Self Assembly - 4D Printing

Future of Fabrication

In my research moving forward I have run into this very interesting idea and technology being researched at MIT. It is a lab directed by Skylar Tibbits looking at creating programmable materials and self assembly. The idea is really quite ingenious as it seeks to mimic the way in which nature and our bodies create new things which can intern create new things and change. 

As you can see one the website, youtube, or through his recent talk on TED, the idea integrates 3D printing and smart materials in order to achieve components which can change in time given different conditions without any human interaction. This type of technology is not so much being marketed as a replacement to current means of construction, but rather another tool which can improve the way we currently build things. 

Links

Check out some of the links below, some really interesting stuff for all those interested in fabrication, smart materials, or innovative approaches to construction. 

MIT - Self Assembly Lab

PROJECT 1: HOUSE AS THESIS - Digital Nomads

DfD for (not against) Architecture

"The whole is to the part as the part is to the whole.” Frank Lloyd Wright

Background

“DfD is a new concept for the design and building community and is an important contributor to Design for Environment (DfE). DfE is a comprehensive consideration of design related to environmental and human health impacts over the life-cycle of a product. Design for disassembly (DfD) is a growing topic within manufacturing industries as greater attention is devoted to the management of the end-of-life of products. This need is driven by the increasing disposal problems of large amounts of consumer goods, and the resultant pollutant impacts and loss of materials resources and energy that is embodied in these products.” [Guy and Nicholas]

DfD should be applied to life-cycle of buildings due to the huge amount of material resources consumed annually around the world in their construction, renovation and destruction.

Principles of DfD

Typically, there are about a dozen or so principles of DfD. They include the following:

·      Accessibility,

·      Documentation of disassembly information,

·      Durability,

·      Exposed and/or reversible connections,

·      Independence,

·      Inherent finishes,

·      Recyclables,

·      Refurbish ability,

·      Re-manufacturability,

·      Reusability, and

·      Simplicity.  [http://www.sabmagazine.com/blog/2009/10/27/design-for-disassembly/]

It is possible to divide these principles into two broad groups: those that promote keeping components separate, safe and easily re-usable; and those that demand simplicity, exposed and accessible connections and standardization of parts and design.

Hypothesis

“In the more recent past, the International Style of architecture has embodied many concepts of DfD, albeit with significant failures regarding aesthetics, occupant control, and overall sustainability.” [Guy and Nicholas]

It is possible to implement DfD without having to compromise design principles. Current DfD principles unduly restrict the architect to simplistic designs with joints that are necessarily visually, physically and ergonomically exposed. When DfD is applied to the manufacture of other products (e.g., cars, electronics, appliances, etc.) there does not appear to be a similar need to sacrifice design complexity for ease of disassembly. It is possible and necessary to develop a DfD methodology for architecture that is devoid of these three principles.

Detailed Strategies

“God is in the detail” Mies van de Rohe 

Beyond the main DfD principles, there are more detailed strategies that are advocated to encourage the re-use and recycling of materials. These include minimizing the different types of materials in order to decrease the complexity and number of separation processes; allow for parallel disassembly to reduce the time required to disassemble; and separating the structure from the cladding. [Guy and Nicholas]

It will be argued that these detailed strategies can be respected without having to adhere to simplified and standardized design principles.

 "In details are the possibilities of innovation and invention and it is through these that architects can give harmony to the most uncommon and difficult or disorderly environment generated by a culture.”  Marco Frascari

Architecture requires that we preserve detail. Detailing is the most important means of avoiding building failure. In essence, detailing is the joining of building materials, components and parts in a functional and aesthetic manner. [Marco Frascari]

STRATEGY 1: Integrate advanced computational techniques into DFD principles in order to maximize the material potential and to push design exploration of connection detail.

STRATEGY 2: Creating a meeting point for top-down and bottom-up approaches where the idea of the building as a whole will be affected by the smallest components of the system.

STRATEGY 3: Transition the design from mass-production to mass-customization by creating parametric relations between each building component which, ideally, will result in visual diversity of the building as a whole.

Craft and Meaning in Architecture

THE ISSUE

1. Mechanized manufacturing, cheap energy costs, and globalization have resulted in an economy which is defined by products which are mass manufactured at a relative (meaning somewhat) high quality and a extremely low cost. (You will be hard pressed to find ANYTHING in your immediate environment for which there is not at least a million identical copies of that object)

2. As a result of this economical condition, architecture and in specific the construction industry, has pursued similar building techniques to the automobile and ship building industries. We are now at a state in which prefabrication and component based design is on the verge of taking over the traditional, stick framed, hand crafted techniques used for the past 6000 years.

MY POSITION

The reality of prefabrication and mass customization is that they have fundamentally changed the way we construct and think about buildings by increasing our ability as architects to control the cost and quality of construction. In many ways firms such as SHop and Kieran & Timberlake have exemplified the mass benefits of thinking about architecture in this way. However, as we engage in this increasingly fabricated, product based industry we must be reminded that architecture is fundamentally different from cars, ships, and planes. Architecture is not transient, it occupies a singular point in space which spans generations and bridges the gap between times gone past. Keeping this in mind (as the the realities of digital fabrication and mass customization threaten to dominate the practice of construction) we must continually ask ourselves; Are we, by removing the hand crafted aspects from our buildings, sacrificing an important and valuable aspect of architecture?

"In the digital era the architect is not a craftsman, but is one able to apply craft thinking to digital making"

Joanne Aitchison

In order to retain the value and meaning in handcrafted architecture in an economy of prefabrication and mass manufacturing we need to engage the following strategies:

1. Balancing Risk and Certainty in Craft

David Pye defines the 'workmanship of risk' and 'workmanship of certainty' as two realities of craft which are present in our modern construction techniques. The 'workmanship of risk' is work where the outcome of a given action in not predetermined, but the determination and skill of the worker determines its outcome. The workmanship of certainty is work which has a predetermined outcome through digital design and fabrication. Any everyday example of this is to think of writing with a pen as the 'workmanship of risk' and a printing press would fall under the 'workmanship of certainty'. Rather than designing buildings to engage EITHER the risk (Frank lloyd Wright) or the certainty (Larry Sass) of workmanship, we must make a conscious effort to integrate the two types of craft.

2. Diversity of Materials

One of the realities of mass production is the shift towards singular materials and generic systems. As architects we must resist the pressure to focus on singular materials to create buildings , but rather to engage a diverse pallet of old and new materials to continually investigate the relationship of parts to the whole. 

"The relationship between parts and whole is essential to the evaluation of quality, meaning, and experience of any architectural design. Greg Lynn

3. The Mobile Production Facility

CNC fabrication technologies and 3d printing has allowed us to bring the manufacturing facility to each individual site (exemplified in Facit Homes D-Process). On site fabrication allows for the integration of hand craft and machine craft at one source. This process reduces embodied energy and allows for a much higher level of flexibility and cost management. 

Architecturally my idea of creating a hybrid architecture of both digital and hand craft is to fabricate the exterior envelope and hand craft or stick frame the interior portions. The slight "V" form of the exterior walls is used to show the significance of the interior space.