursuit of poetry through light and matter.
capacities, fabrication and assembly (Jahn et al. 2018; Jahn, Newnham, and Berg 2022). The AR display overlays part numbers, bending sequences, expected geometry, and robot movements in real time as the robot fabrication is occurring. For assembly purposes, part numbers, centerlines, and their expected positional relationships are projected via quick response (QR) codes spatially tracked by the Microsoft Hololens 2 (Microsoft 2019). This is crucial due to the length and self-similarity of complex multi-planar parts that make them difficult to distinguish and orient correctly. Leveraging augmented reality technology and robotic fabrication uncovers a novel material expression in tubular structures with bundles, knots, and interweaving (Figure 1).
As a test case to verify and demonstrate the accuracy and tolerances of the workflow, the project draws inspiration from cultural crafts and spatial knotting traditions, reinterpreting them as tubular constructs. While knots are commonly understood as dense and compressed, decorative Chinese knots are planar, often constructed out of a single continuous string, and exhibit space in between, with the knot body made of two layers of cord sandwiching an empty space (Chen 2007). Therefore, this project takes on the notion of weaving or knotting tubes as a continuous material trajectory (as opposed to disjointed), and eschews welding in favor of mechanical fasteners that can be assembled or disassembled with ease. The resultant geometries create inherent opportunities for joints, self-support, and crossings that reinforce structural behavior similar to reciprocal structures while serving as a more rigid synthetic counterpart to the softer organic nature of the knots.
The design workflow is organized in four steps depending on the data modality analyzed. a), Identification of user needs and context (images and text data from social networks). b) Storytelling and branding (text data from digital books), c) Curating and modeling space (point cloud data from terrestrial laser scanning). d) Materialization of the project (via 3D printing and game engines). We draw parallels between the proposed design workflow and a traditional one that followed a similar series of design operations: a) Site analysis, b) Design brief, c) Design response, and d) Design representation. The results show that the inclusion of AI and big data analysis can augment various creative abilities allowing designers to focus on questions that require human creativity rather than machine productivity. Recognizing that certain phases of the design process require iterative and recursive thinking, the application of AI can be used to augment and expose potentials and possibilities within phases that require parallel and lateral associative thinking akin to brainstorming. These methods are applied to the early phases of schematic design and territories in which the broad use of AI techniques as generative, interpretive tools to convey conceptual and narrative ideas that are in the early stages of exploration. The impact can be seen particularly in the first and third steps of the design process outlined above because they take particular care to the "concerns of society as a whole" through the collaboration with artificial and human intelligence. The design framework presented in this paper brought together tools already well explored in design practices (point clouds, 3D printing, and game engines) with newly explored tools (AI algorithms) that resulted in design solutions articulated through such a joint effort with artificial and human intelligence.
Before they can even see the two glowing towers, visitors hear a composition of deep resonating harmonies. As they approach from the canal bridge below or the street level, they’re first struck by the slowly shifting light patterns floating across the towers’ surfaces; they then watch as other visitors reach their faces close to a tower, make some sound and stand back to watch. Finally, visitors realize that the sounds and lights they are experiencing are created by visitors; the entire system of resonance, light and color is fed by those who interact with it.
Two cylindrical towers each contain both a lighting system, a series of microphones and a speaker system. The towers are shrink wrapped in white industrial plastic fabric, which is opaque and monolithic during the day and translucent at night when lit, presenting itself as a smooth, glowing surface. Circles placed at different heights on each tower encourage visitors to play the tower like an instrument by singing or humming into it. The tone, timbre and volume of their voices act as a seed for the deep resonating sounds that then emanate from within as well as the generative light patterns that float, swirl and flicker across the surface.
As visitors sing or hum into the microphones, their voice is analyzed and broken down into its harmonic components. The voice components are then dropped several octaves and resynthesized into a deep resonating tone. The same voice components are then used to drive the generative lighting patterns that move across the surfaces of the towers.
In collaboration with ULR Studio
Project Assistants: Piotr Pasierbiński, Ewa Sroczynska
UF Student Assistant: Shuyu Wang
InterLattice is inspired by the connections and interweaving of each and every one of our lives and how these connections give us strength and resilience to achieve things collectively that would be physically impossible as singular individuals. Leveraging the precision of industrial robots using custom tools to bend and interweave metal tubes in loops that allude to humanity’s complex and interconnected dependency with nature.
