eCAADe 2015

Real Time
Volume 2
Editors
Bob Martens
Gabriel Wurzer
Thomas Grasl
Wolfgang E. Lorenz
Richard Schaffranek
Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning
TU Wien

1st Edition, September 2015

Real Time - Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Education and Research in
Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe, Vienna, Austria, 16-18th September 2015, Vol-
ume 2. Edited by Bob Martens, Gabriel Wurzer, Thomas Grasl, Wolfgang E. Lorenz and Richard
Schaffranek. Brussels: Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Eu-
rope; Vienna: Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, TU Wien.

ISBN: 9789491207099

Copyright © 2015

Publisher: eCAADe (Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Eu-
rope) and Faculty of Architecture and Regional Planning, TU Wien.

All rights reserved. Nothing from this publication may be produced, stored in computerised
system or published in any form or in any manner, including electronic, mechanical, repro-
graphic or photographic, without prior written permission from the publisher.
 eCAADe 2015
Real Time -
Extending the Reach of Computation
Volume 2
Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Education and Research in
Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe

16-18 September 2015

Vienna, Austria
Faculty of Architecture and Regional Planning
TU Wien

Edited by
Bob Martens
Gabriel Wurzer
Thomas Grasl
Wolfgang E. Lorenz
Richard Schaffranek
Theme

Real Time - Extending the Reach of Computation

This is the second volume of the conference proceedings of the 33rd eCAADe conference,
held from 16-18 September 2015 at TU Wien, Vienna, Austria. Both volumes together contain
the 145 accepted papers that are also available digitally in CuminCAD (Cumulative Index of
Computer Aided Architectural Design, http://cumincad.scix.net).

The theme of the 33rd eCAADe conference is Real Time: Seeing architectural design as a
time-critical and time-related activity requires new tools, methods and theories that deliver
results not only accurately but also timely. As project cycles begin to accelerate, a variety of
design decisions need to be taken swiftly and nevertheless accurately. Today's practice needs
to explore the solution space through a rapid feedback loop between digital and physical
products, used collaboratively and over a distance. To facilitate such a back-and-forth,
geometries must be converted to manageable approximations on which intelligent tools
can act, providing the designer with feedback and advice. This year's conference seeks to be
a platform for research, teaching and practical work conducted in that spirit.

The second volume of the proceedings contains 74 papers grouped under 15 sub-themes,
which generally follow a more designernly and educational logic than the works in volume 1
(which follow a more formal approach). As additional part, we have our preceding workshop
contributions, which are papers summarizing the workshops given.

The eCAADe 2015 Team:

Bob Martens, Gabriel Wurzer, Thomas Grasl, Wolfgang E. Lorenz and Richard Schaffranek

Theme - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 5

 Sponsors of the eCAADe 2015 Conference

Autodesk

Bentley

Faculty of Architecture and Regional Planning,

TU Wien

Academy of the Austrian Chamber of Architects

and Engineers

6 | eCAADe 33 - Theme - Volume 2

Acknowledgements

Quality control is an emerging issue concerning the publishing of a conference proceedings

book. First of all, the timeline is relatively tight as the publication ought to be available shortly
before the conference. Secondly, one of the most creative moments during the establishment
of the conference schedule and consequently of the table of contents of the proceedings is
the allocation of the papers into sessions. There exist some tools that support clustering and
scheduling, however, the act of assignment is still predominantly based on "human work". In
this context, a match between approximately 150 papers and 30 sessions, requiring a good fit,
is a more than demanding task. ProceeDings, the main editing tool for the present publica-
tion, allows for a continuous working flow between the editors, authors and session chairs. As
benefit, authors are able to check at any time the current appearance of their submission. In
previous years (i.e. before 2014) the shift from a word processing to a typesetting document
created a kind of "black box" situation: In favourable cases the editor(s) would forward the
final PDF-document for quick review and feedback to the author(s) at the very end.
On the occasion of the 2015 Annual Conference a further working tool was developed,
which allows to assign the papers of a session to a designated session chair at an early stage,
i.e. shortly after the full paper submission deadline, expecting that the session chair would go
through these entries and deliver condensed feedback (see figure 1). The author(s) received a
message saying that their contribution was OK or some revision was required. As a matter of
fact, we were able to perceive a significant improvement in overall quality at a relatively low
cost in terms of time needed by session chairs and authors. In case a paper was put into the
wrong session, chairs could re-assign it to a different track. However, the idea of having such
a ``bottom-up'' session assigment and participatory feedback was not ours - kudos go to Ivo
Vrouwe for raising the topic at the end-reception of the last eCAADe conference in Newcastle
upon Tyne, which was the proving-ground where the ProceeDings system was used for the
first time (thanks to Emine Thompson!).
We would like to express our deeply-felt gratitude to all of the authors, reviewers and ses-

Acknowledgements - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 7

 Figure 1
Session Chair View

sion chairs with whom we had the honor of collectively creating this issue of the eCAADe
conference proceedings. In that context, special thanks goes to Martin Winchester for over-
looking the abstract submission system (OpenConf ), which will continue to be one of the main
technical pillars for the preparation of this conference. As further novelty of this year, Martin
has also made available a photo upload for the voting system (eCAADe Best Paper Award /
Ivan Petrovic Award) from which we and future conference organisers will benefit.
Furthermore, our keynote speakers and workshop organisers offer a highly appreciated
added value to the conference in line with eCAADe's motto - promoting good practice and
sharing information in relation to the use of computers in research and education in architecture
and related professions. We thank all of you for fostering eCAADe's role as a platform.
Besides the (printed or digital) conference proceedings, the team of Wolfgang Dokonal
continously provides us with video streams of the paper presentations. This can be challeng-

8 | eCAADe 33 - Acknowledgements - Volume 2

ing due to a number of reasons - ranging from the purely technical side of digital broadcasting
to the more social side of making sure that the footage is recorded correctly. In that endeav-
our, he is this year helped by Andreas Krieger from TU Wien's LectureTube service whom we
wish to thank as well.
From an administrative side, the eCAADe council (and especially Nele De Meyere acting
on its behalf ) has provided us with valuable input and lessons learned from past conferences.
We have also had Mondial Congress & Events as highly-appreciate partner for managing the
conference, ranging from the registration process to the actual printing of the proceedings
books. A big thank goes you to Melanie Mareiner and Daniela Lenzinger, who did all this hard
work.
The organisation of such a large conference costs a lot of effort, also financially. Without
our sponsors - Autodesk, Bentley, ArchIng Akademie and the Faculty of Architecture and Re-
gional Planning at TU Wien, we would not have been able to offer the conference participants
the level of quality that they have gotten used to for eCAADe conferences. As a special form of
sponsorship, the members of the local conference staff donated their time to help the prepa-
ration and realisation of the conference. Thanks for helping us out!

eCAADe 2015 Conference Chairs

Bob Martens, Gabriel Wurzer, Thomas Grasl, Wolfgang Lorenz and Richard Schaffranek

Local conference staff

Gerda Hartl, Benjamin Heinrich, Bernhard Platzer, Moritz Rosenberg, Benjamin Straßl, Bernadette
Arendt, Josef Öhreneder, Patryk Wozniczka, Andreas Ettmayer

Acknowledgements - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 9

Contents
5 Theme
7 Acknowledgements

19 Workshop Contributions
21 Workshop: Developing Building Information Model Visualizations Using a
Domain Specific Language
Helga Tauscher, Raimar J. Scherer
25 Digital Tools and Creative Practice in Architectural Research
Johan Verbeke, Tadeja Zupancic, Henri Achten
29 Quadrics Theorems as an Introduction to Geometry, Parametric Design and
Digital Fabrication
Roberto Narvaez-Rodriguez, Jose Antonio Barrera-Vera
33 Robotic Woodcraft
Philipp Hornung, Johannes Braumann, Reinhold Krobath, Sigrid Brell-Cokcan,
Georg Glaeser
37 ColLab Sketch
Kateřina Nováková, Henri Achten

39 CAAD Education - Concepts

41 Space for Games
Tane Moleta
47 Generative Design Methods
Asterios Agkathidis
57 The MOOC-ability of Design Education
Martijn Stellingwerff
61 Remarks on Transdisciplinarity as Basis for Conducting Research by Design
Teamwork in Real World Context through Two Case Studies of Algorithm
Aided Lighting Design
Aulikki Herneoja, Henrika Pihlajaniemi, Toni Österlund, Anna Luusua, Piia
Markkanen
71 Integrating Responsive and Kinetic Systems in the Design Studio: A
Pedagogical Framework
Sherif Abdelmohsen, Passaint Massoud

Contents - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 11

 81 CAAD Education - Applied
83 From Shaping to Information Modeling in Architectural Education:
Implementation of Augmented Reality Technology in Computer-Aided
Modeling
Jacek Markusiewicz, Jan Słyk
91 Modular Light Cloud - Design, Programming and Making
Jacek Markusiewicz, Marcin Strzała, Krzysztof Koszewski
103 Workshop Digital Manufacturing
Stefan Junk, Rebecca Matt
111 A Course on Biomimetic Design Strategies
Sevil Yazici
119 Teaching and Learning CAAD and CAM in a Fluid Era
Ivo Vrouwe, Laurens Luyten, Burak Pak
127 Integrating BIM in Education: Lessons Learned
Ivana Vinšová, Henri Achten, Dana Matějovská

133 CAAD Education - Tools

135 Flexible Matter
Ioanna Symeonidou
143 Parametrized Systems: Conceiving of Buildings as Assemblies of Varied Parts
Heike Matcha
149 Parametric Modeling: An Advanced Design Process for Architectural
Education
Mohamed-Anis Gallas, Kevin Jacquot, Sylvie Jancart, Frederic Delvaux
159 Programming for Architecture: The Students’ Point of View
Rita Aguiar, Afonso Gonçalves
169 Strategies for Metallic Vault Structures
Pablo Baquero, Effimia Giannopoulou, Jaime Cavazos
177 Memos from an Inconvenient Studio
Andrew Wit, Mahesh Daas

185 Collaboration and Participation

187 Democratic Play
Joshua Choi

12 | eCAADe 33 - Contents - Volume 2

199 [2+2] Two Architects and Two Galleries
Jon Moorhouse, Herbert Peter
207 Decentralized Version Control and Mass Collective Collaboration in Design
Yasushi Sakai, Daisuke Tsunoda
215 CAAD and Conceptual Design Collaboration between Architects and
Structural Engineers
Laurens Luyten
225 Communication, Coordination and Collaboration: Media Affordances and
Team Performance in a Collaborative Design Environment
Bimal Balakrishnan, Danielle Oprean
233 Learning from Collaborative Integration
Bara Safarova, Edna Ledesma, Gregory Luhan, Stephen Caffey, Cecilia Giusti

241 Fabrication - Robots

243 Adaptive Robot Control
Johannes Braumann, Sigrid Brell-Cokcan
251 Smart Architecture-Bots and Industry 4.0 Principles for Architecture
Eliot Rosenberg, M Hank Haeusler, Rebekah Araullo, Nicole Gardner
261 DMR: A Semantic Robotic Control Language
Sebastian Andraos
269 Design=Production
Hans Sachs
277 Live: Real-Time Platform for Robot Design Interfaces
Curime Batliner, Michael Jake Newsum, M. Casey Rehm
287 Informed Design to Robotic Production Systems
Sina Mostafavi, Henriette Bier, Serban Bodea, Ana Maria Anton

297 Fabrication - Design

299 Physical Feedback Workflows in Fabrication Information Modeling (FIM)
Jorge Duro-Royo, Laia Mogas-Soldevila, Neri Oxman
309 Robotic Design-Fabrication
Renate Weissenböck
319 The Use of Digital Fabrication as a Sketching Tool in the Architectural Design
Process
Asli Agirbas

Contents - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 13

 325 Gradient Transparency: Marine Animals as a Source of Inspiration
Simos Vamvakidis
331 Design Methods for Large Scale Printing
Manuel Jimenez Garcia, Gilles Retsin
341 Expanding the Material Possibilities of Lightweight Prefabrication in
Concrete Through Robotic Hot-Wire Cutting
Pedro Filipe Martins, Paulo Fonseca de Campos, Sandra Nunes, Jose Pedro Sousa

353 Fabrication - Applied

355 Making Machines that Make Buildings
Bassam Daoud, Johan Voordouw
361 Between Manual and Robotic Approaches to Brick Construction in
Architecture
Jose Pedro Sousa, Pedro Azambuja Varela, Pedro Filipe Martins
371 Digital Design for Disassembly
Shannon Hosey, Christopher Beorkrem, Ashley Damiano, Rafael Lopez, Marlena
McCall
383 Decorative Robotic Plastering
Joshua D. Bard, David Blackwood, Nidhi Sekhar, Brian Smith
389 Robotic Fabrication of Tensile Mesh Structures and Real Time Response
Odysseas Kontovourkis, George Tryfonos
399 Graded Light in Aggregate Structures
Desislava Angelova, Karola Dierichs, Achim Menges

407 Material Studies

409 Soft Robotics and Emergent Materials in Architecture
Martina Decker
417 What and When Is the Textile? Extending the Reach of Computation through
Textile Expression
Felecia Davis, Delia Dumitrescu
427 Extending the Perception of Wood
Jessica Hunter, Alexandra Cheng, Thomas Tannert, Oliver Neumann, AnnaLisa
Meyboom
439 Osteotectonics
Daniel Baerlecken, Sabri Gokmen
449 Thermal Activated Envelope
Isak Worre Foged, Anke Pasold

14 | eCAADe 33 - Contents - Volume 2

459 Generative Design - Concepts
461 Generative Masterplanning Inspired by Cellular Automata with
Context-specific Tessellation
Trevor Patt
467 Architectural Bioinspired Design
Sun-Joong Kim, Yuri Choi, Ji-Hyun Lee
477 Theories and Models of Parametric Design Thinking
Rivka Oxman, Ning Gu
483 Automated Generation of Heuristics for Design
Richard Schaffranek, Trapp Harald
493 Shanghai Lilong Tower Urbanism
Christian J. Lange

501 Generative Design - Applied

503 Shopgenerator v2
Moritz Rosenberg, Benjamin Straßl
513 Design by Nature: Concrete Infiltrations
Alexandros Kallegias, Elif Erdine
521 Performative Design and Fabrication of a Parametric Wall Screen for Tropical
Climates
Thomas Wortmann, Bige Tuncer
531 Option One: A Model of Participatory Design to Construct a Rural Social
Housing From Digital Fabrication
Diego Alejandro Velandia Rayo
541 A Parametric Process for Shelters and Refugees’ Camps Design
Elie Daher, Sylvain Kubicki, Gilles Halin

549 Generative Design - Biological

551 Biology, Real Time and Multimodal Design
Frederico Fialho Teixeira
563 The Evolutionary Adaptation of Urban Tissues through Computational
Analysis
Mohammed Makki, Ali Farzaneh, Diego Navarro

Contents - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 15

 573 Cell-Based Venation Systems
Christoph Klemmt, Klaus Bollinger
581 An Artificial Life Approach to Configuring Architectural Space
Tim Ireland
591 Geometric Identity of Living Structures Translated to an Architectural Design
Process
Ricardo Gago, Luís Romão
601 Error as Optimization
Yota Adilenidou

611 Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts

613 Spacing Time
Carlos L. Marcos, Angel J. Fernández
623 Closing the Loop for Interactive Architecture
Henri Achten
633 A Symbiotic Interaction of Virtual and Physical Models in Designing Smart
Building Envelope
Do-Young Kim, DoJin Jang, Sung-Ah Kim
643 The One Day House
Andrew John Wit
651 Designing Real Time Sense and Response Environments through UX Research
Kai Hansen, Thomas McLeish
659 Productive Encounters
Özde Özdal, Mine Özkar

667 Smart and Responsive Design - Applied

669 Real-Time Multi-Zone Building Performance Impacts of Occupant Interaction
with Dynamic Façade Systems
Bess Krietemeyer, Kurt Rogler
679 Beyond Smart Remote Controls
Werner Lonsing
687 Biomimetic-Computational Design for Double Facades in Hot Climates
Salma El Ahmar, Antonio Fioravanti
697 SolSeduction
Bernhard Sommer, Galo Moncayo, Malgorzata Sommer-Nawara, Ulrich Pont

16 | eCAADe 33 - Contents - Volume 2

707 Prepared Music Field: Interactive Spatial Music Performances
Eric Sauda, Trevor Hess, Evan Danchenka, Scott Christian, Chris Beorkrem
715 A Design Framework and a Digital Toolset Supporting the Early-Stage
Explorations of Responsive Kinetic Building Skin Concepts
Malgorzata A. Zboinska, Jan Cudzik, Robert Juchnevic, Kacper Radziszewski

Contents - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 17

18 | eCAADe 33 - Contents - Volume 2
Workshop Contributions
Workshop: Developing Building Information Model
Visualizations Using a Domain Specific Language
Helga Tauscher1 , Raimar J. Scherer2
1,2
TU Dresden, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Institute of Construction Informatics
1,2
http://tu-dresden.de/bau/cib
1,2
{helga.tauscher|raimar.scherer}@tu-dresden.de

The rise of digital building models has devalued the broad domain of
architectural visualization, a former core topic of the domain. At the same time,
digital media has opened up new possibilities for interactive and explorative
visual representations. Against this background the workshop advocates to
rediscover visualization as a distinct topic in the context of architecture and
construction. The workshop introduces a method and a theoretic framework for
the creation of visual representations from building information models under
involvement of architects and engineers as domain experts, and a prototypical
implementation, which serves as a proof of concept and allows for the practical
application of the method. The workshop presents the prototype based on selected
hands-on examples.

