ADVANCED DESIGN PROCESSES

ADVANCED DESIGN PROCESSES
New technologies new solutions

ABSTRACT:

Following some examples of contemporary architecture like (examples), we realize that the integration of industrial processes, new digital software’s, manufacturing tools and automated machines are helping in the exercise of architecture in terms of design process and the actual construction of architecture. Frank Ghery’s Der Neue Zollhof buildings in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he used CNC machines to generate forms in order to make pre cast concrete component for the realization of the project. It’s unfeasible to number exactly how many engineering processes are being used these days on the manufacture of industrial products from bottles, tires, to cloths, cars and so on, furthermore impossible to count the amount of automated machines used in each industrial process. Since we notice that some architects are using machines or manufacturing processes to generate architecture and also the majority is using the same machines, consequently we found attractive to study different machines or processes in order to question it from an architectural point of view trying to obtain benefits for the exercise of architecture. Therefore we are going to look at 4D CAD, PET blowing process and Vulcanization process.

KEYWORDS: Design processes, technologies, 4D CAD, 3D modeling, vertical extension, Vulcanization, PET blowing, rubber, form, recycle, machines;

Slide presentation here

Rules of a Game or Satisfaction of Needs?

Mass customization is now kind of a fashion term in the industries, witch is used to persuade the customers selling them the idea that the product they are getting is unique but the question is it unique? Comes to our minds do to the fact that is the same product but with an additive component such as texts, colors, parts, etc, trying to make it call a distinctive product.

In the industry of golf exist the idea of mass customization do to the fact that each person has different capacities to perform a golf swing, for example a six years old girl will perform a natural movement because of her flexibility and also because the muscles are in fact growing and in the phase of memorizing movements, but in order to do this she would not be able to perform the swing if the weight, the size, the shaft, and so on are not suitable for her age, size, strength etc. If we get to explain every golf swing in terms of people’s size, strength, rotation, age, etc, we get to find billions of different golf swings so do to this fact the golf clubs industry generate a pre-fabrication process in order to satisfy as many as possible needs in terms of golf swings. So this process is trying to get the golf clubs unique because the golf swing is unique for every golf player, but it’s all about the mass production of components like shafts, heads and grips, but in the unity of this different components you get to make a golf club suitable for your golf swing.

In the same way, the Smart car develop this idea of customizing your car but its again in the mass production of components that you get to buy a “unique” car. In terms of design we don’t see the uniqueness of the car because it is just the colors or the graphics what gives the car a differentiation from one to another.

By crossing this two examples of pseudo mass customization we find more attractive the fact that in the joint of different components you can find the real uniqueness of a product to satisfy the different needs of people but applying this to architecture and more specific to the development of housing end in a prefabrication process were people gets to pick the different components of their house in order to get a exclusive one, but does it really response to customization? Then what is the meaning of customization? Is it about giving some regulation to a game or really trying to satisfy the needs of each different way of living?

Human Skin (re) inventing materiality?

Once again, during the exploration of re inventing materials we found a very deep relation with the human body because human skin is the most complex material ever from the point that it reacts to any changes in the environment, generating physical changes and developing systems in it to protect and provide information to the body so it can generate protection systems to contra rest the outside phenomenon so it can develop in a suitable way.

In the re invention of materials exists a tendency in the search of how a material can act in response to the facts that are interacting with it, replying the theory of cause and effect.

This new materials are called response materials, sensitile is an example of this kind of materials it made out of hundreds of light guides carved into a transparent block of acrylic polymer to create each tile. Together, these fiber-optic elements shine and sparkle in response to moving light and shadow it also picks up and disperses nearby colors. The human skin reaction when it’s exposed to sunlight it develop a change of color to protect the body, so the material is not protecting anything at all but it generate some changes out of the interaction with light as the human skin does.

Blab Italia has design some tiles called living surfaces developed in two different materials glass and floor tiles made out of layers of acrylic and magnetic particles, so with people interaction the tiles generate physical changes, but some how the changes we get to see in this response material hark back skin’s reactions to cold or hot objects or different climates.

As well The Living Company create systems and materials that can perform out of the interaction with people and they recently design a system called kinetic glass that response to external particulars made out of a series microprocessors that react to unhealthy earth, generating a physical deformation of the glass.

Besides this architectural materials in robotics, Takao Someya Group developed a synthetic "skin" that is almost as sensitive as our own skin in terms of temperature and humidity, in addition they are trying to make it elastic like skin. Another synthetic skin in the works by Scott White and team is a self-healing material.

Consequently the group of all this materials in one indicate us that the researchers and developers of new materials is to redesign a new skin that can have as much as function, volume and color changes, flexibility, malleability, self healing, like the human skin in order to provide to architecture and design in general, the possibility to generate intelligent objects that can response to the phenomenon they are exposed to and at the same time objects that can work together with the environment for the good of our planet in terms of sustainability.

Complex Geometries and our body

Architecture is inevitably concerning associations. Many of those associations are geometric in nature or body where we can find a geometric expression.As a result of the search in complex geometries we conclude that the human being is searching for this phenomenon naturally in the way that we live in a constant relationship with the most complex structure ever developed the human body.Architecture is a visual art in which we experience three dimensional spaces. The art of a building is foremost concerned with form and with dividing and articulating space. A building should express their uniqueness and bring order and relation to its surrounding environment. As an example of what we mean, the D-tower is an articulate hybrid of diverse media, where architecture is a fraction of a well-built interactive organism a perfect analogy of the human body. The building is designed by NOX, where standard and non-standard geometries together make up a complex surface (computer generated) this surface is very similar to a body part, a heart constitution.A house like the human body, occupies a space but with occupants and time it will become a place. The visual beauty includes lines, shapes, and colours. Colour is used to accentuate its form and the material it is made from, as well as distinguishing its divisions of space. Rooms which are shaped differently with different materials reflect different qualities. We express feelings from an architectural form or a specific aspect of architecture. The external features of architecture communicate feelings and moods from one place to another. Our emotional feelings toward where we live can be incorporated in our architecture interacting with the environment. The awareness of our bodies can be related to the place where we live. There is a comparison of our bodies to our home.