The 2.3 meter tall construct consists of two interwoven continuous curves, designed to interlock and intertwine to offer opportunities for joinery and structural support. A simple yet striking geometric form conveys surprising complexity as you pause a moment to decipher it. There are 2 continuous color-coded loops that have been folded upon themselves 5 times and interwoven to support each other, evoking themes of cycles, unity, as well as nature and humanity’s complex interconnected dependency that is inextricably linked. The central “trunk” has a seemingly impossible interweaving of elements that is similar to the trunks of Banyan trees, where strands of individual roots come together to form the greater trunk.
InterLattics was designed using Rhino+Grasshopper, and fabricated using Kuka | PRC and the multiplanar robotic pipe-bending workflow developed by SHO at the American University of Sharjah CAAD Labs, using a Kuka KR 125/3 6-axis industrial robot and a DKP-400 Kuka Positioner as a turntable.
Project Support:
Axalta
It was subsequently shown at the University of Colorado Denver in Spring 2019, and is now on its way to the Priscilla Fowler Fine Art Gallery in downtown Las Vegas opening on Thursday, October 31st and ending on Saturday, December 14th, 2019.
Have laptop—will travel. We are representative of the next generation of global academics and design practices. The demarcations of distance and time zones between our collaborations are seldom a real hindrance; digital information is happy to travel underneath the oceans at half the speed of light. Perhaps the real encumbrance in working as a geographically estranged practice is dealing with the physical manifestations of our work. We make things and thus the logistics of procuring, fabricating, and transporting our constructs across state lines and international borders is the real challenge.
Our proposed portmanteau plays on the ease by which ideas, images, and intellectual property move across geopolitical borders, while inversely operating across similar lines of demarcation with physical means can prove taxing, fraught, and risky. Starting from the Samsonite bag made famous by Diller+Scofidio’s Tourisms installation, we have employed our skills in fabrication and interactivity to augment the enclosure such that the personal contents are exposed to all that dare look as the piece serves its intended role as luggage for the conference attendee.
Beyond the discomfort this radical transparency may elicit in both bystanders and owner, the inclusion of illicit contraband as suggestive imagery printed in invisible UV reactive ink is hidden in plain sight, illuminated by UV LEDs when the inquisitive passerby comes in for a closer look. Winning this game can only be achieved by taking the risk of smuggling this peculiar paraphernalia across international borders and arriving at the destination with baggage tag firmly attached.
Material & Assembly
Stainless steel provides tensile strength and lightweight tectonics, while metallic paint provides a compelling and protective finish. Individual units are fabricated and shipped flat-pack; the angle locking inserts are unique and numbered for identification; a simple rivet system serves to hold the units in place. Sequential assembly via an indexed master model facilitates ease of construction.
In collaboration with ULR Studio
Project Assistants: Piotr Pasierbiński, Ewa Sroczynska
Student Assistants: Basil Al Taher, Mark Shehata, Saad Boujan, Mariam Elashwal, and Adomas Ramzi Zeineldin,
Additional Acknowledgments_
This project was supported by a Design-Build Initiative Faculty Skillset Development Grant, awarded by the American University of Sharjah’s College of Architecture, Art, and Design. We would also like to thank the CAAD Lab staff and the CAAD IT staff for supporting and facilitating the creative inquiry.
Students learn by modeling elements in the sequence dictated by the program logic. Grids, Levels, Columns, Beams, Walls, Floors, Stairs, etc… follow the logic and dependencies dictated by the software developer overlords and the nomenclature represents very specific things in the context of the software.
Parameters and attributes embedded within the model geometry can confuse students to no end. However, as some are taught to swim or bike, sometimes you just gotta jump off the deep end. Greg Lynn’s treatise about treating the computer as a pet comes to mind, and to “cultivate an intuition into the behavior of computer-aided design systems and the mathematics behind them.
This investigation attempts to integrate the material efficiency and scalar advantages of tubes with the precision and repeatability of industrial robot-based formative fabrication. Utilizing a Kuka six-axis industrial robot and a two-axis positioner as a turntable, a custom 3d-printed gripper with pneumatic control enables gripping, rotation, and feeding into the external axis with a center die and an outer roller forming pin.