Keywords: BIM, Visualization, DSL

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND the discipline of information visualization, where re-

Visual representations and presentations have al-
ways been core architectural topics. Since the sub-
ject of architectural design is overly complex, visu-
alizations are required for architects and engineers
to communicate to themselves while designing and
constructing as well as to other project participants.
However, with the rise of digital building models, the
task of creating visual representations has taken a
back seat, and so have visualization skills. Nowadays,
software tools create drawings, animations, render-
ings, and diagrams on behalf of the architects and
engineers. The specification of visualization details
is thus left to user interface designers and software
engineers.
Digital media has at the same time opened up
new possibilities for representation and spawned
search from graphics, psychology, human-computer
interaction, and computer interaction converges into
research on the general question how to visually rep-
resent abstract information. Building upon those de-
velopments time is ripe to rediscover visualization as
a distinct topic in the context of architecture and con-
struction.
METHOD AND THEORETIC FRAMEWORK
At the institute for construction information at TU
Dresden we proposed a method and a theoretic
framework for the creation of visual representations
from building information models under involve-
ment of domain experts. This method allows to
specify visualizations using a domain specific lan-

Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 21


guage (DSL). A particular visualization specification is
then processed together with a building information
model to produce a particular visualization. This way
a particular building information model can be rep-
resented in different ways, and a particular visualiza-
tion specification can be reused for multiple building
information models as shown in figure 1.
The suggested software architecture of a respec-
tive processing application follows the paradigm of
the visualization pipeline (Haber 1979). The pipeline
model breaks the visualization process into three suc-
cessive steps: filter, map, and render. Filtering and
mapping are general issues of information technolo-
gies, which have also been studied in the context
of building information models (e.g. Katranuschkov
2000). Since previous work on building informa-
tion model filtering and mapping exists, visualization
generation can be seen as a specific application of
these techniques, with a specific target space for the
mapping - the space of potential visualizations.
The specifics of the mapping task, the visualiza-
tion domain and the building information modelling
domain allow to narrow down the general purpose
mapping concepts. A DSL to describe visualizations
has to cover the following concepts: Filters allow
to query building information models and to select
22 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
Figure 1
Visualization
generation from
varying building
information models
and varying
visualization
specifications
objects and attributes. These selected parts of the
building model are then to be mapped onto visual-
ization objects and their attributes. Simple visual-
ization mappings must be combinable to form more
complex mapping specifications.
PROTOTYP AND DSL IMPLEMENTATION
Prototypical implementations of both the DSL and
the processing application serve as proof of concept
and allow for the practical application of the meth-
ods. We called the DSL implementation Building
Information Style Language (BISL), in reference to
other style languages such as the extensible style lan-
guage (XSL). The processing engine implementation
is called Billie, the Building Information Style Engine.
Billie is implemented with a modular architec-
ture according to the visualization pipeline paradigm
as shown in figure 2. The modular architecture allows
to extend and update single modules such as the vi-
sualization models or query languages and engines.
Therefore the application acts more like a framework,
integrating diverse libraries under a common inter-
face. Since Billie is implemented in Java and runs in a
JVM, the dynamic programming language Groovy is
used in order to leverage its DSL features.
 The prototype can be used as a library to be inte-
grated in other applications or standalone as a com-
mandline application. The parameters to be given to
the engine consist of a building model to be visual-
ized and a visualization specification. The visualiza-
tion specification can either be given as a file writ-
ten in the BISL DSL or as a precompiled Java archive
which is then run dynamically as a service implemen-
tation (e.g. Knoernschild 2012).
The DSL elements which are implemented in-
clude the most important visualization objects: rect-
angles, polygones, text, lines, bezier curves, boxes,
polyeders. The list of implemented objects is not ex-
haustive yet. Apart from the spatial properties of ob-
jects, their shape and size, the DSL allows to specify
temporal properties as changes in time. The combi-
nation of simpler visualization specifications to more
complex ones may happen in both space or time.
Documentation of both the BISL and Billie can be
found at the Github project page [1]. The documen-
tation contains also sample cases with respective DSL
code.
TOWARDS A CONSTRUCTION VISUALIZA-
TION COMMUNITY
The workshop is intended to present the aforemen-
tioned work, but also to foster architectural and con-
struction specific visualization as emerging fields and
to constitute a respective community.
Thus, in the workshop, the prototype is first in-
troduced based on given example visualizations and
their descriptions. Participants then proceed to cus-

Figure 2
Modular
architecture of the
visualization
processing engine

Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 23

 tomize given visualization descriptions and finally
design a custom visualization use case from scratch.
The visualization use cases serve as a foil for the intro-
duction of technical details, limitations and possibili-
ties for the extension of the framework. The material
for the workshop is also used for an online tutorial ac-
cessible at the project website.
The examples for the application of the visualiza-
tion framework produced in the workshop are also
documented at the website. The outcome includes
conceptual sketches, implementation concepts and
partial realizations for visualization techniques devel-
oped by the participants. Depending on the mixture
of participants, their skills, interest and prerequisites,
an extension to the framework may also result from
the workshop.
The workshop is rounded off with the presen-
tation and discussion of possibilities to contribute
to further development and extension of the frame-
work, and to further research and discourse around
building information visualization. To this end, the
project website provides software downloads, issue
tracking, as well as a wiki and discussion forum.

REFERENCES
Haber, RB and McNabb, DA 1979, 'Visualization Idioms:
A Conceptual Model for Scientific Visualization Sys-
tems', in Nielson, GM, Shriver, B and Rosenblum, LJ
(eds) 1979, Visualization in Scientific Computing, IEE
Computer Science Press, Los Alamitos, CA
Katranuschkov, P 2000, A Mapping Language for Concur-
rent Engineering Processes, Ph.D. Thesis, TU-Dresden
Knoernschild, K 2012, Java Application Architecture. Mod-
ularity Patterns with Examples Using OSGI, Prentice
Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
[1] http://hlg.github.io/billie

24 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2

Digital Tools and Creative Practice in Architectural
Research
Johan Verbeke1 , Tadeja Zupancic2 , Henri Achten3
1
Aarhus School of Architecture / KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture Sint-Lucas
2
University of Ljubljana 3 Czech Technical University in Prague
1
Johan.Verbeke@aarch.dk, johan.verbeke@kuleuven.be
2
Tadeja.Zupancic@fa.uni-lj.si 3 achten@fa.cvut.cz

Recent developments in architectural research show a growing focus on research

by design and creative practice research. New working modes are being
established (in practice as well as in academia) which are a hybrid of traditional
research practices in architecture and explorations in practice. In this paper we
outline the characteristics, potentials, and possible future implementation of
Research by Design and ask some fundamental questions about the implications
for the field of CAAD.

Keywords: Research by Design, Creative Practice, Adapt-r, Design Research

INTRODUCTION Much of the research described above takes place

Research has always been part of architectural prac-
tice, and design is the core competence of the field
of Architecture. Although it is tempting to uphold
a distorted view of "pure research" taking place in
academic institutes and "pure practice" in architect's
and engineering offices, this simply can no longer
be maintained as is evidenced by numurous research
endeavors. Systematic inquiry in the foundations of
architecture can already be seen in Villard de Hon-
necourt's lodge-book from the 13th century. Most
high profile buildings from the 20th and 21st century
such as Sydney Opera House, Centre Georges Pom-
pidou, and Burj Khalifa show the important link be-
tween research and practice. Many of these modern
examples rely on succesful multidisciplinary teams
including architects, engineers and other experts.
Poelman and Keyson (2008) document for less well-
known examples in architecture and industrial de-
sign the role of innovation and research in design.
along well-established patterns. In this paper we
want to point out that there is a change going on.
Recent developments in architectural research show
a growing focus on research by design and creative
practice research. Typical for these endeavours is that
the design work is a core and substantial component
for the research process. Examples of such work can
be seen in leading architectural offices such as Fos-
ter + Partners, HOK, Woods Baggins, ZHA, UN Studio,
as well as PhD programmes such as the ones at KU
Leuven - Sint-Lucas, University of Ljubjana, Univer-
sity of Cardiff and others. This phenomenon is not
only visible in such high-profile offices and universi-
ties, but also becomes apparent in many young and
smaller firms. At the same time we can observe a
more narrow research and development cooperation
between software firms, academia and businesses,
and there are increased numbers of PhD researchers
co-located in universities and companies (eg. the in-

Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 25

 dustrial PhDs as stimulated in Denmark, Belgium and
other countries). At the same time, a growing num-
ber of PhD projects incorporate design activities in ar-
chitectural practice.
In our view, this means that new working modes
are being established (in practice as well as in
academia) which are a hybrid of traditional research
practices in architecture and explorations in prac-
tice. Not only in practice we can see new working
modes, but also in academia research projects that
are merged with practice are being explored. One of
the most appropriate labels which can be assigned
to this new way of working is Research by Design. In
this paper we outline the characteristics, potentials,
and possible future implementation of Research by
Design and ask some fundamental questions about
the implications for the field of CAAD.
RESEARCH BY DESIGN
Design research is more than taking care of repeata-
bility (as known in science), transparency (humani-
ties), theory testing and/or building (from social sci-
ences): rigor, consistency and diligence need to be
upgraded by imagination and by speculation... De-
sign projects are projections into the future. Borrow-
ing other disciplines through syncretic processes re-
quires the creative process to become the focus of
the research (Fraser, 2013), and this leads to the de-
velopment of immanent methods of the process it-
self. Fraser also argues that 'we need to view design
research as something distinct from Schön's "reflective
practitioner" (Schön, 1983), not least because the lat-
ter does not fully take into account the vital processes
of knowledge creation in architecture'. The two ques-
tions Fraser points out are more than relevant: 'Is de-
sign research in architecture something that is already
inherent in the design practice, and simply needs to be
identified and articulated in the public realm? Or is
it something that still needs to be created anew, as a
kind of step-change in the way in which architects/a-
cademics conceive of and produce their designs?' We
can add: (How) is it possible, that the awareness and
the development of the ability to explicate the 'tacit
26 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
knowledge' (Polanyi, 1966) inherent within the design
process triggers other modes of new knowledge cre-
ation (....not 'production'!...)? Following Glanville it is
indeed important to enlarge our understanding of
research to include not only the way of knowing in
the exact sciences, but to also include specific knowl-
edge based on our experiences (artistic, aesthetic, so-
cial, etc) (Glanville 2012). How can we, in architecture,
learn from other art and design disciplines? Some of
the answers and also some new questions are poten-
tially deriving within the ADAPT-r project framework
through establishing a large community of research
practice.
The European Association for Architectural Edu-
cation (EAAE) established in 2012 in Chania, Greece, a
Research Charter which was approved by the General
Assembly. This Charter includes the following para-
graphs:
In architecture, design is the essential feature. Any
kind of inquiry in which design is the substantial con-
stituent of the research process is referred to as research
by design. In research by design, the architectural de-
sign process forms the pathway through which new in-
sights, knowledge, practices or products come into be-
ing. It generates critical inquiry through design work.
Therefore research results are obtained by, and consis-
tent with experience in practice. (EAAE, 2012)
The Charter further values design as a way to cre-
ate insight and understanding as well as the specific
types of knwoledge and ways of communication in
architecture.
CREATIVE PRACTICE RESEARCH
Creative practice research is that research where the
research is substantially embedded in a creative de-
sign practice. These are the research activities which
are undertaken by the architect's office to support
the creation of new designs. Such activities typi-
cally are under more time pressure than traditional
research projects in academia, and are more focussed
to an immediately usable result. We can observe
that such processes operate on shorter iterativecy-
cles (faster) and with a high focus on functionality
(does it deliver), realizability (can it be done), cost
(does it reduce cost), etc. and indeed, aesthetics.
The answer to the question of what exactly to re-
search in a creative practice research project is sim-
ple: it is the inquiry into the 'medium itself' (Van
Schaik and Johnson, 2011; Blythe and van Schaik,
2013). How to do? Taking all the 'four main disci-
plinary approaches within architecture (building sci-
ence, social science, humanities and art/design)' into
account (Rendell, 2004) brings the opportunity of
bringing them together through designing. What
happens when it is done 'by design'? (Verbeke, 2013)
And what happens then in the case of purified for-
malistic endeavours?
THE ADAPT-R PROJECT
The ADAPT-r (Architecture, Design and Art Practice
Training-research) project is lead by the KU Leuven,
Faculty of Architecture Sint-Lucas and strongly influ-
enced by RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Tech-
nology, Melbourne). The project further includes
the Aarhus School of Architecture, the University of
Ljubljana, Faculty of Architecture, the University of
Westminster, the Estonian Academy of Arts, Faculty
of Architecture and the Glasgow School of Art. The
upgrade of the joint actions which took place since
2009 is a project within the EU 7th Framework of Re-
search, more specifically the Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Actions , ITN program, entitled ADAPT-r.
As stated at the project website (ADAPT-r, 2015)
it 'aims to significantly increase European research
capacity through a unique and ground-breaking re-
search model. At its core is the development of a
robust and sustainable initial training network in an
emergent Supra-Disciplinary field of research across
a range of design and arts disciplines - creative prac-
tice research.' The essence of the program is not just
the development of the training model, but also the
training of new researchers themselves - both at the
PhD, the postdoc as well as the supervisor level. The
training includes each of these levels of training in or-
der to seriously increase the capacity to support the
research on and through the venturous practices of
the project fellows.
The professional institutional context of the
project is enabled through a strong partnership net-
work and embeds the research projects in SMEs (ar-
chitectural practices, art and design offices, etc.) as a
'substantial opportunity for real-world testing of the
research and real-world training'. This usually lacks
in more traditional research settings. 'The research
that is produced through the ADAPT-r ITN will con-
tribute to a wider research effort to increase knowl-
edge, understanding and quality of research in prac-
tice based creative disciplines and its methods.' The
ADAPT-r ITN will establish a deeper understanding of
research in creative fields through funding 40 PhD
Fellowships, 8 training conferences, two major re-
search conference, a major exhibition, five key books,
and a website providing public access to research
and events. (ADAPT-r, 2015) Thus a new generation
of (not just reflective) practitioners is introduced to
the methods of creative practice research.
As such the ADAPT-r project (with the support of
the European Commission) materializes and deepens
a movement in architectural research where schools
of Architecture show a growing interest in connect-
ing their research to designing, design studio work
and/or practice (EAAE, 2015). Where in most school
of Architecture, there are only a limited number of
PhDs ongoing in this direction, the ADAPT-r project
creates a pool of 600 research months to reach the
abovementioned goals, hence being one of the ma-
jor endeavors in architectural research of the last
years. The structural relevance of the research' mod-
els like this is becoming a more and more impor-
tant issues of the discussion (Verbeke and Zupancic,
2014).
To consolidate the findings of the first year, the
ADAPT-r project organized the 1st Creative Practice
Research Conference in Brussels, August 2014 (Ver-
beke et al., 2014a and 2014b). In line of the vision
to organize research in the medium and through
designing, the conference hosted plenty of exhibi-
tion presentations. Design studios were cleared and
cleaned in order to host exhibitions, carefully re-
viewed and selected. Presentations took place within
Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 27
 the exhibition spaces. In fact, instead of presenting
images or representations of objects/designs during
the presentations of the research, the participants
could show and refer to objects present in the exhi-
bition space. The conference can be seen as one of
the first fully peer-reviewed conferences which facili-
tate the communication of research findings through
exhibition possibilities.
What is crucial in the ADAPT-r project is the fact
that the researchers remain embedded in their cre-
ative practice and that the outcomes of the research
are communicated through the medium of architec-
ture itself.
POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS FOR CAAD
TOOLS
In view of the above development, it is essential for
the field of architecture and the digital to engage in
the discussion on the implications for the research.
What are the implications and opportunities when
bringing the new research paradigm of CAAD? How
can we incorporate design as a way of developing un-
derstanding in our endeavors?
Within schools of architecture the following
questions seem to be crucial when engaging re-
search projects:
• What are the expected improvements for ar-
chitecture, research, and digital design prac-
tice?
• How will schools & research institutes better
integrate findings from practice?
• How will research findings from schools and
research institutes better find their way into
practice?
• How does this lead to more/higher funding
possibilities?
Furthermore, how can we as a discipline contribute
in a better way to society, to the quality of build-
ings, to the future of the world? How can we include
in a strong way the experiences from all the design-
ers working every day with design software? How
can we channel these experiences into our research
28 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
projects? How can we benefit from what is happen-
ing in architectural practices?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research leading to these results has received
funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Ac-
tions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework
Programme FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agree-
ment n° 317325.
REFERENCES
Blythe, R and van Schaik, L 2013, 'What if Design Practice
Matters?', in Fraser, M (eds) 2013, Design Research in
Architecture, an Overview, Ashgate, Burlington, pp.
53-69
Fraser, M 2013, 'Introduction', in Fraser, M (eds) 2013, De-
sign Research in Architecture, an Overview, Ashgate,
Burlington, pp. 1-14
Glanville, R 2012, The Black Boox, volume I. Cybernetic Cir-
cles, Echoraum, Vienna
Poelman, W and Keyson, D (eds) 2008, Design Processes:
What Architects & Industrial Designers can teach other
about managing the design process, Delft University
Press, Delft
Polyani, M 1966, The Tacit Dimension, Doubleday & Co.,
New York
Rendell, J 2004, 'Architectural Research and Disciplinar-
ity', Architectural Research Quarterly, 8(2), pp. 141-
147
van Schaik, L and Johnson, A (eds) 2011, By Practice,
By Invitation: Design Practice Research at RMIT, One-
pointsixone, Melbourne
Schön, D 1983, The Reflective Practitioner, How Profession-
als Think in Action, Basic Books, New York
Verbeke, J, Van Den Biesen, H and Van Den Berghe,
J (eds) 2014a, Creative Practice Conference. Papers.
ADAPT-r, Brussels
Verbeke, J, Van Den Biesen, H and Van Den Berghe,
J (eds) 2014b, Creative Practice Conference. Exhibi-
tions. ADAPT-r, Brussels
Verbeke, J 2013, 'This is Research by Design', in Fraser,
M (eds) 2013, Design Research in Architecture, an
Overview, Ashgate, Burlington, pp. 137-159
Verbeke, J and Zupancic, T 2014, 'Adapting to and
adapted by ADAPT-r = Prilagajanje projektu in prila-
gajanje projekta ADAPT-r : architecture, design and
art practice training-research', AR, 2, pp. 49-52
[1] http://adapt-r.eu
[2] http://eaae.org/research
Quadrics Theorems as an Introduction to Geometry,
Parametric Design and Digital Fabrication
Roberto Narvaez-Rodriguez1 , Jose Antonio Barrera-Vera2
1,2
University of Seville
1
http://personal.us.es/roberto 2 http://personal.us.es/barrera
1,2
{roberto|barrera}@us.es

The Caterpillar gallery was a teaching innovation project intended to integrate

geometry, parametric design and digital fabrication at the earliest stage of the
undergraduate training period. This paper shows the contents, based on this
project, of the workshop carried out within the 33rd eCAADe conference, Vienna
2015. The geometrical principles -stemming from certain quadrics theorems-, the
parametric definition and the digital fabrication of the reduced-scale model
executed in the workshop are outlined and illustrated.

