Abstract
Standardization and increased specialization have slowly begun to separate the means and methods of making from the process of architecture. The introduction of digital tools towards the latter half of the century have functioned to further this divide, removing any remaining traces of materiality and scale. Accordingly, architectural design exploration primarily resides in the creation and modification of digital objects, which must then be translated into the physical world. This positions built architecture in a curious position of constant catch up, chasing the impossible ideal of its digital counterpart. However, the tools predominant in architectural design and fabrication today (CAD, CAM) may be appropriated, along with sensory feedback, towards the development of a new material workflow. This paper presents a prototypical workflow which combines computational methods and robotic fabrication techniques with the spontaneity of the human and the messiness and contingency of material. The workflow is tested through the design of 1:1 heuristic architectural fragments.
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Notes
- 1.
The robotic manipulator is an ABB IRB 7600 with a S4CPlus controller.
- 2.
A Microsoft Kinect V2 was used as a 3D scanner in tandem with Hojoong Chung’s Grasshopper Plugin: Hojoong Chung, Project Owl. Accessed: 20 February, 2017. https://github.com/hodgoong/grasshopper-kinect2.
- 3.
The colored markings are detected by their Hue range using HSV color space in Processing, a programming language, with the OpenCV for Processing Library and the Microsoft Kinect V2’s Color Stream option as the webcam. Greg Borenstein, OpenCV. Accessed: 5 March 2017. https://github.com/atduskgreg/opencv-processing.
- 4.
Communication between Grasshopper and Processing occurred through OSC, the contour’s vertices were sent as an array from Processing and reconstructed as a curve in Grasshopper using oscP5 library for Grasshopper and the Grasshopper Plugin gHowl. The center of this closed curve was used as the load location for the topological optimizations. Andreas Schlegel, oscP5. Accessed: 10 March, 2017. http://www.sojamo.de/libraries/oscP5/. Luis Fraguada, gHowl. Accessed 10 March, 2017. http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/ghowl.
- 5.
Topological optimization calculations are processed in Swapan’s Grasshopper Plugin: Panagiotis Michalatos and Sawako Kaijima, Millipede. Accessed: 15 February, 2017. http://www.sawapan.eu/.
- 6.
Toolpaths are generated using Greyshed’s Grasshopper Plugin: Mussel. Accessed: 14 January, 2017. http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/mussel.
- 7.
The evolutionary solver used is Galapagos for Grasshopper. While Galapagos slowly works to equalize the volume into X equal parts, the human designer has plenty of time to begin mixing and pouring concrete.
- 8.
A FLIR Lepton Micro Thermal Camera Module was used and controlled with an Arduino Due using Josep Bordes Jové’s sketch, FLiR-lepton. Accessed: 13 March 2017 https://github.com/josepbordesjove/FLiR-lepton.
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Acknowledgements
This research owes much to the faculty of Princeton University School of Architecture, specifically, Axel Kilian, Forrest Meggers, Ryan Luke Johns, Paul Lewis, Liz Diller, and Jaffer Kolb, and to the cohort of classmates in my thesis class for their equal support and skepticism.
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Pazik, K. (2019). Mockup Method: Heuristic Architectural Fragments as Central Models in Architectural Design. In: Willmann, J., Block, P., Hutter, M., Byrne, K., Schork, T. (eds) Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design 2018. ROBARCH 2018. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92294-2_3
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