Robotic Fabrication

Check out these links:

http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/robo-bricky.html

http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/robo-perforations.html

I guess this will be the next step in digital fabrication, using computer-controlled industrial robot that produces construction elements directly from design data.

Digitally Fabricated Housing for New Orleans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_6cH6JXHU

The Project

The site for the research project will be in the corner of Hampden Road and Gordon Street.

Total area: 352 m2

The aim of the research is to provide a building system based on digital fabrication techniques for the Perth housing market.

MIT CABIN project

The MIT CABIN project aimed to use digital fabrication to create a 1 bedroom cabin. The material used is plywood and this building was able to be erected only with muscle powers. The following image shows the method of figital fabrication:

FACIT building system

From: http://www.facit-uk.com/

FACIT is an Architecture, Design and Construction company that has developed a new digital method for fabricating
intricately designed buildings using computer controlled machines more commonly used in the manufacturing industry.

The ideas behind FACIT are simple ones: How can we design and make buildings better? How can we accuratley predict construction costs? How can we avoid abortive work? How can we make use of digital design information, like they do to make cars? Can we make the whole process of building quicker and easier for the customer?

The FACIT solution simple:
1) Design it all on computer (every last screw hole)
2) Cut all the parts of the building using a computer controlled cutter.
3) Assemble into lightweight blocks in the workshop that one or two
people at most can pick up un aided.
4) Assemble rapidly on site like big blocks of lego

Parametricism

Parametric design is the latest buzz in architecture, the latest AD journal has published articles regarding this new trend. So what is parametric design? the first article described it as "... a style rooted in digital animation techniques, its latest refinements based on advanced parametric design systems and scripting methods." The article also mentioned that this style is only possible due to shared concepts, computational techniques, formal repertoires and tectonic logics. The images produced by this is definately mind-blowing, I have never seen urban design like this before. This is an example of the parametrics design, the Istanbul Masterplan by Zaha Hadid Architects. (Images from http://www.arcspace.com/architects/hadid/kartal_pendik/kp.html )

So my understanding of this style is that you have a bunch of datas, then you model them. Then this model will act based on the datas given, so if you change a building, other things will change. As 1 thing affects another as given from the data. This resulted in a fluid and continious model. After going through a few articles, searching online and asking Dan about this stuff, I feel that this is not for me. Sure it is interesting and radical but it is just too difficult to understand.