Keywords: Architectural geometry, Quadrics, Parametric Design, Digital

Fabrication, Education

INTRODUCTION forms. Compared with the conventional paradigm,

The use of computation in architectural design has
definitely opened a new paradigm in architecture
(Terzidis, 2003). The focus of the new design strategy
has moved from the object to the process itself. Algo-
rithms acquire the role of the new means of represen-
tation as the language which translates human think-
ing for the combination power of computer-based
processes. Indeed scripting languages integrated in
CAD systems go beyond visual and mouse-based op-
erations establishing a new way of interacting with
the geometry involved in the project. On the other
hand, the parallel development of digital fabrication
perfectly matches with digital design tools, allowing
a totally digital architectural process, from concep-
tion to materialisation.
This new paradigm places geometry in a new po-
sition with new roles. The explicit use of geometry is
almost the only link between programming/scripting
languages and architectural spatial relationships and
this means major changes in the way in which ge-
ometry is applied, represented and even managed
along the different stages of a project. In fact,
the new relationships between applied geometries
-descriptive, projective, algebraic...- and related dis-
ciplines in architecture -CAAD, programming, digital
fabrication...- foster the emergence of a new disci-
pline which integrates all of them together, Architec-
tural Geometry (Pottmann, 2007).
The ways of thinking, conceiving, developing
and materialising an architectural work are affected
by the new paradigm. In most architecture schools,
training matching this new concept is provided
within postgraduate programmes. Nevertheless, just
because the fundamentals are affected, the authors
of this paper strongly believe -after years of tested
teaching experience- that the implementation of the
digital realm must take place at the beginning of the
undergraduate training period, which is exactly the

Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 29

 time when students shape their design methodol-
ogy.
The Caterpillar gallery (Narvaez-Rodriguez,
Martin-Pastor, & Aguilar-Alejandre, 2015) was a
project intended to produce this implementation
under a carefully-planned pedagogical structure to
avoid gaps of knowledge and competences. It was a
ten-meter-long built full-scale prototype which facili-
tated the integration of digital tools in a course about
the Fundamentals of Architectural Geometry for un-
dergraduate first-year students. This paper shows
the contents, based on this project, of the workshop
carried out within the 33rd eCAADe conference, held
in the Vienna University of Technology (Austria) in
September 2015. The geometrical principles -based
on quadrics theorems-, the parametric definition and
the digital fabrication of the 1:6 scale model executed
in the workshop are outlined and illustrated.
GEOMETRICAL PRINCIPLES AND PARA-
METRIC DEFINITION
As an exercise to be addressed by beginner students,
the design of the pavilion was intended to respond to
a series of requirements; simplicity, constructive ef-
ficiency to be built and assembled by the students,
and spatial interest both from the installation itself
and the environment relationship. At the same time,
the piece must contain the intended geometrical
30 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
concepts for the course, including an introduction
to algorithmic thinking applied to architectural de-
sign, human scale control, vector geometry, basic
curves, developable surfaces, intersections, true size
and shape for fabrication...
The result was not a closed-ended design but
a generative law based on the use of developable
surfaces and simple geometrical operations, which
allowed students to propose a variety of solutions.
The parameterisation of a quadratic surface theorem
by Gaspard Monge (Taibo, 1983), regularly used in
teaching to give explanation to classic vaults, is the
starting point to address exploration. The statement
basically says that if two quadratic surfaces are cir-
cumscribed about a third, the intersection curve de-
composes into two planar curves.
In order to work with simple and developable
surfaces, the quadrics chosen are rotational cones or
cylinders circumscribed about spheres to force the
intersections to be planar curves, particularly ellipses.
The spheres are placed at the vertices of a polygonal
path with an elevation by way of zig-zag lines and a
plan defining the route to follow, as the idea was to
create a longitudinal space. Moreover, the diameters
of the spheres control and define the spaciousness
of the project at every point of the path at two dif-
ferent levels; at the ground level and at the average
human size. Finally, the shell is defined by keeping
Figure 1
Pictures of the built
full-scale prototype,
The Caterpillar
gallery, University
of Seville (Spain),
2014.
Figure 2
A-left. Human scale
and space control
with the set of
spheres at the two
levels. A-top-right.
Set of cones
circumscribed
about the spheres
to define the shell.
A-bottom-right.
Second quadrics
theorem showing
the two-
dimensional
construction to
simplify the
parametric
definition. B.
Different stages of
the assembly
process; the conical
fractions are linked
to the ground
through the use of
wooden wedges
and to the other
fractions with the
use of nylon cable
ties. Excepting the
rigid position of the
wedges along the
intersection of the
cones with the
ground, the rest of
the linkages can be
directly executed,
as the drillings for
the ties are laid out
to geometrically
constrain the
surfaces to acquire
the desired shape.
C. Pictures of the
resulting model at
1:6 scale.
Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 31
 every conical fraction located between the two pla-
nar intersection curves with the adjacent cones and
the ground floor plane.
The parametric definition also takes advantage
of another quadric theorem which states that the
two planar curves resulting from the previous the-
orem are projected onto the plane of symmetry of
the two quadrics as two straight lines. This simpli-
fies, even more, the three-dimensional geometrical
relationships to an easy two-dimensional construc-
tion. The spheres turn into circles and the rest of
the elements, cones, cylinders and their intersections
can be represented as straight lines. In addition, this
is a good exercise for students to get trained in the
use of projective properties of three-dimensional ge-
ometries.
DIGITAL FABRICATION AND ASSEMBLY
The impact of digital fabrication laboratories in ar-
chitectural education can also be channelled to pro-
duce benefits from the earliest stage of the train-
ing period, introducing students to the relationships
among geometry, software, the production process
and the control over building components and ma-
terials (Celani, 2012).
In this case, due to the possibility of unrolling
the surfaces defining the project, all building com-
ponents can be laid out on a plane. Consequently
they can be obtained from sheets or panels of differ-
ent materials, according to their functions and thick-
nesses required, and fabricated with a laser cutter or
a three-axis CNC milling machine.
The structural behaviour differences between
the built full-scale prototype and the 1:6 scale model
must be pointed out. At 1:1 scale, the shell was
materialised with five-millimetre-thick plywood pan-
els. The fractions of conical surface are not self-
supporting. They are used as components that, once
assembled, bring about the emergence of the de-
sired structural behaviour without any kind of auxil-
iary structure. This behaviour is difficult to simulate at
a reduced scale, therefore conclusions on this matter
are not reliable at 1:6 scale. Nevertheless, essential
32 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
conclusions related with the assembly strategy can
be achieved. The figures illustrate different stages of
this process.
CONCLUSION
The quadrics theorems stated in this paper, in the
particular case of cones and cylinders circumscribed
about spheres, provide effective and appropriate ge-
ometrical principles to integrate geometry, paramet-
ric design and digital fabrication at the earliest stage
of the undergraduate training period.
Geometry plays new roles within the digital
realm in contemporary architecture which must be
translated to the educational context. Although
The Caterpillar gallery was a successful innovation
project in this sense, this is a field which still needs re-
search, development and testing in many other archi-
tecture schools. Workshops, such as the one showed
in this paper, where lecturers, researchers and stu-
dents from different countries are involved, foster in-
teresting and motivating discussions to keep advanc-
ing on this topic.
REFERENCES
Celani, G 2012, 'Digital Fabrication Laboratories: Peda-
gogy and Impacts on Architectural Education', Nexus
Network Journal, 14(3), pp. 469-482
Narvaez-Rodriguez, R, Martin-Pastor, A and Aguilar-
Alejandre, M 2015, 'The Caterpillar Gallery:
Quadratic Surface Theorems, Parametric Design and
Digital Fabrication', in Block, P, Knippers, J, Mitra, NJ
and Wang, W (eds) 2015, Advances in Architectural
Geometry 2014, Springer
Pottman, H 2007, Architectural Geometry, Bentley Insti-
tute Press, Exton
Taibo-Fernandez, A 1983, Geometria Descriptiva y sus
Aplicaciones. Tomo II, Tebar Flores, Madrid
Terzidis, K 2003, Expressive Form: A Conceptual Approach
to Computational Design, Spon Press - Taylor & Fran-
cis Group, New York
Robotic Woodcraft
Creating Tools for Digital Design and Fabrication

Philipp Hornung1 , Johannes Braumann2 , Reinhold Krobath3 ,

Sigrid Brell-Cokcan4 , Georg Glaeser5
1,3,5
Robotic Woodcraft | University of Applied Arts Vienna 2 Robots in Architecture
| University for Arts and Design Linz 4 Robots in Architecture | RWTH Aachen Uni-
versity
1,3
http://www.roboticwoodcraft.com/
2,4
http://www.robotsinarchitecture.org/
5
http://www.uni-ak.ac.at/geom/
1
contact@phaad.at
2,4
{johannes|sigrid}@robotsinarchitecture.org
3,5
{reinhold.krobath|georg.glaeser}@uni-ak.ac.at

Robotic Woodcraft is a transdisciplinary, arts-based investigation into robotic

arms at the University for Applied Arts Vienna. Bringing together the craftsmen
of the Department for Wood Technology, the geometers of the Department for
Arts and Technology, the young industrial design office Lucy.D and the roboticists
of the Association for Robots in Architecture, the research project explores new
approaches on how to couple high-tech robotic arms with high-end wood
fabrication. In the eCAADe workshop, participants are introduced to KUKA|prc
(parametric robot control, Braumann and Brell-Cokcan, 2011) and shown
approaches on how to create their own digital fabrication tools for customized
fabrication processes involving wood.

Keywords: Robotic woodcraft, Arts-based research, Robotic fabrication, Visual

programming, Parametric robot control

INTRODUCTION for robotic arms in the area of high-end wood fabri-

Through advances in programming interfaces and
increasingly affordable hardware, robotic arms have
become relevant tools for the creative industry
within a very short timeframe. As a modular sys-
tem, they can be equipped with a huge range of tools
(Figure 1) and thus be used in a similarly huge spec-
trum of applications. We see a particular potential
cation: As a non-homogenous, anisotropic material,
wood can be processed in many different ways, from
regular milling to more complex applications such as
bending and even additive processes (refer e.g. to
Menges, 2012 and Gramazio et al., 2010). At the same
time, being a grown material that expands and con-
tracts with the level of humidity, wood fabrication

Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 33


requires less rigid tolerances than metal fabrication,
where robots cannot compete with the accuracy of
dedicated metal milling machines.
Visual programming environments, especially
Grasshopper, coupled with robot control plugins
such as KUKA|prc, today enable us to dynamically
define, simulate, and execute complex, robotic pro-
cesses that go beyond standard-milling applications
(Braumann and Brell-Cokcan, 2014). Thus we are not
limited to certain pre-defined milling strategies, but
can integrate the special, anisotropic material prop-
erties into our code.
CUSTOMIZED DESIGN TOOLS
KUKA|prc provides us with the essential software
tools for robot simulation and code generation. How-
ever, for complex tasks we have to create custom
design tools that integrate certain special proper-
ties and parameters. Due to Grasshopper's modu-
lar, component-based system, these strategies can
therefore be contained within their own compo-
nents that expose only the relevant input and out-
put ports. The following tools are based on native
GH-components, VB-script as well as components by
34 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
Figure 1
Multi-axis flank
milling of an art
installation in
cooperation with
design studio
Lucy.D, Vienna.
KUKA|prc.
kukaFeeds When working with an anisotropic
material like wood and material-optimized cutters,
machining velocities are of great importance. To be
able to handle different scenarios with their specific
speeds a custom component was developed. It de-
fines machining related velocities like e.g. rapid ve-
locity for movements to, from and above material,
plunge velocity for movements cutting into mate-
rial, retreat velocity out of material as well as the
milling velocity for cutting in material. Unlike com-
mercial CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) soft-
ware, these properties can then be finely adjusted,
e.g. for each individual toolpath, rather than applied
globally.
revCrvs | revPlns | revLT The resulting quality
and final finish of machined contours or surfaces are
directly dependent on the internal structure (radial,
tangent or axial orientation of fibers) of the initial ma-
terial (wood) as well as the direction of cut itself (Fig-
ure 1). To enable a quick assignment of specific direc-
tionality to a custom designed toolpath three differ-
ent components (reverse curves, reverse planes, re-
verse lists-tree) were designed.
Figure 2
events-ONR-data |
events-ONR-
display:
quantitative and
qualitative
summary of
unreachable
positions or
collisions (refer to
Braumann,
Brell-Cokcan 2015).
events-ONR-data | events-ONR-display When
handling many complex toolpaths in one continu-
ous process, the resulting data-set within the plan-
ning environment is rapidly increasing. As a conse-
quence, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain
an overview of the project, possibly causing one to
miss problematic robot positions. Therefore, out-of-
reach positions as well as collisions have to be pre-
checked to avoid kinematic singularities, collisions,
or damage to the robot and its surroundings. For a
fast quantitative and qualitative summary two com-
ponents were developed (Figure 2). In the event of
unreachable positions or collisions, the quantitative
outputs display the amount, of 'events ONR' (events
of no reach and collision), the related axes, axis-
values, indices, command ids and command tags.
These outputs greatly facilitate spotting affected sit-
uations in the toolpath as well as on the program-
ming canvas of Grasshopper. As an additional fea-
ture, 'events ONR' can be displayed graphically in the
rhino viewport.
customToolKressElte Special tools allow us to
perform operations that would not be possible with
regular, commercial end-effectors. A special mount
for a compact Kress spindle was developed by ana-
lyzing the limits of our large milling spindle with the
goal of creating a complementary tool for situations
with complex reachability. Its digital representation
allows us to digitally evaluate such situations in ad-
vance and avoid collisions with the workpiece (Figure
3).
customToolElte+Fipa Similarly, a custom phys-
ical tools was developed that allows us to combine
gripping and milling in one seamless process. It is
based on a mid-sized electro spindle (Elte TMPE4)
and an overhead-mounted vacuum gripper (Fipa
TC120x230) on multiple custom flange elements. In
many industrial applications, robots are only used for
pick and place operations - with new, custom tools
this could be easily expanded, but also requires new
programming approaches that can cope with the
complexity of having multiple tools mounted onto a
single machine.
CONCLUSION
Visual programming has allowed us to quickly and
efficiently create robotic processes that embed parts
of the material knowledge of artisans and carpenters
Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 35

within the code, making it accessible to non-expert
users (see also Brell-Cokcan and Braumann, 2014).
Similarly, we can now quickly prototype new robotic
tools within a virtual environment, greatly speeding
up their development.
Therefore custom software allows us to move
past the limitations of commercial software, which is
generally not optimized for materials with a complex-
ity like wood, towards new robotic applications.
We expect that the use of robotic labor will con-
tinue to have a deep impact on the creative indus-
try, towards creating new and customizable designs
with multifunctional machines and the similarly mul-
tifunctional material wood.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research has been supported by the Austrian Sci-
ence Fund through the PEEK program for arts-based
research (project AR 238-G21).
Suppin, R, 2015, 'Repair My Series 07' as part of
his Ph.D. thesis, Vienna University of Technology.
REFERENCES
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2011 'Parametric Robot
36 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2
Figure 3
Freeform surface
machining of a
double-curved
plywood shell in
cooperation with
Rüdiger Suppin, TU
Vienna, entitled
'Repair My Series
07'.
Control: Integrated CAD/CAM for Architectural De-
sign', Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the
Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture
(ACADIA)
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2014a 'Visual Robot
Programming – Linking Design, Simulation, and
Fabrication', Proceedings of the 5th annual Sympo-
sium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design
(SimAUD)
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2015 'Adaptive Robot
Control', Proceedings of the eCAADe 2015, Vienna
Brell-Cokcan, S and Braumann, J 2014b 'Robotic Pro-
duction Immanent Design: Creative toolpath De-
sign in Micro and Macro Scale', Proceedings of the
34th Annual Conference of the Association for Com-
puter Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), Los An-
geles, pp. 579-588
Gramazio, F, Kohler, M and Oesterle, S 2010, 'Encoding
Material', in Oxman, R and Oxman, N (eds) 2010, Ar-
chitectural Design, vol 80, Wiley, Hoboken, pp. 111-
118
Menges, A 2012, 'Morphospaces of Robotic Fabrica-
tion', in Brell-Cokcan, S and Braumann, J (eds) 2012,
Rob|Arch – Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art,
and Design, Springer, Vienna, pp. 28-47
 ColLab Sketch
Multi-Platform Collaborative Sketching on the Internet

Kateřina Nováková1 , Henri Achten2

1,2
Czech Technical University
1
kata.bruha@gmail.com 2 achten@fa.cvut.cz

Being overwhelmed by computing technologies, we are forwarding more and

more of our skills into area of "thinking by head". Our designing capabilities are
turning into capabilities of "how to work with very intelligent technology". The
processes of human brain, nevertheless, are different to the processes in
computer. Designers are said to think by hand. As architects we are looking for
final forms that not only fulfil the technical requirements, but are beautiful as
well. Therefore sketching is one of the skills that belongs to an architect in order
to design and particularly to work in a team. The workshop will accordingly
focus on sketching on electronic devices in comparison with sketching on paper.
Is it actually possible to switch to tablets when sketching? If yes, which
application is the best to use? In order to find that out, there will be a test of three
applications: ColLab Sketch, Queeky and FlockDraw. The participants will be
sketching on-line and helping to find the best way of communication by sketch.
By drawing they will become a part of the research, their work will be
post-produced and exhibited at the welcome dinner.

Keywords: Sketching, Internet-based Collaboration, Digital vs. Physical

Figure 1 INTRODUCTION
Sketch produced ColLab Sketch [1] is a program for sharing and manip-
with ColLab Sketch ulating sketches via the internet. It was developed
by Kateřina Nováková at Czech Technical University
in Prague, in collaboration with ETH Zurich, Chair
of Information Architecture. Collab Sketch is multi-
platform, working on Android, iPad, and Windows.
People can sketch, share their sketches, and work on
sketches made by other people - which forms the
technical basis of this workshop.

Workshop Contributions - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 37

 WORKSHOP OUTLINE
In the ColLab sketch workshop participants shall ex-
perience a real-time sketch collaboration. (If there
is enough participants we can break a record in the
number of users of ColLab sketch bring connected
to one session.) This experiment shall test the pos-
sibilities and potential of such a co-working plus It
has the aim of testing the social level of remote col-
laboration. Two types of co-worker settings will be
simulated: In-place and remote collaboration. In the
collocated setting maximal number of collaborating
participants may be tested together with the actual
contribution of sharing sketches and working on the
sketches made by somebody else. Firstly, sketches
will be switched voluntarily, secondly, they will be
switched after 2 minutes. In the next run, sketches
will be switched after 10 minutes and finally, partici-
pants will be asked to switch sketches as many times
as they can within 30 minutes. After this testing, users
will be interviewed.
In the remote-simulated condition several ques-
tions may be posted and may be answered by ob-
servation of the participants. First of all, what
streems are crucial for architects when collaborating
remotely. What is the importance of audio, video and
sketch channel in the remote collaboration? Again,
what is the maximum number of participants work-
ing in one sheet? Does ColLab sketch system of
collaboration rise the eventual possible number of
sketching participants in the design session?
Here, the influence of the used devices must be
mentioned. It is assumed that participants will be
using their own laptops, tablets and even mobile-
phones. The last mentioned cant be recommended if
not using stylus. Derived from previous testing draw-
ing on Smartphone with the use of finger is so incon-
venient and imprecise so that it can not compete with
any bigger device with a stylus. Anyway, testing de-
vices may not be the core of the workshop.
The workshop will start by several drawing
games, so that participants learn how to draw on
their devices but also loose fear of drawing in front of
other people. After that a serious design session will
take place, where the output should be one design
with the touch from everybody throughout the de-
sign process. The first task will be an easy piece of fur-
niture with a special function (e.g. a chair for a witch/-
magician/president), in the second task, architecture
shall be designed. Again, it will be a something spe-
cial with a specific function (Madonna's house, public
toilets in Vienna, a lookout tower in the Dead Valley or
Robinson's shed on a desert island). To that end, we
will be using not only ColLab Sketch but also Queeky
[2] and FlockDraw [3].
ANTICIPATED RESULTS
All results and especially the process of collabora-
tive drawing will be exhibited at the end of the day.
This is possible because the ColLab sketch program
is recording the processes of sketching in each sheet.
There will be a questionaire offered to the visitors of
the exposition of the ready sketches in order to evalu-
ate the results in a qualitative way. For quantitave re-
sults time will be measured: the time spent by sketch-
ing and the time spent by talking. Also time spent
by organising the session itself is important and will
be mesured. The whole session will be recorded by a
camera.
REFERENCES
[1] http://collab.bitwise.cz
[2] http://www.queeky.com
[3] http://flockdraw.com

38 | eCAADe 33 - Workshop Contributions - Volume 2

CAAD Education - Concepts
Space for Games
Exploring Acquisition of Space Planning Skills through the Use of Real Time
Strategy Games

Tane Moleta1
1
Victoria University of Wellington
1
tane.moleta@vuw.ac.nz

Real Time Strategy games enjoy worldwide popularity. Success in this genre of
games requires a high degree of skill in spatial and temporal organisation. These
skills are typically built upon a foundation characteristic of an iterative workflow.
An iterative workflow is also a desirable behaviour in the design studio of
architecture students allowing for a greater understanding of parameters
embedded within the design and ultimately leading to better learning outcomes.
This paper discusses the potential of Real Time Strategy Games and draws
connections between successful player attributes found specifically in Tower
Defence Games and how these could be used to introduce skills required in the
planning of architectural space

