Emerging Architectural Potentials of Tunable Materiality through Additive Fabrication Technologies
“Our research concentrates on the design of highly specified membranes that incorporate computational as well as structural performances. Our work explores the collapse of sensing, actuation and structure into one integrated membrane.” (RamsgardThomsen and Karmon 2009, 4) Form here is not identical with a preconceived image of a fixed design that materialises the end of a creative process, but rather a dynamic field of characteristic tectonic potentials that read the environmental or performative conditions. Constrained assembly conditions given by the textile properties and their local formation actualise into temporal formations through homeomorphic translations. Design cannot be pre-conceived as such but migrates dynamically under the given constraints if an external change alters its boundaries. Form thus exists as actual and virtual potentials that grant a temporal identity driven by multiplicities inscribed in the chosen material and structural tectonics. This geometric set-up now can be coupled with properties derived from additive fabrication processes that drive a characteristic form from a material-derived stance and whose properties can be adjusted.
Form and material relations Additive fabrication and digital design can allow the tuning and fabrication of the structural and/or mechanical composition of materials. This aspect challenges a historical architectural understanding of the relationship between built form and employed material that has been investigated in the past by Aristotle, Scamozzi, Violet-le-Duc and L. Kahn, among others. Material, form and geometry are now intrinsically interwoven and can unfold a unique morphology each time their boundary conditions are altered. In contrast to an historical conception of material whose properties and applications are known through experience, an additively fabricated material is defined by locality and uniqueness and uniquely tailored in structure and composition to a performative domain. In additive fabrication, the identifiable character of form emerges not from a deterministic pre-conception of the designed artefact, but through a complex interaction of all formgiving instances. Ramsgaard-Thomsen’s research in the field of computationally controlled textiles can help to gain an understanding of a novel conception of a tectonic language that can arise from such controllable materiality. In contrast to the historical trait in which the design protocol calibrated a desired geometric output, such an approach can identify only a structural and material domain of potentials and facilitate the emergence of characteristic variability and complexity that evades a direct mapping of cause and effect in the design. The conception of such structures has to synthetise and analyse the design-driving entities. Synthesis hereby operates under the presumption that the functioning whole can be explained through the mechanical behaviour of its components. The anatomy of each individual member and its contribution to integral performance are dissected to yield a theory of overall functionality. In analytical thinking, the focus of the observation lies in the description of the performance achieved without any clearly defined knowledge of its interacting parts. “The terms analysis and synthesis come from (classical) Greek and mean literally ‘to loosen up’ and ‘to put together’ respectively. These terms are used within most modern scientific disciplines—from mathematics and logic to economy and psychology—to denote similar investigative procedures. In general, analysis is defined as the procedure by which we break down an intellectual or substantial whole into parts or components. Synthesis is defined as the opposite procedure: to combine separate elements or components in order to form a coherent whole.” (Richey 1996, 1) “But we cannot attempt to draw conclusions about how the system functions, if sufficient knowledge concerning its internal properties is not available to us. We must, instead, invert the process: we need some kind of theoretical framework within which
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