Advance Studio Brief

Studio Matias del Campo

Autonomous Tectonics

An exploration into autonomous deposition systems, as design technique in architecture.

One of the fundamental methods of design in architecture is to imprint, or index form in the process of design and construction. Architects use the computer to generate a three dimensional model that serves as the basis for further steps in the design and fabrication, thus creating a coded, solid morphology of the design. On the construction site methods of indexing form are ubiquitous: the formwork of concrete, the casting forms for metal parts, rotomolded facadeparts, vacuumformed components and more.

This studio explores an alternative mode of thinking in the design of architectural objects, based on an intimate relationship between autonomous behavior, material property and intricate form.

 (example, Apophenic Ecologies studio, Taubman College, Michigan, 2012)

The Hypothesis of this studio explores the opportunities of alternative methods of material organization. The method of design research focusses on the exploration of emergent, self-supporting, construction systems, with the emphasis on the use of analogue systems to achieve this. The aim of the studio is to find an alternative method to the conventions of deposition modeling, not only of material deposition, but also in terms of design operations. Instead of initially designing an object, and using a conventional 3D Print method to materialize it, the process of making becomes the design technique itself by reading back the result through 2D and 3D scanning. The design technique consists of a simple set of rules, capable of producing highly intricate results, based on the behavior of the material in space.

Results

Several initial analogue tests are conducted in order to understand the physical properties of the deposition sequence. Following the initial tests, a tower model will be made to materialize the hypothesis of a self-supportive system, based on the emergent behavior of the system.

Due to the nature of the physical properties of the material, the deposited material bends and folds into creases, folds and inversed arches, following the gravitational forces. Depending on the Velocity, angle and distance the resulting patterns vary. The physical properties of the material act as main agents of form. The designer also provides an envelope of operations to define the frame of construction. This frame of construction, the boundaries that this frame provides, can be read as the only instance of indexication in the project. The project avoids the indexing of space by predetermined form, but rather explores the possibility of fabrication as morphological process. The planning in this line of thought is not defined by sketch, plan and section, but in an emergent fashion by the definition of analogue code and procedure.

Example of wind erosion, substractive method of material behavior.

Reading List:

Graham Harman, The Quadruple Object;  Zero Books 2011

 

Manuel de Landa:  Philosophy & Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason, Continuum 2011

 

Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomenology or What It´s Like to Be a Thing, University of Minnesota Press 2012

Gilles Deleuze, Difference & Repetition, Presse Universitaires de Paris, 1968

Reader: Deep Ornament, canonical readings in computational design theory, Editors Matias del Campo & Sandra Manninger

Reader: Deep Ornament II, exploration of the field 2011-2013, Editors Matias del Campo & Sandra Manninger