Keywords: First Year Architectural Education, Space Planning, Tower Defence,

Real Time Strategy Game

INTRODUCTION developed within immersive video games. How can

The acquisition of space planning skills seems to be
a deceptively simple requirement of an architectural
education. One of the hallmarks of architectural de-
sign education in the 1960's and 1970's was the use of
bubble diagrams and other illustrative approaches.
These tools were to allow an abstract environment
to enable an iterative testing process. Contempo-
rary education however has seen a shift away from
this once dominant functionalist approach. While it
is not appropriate to resurrect such methods, it is a
concern that a fundamental design skill appears to
be off the agenda. This also brings to light how might
we rethink the acquisition of space planning skills for
students who learnt SketchUp or Rhino3D at high-
school and whose understanding of space has been
we leverage from the skill-set and interests of the dig-
ital native to revisit the education of this architec-
tural design skill? This paper explores this situation
by bringing together established video game genres
to alter the delivery of space planning in the context
of a first year architectural education.
Education researcher Nicola Whitton identifies
the potential adoption of games as beneficial but a
largely untapped within higher learning. In 'Learn-
ing with Digital Games: A Practical Guide to Engaging
Students in Higher Education' Whitton argues that
game based learning presents a unique opportunity
for educators (Whitton, 2010). Whitton's research
vouches for the productive capacity for games to be
used a transformative tool in higher education. Her

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 41

 thesis 'investigation into the potential of collabora-
tive computer game based learning in Higher Edu-
cation' argues that the types of learners is changing,
and that the current student arrives at university with
a different set of capabilities in comparison to histori-
cal university intakes (Whitton, 2007). She states con-
temporary students have a greater understanding of
technology and an appreciation or desire to engage
in more socially oriented activity. Noting that games
offer the potential to transform university education,
a new generation of learners can be motivated and
engaged in a way that traditional education does not
(Whitton, 2007). In architectural education Chieh-Jin
Lin investigated the capacity for the use of an 'elec-
tronic game like' interface to teach space planning
skills (Chieh, 2005). This project reported a greater
understanding of architectural space planning prin-
ciples was achieved by the students, however the au-
thor concluded that the application operated more
like a functionally oriented CAD tool and lacked the
compelling or immersive quality of game play ex-
pected within a video game context (Chieh, 2005,
138).
INTRODUCTION TO GAME MECHANICS
The findings from SLG (Space Layout Game) revealed
an ability to locate functional architectural design
principles within a game like interface. Participation
was however diminished due to a lack of a genuine
game like experience. Many researchers have noted
that one of the most compelling aspects observed
in participants of electronic games is their capacity
to sustain an active engagement (Dalla Vecchia, da
Silva, & Pereira, 2009). The capacity of games to en-
gage their participant is largely attributed to the use
of game mechanics (Nitsche, 2008). Michael Nitsche
describes in his book 'video game spaces' that game
mechanics are 'a set of circumstances' and that they
are used to encourage players to participate in the
activity required of the game' (Nitsche, 2008). Jesse
Shell defines these circumstances as primarily a set
of challenges that the participant must adhere too,
or master as a means to progress within that game
42 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
(Schell, 2008, p. 177). Schell also articulates two
key points. Firstly, that the participants of any game
unanimously hold the assumption that the game op-
erates on a fair playing field (Schell, 2008). Sec-
ondly, that the participant must be led to believe that
they can indeed master the skills required to proceed
through the game (Schell, 2008). Another considera-
tion Schell introduces is the notion of an interplay be-
tween anxieties versus boredom (Schell, 2008). This
condition describes an understanding that the par-
ticipant engaged in any game activity must operate
within a delicate balance between: challenges (dif-
ficulty - low to high), and required skill acquisition
to surpass those challenges (ease of acquiring skill -
low to high). The principles outlined by both Nitche
and Schell help to define the qualities that would
help to produce the compelling and immersive qual-
ities expected of a game. This expectation of both
progress and the requirement to invest time to mas-
ter the principles of any given game would appear to
offer a range of compatible qualities required of stu-
dents of architecture. The iterative development of
design solutions is one of the more desirable behav-
iors of successful students. The investment of time by
engaging in the iterative process often yields more
successful design outcomes, but also allow the stu-
dent to build a catalog of successful design strate-
gies that might be deployed by the students at a later
stage. These combined qualities offer some markers
for how a teaching delivery might benefit from an
adoption of game mechanics.
INTRODUCTION TO TOWER DEFENSE
A survey of game types was undertaken to identify
a suitable candidate to trial. Puzzle games with a
complex geometrical or spatial understanding were
among the first surveyed: World of Goo (2008) and
Strata (2013). These were quickly discounted as these
games were focused on solving three dimensional
puzzles and did not require the organisation of space.
Following this the Real Time Strategy Game genre
was introduced. This genre requires a range of desir-
able traits for students engaged in the study of archi-
tecture. Success in this genre encourages an iterative
understanding of three dimensional space and the
ability to organize how items are placed within this
space. Three popular titles were observed Star Craft
(2000), Age of Empires (2014) and Total War II (2014).
This particular type of Real Time Strategy game re-
quires the building of an empire, defense, and offen-
sive units. The participants begin by positioning at-
tack and defense units that are incrementally tested
in waves of attacks. They also typically undertake mo-
bile attack of targets by re positioning and directing
attacking units. This game type was deemed as pre-
senting a greater focus on mobile military strategies
rather than functional organisation of space. The em-
phasis on the chasing of a target offers little to help
deliver knowledge of space planning. The 'financial
empire' themed games were also explored. Popular
titles such as Hay Day (2013), FarmVille (2012) and so
on are although compelling, and encourage partici-
pants to engage in regular iterative amendments ap-
pear to require a degree of spatial organisation, do
not however require any functional understanding
placement of game items. The key consideration in
this genre is the management of time and meeting
delivery of requested tasks over the space planning
of game items.
Following this the Tower Defense genre was
identified as a likely candidate. Within the Real Time
Strategy Game genre, Tower Defense is unique in that
the participant is extremely limited in their engage-
ment with the game items. In Tower Defense the
participant may choose what is positioned on the
playing field, but the units are typically static and
no control is offered as to where or what these units
will target. The challenge required of Tower Defense
participants is relatively simple; to defend an area
from the advances of another team. Tower Defense
requires participants to evolve an understanding of
space planning within an digital environment. Suc-
cessful players of Tower Defense are also required to
understand the temporal occupation of a site and
the sequencing of its habitation. Skilled players learn
over time that particular arrangements of functional
units will achieve desirable or successful outcomes.
Participants of Tower Defense are usually met with
one of two types of game space; a defined field, or
an open field. The defined field is typically charac-
terized by a maze or path upon which assailants will
travel in order to reach the combatants base. Radi-
ant Defense (2014), Bloons (2007) or Plants vs Zom-
bies (2009) characterize this type. The other type of
game is characterized by an open field upon which
assailants will enter the playing field and approach
the base from all possible orientations. Titles such
as Clash of Clans (2012), Total Conquest (2013), King-
dom Rush (2011) are popular examples of this type
of game. This open field type of game presents par-
ticipants a more complex challenge and encourages
a greater investment of time in order to understand
the spatial and temporal problems that will arise as
players proceed through levels. The player is encour-
aged to organize how pursuers enter the scene and
how they travel about the scene by building struc-
tures. In order to 'beat' the attacking combatants
they are best to consider organizing spatial circum-
stances that might alter how their pursuers advance
in their journey across the scene. In order to master
a particular stage of the game the player will often
focus on a single task within a specific scene, even
if this costs the success of the level. Slowly building
on Initial strategies participants explore more volatile
configurations which are deployed and tested until
failure or success. Eventually players will develop a
deeply personal but highly successful series of func-
tional configurations in response to the range of sit-
uations the game exposes them too. Such qualities
seem useful indices and could be directly translat-
able to the procedures identified in successful archi-
tectural space planning. From the analysis of a brief
through to acknowledgment of a pool of acceptable
design solutions the Tower Defense game type and
space planning seem to indicate a high degree of
commonality.
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 43
 DELIVERY IN THE STUDIO
A provisional study was initiated in the design studio
of a group of first year students. The study sought to
understand if an exposure to a Tower Defense game
would bear any impact on the ability of students to
evolve a greater understanding of space planning in
an architectural context. From the group of first year
students, 30 volunteered to participate. These stu-
dent participants were then divided into two teams
one of which would engage with Tower Defense and
a group that would not. As first year students in the
first semester of study they had not yet had exposure
to space planning. All students were familiar with
use of iPad and also happen to engage in some form
of casual game play on smart devices, although not
Tower Defense games.
Initially one group of 15 was asked to engage
with the popular Tower Defense game, 'Clash of
Clans' and achieve success in 15 levels of the game.
This was met with a degree of enthusiasm, and po-
tentially an unwanted future distraction to their stud-
ies. The students reported a high number of failed it-
erations in the early stages of learning the game that
slowly improved over time. All students managed to
reach the required level in 4 to 8 hours of game play.
Students reaching this level demonstrated a func-
tional understanding of the various game pieces, an
evolved understanding of the assailants that would
eventually inhabit the game space, and more impor-
tantly students each developed unique strategies to
deploy player pieces in functional arrangements to
achieve at successful outcomes in the game.
A week later all students were then set a design
brief that sought to explore the exploration of space
planning through across planing exercise. The brief
aimed to develop ability of students to research the
requirements of a familiar functional programme and
develop a design suitable for habitation by them-
selves or with their peers. The breif asked students to
design within 20m2, and to evolve a space for relax-
ation and a space for study. The brief asked the stu-
dents to consider how many inhabitants would be in-
volved in each space at each given time, and how the
44 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
design might transition from one state to another to
better service the required activities. The brief asked
the students to evolve a response to the brief through
a series of iterative models exploring the spatial con-
sequences of the two potentially conflicting activi-
ties. The concepts of 'active' and 'passive' were used
as a means to facilitate thinking centered on a form
of exchange in the cross programming exercise. The
brief requested a set of 18 models to be constructed.
One set of 9 physical models to be constructed in
plain white card and photographed in a studio con-
text, and one set of 9 digital models to be produced
in Rhino3D and clay rendered in 3DSMAX or VRay.
Upon submission of the project a number of con-
clusions were drawn from discussion with the stu-
dents. The overwhelming outcome form both the
physical and digital exercises was a propensity to de-
velop highly detailed formal studies. Considerably
skilled manipulations of form, space or surface were
undertaken by each group. An advance in digital or
physical craft was achieved in both cases through the
documentation of a range of compelling outcomes.
The group of students who engaged in Tower De-
fense demonstrated a vastly different design behav-
ior than that of their peers. In the study group each of
the 18 models presented could be viewed as a con-
sidered series of iterations that developed as an ex-
tension of each proceeding design. The group that
did not engage with the Tower Defense game also
produced interesting results but in a much more 'hit
and miss' manner. Good outcomes in space planning
were achieved by each group but the control group
outcomes received more corrective guidance from
their tutors. While this outcome seems to indicate
a degree of correlation between design studio skills
and an understanding of Tower Defense game play,
the outcome is largely indicating a slight change in
the approach of the designer, or the methodologies
that they employ.
In relation to the ability of Tower Defense games
to impart knowledge in relation to space planning
the results were not as clear. If anything the study
group produced slightly more measured and or-
thogonal design works. The projects produced by Design Research in Asi, Delhi
the study group were, arguably very similar to the Dalla, V, Adriane da Silva, L and Pereira, A 2009, 'Teach-
projects produced by the control group. Although ing/learning Architectural Design Based on a Virtual
Learning Environment', International Journal of Ar-
slightly disappointing, this is to be expected, the
chitectural Computing, 7-2, pp. 255-266
logic, proportions and structures learned through Schell, J 2008, The Art of Game Design : A book of lenses,
engagement with 'Clash of Clans' responds to the Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington
games own internal logic. The game used does Sharma, RC and Whitton, N 2011, 'Learning with digi-
not require any bearing to the physical or inhabit- tal games', British Journal of Educational Technology,
able world of architecture. This does however indi- 42(4), pp. E88-E88
Whitton, N 2007, Play Think Learn, Ph.D. Thesis, Manch-
cate obliquely that learning can be achieved through
ester Metropolitan University
an engagement with Tower Defense games, but a Whitton, N 2010, Learning with Digital Games: A Practi-
knowledge that only applies to that specific situation. cal Guide to Engaging Students in Higher Education,
Routledge
CONCLUSION
The study investigated a number of Real Time Strat-
egy Games types to define if any offer an engaging
way to deliver skills in architectural space planning to
first year architecture students. The Tower Defense
type of game above all others looks to provide an
analogous learning environment with attributes that
could help in introduction of space planning skills
in a compelling and engaging package. The conclu-
sion can be drawn that widely available and popular
games might offer similarities required of space plan-
ning, but that these skills are ultimately tied to the in-
dividual game mechanics and are difficult to convert
directly into architectural knowledge. This particular
situation however may be limited due to the distance
of traditional Tower Defense games to adhere to any
logic or configurations frequently employed in archi-
tectural situations. By leveraging that an influence
can occur, the subsequent stage of this study aims to
produce a working prototype for delivery in studio.
The core logic of the Tower Defense game should be
employed, but a challenge lies in aligning logic and
requirements of real world space to the competitive
world of Real Time Strategy Games.

REFERENCES
Chieh, J L 2005 'Space Layout Game: An Interactive
Game of Space Layout for Teaching and Represent-
ing Design Knowledge', Proceedings of the 10th Inter-
national Conference on Computer Aided Architectural

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 45

Generative Design Methods
Implementing Computational Techniques in Undergraduate Architectural
Education

Asterios Agkathidis1
1
University of Liverpool
1
asterios.agkathidis@liv.ac.uk

In continuation to the Deceptive Landscape Installation research project

(Agkathidis, Kocatürk 2014), this paper investigates the implementation of
generative design techniques in undergraduate architectural design education.
After reviewing the main definitions of generative design synoptically, we have
assessed the application of a modified generative method on a final year,
undergraduate design studio, in order to evaluate its potential and its suitability
within the framework of a research led design studio, leading to an RIBA
accredited Part I degree. Our research findings based on analysis of the design
outputs, student performance, external examiners reports as well as student
course evaluation surveys indicate a positive outcome on the studio's design
approach, as well as its suitability for an undergraduate design studio. They
initiate a flourishing debate about accomplishments and failures of a design
methodology, which still remains alien to many undergraduate curricula.

Keywords: CAAD Education, Generative Design, Design Concept

INTRODUCTION: DESIGN METHODS IN AR-
CHITECTURE
Generating form poses one of the fundamental ques-
tions in architectural education and practice. Archi-
tectural production is frequently accompanied by de-
bates about the legitimacy of its design approach,
questioning the relationship between function and
form, aesthetics and construction systems, context
and structure, user needs and construction costs, in
all possible configurations. In recent years, computa-
tional tools have introduced innovative form-finding
techniques, revolutionizing architectural design and
production. These techniques are often described by
terms such as 'generative design', 'parametric design'
or 'algorithmic design', to name but a few. These of-
fer new design paths to architects by breaking with
predictable relationships between form and repre-
sentation in favour of computationally generated
complexities, thus enabling the development of new
topologies. They shift the emphasis from 'form mak-
ing' to 'form finding' (Kolarevic 2003). The critics of
such design approaches claim that they disconnect
architectural output from its context and its users,
and lead to a decrease in spatial quality and a build-
ing's integration within the urban environment. Fur-
thermore, some argue that a totally computerized
approach leads to disconnection from physical mod-