The computational workflow uses a Grasshopper6 parametric definition to reference simple polyline geometry and fillets the corners with a fixed diameter that corresponds to the static bending die. The filleted curve geometry is analyzed and broken down into straight sections which correspond to feed distance, and curved sections which correspond to bend angles. The geometry is parsed and sequenced into Kuka KRL7 code from Kuka|PRC for robot movement simulation, collision detection, as well as external axis instructions for the turntable and gripper.
As an on-going series of explorations meant to gradually scale up in size and complexity, the research uncovers possibilities for bundled and interwoven tubular structures that represent a paradigm shift in how tubular structures might be designed and fabricated in the future with minimal falsework and scaffolding.
To engage in this type of integrative making requires fundamental technical skills drawing from multiple disciplines including physical/digital fabrication and prototyping, digital/parametric modeling, mechanical engineering and design, as well as electrical engineering and circuit prototyping. For the aspiring design student, these unfamiliar topics can be significant hurdles to entering this fertile ground of design exploration. This paper serves up for comparison two separate approaches taken in course offerings that engage these issues, one in a research seminar context, one in a design studio/workshop context.
Students were asked to explore the design, simulation and fabrication of kinetic architectural prototypes, responsive building systems, and intelligent skins. Using Grasshopper, Firefly and the Arduino microcontroller as creative and technical tools, students were taught fundamental skills in electronical and mechanical prototyping to complement existing skills in digital modeling/fabrication. Starting out with simple sensors and actuator movements, students eventually developed a kinetic prototype that evolves and adapts to specific architectural desires. These were built as “actual-scale” physical/mechanical/electronical prototypes, accompanied with speculative drawings for deployment at an architectural scale.
Specific issues were identified both in the subject matter as well as advantages/disadvantages in course delivery structure. Students struggled with issues of scale in terms of projecting and adapting their prototypes to architectural assemblies at full scale, specifically the tectonic as well as mechanical and material implications of scaling up. Another primary learning experience was the realization that substantial iterative testing and prototyping needs to be an integral part of the development process. While models, drawings, and representation of architectural space can be abstract, fuzzy, and left open to interpretation, the precision and exactness required to make things work mechanically and electronically is literal and unforgiving; it either works or it doesn’t. Substantial time was spent dealing with mechanical issues of tolerance and friction, as well as developing control logics and linking electronic components in relation to one another.
Regarding the educational experience, parallels can be drawn with traditional 1:1 design/build projects where issues of budget, size, structure, scheduling, and constructability are at the forefront. This version of the relationship has more to do with issues of precision, experimentation and verification through iteration, while dealing with “real” mechanical and electronical materials in an alternate 1:1 sense. The overall pedagogical goal is to instill within students a “Maker” mentality of making things work on a technical level all the while maintaining criticality from a design viewpoint. This interweaving of techniques from multiple disciplines compares similarly to the integrative skills architects are required to wield in real practice, as well as the increasingly multi-disciplinary world of the future that requires agile thought, integration, and adaptation.
-Steven Holl
In architectural design education, we push our students to search for those elusive “qualities” of space in their work, and by extension to recognize and exploit the latent potential of poetic tectonic assemblies. The difficult balancing act of achieving Holl’s abstract expression through tactile execution is at the core of an architect’s skills in the realization of transcendent architecture. This paper presents a sequence of exercises that spans the first 8 weeks of an introductory graduate design studio that seeks to instill in students the ability to experiment, iterate, research, synthesize, articulate, and execute individual viewpoints on a design issue.
The project starts with a week-long exercise that is a purely speculative drawing of light and shadow, coupled with provisional notions of materiality and tectonics to uncover the latent possibilities of a phenomenological effects and poetics. This is a drawing executed at 1:1 scale and positioned intentionally in relationship to the human body.
The second phase spans three weeks and is an intense workshop of iterative material and assembly studies blatantly working with “real” building materials (as opposed to representative) and learning to use their specific material properties to manufacture material effects. Foregrounded by Marco Frascari’s seminal text Τhe Tell-The-Tale-Detail, it is in this phase that discussions of materiality, joinery, tectonics, and ultimately the detail, occur. Still 1:1 scale, these material assembly experiments are conceived of as bespoke material systems that harken back to the speculative light drawings and attempt to uncover that which is necessary to achieve those speculative effects.
