8 Morphosis, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas, Texas, 2010 The facade panel system was ultimately created as a knowledge pattern in Digital ProjectTM. The atrium was designed with the same logic but as the geometry itself is more complex – it has both single- and double-curving surface geometry – that panel system required some additional formwork and had additional construction costs. Both the atrium and the plinth have curvatures that required secondary formwork, but this formwork was used much more intensively in the atrium to accommodate
of our initial design intent.’3 The design team initially imagined CNC milling formwork for the building facade’s precast-concrete panels, so used their router in the Culver City office to create fullscale mock-ups and variations and then investigated how those variations came together in plastic moulds. Following this exercise they engaged the precast manufacturer, Gate Precast, to better understand their working methods. The team was able to discuss different options for producing the panels and looked into ways to configure and reconfigure moulds, which from an efficiency standpoint was critical for panel production. The language of the facade panels ultimately emerged from a synthesis between the geometry of scaled prototypes and the production methods the precast manufacturer would employ in the creation of formwork.
a wider range of radii in the panels and some additional curvature.
Rubber models were used to produce the formwork, and the design team developed a simple logic to drive panel development – they created subdivisions of each precast form based on size capabilities. This process yielded three different types of geometry: 1 2 3
A piece that curves out at its base A piece that meets the first panel at a midpoint to continue the geometry A piece that will return the assembly back to flat geometry at the top and bottom.
The panels have four elevations, four different heights, and up to four segments of the initial panel subdivision. When combined, the design team realised the need to add a fourth type, which combined four different panels with two different heights. This work was done in Digital ProjectTM, and ultimately yielded 39 geometric families that come together, with four panel geometries based on the angle and perimeter condition – two parallelogramtype panels, and two mirrored conditions of these that are combined. Basic layout of the geometry is tiled so that different formal variations can occur with a small number of actual panel types. The four panel types with 39 families are mated with a series of 24 triangular panel shapes that allow any of the panel types to come together. This ultimately created 13 different panel densities that were deployed on the facade. The use of triangular panels allowed any of these different densities to merge, forming continuity in the patterning on the facade. Morphosis continued a long-standing relationship with Los Angeles-based John A Martin & Associates (JAMA), who provided structural engineering services. JAMA created and shared a building information model for the primary steel structure. Morphosis built one for the secondary steel for reference and coordinated this work with the structural team. Morphosis coordinated their work with the precast manufacturer, who developed all of the sizing requirements for the secondary steel, as it was supporting their panels. Initial models were used in the fabrication of full CNC mockups of the precast panel types for the facade, and Morphosis MORPHOSIS 78–79