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 47

 elling and drafting techniques - once essential foun-
dations of architectural education - and so risks the
loss of material qualities, effects and properties. Yet
various generative form-finding techniques existed
in architecture long before the digital revolution. At
the start of the twentieth century, many visionary ar-
chitects, engineers and designers, such as Frederick
Kiesler and Frei Otto, were applying design methods
that were very similar to today's computational ap-
proach. It seems that today's new computational de-
sign techniques are not as new as they seem, nor im-
possible to practise without the use of computational
tools. So is it the tools or the design method that
should be targeted by critics of so-called digital ar-
chitecture? The following paper will try to cast light
on that perpetual conflict.
Why, though, should anyone follow a method
for designing architecture in the first place? Can ar-
chitects not simply rely on personal inspiration or
their own sense of beauty? Throughout the evolu-
tion of architectural design there have certainly al-
ways been schools of thought that have encouraged
a design process based on inspiration or an initial
stimulus. However, others haven promoted adher-
ence to a specific design method, based on rules
rather than intuition, and many now argue that de-
sign methods are necessary in order for architects to
deal with today's hyper-complex design briefs, or to
prevent self-indulgence and stylistically driven for-
mal language. Others affirm that emerging computa-
tional design and fabrication tools are changing the
architect's role, making design methods a necessity.
DEFINITIONS OF GENERATIVE DESIGN
There is no single definition of the term, but many
complementary definitions with common character-
istics, which vary according to different architectural
theorists. Overall it can be described as a design
method where generation of form is based on rules
or algorithms, often deriving from computational
tools, such as Processing, Rhinoceros, Grasshopper
and other scripting platforms. During the late 1980s
and early '90s, just before the boom of computational
48 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
architecture, Peter Eisenman started applying a set
of design techniques, such as scaling, fractals, over-
lay and superposition, influenced by Jacques Der-
rida's Deconstruction theory (1976). Eisenman ap-
plied these techniques in relation to rules of order,
developing several projects on this basis, such as the
Biocentrum in Frankfurt and the Nunotani Corpora-
tion headquarters in Tokyo (Eisenman 2004). One
could claim that his design method was the first con-
temporary generative design attempt. As software
started to offer new possibilities, Eisenman intro-
duced other techniques to his approach, such as mor-
phing images, which was soon followed by UNstu-
dio and their concept of the 'Manimal', a computer-
generated icon that merges a lion, snake and human
to represent the hybrid building (van Berkel and Bos
1999).
The technique of folding appeared in Eisenman's
Rebstockbad in 1991 (Eisenman 2004) and, as com-
putational tools advanced further, Greg Lynn started
applying new tools such as animation, splines, nurbs
and isomorphic polysurfaces, influencing a whole
wave of architectural production, often described as
'blob architecture' (Lynn 1999). As algorithms and
scripting become more accessible to architects and
designers, and digital fabrication more affordable,
parametric and panelization tools, simulation soft-
ware, optimization and generative algorithms are
dominating today's generative design techniques.
In their book Generative Gestaltung (Lazzeroni,
Bohnacker, Groß and Laub 2009) the authors define
generative design as a cyclical process based on a
simple abstracted idea, which is applied to a rule
or algorithm (figure 01). It then translates into a
source code, which produces serial output via a com-
puter. The outputs return through a feedback loop,
enabling the designer to re-inform the algorithm and
the source code. It is an iterative operation, relying
on the feedback exchange between the designer and
the design system.
Celestino Soddu (1994) defines generative de-
sign as 'a morphogenetic process using algorithms
structured as nonlinear systems for endless unique
Figure 1
Generative design
process diagram, by
Lazzeroni,
Bohnacker, Groß
and Laub
and unrepeatable results performed by an idea-code,
as in nature'. Indeed, the notions of generative de-
sign and digital morphogenesis are strongly asso-
ciated. The term 'morphogenesis' derives from the
Greek words morphe (μορφή, meaning 'form') and
genesis (γένεσις, meaning 'birth'), so could be literally
translated as 'birth of form'. As with the term 'genera-
tive design', there is no unique definition for morpho-
genesis, and it seems that the terminology is chang-
ing in relation to emerging technologies and tech-
niques.
Branko Kolarevic (2003) describes digital mor-
phogenesis as follows: 'The predictable relationships
between design and representations are abandoned
in favour of computationally generated complexities.
Models of design capable of consistent, continual
and dynamic transformation are replacing the static
norms of conventional processes. Complex curvilin-
ear geometries are produced with the same ease as
Euclidean geometries of planar shapes and cylindri-
cal, spherical or conical forms. The plan no longer
"generates" the design; sections attain a purely an-
alytical role. Grids, repetitions and symmetries lose
their past raison d'être, as infinite variability becomes
as feasible as modularity, and as mass-customization
presents alternatives to mass-production.' In addi-
tion, he sees such methods as unpredictable mech-
anisms of creation, relying on digital tools, where
traditional architectural values are replaced by com-
plexity, asymmetry, curvilinearity, infinite variability
and mass customization. Architectural morphology
is focusing on the emergent and adaptable qualities
of form. Form is no longer being made, but found,
based on a set of rules or algorithms, in association
with mainly digital, but also physical, tools and tech-
niques. They imply the rules; the entire process fol-
lows.
Michael Hensel describes digital morphogene-
sis as a 'self-organization process, underlying the
growth of living organisms, from which architects
can learn' (Hensel, Menges and Weinstock 2006). In
their latest book, Rivka and Robert Oxman (2013)
categorize form generation into six dominant mod-
els in relation to its main driver: mathematical, tec-
tonic, material, natural, fabricational and performa-
tive. They see digital morphogenesis as 'the exploita-
tion of generative media for the derivation of mate-
rial form and its evolutionary mutation'. Its key con-
cepts include topological geometries, genetic algo-
rithms, parametric design and performance analysis.
Finally, Toyo Ito compares 'generative order' to
the growth mechanism of trees, whose form derives
from the repetition of simple rules, creating a very
complex order (Turnbull 2012). A tree's shape re-
sponds to its surroundings, blurring the boundaries
of interior and exterior spaces - qualities that are easy
to recognize in Ito's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in
London.
Based on these key definitions of generative de-
sign, a modified design method was developed in or-
der to be applied in a year 3 design studio module at
the Liverpool School of Architecture.
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 49
 AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Main aim of this research paper is to evaluate the
suitability and implementation of generative design
methodologies into undergraduate design studio. Its
main research questions can be described as follows:
• How can generative design methodology be
integrated in an undergrad design studio
module?
• Which are its strengths and weaknesses?
• Does the applied design methodology
achieve its objectives in producing innova-
tive design solutions and increase students'
design skills and future employability?
• Does the integration of generative design
methodology in undergraduate level seem
appropriate?
DESIGN STUDIO MODULE TEACHING
FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH METHOD
APPLIED
Our research method was based on monitoring the
design path of Analysis - Morphogenesis - Metamor-
phosis (Figure 02) aiming the production of complete
architectural proposals. It was applied in a research
led design studio unit of 57 students (studio 04). The
studio was led by the author, tutored by four addi-
tional tutors and it is part of a 230 student cohort in
50 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
the entire year. The design module had a teaching
period of 12 weeks. Students were allowed to choose
among the four studios offered, according to the dif-
ferent studio briefs and teaching methods.
Analysis focused on data collection of various as-
pects, such as context, programme, material, struc-
ture and performance. Morphogenesis, digital or
physical, targeted the generation of abstract proto-
types, based on spatial and organizational princi-
ples, including unit accumulation, surface continu-
ity, faceting, volume deformation or subtraction, and
algorithmic patterning. The phases of Analysis and
Morphogenesis have certain similarities to those de-
scribed by Paredes Maldonado (2014), however de-
riving from a different starting point and emphasiz-
ing strongly on physical model outputs. In many
cases notions such as genetic algorithms, cellular au-
tomata or shape grammars as described by Fischer
and Herr (2001) were applied by using physical mod-
elling only, according to the students individual skills
and preference.
After undergoing a phase of iterations, the resul-
tant not-to-scale 'proto-tectonic' structures (Framp-
ton 2001) were then 'transformed' into building pro-
posals, including floor plans, sections and elevations,
as well as physical and digital models and all their
derivatives (atmospheric images, visualizations, etc.).
The Metamorphosis of an abstract prototype into a
building proposal could occur in two different ways.
Figure 2
Generative Design
Method applied in
Studio 04
It could either be literal (a direct transformation into
a building envelope and structure) or operational
(functioning as an apparatus, which could generate
design solutions in various scales and arrangements).
Studio marking consisted out of two compo-
nents, split between 30% for research and 70% for
design. In Studio 04, the studio presented here, stu-
dents had to work collaboratively during the first four
weeks allocated to research (analysis and morpho-
genesis) and develop their individual projects in the
remaining time of eight weeks. Students were of-
fered introduction workshops in Rhinoceros 5 and
Grasshopper as well as in digital fabrication tech-
niques. Each group was given a precedent to use as a
starting point for their analysis, from which they had
to derive design principles and rules in order to pro-
duce iterations of abstract physical prototypes.
The remaining 70% design component was ded-
icated to the design of a middle sized project (in that
case a regional ferry terminal). Students were asked
to 'transform' and apply their research findings from
the 30% component into their final design proposal.
Deliverables were consisting of all typical drawings,
physical models, visualizations and detailing, as re-
quired by the RIBA and were identical for all four stu-
dios offered.
All projects were reviewed three times by exter-
nal juries before being marked by the entire group of
studio tutors, moderated internally and examined by
external examiners. All data was collected through
out the entire year from student assessment and
feedback forms, external examiner reports, submis-
sion of design project data, as well as an anonymous
student survey. Marking criteria for both studio com-
ponents (30% and 70%) were co-decided by all stu-
dio leaders and were made available to all students
and examiners. In particular the marking rubric for
the 30% research component was composed out of
following marking criteria:
• Quality of site investigations / design exer-
cises
• Evidence of research into architectural prece-
dents
• Evidence of design drivers / process work /
strategy
• Clarity of architectural arguments / overall
presentation
Marking criteria for the 70% design components
were as followed:
• Development of design process, utilising find-
ings from component 1 / innovation
• Architectural agenda and design approach,
expressed through diagrams, sketches, mod-
els.
• Quality of layout, drawings, 3d exploration,
models
• Quality of tectonic approach and structural
considerations
• Quality of the 1:20 detail drawings
• Overall body of work and presentation
Analysis of the monitored design output, marking
rubric statistics and student survey, which will be pre-
sented in this paper are offering an analytical eval-
uation overview of generative design methodolo-
gies integration in undergraduate education. Ob-
viously a decrease in students' average marking, or
negative comments by external examiners and stu-
dents would be a strong indication that the teach-
ing method applied is not delivering the expected
results, thus may not be suitable for undergraduate
design studio education and vice versa. External ex-
aminers reports are based on the examiners annual
review of the cohort's studio projects as well as a 10
minute interview every student. They do not relay on
a specific list of criteria, but on the examiners' long
year experience in practice and education. Student
surveys were held anonymously through 'vital' the
schools on-line operating system.
PRESENTATION OF STUDIO OUTPUTS AND
COLLECTED DATA
By monitoring students' studio choices for the 4 dif-
ferent studios offered, first positive signals arise. Stu-
dio 04 turned out to be very popular, with 1st choice
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 51
 demands exceeding the available 57 slots . In addi-
tion the studio's cohort had a high marking average
of 64.5%, considerably higher than the other 3 stu-
dios (any mark on 70% or higher, is considered as a
1st class project). Overall there were 12 students with
a 1st class average mark, the highest concentration of
firsts in all 4 studios.
Proceeding with the 30% research component
outputs, which included the phases of analysis and
morphogenesis it proved to be very successful due
to the enormous amount and high quality of design
production, including hundreds of models, diagrams,
sketches and drawings (Figure 03). High variety on
geometrical exploration, typology innovation, scale,
geometry and structure has been documented.
Students managed to tackle the studio's design
approach and requirements quite well, even though
it was the first time they have operated with such a
design approach. This becomes evident by looking at
their marking statistics, putting studio 04 at the high-
est range with an average score of 69% (Figure 04).
Continuing with the 70% design component,
student performance drops compared to the 30%
component as expected. In comparison to their stu-
dio performance in the previous year, the average
studio mark stays almost unchanged moving from
64.5% into 63.5%. Out of the 57 students, 28 improve
their score while 20 worsen it. 13 manage to move on
a higher grading band while 13 move to a lower one.
Band changes of grades moving up from from 63% to
80% and from 55% to 72% are among the most ex-
treme ones. On the negative site were students who
dropped from 70% to 58% and from 60% to 48%.
By looking at the on-line studio 04 survey, re-
sults appear very encouraging. Its overall participa-
tion rate reaches 65%. In the question 'How did you
find studio 04's overall design method?', 40% find it
very useful allowing them to achieve new outputs,
48.6% useful, neutral 8.5 % and none finds it not use-
ful or would rather design the conventional way. That
shows an overall acceptance of 88.6%.
In reference to the morphogenetic component,
the question 'How important were the 1st phase and
52 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
the development of the generative models for the de-
sign of your final building?' receives 37.1 % for very im-
portant, 54% for important (has influenced the build-
ing in one or the other way), 2.85% has ignored the
generative models and 5.7% consider it as neutral.
Again an overall acceptance of 91.1% occurs.
Figure 3
Model outputs of
morphogenetic
design component
Figure 4
Marking statistics
on morphogenetic
modelling design
component.
Considering the freedom in design creativity, the ma-
jority sees the method as a mean to express their cre-
ativity with 51.5% strongly agreeing, 34.3% agreeing,
2.9% disagreeing and 11.4% seeing it as neutral.
Referring to taught skills in 3D modelling and
digital fabrication 88.5+8.5% strongly agree or agree
that they are useful for their future employability
while only 3% think this they are irrelevant.
Finally in the question 'Do you think that the new
skills you have developed in this studio helped you to
produce a better project than last semester?' 54.3 %
find their current project much better than their pre-
vious, 31.4% a little bit better, 8.5% don't like their
current project and 2.8% see it about the same.
 By monitoring the external examiner's com- has to offer - a design path that is often excluded,
ments and remarks, based on their annual report, stu- due to dogmatism, or ignorance of (or lack of respect
dio 4 is not being considered as problematic or inap- for) either handcrafting or computerized techniques.
propriate. They don't seem to differentiate it from Neither banning computers nor abandoning tradi-
all other studios which follow conventional design tional craftsmanship offers a solution for the future
methods, except for one complimentary statement. of architectural education.
All examiners 'complained' about the lack of context Digital tools can often be seductive for design-
engagement in the entire year except for studio 04: ers. However, while speeding up the design process,
Andrew Peckham stated: 'It was ironic that it was the designing with digital tools makes gravity and mate-
studio concerned to 'search for new typologies' that best riality disappear. Physical modelling helps designers
registered a contextual urbanism on a constrained site and students to reconnect with these two key ele-
in the city centre'. ments, which are so important for architectural pro-
duction. In addition, the switch between analogue
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS and digital tools allows students to filter out excess
By reviewing the design projects and outputs as- complexity within a digitalized design process. By
sessed here, a set of conclusions and discussion testing digital findings with physical prototypes, they
points arises. Many architectural educators are very can begin to assess whether a complex solution is re-
sceptical about such unconventional design meth- ally offering spatial, aesthetic or programmatic qual-
ods, fearing the loss of design control, materiality, ities to a project. The issue is not so much whether
craftsmanship, functionality and relationship to con- CAD and 3D modelling software should be banned
text. They tend to blame generative-based design or embraced in undergraduate architectural educa-
for all the negative aspects of contemporary archi- tion, but rather to what extend they should be ap-
tecture. However, the design method applied here plied, in which educational year and for what pur-
proves them wrong. It manages to support a high pose. The same principle applies for the use of digital
degree of differentiation between the schemes, de- fabrication. It is indeed irrational to apply such tech-
spite the fact that many of the projects were devel- niques for cutting out rectangular panels, but more
oped using the same techniques (e.g., triangulation). than appropriate for mastering fabrication of com-
It also inevitably supports creativity and innovation, plex geometries.
which is why so many of the projects managed to
Figure 5
move beyond standard building typologies and lay-
Market Hall
outs such as the market hall building (Figure 05). In-
proposal by Yiqiang
novation emerged not only in formal design aspects,
Zhao
but also in terms of building programme and spatial
solutions, offering new building type hybridizations,
such as the ferry terminal proposal (Figure 06).
The mix of different design tools and techniques,
switching from traditional physical modelling, such
Figure 6
as plaster casting, to advanced 3D printing and CNC
Ferry terminal
fabrication in one continuous modelling scheme
proposal by Man Jia
(Figure 07), proved to be of great educational value.
It offered students the opportunity to test materials
with their hands, and to experience the advantages,
difficulties and opportunities advanced technology

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 53


Alongside the loss of materiality and craftsman-
ship, many critics of generative design methods ar-
gue that the resulting architectural proposals are to-
tally detached from their context. This is a criticism
often applied to modern architecture as well. Dur-
ing our programme, the degree of integration or non-
integration within a context was up to the designer.
Building up a relationship between a building and its
context can be achieved in many different ways. It
can rely on form, materiality or programme, or all of
the above. One can choose to harmonize, ignore or
break with a building's context, a decision that does
not depend on the design approach but on the de-
signer's attitude towards the site. Nevertheless, ex-
ternal examiners overviewing the projects expressed
surprise at the high degree of site-specific proposals,
despite the unconventional design approach. All of
the finalized projects managed to comply with stan-
dards and requirements defined by the accreditation
body (RIBA) and the module descriptors, as evident
in the drawing and modelling outputs. In that sense,
the generative design method applied proved highly
appropriate for design education, helping students
to develop their skills and self-confidence, and en-
hancing their future employability. This became ev-
ident by the student survey, where 97% of all par-
ticipants expressed their confidence about gaining
higher employability perspectives.
Looking at the difficulties accompanying such an
approach, findings varied. Scepticism from other col-
54 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
Figure 7
Generative models
by Yiqiang Zhao,
Zhenyu Zhu and
Nojan Adami
leagues and fellow educators was definitely among
them. This included guidance from tutors involved
in the process as well as criticism from others observ-
ing the approach. From a student's point of view, the
shift away from conventional design methods cer-
tainly appeared to be very demanding. That became
particularly evident after the completion of the form-
finding phase; it was the Metamorphosis that pre-
sented the biggest challenges. As liberating and ex-
citing as Morphogenesis might have been for some,
abandoning the abstraction of the prototype and
transforming it into a building proposal, overcom-
ing obstacles of structure, urban context, planning
and materiality seemed to be very difficult. Many
tended to start from scratch, leaving everything be-
hind and following the conventional approach they
were most familiar with. Some chose a brutal landing
of their prototype into the site, without developing
an attitude towards the context, while others failed
to use their prototype for something more than sim-
ply trendy decoration.
Another issue that arose using this approach was
having to manage the geometrical complexity that
occurred.This was often a problem of representation.
Complex geometries are easily produced in a digital
environment, but controlling and representing their
outputs often requires non-standardized methods as
well. This can be a consequence of using software in-
correctly, or of using inappropriate software for the
task required. How can complex geometries be rep-
resented in floor plan, section and elevation? How
can such geometries be built in a physical model?
This is when guidance is needed. Tutors play a crit-
ical role here. Educators need to guide students and
enrich academic curricula with new design methods
and tutored skills. But it is the student culture that
plays an even more important role: the intercourse
that occurs between students, either through daily
procedures and presentations or through social me-
dia, websites and on-line forums. Today's young de-
signers belong to a generation that has grown up
with smartphones and computer tablets instead of
crayons and paper, granting them familiarity with
digital technologies from a very early age. These
are designers, therefore, who are more than able to
deal with unconventional design methods, and who
will hopefully revolutionize architectural production
in the future.
Kolarevic, B 2003, 'Digital Production', in Kolarevic, B
(eds) 2003, In Architecture in the Digital Age: Design
and Manufacturing, Taylor & Francis, London, pp. 46-
48
Lazzeroni, C, Bohnacker, H, Gross, B and Laub, J
2012, Generative Design: Visualize, Program, and Cre-
ate with Processing, Princeton Architectural Press,
Princeton
Paredes Maldonado, M 2014 'Digital Recipes: A diagram-
matic approach to digital design methodologies in
undergraduate architecture studios', Proceedings of
eCAADe 2014, Newcastle, pp. 333-342
Oxman, R and Oxman, R (eds) 2013, Theories of the Digital
in Architecture, Routledge, London
Soddu, C 1994, 'The Design of Morphogenesis. An ex-
perimental research about the logical procedures in
design processes', Demetra Magazine, 1, pp. 56-64
Turnbull, J (eds) 2012, Toyo Ito: Generative Order (Kassler
Lectures), Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My acknowledgements got to all studio 04 tutors,
Richard Dod, Elif Erdine, Jo Hudson and Jane Moscar-
dini for their hard effort and support.

REFERENCES
Agkathidis, A and Kocatürk, T 2014 'Deceptive Land-
scape Installation: Algorithmic patterning strategies
for a small pavilion', Proceedings of eCAADe 2014,
Newcastle, pp. p71-79
van Berkel, B and Bos, C 1999, Move (3-vol. set): Imagina-
tion/Techniques/Effects, Groose Press, Amsterdam
Derrida, J 1976, De la grammatologie, Les Éditions de Mi-
nuit, Paris
Eisenman, P 2004, Eisenman Inside Out: Selected Writ-
ings 1963–1988 (Theoretical Perspectives in Architec-
tural History & Criticism), Yale University Press, Yale
Fischer, T and Herr, C M 2001 'Teaching Generative De-
sign', International Conference on Generative Art, Mi-
lan
Frampton, K 1995, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics
of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
Architecture, MIT Press, Boston
Hensel, MA, Menges, A and Weinstock, M (eds) 2006,
Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic De-
sign, Wiley & Sons, London

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 55

The MOOC-ability of Design Education
Martijn Stellingwerff1
1
TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
1
http://www.bk.tudelft.nl/en/
1
m.c.stellingwerff@tudelft.nl

In the past three years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become an
important new way for universities to reach out to possible matriculates, life long
learners and alumni. Although MOOCs already cover a vast amount of subjects
and curricula, it is remarkable to ascertain the lack of Architectural Design
courses on the main platforms like edX and Coursera. Online courses do cover
design aspects, e.g. about styles and building materials, but 'design as activity' is
an exceptional subject in the portfolio of available MOOCs. In contrast, the
CAAD community was one of the first to develop Virtual Design Studio's (VDS)
and experimental predecessors of MOOC platforms, such as the AVOCAAD
course database system (Af Klercker et al. 2001). Yet, the query 'MOOC' still
does not ring a bell in the CUMINCAD publication database (per May 2015). In
this paper I will explore a palette of design education settings, in order to find a
fit to what a MOOC platform can offer. I will compare the 'MOOC-ability' of
Design Education to chances in Virtual Design Studio's and developments in
ubiquitous mobile platforms.