Phase three takes these experiments and reimagines them at the scale of a building fragment, while introducing clearer notions of enclosure, aperture, and structural/tectonic systems. Simultaneously utilizing drawings that are analytical (axonometric) and atmospheric (toned orthographic plan and section) at representative scale, this study of a spatial intersection seeks to discover how the assembly can be instrumental in shaping space and engage issues of occupation, movement, time, and duration. A large physical model at ¾” =1’ scale is constructed, replicating the actual material assemblage as closely as possible (with constraints on linear and planar material dimensions to mimic real-world dimensional limits) to understand tectonic hierarchies and assembly sequences.
The fourth and final phase of the project culminates in a full-scale structurally self-sufficient construct, again using “real” materials in which students engage with issues of lead times, precision, tolerances, as well as an often-newfound respect for craft and labor. The constructs are left outdoors for several weeks to document their material effects as well as test how they weather in sun, wind, and rain, and a final discussion about lessons learned is conducted. Through all the efforts and processes that live between the latent and blatant methods of engaging design issues, the goal of the projects is to end up somewhere in between, in that elusive pursuit of poetry through light and matter.
capacities, fabrication and assembly (Jahn et al. 2018; Jahn, Newnham, and Berg 2022). The AR display overlays part numbers, bending sequences, expected geometry, and robot movements in real time as the robot fabrication is occurring. For assembly purposes, part numbers, centerlines, and their expected positional relationships are projected via quick response (QR) codes spatially tracked by the Microsoft Hololens 2 (Microsoft 2019). This is crucial due to the length and self-similarity of complex multi-planar parts that make them difficult to distinguish and orient correctly. Leveraging augmented reality technology and robotic fabrication uncovers a novel material expression in tubular structures with bundles, knots, and interweaving (Figure 1).
As a test case to verify and demonstrate the accuracy and tolerances of the workflow, the project draws inspiration from cultural crafts and spatial knotting traditions, reinterpreting them as tubular constructs. While knots are commonly understood as dense and compressed, decorative Chinese knots are planar, often constructed out of a single continuous string, and exhibit space in between, with the knot body made of two layers of cord sandwiching an empty space (Chen 2007). Therefore, this project takes on the notion of weaving or knotting tubes as a continuous material trajectory (as opposed to disjointed), and eschews welding in favor of mechanical fasteners that can be assembled or disassembled with ease. The resultant geometries create inherent opportunities for joints, self-support, and crossings that reinforce structural behavior similar to reciprocal structures while serving as a more rigid synthetic counterpart to the softer organic nature of the knots.
The design workflow is organized in four steps depending on the data modality analyzed. a), Identification of user needs and context (images and text data from social networks). b) Storytelling and branding (text data from digital books), c) Curating and modeling space (point cloud data from terrestrial laser scanning). d) Materialization of the project (via 3D printing and game engines). We draw parallels between the proposed design workflow and a traditional one that followed a similar series of design operations: a) Site analysis, b) Design brief, c) Design response, and d) Design representation. The results show that the inclusion of AI and big data analysis can augment various creative abilities allowing designers to focus on questions that require human creativity rather than machine productivity. Recognizing that certain phases of the design process require iterative and recursive thinking, the application of AI can be used to augment and expose potentials and possibilities within phases that require parallel and lateral associative thinking akin to brainstorming. These methods are applied to the early phases of schematic design and territories in which the broad use of AI techniques as generative, interpretive tools to convey conceptual and narrative ideas that are in the early stages of exploration. The impact can be seen particularly in the first and third steps of the design process outlined above because they take particular care to the "concerns of society as a whole" through the collaboration with artificial and human intelligence. The design framework presented in this paper brought together tools already well explored in design practices (point clouds, 3D printing, and game engines) with newly explored tools (AI algorithms) that resulted in design solutions articulated through such a joint effort with artificial and human intelligence.