Keywords: MOOC, VDS, Structured course, Explicit knowledge, Educational

setting

Introduction to cover design activities within the framework of a

This paper draws from a number of key references
that shed light on the early developments of VDS
(Bradford et al. 1994; Kvan 1997), contemporary re-
flections on VDS (Achten et al. 2011), social aspects
of VDS (Ham and Schnabel 2012) and pedagogical in-
sights on design education (van Dooren 2011).
Another inspiration for this paper came from my
Delft colleagues at the Faculty of Industrial Design
& Engineering. They started an edX MOOC on the
'Delft Design Approach', which is akin to but still dif-
ferent from architectural design approaches. Their
vast efforts can be seen as the first successful attempt
MOOC.
Finally, participating in a MOOC, as a student,
was a marvelous experience. I enrolled for the course
"The Search for Vernacular Architecture of Asia, Part 1",
by the HKU on edX. The insights, from a student per-
spective, were very interesting. After this first MOOC
experience, I long for spare time to enroll for many
more online courses.
Different design education settings
The studio and the classroom, the blackboard, the
visiting expert, a talk between tutor and student, a

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 57

 public presentation or a chit-chat in the café, all these
elements and many more have contemporary paral-
lels in digital platforms. Each setting allows for differ-
ent focus, framing, type of communication and ex-
perimentation. In order to have the best learning
experience, the most appropriate setting should be
matched to the educational goals and the type of
learning.
Regarding the brief history of computation in
general and in education, we still see a lot of lag in
developments. We use metaphors in computer in-
terfaces that refer to blackboards, shelves and desk-
tops. New concepts of learning need to be investi-
gated quickly, because the old metaphors and con-
cepts mismatch newly available sources of knowl-
edge such as from search engines, Wikipedia, blogs
and instruction videos. Soon AI speech interfaces, VR
and AR will be the channels through which students
get, develop and present their information.
The institutional education setting is augmented
with personal communication devices, cloud storage
and all kinds of blended modes of learning. At our
model and prototyping workshop tables, we increas-
ingly see students sitting with a mixed toolset of lap-
tops, mobile phones, scissors, glue, pen and paper.
The mobile phone itself is a laboratory of sensors,
cameras, BIM viewers, vectorize apps and 3d model
repositories. One of our remarkable students (Daniel
Aaron Bislip) even developed his own 3dprinter, be-
cause he wanted one that fits the dimensions of a
campus locker, in order to work and interact with oth-
ers at our institute.
The emergence of fab-labs and many new initia-
tives to enhance education with prototyping work-
shops, craft and material experiments, indicate that
the vast digital developments require parallel, tangi-
ble, real world experiments. In that respect blended
learning is not just an extension into the mobile / so-
cial and digital realm, it is also a counter movement,
back to physical tests and real world collaborations.
58 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
Evolutions in online education
To further describe the developments in design ed-
ucation I will make a rough distinction into two ed-
ucation settings: the design classroom and the de-
sign studio. The classroom has to me some ancient
connotations like: a closed space where one teacher
instructs many students, a space in which well struc-
tured courses provide facts, methods and theories.
The studio, in my view, can be associated with a
more open space, where experts are in conversation
with students, where courses take the form of assign-
ments and where new ideas will be developed.
In digital versions I see a MOOC platform as a
new sort of classroom, whereas a VDS obviously rep-
resents a studio setting.
The first VDS was introduced in 1992, in the year
the WWW was born (Achten 2011). In the succeed-
ing years, we can see VDS developments that closely
follow the availability of techniques. Bandwidth is
more confining than types of media. For example
video conferencing software was available but lim-
ited bandwidth confined the use to some larger ple-
nary discussions. File exchange was easier with struc-
tured CAD data than with large image files. The avail-
ability of websites allowed to exchange and present
text and images in a more related way. Soon Vir-
tual Reality applications and Collaborative Virtual En-
vironments were explored. This all was done within a
timeframe of five years.
AVOCAAD (Af Klercker et al. 2001) is an experi-
mental predecessor of a MOOC platform. This course
database had already many enhanced possibilities,
but the new MOOC platforms iron out the experi-
mental and custom made features, in order to get a
stable set of generally useful functionalities. While
VDS are focused on exchange of ideas and collabo-
rative developments, a MOOC is focused on learning
facts and evaluating progress.
Most intriguing in VDS and MOOC developments
is the incremental insight that you can get. Similar to
the stepwise and early VDS evolutions, based on ob-
servations from previous experiments, MOOCs pro-
vide insights from so-called 'learning analytics'.
MOOC chances and challenges
At first sight MOOCs offer online education related to
facts, while VDS are more appropriate to facilitate de-
sign activities. A VDS seems also more suitable for the
training of open-ended skills compared to a MOOC.
Therefore a MOOC seems not an appropriate choice
for teaching design as activity. But is that true?
Elise van Dooren (2011) argues that performing a
skill is an implicit activity, while learning and teaching
are largely explicit actions. In that regard, I pose that
tacit knowledge needs to be understood and should
be made explicit in order to demystify design and cre-
ativity. A notable MOOC that takes steps into this
direction is the edX MOOC on the 'Delft Design Ap-
proach', by my Delft colleagues at the Faculty of In-
dustrial Design & Engineering (IDE).
In a presentation at IDE, Joop Daalhuizen shared
his experiences about their new MOOC. Here I will
paraphrase some of the notes I made during his pre-
sentation. The MOOC is based on the book: the 'Delft
Design Guide', which describes many processes and
views on design. The MOOC is intended to show-
ing IDE 'gems' to the world and prepare students for
studying in Delft. The MOOC resulted from collabo-
ration between 12 experts from faculty and 6 profes-
sionals. Content of the MOOC:
1. Capture your own morning ritual
2. Deconstruct it.
3. Observe someone else's morning ritual.
4. Define a design problem and challenge.
5. Generate and select ideas.
6. Develop and evaluate concepts.
7. Prototype and test a concept.
8. Present a concept as answer to the design
challenge.
What we especially can learn from this first MOOC on
design methods is the educational quality you can
get by using a general stepwise process to develop
a personally chosen design theme. Guiding involves
a lot of devotion from the education team. Feedback
videos have to be made overnight and the edX plat-
form requires all videos to get subtitles. Developing
this all requires effort and devotion.
A remarkable insight from the IDE MOOC was the
advantage of using peer reviews. A peer review gives
the students new perspectives on their own work and
the work of others. If the peer reviewing is instructed
as part of the course, good quality reviews can be
made and those save the course developers a lot of
work. Of course a second order review needs to be
maintained by the course team.
My own positive experience from peer reviews
came from participating in the course "The Search for
Vernacular Architecture of Asia, Part 1", by the HKU
on edX. We, as students, had to write about the her-
itage values in our own environment. I wrote about
Delft. Then each participant had to review the de-
scriptions of other students. I reviewed stories about
Bath, Lithuania and Myanmar. At the same time I re-
ceived feedback on my own text. The involvement
and speed of feedback was unprecedented. The HKU
MOOC proved to me that a structured course, with
knowledge checks and peer-reviewed tasks brings a
valuable online education experience.
An important step to assist students in their de-
sign development is the identification of a 'guiding
theme', which is brought to expression regarding dif-
ferent domains, such as type, material, function, site
and context (van Dooren 2011). These domains and
the development of the guiding theme can be edu-
cated in an explicit and structured form, and this type
of didactic is probably more suitable to a MOOC than
a VDS.
What trends can be expected?
MOOCs are popular and belong to a wish to lower
thresholds for people to be educated and to educate
themselves. Universities see open courseware as an
invitation and introduction to their expertise. Stu-
dents and life long learners get easy access to high-
end knowledge, delivered to their home. It can be
exciting to get in contact with people with similar in-
terests, while breaking physical and cultural borders.
Such a well running trend can be easily extended to
a near future with even more topics available.
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 59
 The development of Virtual Design Studios Bradford, JW, Cheng, N and Kvan, T 1994 'Virtual Design
closely followed the trends and the technological ad- Studios', Proceedings of the 12th European Conference
vances of web-based technologies in the nineties. on Education in Computer Aided Architectural Design
/ ISBN 0-9523687-0-6, Glasgow , pp. 163-167
Such a relation to contemporary technical innova-
Clow, D 2013 'MOOCs and the funnel of participation',
tions can also be expected in the further develop- Third Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowl-
ment of MOOCs. edge, Leuven, pp. 185-189
I expect much enhancement in the educational van Dooren, EJGC 2011 'Making explicit in design edu-
insights based on 'learning analytics'. The data can be cation : generic elements in the design process.', In
used in pedagogic research, in design research and N Roozenburg, LL Chen & PJ Stappers (Eds.), Diversity
and unity: Proceedings of IASDR 2011, Delft, pp. 1-12
the insights will direct the fine-tuning process of ex-
Ham, JJ and Schnabel, MA 2012 'How social is the vir-
isting courses and enhance the development of new tual design studio? A case study of a third year
courses. design studio', Proceedings of the 17th International
Another use of learning analytics is to find cues Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design
where students tend to drop out of the course. Research in Asia, Chennai , p. 173–182
Currently MOOCs are often confronted with a so- Af Klercker, J., Achten, H and Verbeke, J 2001 'AVOCAAD
- A First Step Towards Distance Learning?', 19th
called 'funnel of participation', drop-out and non-
eCAADe Conference Proceedings / ISBN 0-9523687-8-
completion rates are substantially higher than in 1, Helsinki , pp. 269-274
more traditional education (Clow 2013). A real time Kvan, T 1997 'Studio Teaching Without Meeting: Peda-
analytical system could adapt the course in order to gogical Aspects of a Virtual Design Studio', Proceed-
prevent students to drop out. For example the stu- ings of the Second Conference on Computer Aided Ar-
dent can be confronted with better performing peers chitectural Design Research in Asia / ISBN 957-575-
057-8, Taiwan , pp. 163-177
or peers from a similar cultural background. Cur-
rent MOOC platforms are still relatively straight for-
ward, but the real time adaptation of course elements
and the add-in of virtual assistants and online AI help
could enhance and adapt regarding the specific per-
formance of a student.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will consume MOOCs,
but will also act as plug-in for assistance, encourage-
ment and explanation.
Of course, there will be counter developments.
MOOCs will be introduced in the classroom; the class-
room will be a metaphor within a MOOC. MOOCs will
be collaborating with world wide fab-labs.
And then?
Then another paradigm comes in view.

REFERENCES
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pened after the “Hype” on Virtual Design Studios?:
Some Considerations for a Roundtable Discussion',
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4912070-1-3, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Ar-
chitecture (Slovenia), pp. 23-32

60 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2

Remarks on Transdisciplinarity as Basis for Conducting
Research by Design Teamwork in Real World Context
through Two Case Studies of Algorithm Aided Lighting
Design
Aulikki Herneoja1 , Henrika Pihlajaniemi2 , Toni Österlund3 ,
Anna Luusua4 , Piia Markkanen5
1,2,3,4,5
University of Oulu, Oulu School of Architecture
1,2,3,4,5
{aulikki.herneoja|henrika.pihlajaniemi|toni.osterlund|anna.luusua|
piia.markkanen}@oulu.fi

The definition of Research by Design (RD) as a research methodology is not yet

well established. RD takes its position not only as a research method next to the
'traditional' sciences but also in relation to the creative design practice, where
transdicsiplinarity is in essential role. Rather than defining architecture being
transdisciplinary in itself, we see beneficial to conduct research together with
various disciplines concerning the complexity of the life-world. Also in this
interdisciplinary research group we are willing to hold on the designerly way of
knowledge production. Of our practical experience working in an
interdisciplinary research group shared values, research project management
together with participation with evaluative aims were the most challenging
aspects. At its best, attempt for genuine transcdisciplinarity was beneficial and
rewarding, though sometimes challenging. We would like to target the discussion
how we architects, as researchers identify in an interdisciplinary research group
conducting transdisciplinary research.

Keywords: Research by Design methodologies, Transdisciplinary research,

Interdisciplinary research group, Real world context, Virtual and physical
environment

INTRODUCTION level of graduate student projects and doctoral stud-

As transdisciplinarity from the viewpoint of a re-
search group is not adequately discussed, further
discussion of Research by Design (RD) as a research
methodology is needed. Importantly, the discussion
on RD methodology should be extended beyond the
ies (e.g.Dunin-Woyseth 2005; Verbeke 2013) to truly
accommodate all phases of academic research. A
broadly diversified and widely accepted definition of
RD as EAAE Charter [1], however, exists for adminis-
trative purposes to foster research in the field of ar-

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 61

 chitecture. In the more accurate definitions, RD is
positioned not only as a research method next to
Mode 1 form knowledge production referring to 'tra-
ditional' sciences, but also in relation to creative de-
sign practice and research, positioning itself to Mode
2 (Gibbons et al. 1994). Definition of RD which em-
phasizes insider perspectives, a generative approach
and furthermore, operates through rich and multiple
layers in real life contexts (e.g., Dunin-Woyseth 2004,
Sevaldson 2010). This specification includes trans-
disciplinarity, context, mode of applied research, and
multiple actors. RD forms a good frame to reflect on
the research processes of two of our case studies, Ur-
ban Echoes, which was situated in a park context (Fig-
ure 1) and SparkSpace, which took place in a retail
context (Figure 2).
The aim of this paper is to reflect on the def-
inition of Research by Design (RD) in the context
of interdisciplinary research group (Figure 3) aim-
ing to conduct transdisciplinary research. Interdis-
ciplinary knowledge is clearly located within schol-
arly environments, however, transdisciplinary knowl-
edge production entails a fusion of academic and
non-academic knowledge. First, we regard the no-
tion of transdisciplinarity more closely, since it com-
piles quite many aspects emphasized in the defi-
nition of RD (e.g., Dunin-Woyseth 2004, Sevaldson
2010). We will start with introducing our research
group briefly, but discuss the roles and modes of co-
operation along this paper more thoroughly.
In general, our research group was much bigger
than the researchers hired by the project, its compo-
sition was complex and roles of the actors were man-
ifold. The composition of the research group was not
static; rather, the assemblage was altered depend-
ing on the case study, on the phase and on the need
for specific expertise. The main research institutions
involved were the Oulu School of Architecture, Uni-
versity of Oulu (OSA) in both projects, namely Urban
Echoes (UE) and SparkSpace (SpS) and VTT Technical
Research Centre of Finland (VTT) in SpS. And in UE
we co-operated also in many ways with the Faculty of
Information Technology and Electrical Engineering,
62 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
University of Oulu (ITEE). The core researchers in both
case studies were architect and lighting designer
Henrika Pihlajaniemi, with research interest towards
design and experience of adaptive lighting, and ar-
chitect and digital designer Toni Österlund also in the
end of his doctoral studies. In Urban Echoes Pihla-
janiemi was researcher hired (part time) by research
project AUL, co-operating with SpS, where she was
also a business partner through her architect's office
M3 Architects and in a teacher's role supervising Piia
Markkanen's diploma thesis dealing with adaptive re-
tail lighting. Österlund was full-time hired by AUL
and co-operating with SpS. The common nominator
between Österlund and Pihlajaniemi was the devel-
opment process of a tool prototype for designing and
simulating adaptive urban lighting (VirtuAUL) that
was also customized to be used in SpS demo. Ar-
chitect Anna Luusua worked part-time in multidisci-
plinary UbiMetrics research project lead by ITEE (prof.
Timo Ojala) in co-operation with other disciplines, ar-
chitecture being one of them. In the end of the eval-
uation phase of both demos she was hired for both
projects. Luusua was actively co-operating with cul-
tural anthropologists and computer scientists, since
she was working with them in the same space called
Urban Life Lab. In addition of working with diploma
thesis in SpS project Piia Markkanen, now also an ar-
chitect, doctoral student of architecture, was hired to
join the designing phase of the Spark Space demo.
In addition of these core members of the research
team there are many master's students both from
OSA and ITEE, together with other stakeholders such
as companies, customers and citizens that have been
attended with one way or another to these two pilots.
TRANSDISIPLINARITY AS A NORMAL BUSI-
NESS AS USUAL IN RESEARCH BY DESIGN
Transdisciplinary knowledge production was intro-
duced in the epistemologically critical framework of
"The New Production of Knowledge" (Gibbons et al.
1994). It has been adopted as the basis of the Re-
search by Design approach, particularly by Halina
Dunin-Woyseth (2004) and her colleagues (e.g. Nils-
Figure 1
The Urban Echoes
Demo in short.

Figure 2
The SparkSpace
Demo in short.

Figure 3
The research group
in its entirety.

son 2007, Verbeke 2013, Sevaldson 2010). Through Modes 1 & 2 forms of knowledge production. Mode 1
this publication (Gibbons et al. 1994) the transdisci- refers to traditional scientific knowledge, such as Nat-
plinary approach became widely spread in relation ural Sciences belonging to exact sciences, generated
to the description of two parallel and competitive within a disciplinary, primary cognitive context. In-