Before they can even see the two glowing towers, visitors hear a composition of deep resonating harmonies. As they approach from the canal bridge below or the street level, they’re first struck by the slowly shifting light patterns floating across the towers’ surfaces; they then watch as other visitors reach their faces close to a tower, make some sound and stand back to watch. Finally, visitors realize that the sounds and lights they are experiencing are created by visitors; the entire system of resonance, light and color is fed by those who interact with it.
Two cylindrical towers each contain both a lighting system, a series of microphones and a speaker system. The towers are shrink wrapped in white industrial plastic fabric, which is opaque and monolithic during the day and translucent at night when lit, presenting itself as a smooth, glowing surface. Circles placed at different heights on each tower encourage visitors to play the tower like an instrument by singing or humming into it. The tone, timbre and volume of their voices act as a seed for the deep resonating sounds that then emanate from within as well as the generative light patterns that float, swirl and flicker across the surface.
As visitors sing or hum into the microphones, their voice is analyzed and broken down into its harmonic components. The voice components are then dropped several octaves and resynthesized into a deep resonating tone. The same voice components are then used to drive the generative lighting patterns that move across the surfaces of the towers.
In collaboration with ULR Studio
Project Assistants: Piotr Pasierbiński, Ewa Sroczynska
UF Student Assistant: Shuyu Wang
InterLattice is inspired by the connections and interweaving of each and every one of our lives and how these connections give us strength and resilience to achieve things collectively that would be physically impossible as singular individuals. Leveraging the precision of industrial robots using custom tools to bend and interweave metal tubes in loops that allude to humanity’s complex and interconnected dependency with nature.
The 2.3 meter tall construct consists of two interwoven continuous curves, designed to interlock and intertwine to offer opportunities for joinery and structural support. A simple yet striking geometric form conveys surprising complexity as you pause a moment to decipher it. There are 2 continuous color-coded loops that have been folded upon themselves 5 times and interwoven to support each other, evoking themes of cycles, unity, as well as nature and humanity’s complex interconnected dependency that is inextricably linked. The central “trunk” has a seemingly impossible interweaving of elements that is similar to the trunks of Banyan trees, where strands of individual roots come together to form the greater trunk.
InterLattics was designed using Rhino+Grasshopper, and fabricated using Kuka | PRC and the multiplanar robotic pipe-bending workflow developed by SHO at the American University of Sharjah CAAD Labs, using a Kuka KR 125/3 6-axis industrial robot and a DKP-400 Kuka Positioner as a turntable.
Project Support:
Axalta
It was subsequently shown at the University of Colorado Denver in Spring 2019, and is now on its way to the Priscilla Fowler Fine Art Gallery in downtown Las Vegas opening on Thursday, October 31st and ending on Saturday, December 14th, 2019.
Have laptop—will travel. We are representative of the next generation of global academics and design practices. The demarcations of distance and time zones between our collaborations are seldom a real hindrance; digital information is happy to travel underneath the oceans at half the speed of light. Perhaps the real encumbrance in working as a geographically estranged practice is dealing with the physical manifestations of our work. We make things and thus the logistics of procuring, fabricating, and transporting our constructs across state lines and international borders is the real challenge.
Our proposed portmanteau plays on the ease by which ideas, images, and intellectual property move across geopolitical borders, while inversely operating across similar lines of demarcation with physical means can prove taxing, fraught, and risky. Starting from the Samsonite bag made famous by Diller+Scofidio’s Tourisms installation, we have employed our skills in fabrication and interactivity to augment the enclosure such that the personal contents are exposed to all that dare look as the piece serves its intended role as luggage for the conference attendee.
Beyond the discomfort this radical transparency may elicit in both bystanders and owner, the inclusion of illicit contraband as suggestive imagery printed in invisible UV reactive ink is hidden in plain sight, illuminated by UV LEDs when the inquisitive passerby comes in for a closer look. Winning this game can only be achieved by taking the risk of smuggling this peculiar paraphernalia across international borders and arriving at the destination with baggage tag firmly attached.
Material & Assembly
Stainless steel provides tensile strength and lightweight tectonics, while metallic paint provides a compelling and protective finish. Individual units are fabricated and shipped flat-pack; the angle locking inserts are unique and numbered for identification; a simple rivet system serves to hold the units in place. Sequential assembly via an indexed master model facilitates ease of construction.