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 63

 stead Mode 2 form of knowledge is fairly opposite to
Mode 1 being holistic of its nature:
"The Mode 2 is carried out in a context of appli-
cation and defined by its: transdisciplinarity; hetero-
geneity; organisational hierarchy and transience; so-
cial accountability and reflexivity; it includes a wider,
more temporary and heterogeneous set of practi-
tioners, collaborating on problem defined in a spe-
cific and localised context." (Gibbons et al. 1994, 3.)
However, the relationship between these two
types of knowledge production has not been consid-
ered fundamentally contradictory. Mode 1 forms do
not have to be abandoned, but complemented by
a new Mode 2 form of knowledge production that
focuses on combining different types of knowledge
(Nowotny et al. 2006 (2001), Nicolescu 2002, 45;
Doucet & Janssens 2011).
Before entering into further discussion on trans-
disciplinarity in the context of architecture, we
should reflect on transdisciplinary in general. The
definition of transdiciplinarity varies depending on
the features being emphasized by refining, broad-
ening or changing the focus of the original defini-
tion by Erich Jantsch (1972). His formulation of trans-
disciplinarity envisioned a systems theory approach
for the purpose oriented integration of knowledge to
grasp the complexity of problems in the life-world.
The widely cited Julia Thompson Klein et al.
(2001) define transdisciplinarity in general by com-
paring transdisciplinarity to a form of learning
and problem-solving process involving cooperation
among different parts of society and academia in
order to meet the complex challenges of society.
Klein et al. (2001) stress that this process is practice-
oriented in its nature, and is not confined to a
close circle of scientific experts, professional jour-
nals or academic departments where knowledge is
produced: "Through mutual learning, the knowl-
edge of all participants is enhanced, including lo-
cal knowledge, scientific knowledge and the knowl-
edge of concerned industries, business, and non-
governmental organisations." (Klein et al. 2001.) It
is noteworthy that Klein et al. (2001) do not discuss
64 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
only about the society at large, but also specifically
mention NGO's, industries and business as sites of
knowledge. Also their way of highlighting the "mu-
tual learning" aspect is interesting considering the ar-
chitect's professional role as the head designer in a
design project directing the whole project where the
priority is not in the learning process.
In turn, Gibbons et al. (1994) emphasise four fea-
tures in transdisciplinarity where the processual na-
ture of the approach is distinctive: First, it is an evolv-
ing but distinct framework of problem solving gen-
erated and sustained in the context of application.
By this they emphasize that knowledge is not first
produced and then applied, but it is a simultaneous
and continuous process. Second, according to Gib-
bons (1994) concerning empirical and theoretical as-
pects, transdisciplinary knowledge develops its own
distinct theoretical structures, research methods and
modes of practice, though they may not be located
on the prevailing disciplinary map, but they may be
generated by the context. Third, instead of keeping
the knowledge in academic circles as in Mode 1, the
results are communicated to the participants, espe-
cially the original practitioners who have participated
and the knowledge is accessible for them also after-
wards. Gibbons et al. (1994) is the same way against
holding on only the academic publishing tradition as
Klein et al. (2001); instead, the "diffusion" of knowl-
edge should occur among participants. And fourth,
Gibbons et al. (1994) emphasize the dynamic nature
of transdisciplinarity; it is problem solving capability
on the move.
The Handbook of Transdisciplinarity Hirsch
Hardoun et al. (2008) give compiled general defi-
nition of transdisciplinarity, in which they have been
reflecting among others the definitions of Gibbons
et al. (1994) and Klein et al. (2001), but also bring
forward the experience gained from the practical
projects carried out in the "life-world". The defini-
tion of transdisciplinarity by Hirsch Hardoun et al.
(2008) as follows: Transdisciplinary research is research
that includes cooperation within the scientific commu-
nity and a debate between research and the society at
large. Transdisciplinary research therefore transgresses
boundaries between scientific disciplines and between
science and other societal fields and includes delibera-
tion about facts, practices and values (Hirsch Hardoun
et al. 2008, 435). Despite differences of emphasis,
Hirsch Hardoun et al. (2008, 437-439) summarises in
their book Handbook of Transdisciplinarity four core
concerns which appear in all definitions of transdisci-
plinarity or related terms: First, the focus on life-world
problems; second, the transcending and integrating of
disciplinary paradigms; third, participatory research;
and fourth, the search for unity of knowledge beyond
disciplines.
In order to reflect on transdisciplinarity in archi-
tecture, we have to first take a stand or at least dis-
cuss architecture as a discipline. Isabelle Doucet and
Nel Janssens (eds.) (2011) Transdisciplinary knowl-
edge production in architecture and urbanism: towards
hybrid modes of inquiry point out in a recapitulating
manner that architecture has a twofold role as a dis-
cipline and a profession. Architecture's complex ar-
rangement with the world, acting as it does in both
roles, requires us to deal with a broad range of dis-
ciplinary and practical forms of knowledge. (Doucet
& Janssens 2011, 2). Architecture has been called as
`weak´ discipline because it integrates and yet de-
pends upon many areas of knowledge (Troiani et al.
2013). Jane Rendell (2004, 144) also holds that ar-
chitecture encompasses several disciplines, but she
has also emphasised architectural design as a partic-
ular type of practice-led research; a disciplinary spe-
cific that cannot be found in other types of practice
or design (Rendell 2004, 144), or in Nigel Cross' terms
"designerly ways of knowing" (Cross 2001). Alain
Findeli (1999, 3) discusses designerly ways of know-
ing, which he calls research through design. Over-
all, concerning the production of design knowledge,
Doucet & Janssens (2011,3) propose that all these
three approaches (Rendell 2004, 144; Cross 2001;
Findeli 1999, 3) should be considered under the term
Research by Design, even though they do not make
explicit use of the term .
It is easy to agree with the aforementioned
writers that interdisciplinary knowledge is located
in scholarly environments, and also that transdis-
ciplinary knowledge production entails a fusion of
academic and non-academic knowledge. However,
Doucet & Janssens (2011, 4) also conclude that trans-
disciplinarity in architecture is the fusion of theory
and practice, discipline and profession, and this we
find rather surprising. When discussing about the ob-
viousness with which hybrid modes of enquiry are
part of the knowledge landscape, which is easy to
agree with, Doucet & Janssens (2011, 4) state that
[b]ecause (architectural, urban) design engages, both
as a discipline and as a profession, with broader soci-
etal concerns (e.g. situated knowledge, participatory
design, everyday practices) [...]. Rather than disagree-
ing with the intended content we are concerned
how easily these "societal concerns", such as situated
knowledge, participatory design, and everyday prac-
tices are considered as natural contents of architec-
ture, either as a discipline or profession. This sug-
gests that architects would have self-evident under-
standing of "life-world problems", or "the society at
large" (e.g. Hirsh Hardon et al. 2008), or that they
would have existing procedures or effective practices
to study broadly the "context of application" of Mode
2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al. 1994), or
indeed to handle the "mutual learning" process un-
aided. Unquestionably, we see the very valuable at-
tempt to legitimize the "designerly ways of knowing"
in architectural research, and we are also eager to
implement it in our research projects. Nevertheless,
at the same time our research group is concerned
about losing the true potential for interaction with
the society at large if RD is reduced to be considered
automatically transdisciplinary. For example we ar-
gue that the various "users" of the end-product are
relatively unknown for architects, urban designers
and planners; this long-held understanding has been
strengthened through co-operation with cultural an-
thropologists. Though these professions design for
people, the genuine participatory procedures are still
fairly new in these fields, and often treated as a formal
obligatory necessity as in urban design and planning
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 65
 (Räihä, 2009; Mansikka, 2011) or they exist only as
tacit knowledge in architectural design, since partic-
ipatory procedures are not required at all in the area
of building design.
It is important to remark that in the publication
Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production in Architecture
and Urbanism (Doucet & Janssens 2011) most of the
work refers to doctoral level studies and dissertations.
This is actually the case also in other publications
or articles concerning research in architecture, and
the RD approach in particular, which often include
graduate student projects as examples (e.g. Dunin-
Woyseth 2004, Verbeke 2013). Of course we acknowl-
edge the great value of having RD studies in schools'
curricula and having great impact also to studies
conducted in the post-doctoral phase. Hence, it is
clear that when the context of discussion from grad-
uate and doctoral studies are transferred to research
projects, new aspects will obviously occur. Since we
wish to discuss RD also in the context of transdisci-
plinary research group conducting research projects
together we will next reflect on the work we con-
ducted in two of our demos, namely Urban Echoes
and SparkSpace.
CHALLENGES OF TRANSDISCIPLINARY RE-
SEARCH PROCESSES IN PRACTICE IN THE
LIGHT OF TWO CASE STUDIES
The six stumbling blocks in transdisciplinary research
practice pointed out by Hirsh Hardon et al. (2008)
forms a good frame to discuss about the challenges
we have faced in practice working as a research
group: Participation and mutual learning, Integration
and collaboration, Values and uncertainties, Manage-
ment and leadership, Education and career building,
and Evaluation and quality control.
We identify two profound challenges in work-
ing within an interdisciplinary research group with
a transdisciplinary approach: First, shared values or
rather, the genuine attempt to share them. The
crucial differences in the ontological and epistemic
foundations of the participating disciplines may
cause a wide-ranging ripple effect to the whole re-
66 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
search project. The question of shared values is also
present when looking at the discipline of architec-
ture as transdisciplinary of its nature. When following
the former described division by Doucet & Janssens
(2011, 4) the two-fold nature of architecture as a disci-
pline, referring to the theoretical contents with inter-
disciplinary features, and as a profession, referring to
practical contents. The second major challenge is the
skill of managing a transdisciplinary research project.
Transdisciplinary research projects exist usually for
only a limited time and they do not follow any single
administrative division.
In addition, we will reflect on the experiential
and emic (Luusua et al 2015) evaluative research that
was an intended part of our RD approach, and the
participatory processes which this subsequently in-
troduced into the research project. Of course we rec-
ognize also all the other stumbling blocks pointed
out by Hirsh Hardon et al. (2008), but with these
three: shared values and research project manage-
ment together with participation with evaluative aims
have been most challenging.
About research project management and
leadership
The project management by Hirsch Hardoun et al.
(2008) is logical for a successful transdisciplinary re-
search project where various disciplines are involved.
However, the strategy is fairly rigid for research
projects in which the RD approach with its generative
and heuristic means of working is applied. It is note-
worthy that research projects usually last from two to
four years. Rather than using project management
contents and structuring, which was suggested by
Hirsch Hardoun et al. (2008), we perceive a research
project managing of temporary organizations more
suitable, consisting of the four main features: time,
task, team and transition (Ernø-Kjølhede 2000; Lundin
et al. 1994). The idea of considering the implemen-
tation of the research project to be an expectations-
action-learning loop, a cyclical design process could
be repeated at least twice (Packendorff 1995). In
our case, we accomplished this with UE as the first
and SpS as the second iteration. Erik Ernø-Kjølhede
(2000) argues that project management tools are of-
ten misleading since they are used as a blueprint for
a research project rather than as flexible tools. The
proposal of Hirsch Hardoun et al. (2008) structure
the process into different parts in containing phases
of disciplinary contents side by side with intense col-
laboration. Again, theoretically it is easy to agree
with Hirsch Hardoun et al. (2008) about the proposed
way of project management, especially when pre-
structuring the working periods. However, in cases
where a real life demo through applying the RD ap-
proach is implemented, long-term planning is chal-
lenging. For example, negotiations about the place
or site or other arrangements for the demos are of-
ten complex and therefore time-consuming, but fi-
nally the suitable opportunity may occur suddenly,
as with the SpS demo. These kinds of situations have
force majeure like nature, where the time table, as-
semblage and operation diagram is customized by
the needs of the real life demo which is tailored for
a specific place or site. The seamless, inventive and
solution-oriented co-operation of the entire transdis-
ciplinary research group is fundamental for a success-
ful implementation.
As an alternative for using overly rigid ways used
project management tools Ernø-Kjølhede (2000) re-
minds us of the importance of constant communi-
cation. He also prioritizes the importance of team-
building, but above all he emphasizes the impor-
tance of designing the project in such a way that
it is in fact capable of managing itself. The reason
for coming to this conclusion is somewhat surpris-
ing due to the knowledge imbalance i.e. parts of
the project are known to all participants but all de-
tails of the project are known to no one single per-
son. Unfortunately, we did not find Ernø-Kjølhede's
(2000) thoughts until the UE and SpS projects had
ended. Rather, we proceeded intuitively during the
projects using the project management and problem
solving skills of practicing architects. The lighting
designer Henrika Pihlajaniemi and digital designer
Toni Österlund, both architects, had the leading role
in the self-managing process. They had the skills,
knowledge and vision concerning the outcome of
the demo. If there was a thing they did not know how
to do, they either decided to learn it or persuaded
others, researchers (e.g. cultural anthropologists) or
other stakeholders (e.g. companies) to co-operate
with them, with all the problem solving capacity of
practicing architects. More generally, as such work-
ing in an interdisciplinary research project is a skill of
its own that has to be learned, usually in practice. But
it is even more challenging when a real life demo is
involved.
About participation and mutual learning
process
The participation processes of the UE and SpS demos
the approach was only partially transdisciplinary,
since neither of the demos were started, in an ab-
sence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals,
from tabula rasa. In the beginning, the emphasis
was on the generative and technical aspects. How-
ever, we wanted to consider the viewpoints of var-
ious user groups. In the UE demo, we first drafted
user profiles and wrote scenarios in various antici-
pated users' first-person perspective in order to em-
pathize with the various citizens using the park, and
to imagine their everyday life situations. In the SpS
demo, the scenarios were written from the perspec-
tive of different users of retail environments; clients,
employees, technical staff members and designers.
Those of these narrative scenarios that were de-
veloped into visual ones were then further scruti-
nized. Even though our scenarios could not replace
the perceptions and expectations of real-life users
of the retail environment, the scenarios from differ-
ent users' perspectives supported the knowledge we
had gained from prior literature reviews about ex-
perience of light in urban and retail environments.
However, our approach follows the idea of transdis-
ciplinarity in RD, through the emphasized "context
of application". Bringing the cultural anthropologist
into the Urban Echoes project already in the start-
ing phase would have made the transdisciplinarity of
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 67
 the project more apparent and thorough. However,
their disciplinary expertise was used later in partici-
pation process with the park visitors during walking
interviews. The participatory method could be devel-
oped further by arranging co-design workshops with
participants, architects and cultural anthropologists
and through analyzing these events we would have
achieved grounds to continue to discussions of for-
mulating the shared questions.
Participation in the UE project, then, took place
within of the evaluation phase, which was designed
partly interlocking with the design of the demo. For
example, the design process of the lighting scenar-
ios, which were used in walking interviews, was act-
ing as development context of the VirtuAUL design
tool functionalities (Pihlajaniemi, Österlund & Her-
neoja 2014). Different team members had partly dif-
ferent research interests concerning the interviews
and walking in-situ interviews that were carried out
at this phase. The architect who served as the respon-
sible person for the design of the evaluation did not
really consider her study as only an evaluation that
served a larger project; it was a study of a real-life
phenomenon in its own right, with separate research
questions and separate knowledge interests. Indeed,
all those involved brought their own research inter-
ests into the project, and while this took some navi-
gating and negotiating, it was a study for the subse-
quent participation process, which was designed in a
truly transdisciplinary manner, including two groups
of citizen participants. Over the course of the UE par-
ticipation process, on-the-go learning was abundant.
Thus it became obvious that it would be beneficial
to design subsequent participatory evaluation stud-
ies and demos simultaneously, so that data collec-
tion and future participants' anticipated needs would
be taken into account in the design of the demo.
Thus, the architect-evaluator continued working with
the team in a more lengthy collaboration in the SpS
demo. Consequently, the participatory evaluation
of the demo was designed at the outset, in collabo-
ration with the demo's designers and various stake-
holders.
68 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
About genuine attempt for shared values
As differing and as conflicting the values of partici-
pating researchers and stakeholders often are, Hirsch
Hardoun et al. (2008) underscore the most deci-
sive a kind of self-defined transdisciplinary problem
definition. Ontological and epistemic foundations
of the participating disciplines are strongly value-
loaded. When Hirsh Hardoun et al. (2008) discusses
about aiming for a set of shared values, he stresses
the importance of building a mutual learning atti-
tude by creating broad ownership of the problems and
by building value-consciousness through reflexive pro-
cesses among researchers. In the process of genuinely
attempting to find shared values, we borrow Ernø-
Kjølhede's (2000) idea of research project manage-
ment: "parts of the project are known to all partici-
pants but all details of the project are known to no
one single person" and apply it to the field specific
differences in ontological and epistemic foundations,
since these questions may be too big issues for one
research project to gain mutual understanding. We
have noticed that researchers or stakeholders who
understand each other to even some extent, or share
even the slightest common interest should stretch
the limits with working closely together in the same
sub-groups of a research project. Usually some of the
members of sub groups intuitively assume a bridg-
ing role, and mingle between the groups building
coherence to the group as a whole. For example, in
our project, architect Anna Luusua was the bridging
person between cultural anthropologists and com-
puter scientists. In addition, architect and lighting
designer Henrika Pihlajaniemi was the bridging per-
son between architects and the researchers of digital
design, information and lighting technology. Step by
step, they learned a little bit from each other each
time through discussions. In the process for find-
ing shared values, the "hands-on" co-operation in de-
signing and realizing of both the pilots, had an es-
sential role. A collective, practical problem-solving
process helped us in creating shared values and con-
cepts for creating new knowledge.
Even if the two ways of knowledge production
Mode 1 and Mode 2 are not considered fundamen-
tally contradictory as discussed earlier (Nicolescu,
2002, 45; Doucet & Janssens 2011), not all the barriers
have been knocked down. However, digital design is
an area of research in architecture of its own, but to-
gether with other more qualitative research interests
in architecture or broader, in co-operation with other
disciplines than architecture, enables great grounds
for combining qualitative and quantitative contents.
The mathematical tools of digital design belong to
exact sciences, but harnessed to the use of design-
ers and architects it offers the means for producing
experiential qualities. We definitely agree that there
is no reason for confrontations of Mode 1 and Mode
2 production of knowledge, but on the other hand
there is no shortcuts from mathematics to experien-
tial qualities either. Our solution was working within
an interdisciplinary group where in addition of tight
co-operation, also space for disciplinary like exper-
tise was given. For example reflecting Toni Österlund,
who was concentrating on developing the graphical
design tool VirtuAUL for the design, control and real-
world implementation of adaptive lighting, through
the four criteria of transdisciplinary research (Hirsch
Hardoun et al. 2008, 29). Österlund's focus was in the
life-world practical problems even working with digi-
tal design tool mostly in virtual surroundings. He was
actively co-operating with the lighting designer Pih-
lajaniemi who set the functional and qualitative aims
from the viewpoint of lighting design. We could con-
sider that together with Pihlajaniemi, Österlund was
transcending and integrating disciplinary paradigm.
And further, Pihlajaniemi and Österlund together did
in all times search for unity of knowledge, though
sometimes through long discussions, beyond at least
research interests if not "disciplines" of digital and
lighting design.
DISCUSSION
Transdisciplinarity appears as a certain kind of an
attitude towards conducting research rather than
a uniform definition, and interpretations and em-
phases seem to differ by the context of discourse.
Along the discussion of transdisciplinarity through
Research by Design appear somewhat introverted
and self-powered, seemingly turning its back to the
other disciplines and society in large, since theory
and practice, (inter)discipline and profession are al-
ready present in architecture. In the other hand such
a core-strengthening attitude of defining transdisci-
plinarity within the sphere of architecture is clarify-
ing the two-fold, if not the many-fold nature of ar-
chitecture. However, when capitulating to conver-
sation with researchers of other disciplines than ar-
chitecture aiming for co-operation beyond multidis-
ciplinarity we need to re-adjust architecture in re-
lation to transdisciplinarity. We are willing to hold
on the designerly way of knowledge production in Re-
search by Design, but we do not want to retain ev-
erything within architecture, since we see the gen-
uine transcdisciplinary approach of its best benefi-
cial and rewarding, though sometimes also challeng-
ing, even disruptive. Therefor we would like to tar-
get the discussion to how we architects, as design-
erly knowledge producers, as researcher identify our-
selves, as members of a research group consisting of
researchers from various disciplines and sharing the
common attempting to study the complexity of the
life-world. - In the beginning of the learning process
of writing this article we were hesitating whether we
are transdisciplinary research group or not? Or won-
dering how to position ourselves as a research group
in relation to transdisciplinarity? Towards the end,
when gaining a little more understanding of the es-
sential features of transdisciplinarity, the importance
of genuine intention of aiming for transdisciplinarity
turned out to be the most crucial one.
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.pdf
Integrating Responsive and Kinetic Systems in the Design
Studio: A Pedagogical Framework
Sherif Abdelmohsen1 , Passaint Massoud2
1
The American University in Cairo (AUC), Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
2
The American University in Cairo (AUC), Cairo, Egypt
1
https://aucegypt.academia.edu/SherifMoradAbdelmohsen
2
https://aucegypt.academia.edu/PassintMassoud
1,2
{sherifmorad|drpassaint}@aucegypt.edu

Responsive architecture is one of the growing areas of computational design that

is not getting adequate attention in CAAD curricula. A pedagogical approach to
designing responsive systems requires more than the typical knowledge, tools or
skill sets in architectural design studios. This paper presents a framework for
integrating responsive and kinetic systems in the architectural design studio. The
framework builds on findings of two design studios conducted at The American
University in Cairo, Egypt. In both studios, students were asked to design
elements of responsive architecture that work towards the development of their
projects. The paper demonstrates the process and outcomes of both studios. It
then demonstrates how concepts of integrated project delivery are incorporated
to propose a framework that engages students in designing, fabricating and
operating responsive systems in different phases of the design process. A
discussion follows regarding dynamics of design studio in light of the proposed
framework.