In collaboration with ULR Studio
Project Assistants: Piotr Pasierbiński, Ewa Sroczynska
Student Assistants: Basil Al Taher, Mark Shehata, Saad Boujan, Mariam Elashwal, and Adomas Ramzi Zeineldin,
Additional Acknowledgments_
This project was supported by a Design-Build Initiative Faculty Skillset Development Grant, awarded by the American University of Sharjah’s College of Architecture, Art, and Design. We would also like to thank the CAAD Lab staff and the CAAD IT staff for supporting and facilitating the creative inquiry.
To engage in this type of integrative making requires fundamental technical skills drawing from multiple disciplines including physical/digital fabrication and prototyping, digital/parametric modeling, mechanical engineering and design, as well as electrical engineering and circuit prototyping. For the aspiring design student, these unfamiliar topics can be significant hurdles to entering this fertile ground of design exploration. This paper serves up for comparison two separate approaches taken in course offerings that engage these issues, one in a research seminar context, one in a design studio/workshop context.
Students were asked to explore the design, simulation and fabrication of kinetic architectural prototypes, responsive building systems, and intelligent skins. Using Grasshopper, Firefly and the Arduino microcontroller as creative and technical tools, students were taught fundamental skills in electronical and mechanical prototyping to complement existing skills in digital modeling/fabrication. Starting out with simple sensors and actuator movements, students eventually developed a kinetic prototype that evolves and adapts to specific architectural desires. These were built as “actual-scale” physical/mechanical/electronical prototypes, accompanied with speculative drawings for deployment at an architectural scale.
Specific issues were identified both in the subject matter as well as advantages/disadvantages in course delivery structure. Students struggled with issues of scale in terms of projecting and adapting their prototypes to architectural assemblies at full scale, specifically the tectonic as well as mechanical and material implications of scaling up. Another primary learning experience was the realization that substantial iterative testing and prototyping needs to be an integral part of the development process. While models, drawings, and representation of architectural space can be abstract, fuzzy, and left open to interpretation, the precision and exactness required to make things work mechanically and electronically is literal and unforgiving; it either works or it doesn’t. Substantial time was spent dealing with mechanical issues of tolerance and friction, as well as developing control logics and linking electronic components in relation to one another.
Regarding the educational experience, parallels can be drawn with traditional 1:1 design/build projects where issues of budget, size, structure, scheduling, and constructability are at the forefront. This version of the relationship has more to do with issues of precision, experimentation and verification through iteration, while dealing with “real” mechanical and electronical materials in an alternate 1:1 sense. The overall pedagogical goal is to instill within students a “Maker” mentality of making things work on a technical level all the while maintaining criticality from a design viewpoint. This interweaving of techniques from multiple disciplines compares similarly to the integrative skills architects are required to wield in real practice, as well as the increasingly multi-disciplinary world of the future that requires agile thought, integration, and adaptation.
Great Stage Park, Manchester, TN
RFP for the Bonnaroo Music and Art Festival
Composed of the visually striking materials of modern nomadic dwelling and lighter than air vessels, Rip[stop] Tower will relate to its immediate temporal context of tents and lightweight structures through similar materials while framing the sky and serving as a community gathering space. Beyond creating a shaded inhabitable space for R&R, the structure will incorporate systems for cooling and atmospheric lighting possibly fueled by brief stints of volunteered human power. Hanging vegetation will be incorporated into the tower and serves as a temporal reference. The symbiotic growth of the plants with the tower structure will evolve and change through the seasons as well as from year to year for the Bonnaroo attendees.
New digital representational techniques have made it possible to conceive a building from design development to construction almost entirely within the virtual space of the computer.
Within the realm of digital design, algorithms represent one of the forefronts being currently explored due to their potential application in the design and construction environment. The use and purpose of algorithms has been hotly debated within the design profession; questions have been raised about the authorship and authenticity of designs produced by a process-based program. Ultimately, algorithms are a tool, a logic-function process that can be applied to simplify complex tasks, automate massively mundane and repetitive operations, and explore possibilities unattainable (for all practical purposes) within the confines of human cognition. This paper will discuss some of the possible applications of algorithms in architecture, demonstrating with examples that have been carried out or are under development, and also projecting into the future possibilities of its application within the architectural design and construction context.