Keywords: Responsive architecture, Kinetic systems, Digital fabrication, CAAD

education, Integrated project delivery

INTRODUCTION pedagogical approach to designing systems such as

CAAD education has traditionally focused on deliv-
ering skills related to specific software tools. With
today's abundance of computational methods and
systems, this approach has proven to be flawed in
terms of its learning outcomes. One of the growing
areas of computational design, which has not ade-
quately received sufficient attention in CAAD curric-
ula, is responsive and kinetic architecture. Compared
to other constituents of an architectural project, a
responsive structures or kinetic façade systems re-
quires much more than the typical knowledge and
skill set. It extends to include a variety of components
such as digital fabrication and making, physical com-
puting, parametric modeling and generative design,
kinematics and motion, and material exploration, to
name only a few.
In this paper, we propose a pedagogical frame-
work that integrates responsive and kinetic systems

CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 71

 in the design studio. Some of the key questions ad-
dressed through this proposed framework include:
How can the skills and tacit knowledge required for
designing responsive systems be delivered to stu-
dents of architecture? How can the process of de-
signing these systems be integrated in the design
studio? How does this process change the dynamics
and logistics of the architectural design studio in gen-
eral? And how can it augment - rather than impede
- fundamentals of the design studio, such as design
thinking and integrity, in addition to drawing skills
and representation?
We first present a review of pedagogical ap-
proaches to incorporating kinetic and responsive sys-
tems in architectural design. Then we describe the
process and outcomes of two architectural design
studios that incorporated the design of responsive
systems. In both studios, groups of students at the
American University in Cairo (AUC) worked on de-
signing responsive elements for their projects, in-
cluding components of an exposition center, such as
a hotel tower, an office building, a conference center
and exhibition halls. The goal was to identify an ele-
ment that responds to exterior aspects, such as envi-
ronmental conditions, or interior aspects, such as be-
havioral patterns within architectural spaces.
We show the process and outcomes of both
design studios, as the process was intentionally
slightly different in sequence. In the first studio, stu-
dents start by developing their group and individ-
ual projects throughout design development, then
work on designing their responsive system. In the
second studio, they design their responsive system
upfront and then work on design development. In
both cases, they are asked to show how their systems
reflected on the overall architectural or urban design
development and detailing. The paper discusses re-
sults of both studios, implications for CAAD educa-
tion, and proposes a framework for integrating re-
sponsive systems in the architectural design studio.
72 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
APPROACH
Attempts to integrate the design of kinetic structures
in education go back as early as 1970, but more in-
volving product than process (Zuk and Clark, 1970).
More recent pedagogical attempts include the work
of Fox and Hu (2005), which focused on a bottom-up
approach of designing mechanical structures then
adding sensors and actuators to produce full scale
responsive environments. Other efforts, such as El-
Zanfaly (2011), provide basic guidelines for designing
kinetic structures based on shape and motion gram-
mars. Efforts that followed include intensive work-
shops or brief course modules. This paper aims at
a more comprehensive integration of designing re-
sponsive systems as a pedagogical approach in archi-
tectural design studio.
We propose a framework for designing respon-
sive systems in the design studio that incorporates
learning by doing (Ozkar, 2007) and making in design
(Blikstein, 2013). We hypothesize that integrating the
learning of these systems in studio enhances student
perception of spatial quality, mechanism and struc-
tural integrity, behavior and time, in addition to at-
tention to scale, detail and connections, therefore in-
forming the design process at both the architectural
and urban design level.
We introduce below the process of two design
studios in two consecutive semesters at the Depart-
ment of Construction and Architectural Engineering
at the American University in Cairo (AUC). This digital
design studio (Architectural Design Studio V) aimed
at integrating parametric and generative design in
architectural projects, within the wider framework
of integrated practice and project delivery, building
information modeling, and advanced building tech-
nology. Within the studio, students designed, fabri-
cated and operated elements of responsive and ki-
netic architecture that addressed a specific need in
their projects. To do so, the students first devel-
oped parametric models of their proposals and then
linked them to sensor networks feeding continuous
real time input data. This data represented con-
ditions from the surrounding exterior and interior
environment. Sensor-planning-action mechanisms
were proposed to develop the responsive systems.
This was done using Grasshopper and Firefly plug-in,
and a physical computing environment using the Ar-
duino microcontroller.
The first studio was mainly divided into three
phases: (1) master plan and preliminary form gen-
eration, (2) design development of individual build-
ings, and (3) design, fabrication and operation of a
responsive/kinetic component. Students worked on
an exposition center in the heart of Cairo, consist-
ing of a 500-room hotel, a 20-storey office building
tower, conference center, shopping center, and an
exhibition area. In phase (1) of the course, each group
was required to develop a master plan for an expo-
sition center based on parametric design strategies.
Individually, students then worked on one building
type within the master plan, and were encouraged to
use simulation and analysis tools, producing design
development drawings by the end of phase (2). In
phase (3), which is the main focus of this paper, each
group was asked to work on a level of detailed de-
sign that involved developing working prototypes of
kinetic and responsive systems or structures in their
designed buildings. They were free to design ele-
ments that represented shading devices, façade pan-
eling systems, window apertures, canopies, lighting
features, etc. The students were asked to reflect on
how this phase affected their design thinking process
at different levels and scales of their projects.
In the second studio, the sequence of phases was
slightly modified, with the assumption that switching
phases (2) and (3) would add to the richness of the de-
sign development process. The phases for this studio
were as follows: (1) preliminary form generation, (2)
design, fabrication and operation of a responsive/ki-
netic component, and (3) design development and
detailing. The students were exposed in parallel to
design computing literature and readings in areas of
parametric design, scripting, responsive architecture,
emerging practice, building information modeling,
and integrated project delivery. They were asked to
work in groups to design a 300-350 room hotel tower
in downtown Cairo. While working on one build-
ing in this studio rather than developing a master
plan, each group was asked to develop specialties
among its group members while developing their de-
signs; for example, a project architect, a BIM man-
ager, a façade designer, a fabrication specialist, and
a sustainability analyst. The goal was to delve into as
much detailing and development as possible for the
building components and process. In phase (3) of the
project, the students worked on developing and de-
tailing their buildings, and were encouraged to build
on their findings in phase (2) to inform their design
development effort, and develop models involving
evaluation methods and using simulation and anal-
ysis tools regarding a topic of their choice.
STUDIO OUTCOMES AND OBSERVATIONS
We describe below the main outcomes and general
observations in both studios. Out of three group
projects per studio, we chose two per each for obser-
vations and discussion.
Studio I (Fall 2014)
Students varied in their approaches regarding the lo-
cation and function of their selected responsive el-
ement. Some students developed alternatives for
building elements such as apertures and louvers, and
others developed alternatives for outdoor shading
elements and structures. Group 1A chose to develop
an outdoor roof structure as their responsive ele-
ment. Conceptually, this structure was based on ki-
netic movement, where human behavior and density
underneath the outdoor structure would generate
electricity based on piezoelectric materials within the
environment, in addition to volumetrically altering
the space underneath, therefore allowing for larger
spaces and more ventilation in high traffic areas and
durations. In this sensing-planning-action mecha-
nism, the environment would sense the thermal be-
havior and movement of users in space, and accord-
ingly plan for necessary changes in height in the roof
structure, in addition to generating electricity. For
the exercise prototype (Figure 1), the students devel-
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 73
 oped a scaled model of their roof structure. pattern. An Arduino microcontroller was connected
to the model, and 4 servo motors were connected to
each of the motion rails to achieve the desired open- Figure 1
ing and closing movement of the screen units. The Responsive
students simulated the sensing activity using their prototype of Group
cell phones, where the intensity of light controlled 1A: Kinetic Roof
the angle of motion of the motors and consequently Structure
aperture sizes.

Figure 2
Responsive
prototype of Group
1B: Window
Aperture

The students used simple laser-cut triangular MDF

connected parts to represent the roof structure, and
pullies to simulate the motion of the roof parts, mov-
ing up and down to change the volume of space
underneath. An Arduino microcontroller was con-
nected to the model, and 6 servo motors were used
to pull and push wire threads connected to the pul-
lies to simulate the desired motion. The students
Studio II (Spring 2015)
Instead of introducing the responsive exercise at the
used their cell phones to simulate the sensing com-
last stage of design, this studio aimed at integrating it
ponent of the model using a light source, where the
as part of the design process, with the goal of inform-
intensity of light controlled the volumetric change
ing stages of design development. Students also var-
underneath the roof.
ied in their approaches and their choices of respon-
Group 1B chose to develop a building facade
sive elements, where some selected elements related
screen consisting of kinetic window apertures that
to the building facade skin, and others selected ele-
respond to environmental conditions. Conceptually,
ments related to outdoor kinetic structures. Group
the element was based on response to exterior con-
2A developed an outdoor responsive structure at-
ditions such as solar heat gain and daylighting, where
tached to their hotel building, as a shaded pathway
the responsive aperture within a double-skin screen
taking users from the surrounding landscape to the
would open and close to allow for different daylight-
building entrance. Conceptually, the structure would
ing and heat gain scenarios according to different
provide continuous shading and semi-shading for
times of the day. For the exercise prototype (Fig-
users along the path leading to the entrance of the
ure 2), the students developed a full-scale model of
hotel, by both responding to user movement and
a 60cmX60cm screen using MDF boards. The screen
daily sun movement patterns. For the exercise pro-
was divided into four identical panels, each hosting a
totype (Figure 3), the students developed a scaled
central core with motion rails working in 2 perpendic-
model of a segment of the shading pathway using
ular directions to guide the kinetic movement of the
MDF and cardboard.
modular screen units that shape the overall screen

74 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2

Figure 3
Responsive
prototype of Group
2A: Outdoor kinetic
shading pathway
Figure 4
Responsive
prototype of Group
2B: Dynamic
Building Facade
Screen The model consisted of pieces of cardboard running
across wooden rods representing guide rails for the
shading path. The students used a number of pullies
connected with threads to simulate the movement of
the shading elements along the rails. An Arduino mi-
crocontroller was used and connected to Grasshop-
per, and 4 servo motors were used to control the mo-
tion around the pullies and consequently the shad-
ing patterns along the pathway.
Group 2B chose to develop a building facade
screen consisting of a kinetic skin system. The system
is composed of 1mX1m units that respond to heat
gain analysis. Using a pre-programmed system that
pulls weather and heat gain analysis data, the build-
ing facade should automatically respond to external
conditions, while still allowing for user intervention
upon desire. Each modular unit consists of muscle
wires comprising electrostrictive materials that con-
tract or expand based on the electric power they re-
ceive. These contractions and expansions produce
variations in the overall shape of the building screen,
producing varying patterns in the interior of the ho-
tel building.
For the exercise prototype (Figure 4), the stu-
dents developed a full-scale model of a sample
90cmX60cm screen using MDF. The screen was di-
vided into six identical panels, each hosting a num-
ber of motion rails to guide the kinetic movement of
the modular screen units that shape the overall build-
ing pattern. An Arduino microcontroller was con-
nected to the model, and 6 servo motors were con-
nected to each of the units to achieve the desired
opening and closing movement and patterns. The
students simulated the sensing activity using their
cell phones, where the intensity of light controlled
the angle of motion of the motors and consequently
aperture sizes.
Some of the basic findings and observations upon
conducting the two previous studios are: (1) the sig-
nificance of the order of introducing responsive sys-
tems within an architectural project, and (2) the stu-
dent team dynamics and collaborative process, and
(3) the skill set and knowledge required to integrate
responsive systems in a project. Typically in the Fall
studio, the students could not capitalize on their re-
sponsive elements in developing their designs, as
they were introduced in the final phase of the project.
In the Spring studio however, there was a significant
progress in the detailing and development that stu-
dents expressed in their designs. Getting the stu-
dents to design, fabricate and operate their respon-
sive elements early in the process allowed for devel-
opment at a number of levels, including structural
detailing, environmental analysis, parametric model-
ing, and facade design.
As the students were asked to assume different
roles in the Spring semester within their teams, this
allowed for a further level of detailing. Project archi-
tects were expected to set the general strategy for
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 75
 the building form and function, sustainability ana-
lysts were expected to work on a detailed daylight-
ing and heat gain analysis of the responsive system,
facade designers on the overall building facade pat-
tern design, fabrication specialists on the construc-
tion and operation detailing of the responsive and
kinetic system, and BIM managers on software co-
ordination within the team and programming the
sensing-planning-action mechanisms for the system.
Students varied in their approaches to applying these
roles. Some teams worked within a discrete role-per-
student model, while others distributed the tasks and
roles among all team members. In both cases, this al-
lowed for a thorough level of detailing of the projects,
as well as a high level of awareness of integrated de-
sign and project delivery.
FRAMEWORK FOR INTEGRATING RESPON-
SIVE SYSTEMS IN THE DESIGN STUDIO
Based on the previous findings, we propose a ped-
agogical framework for integrating responsive sys-
tems in the architectural design studio (Figure 5). This
framework involves two main components: (1) the
phases of design in which responsive systems are
to be integrated, and (2) the different tasks, roles
and skill sets required from students in order to de-
sign and develop those systems. The framework pro-
motes phases of design as devised by the Ameri-
can Institute of Architects' Integrated Project Deliv-
ery (IPD) Guide in 2007 [1], where the phasing of
design is slightly different than that in traditional
project delivery based on some of the fundamen-
tal principles of integrated design and project deliv-
ery. These principles include collaborative innova-
tion and decision making, early involvement of key
participants, early goal definition, intensified plan-
ning, and the use of appropriate cutting edge tech-
76 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
nologies. For this framework, we highlighted the fol-
lowing IPD phases as most relevant in the design
of responsive systems and applicable in an educa-
tional studio setting: conceptualization (expanded
programming), criteria design (expanded schematic
design), detailed design (expanded design develop-
ment), and implementation documents (construc-
tion documents).
We identified tasks, roles and skill sets that are
most relevant to the design of responsive systems,
such as BIM management, facade design, fabrica-
tion and detailing, and cost and sustainability anal-
ysis. By BIM management, we refer to all the required
skill sets related to modeling, selection of appropri-
ate tools, interoperability, in addition to dealing with
the physical computing programming environment
and sensing-planning-action mechanisms. By facade
design, we refer to all tasks and skill sets related to
building facade pattern design, and form generation
and massing strategies. By fabrication and detail-
ing, we refer to all tasks and skill sets related to the
hardware components of the responsive system, fab-
rication, assembly and operation of its components,
as well as construction detailing and documentation.
By sustainability analysis, we refer to all tasks and skill
sets related to environmental analysis of the opera-
tional use of the responsive system, especially day-
lighting analysis, solar heat gain and visual accessi-
bility. By cost analysis, we refer to all skill sets related
to checking and optimizing the cost of the responsive
system, both in its prototype and actual construction
phases.
Within this framework, students of architecture
should be encouraged to work in teams (possibly in-
terdisciplinary teams as well if applicable with more
complex systems) in order to acquire collectively the
necessary skill sets. Concepts of BIM management,
interoperability, integrated design and project deliv-
Figure 5
Framework for
integrating
responsive systems
in the architectural
design studio
ery, thermal comfort, daylighting, energy analysis, fa-
cade design and retrofit, cost analysis, digital fabrica-
tion, parametric modeling, and physical computing
all contribute towards the success of designing, fabri-
cating and operating such responsive systems. These
concepts and their related literature should be highly
integrated within this studio as well as in relevant
prerequisite courses where appropriate. Below is a
brief overview of the expected activities and work-
flow in the design studio for each of the aforemen-
tioned phases: conceptualization, criteria design, de-
tailed design, and implementation documents.
Conceptualization
The main purpose of this phase is to allow the stu-
dents to develop a conceptual approach and mech-
anism narrative for the required responsive system,
while understanding and analyzing its value and sig-
nificance to the architectural project. Following the
principles of IPD, students should integrate concepts
of BIM, cost, sustainability, facade design and fabri-
cation collectively at this early stage in design. Below
is an outline of some of the activities required at this
phase:
BIM management. At this early stage of de-
sign, the activities related to BIM management in-
clude defining the general modeling strategy for the
responsive system components, identifying the re-
quired software and programming interfaces, mod-
eling the different alternatives, and planning the re-
sponsive system scenario in the software develop-
ment environment.
Facade design. At this stage, the activities re-
lated to facade design include devising the general
strategy for facade treatments, analyzing and gener-
ating patterns for building skin, developing alterna-
tives for responsive mechanisms, and studying im-
pact on building exterior form and interior functional
spaces.
Fabrication and detailing. At this stage, the ac-
tivities related to fabrication and detailing include ex-
tracting modeling data of responsive system com-
ponents and their alternatives for prototyping and
fabrication, building preliminary physical models for
evaluation and testing, and testing basic sensor-
planning-action mechanisms based on the narra-
tives.
Sustainability analysis. At this stage, the activ-
ities related to sustainability include specifying per-
formance goals, target values and sustainability crite-
ria for responsive system, analyzing building massing
and orientations, and developing narrative for day-
lighting, and solar radiation, in addition to any spe-
cific environmental considerations such as acoustics,
visual access, etc.
Cost analysis. At this stage, the activities related
to cost analysis include identifying a preliminary bud-
get for responsive system elements in the project,
and extracting modeling data of responsive compo-
nents and their alternatives to generate cost esti-
mates for prototypes and projected total costs upon
construction, based on material selection, scale, sys-
tems and technologies implemented.
Criteria Design
The main purpose of this phase is to allow the stu-
dents to test, evaluate and select an appropriate re-
sponsive system for development and implementa-
tion based on a number of set criteria. Below is
an outline of some of the activities required at this
phase:
BIM management. At this stage, the activities
related to BIM management include coordinating the
testing and evaluation of all design alternatives and
selecting best fit based on the criteria set in the con-
ceptualization phase, in addition to programming
the required interface of the responsive system, and
linking parametric model data to the physical com-
puting interface.
Facade design. At this stage, the activities re-
lated to facade design include evaluating and ad-
justing the proposed facade designs and generated
patterns according to building function and desired
exterior form until an optimum facade design is se-
lected. This evaluation should take into account
user behavior and interaction with responsive system
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 77
 within building spaces, as well as exterior environ-
mental factors.
Fabrication and detailing. At this stage, the
activities related to fabrication and detailing include
digitally fabricating the selected responsive system
prototype, connecting physical components such as
sensors, motors and micro-controllers to the pro-
gramming environment and building model data,
and studying the materials, size and implemented
technologies of the system upon actual construction.
Sustainability analysis. At this stage, the ac-
tivities related to sustainability include evaluating all
responsive system alternatives against desired day-
lighting and solar radiation target values, selecting
best fit options and conducting the necessary opti-
mization procedures.
Cost analysis. At this stage, the activities related
to cost analysis include evaluating all responsive sys-
tem alternatives against the budget identified in the
conceptualization phase, selecting best value alter-
natives, adjusting system components, and updat-
ing prototype estimate and projected total cost upon
construction.
Detailed Design
The main purpose of this phase is to allow the stu-
dents to develop, detail and further refine their se-
lected responsive system. Below is an outline of some
of the activities required at this phase:
BIM management. At this stage, the activi-
ties related to BIM management include linking the
developed building model data (and environmen-
tal simulation data) to the physical computing inter-
face of the responsive system, executing the scenario
of use and operation of the responsive system un-
der the set requirements and constraints, and con-
ducting continuous refining and testing of the sys-
tem based on updated building model data and in-
put variables to ensure correct and complete opera-
tion of system.
Facade design. At this stage, the activities re-
lated to facade design include finalizing both the
overall facade pattern scheme and details of the
78 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
building envelope design by means of studying par-
tial wall sections and 3D models, and updating the
scheme based on refinement of fabrication details
and operation of responsive system, in addition to
devising a detailed scheme of materials, textures and
colors.
Fabrication and detailing. At this stage, the ac-
tivities related to fabrication and detailing include fi-
nalizing the responsive system prototype regarding
materials, connections, assembly, and operation of
sensors, micro-controllers and actuators. This phase
requires attention to the mechanics and assembly lo-
gistics of the system, especially with regards to forces,
weights, torque values, kinetic behavior of materi-
als and the different applied mechanisms, as this can
only be visualized and assessed upon physical testing
(or otherwise in complex simulation software), and
may require testing with actual users in case of full-
scale models.
Sustainability analysis. At this stage, the activi-
ties related to sustainability include continuous simu-
lation and optimization operations of the selected re-
sponsive system with respect to daylighting, solar ra-
diation and any other desired environmental factors.
Results of these operations should be coordinated
between building model data and physical comput-
ing interface to allow for accurate refining of the se-
lected system.
Cost analysis. At this stage, the activities re-
lated to cost analysis include continuously updating
the building model with cost data such that the de-
velopment and detailing effort of the prototype and
final constructed project is always informed by the
cost factor. At this point, major decisions regard-
ing cost cuts should be enforced, such as reducing
panel sizes and thicknesses, modifying material se-
lections, and optimizing the use of physical comput-
ing components by devising for example mechanical
schemes that use fewer actuators while preserving
the required performance.
Implementation Documents
The main purpose of this phase is to allow the stu-
dents to properly document their responsive system
design for construction. Below is an outline of some
of the activities required at this phase:
BIM management. At this stage, the activities
related to BIM management include extracting all rel-
evant data for full documentation and construction
of the responsive system and its components and de-
tailed drawings.
Facade design. At this stage, the activities re-
lated to facade design include documenting and pro-
ducing technical drawings for the building facade
skin, including elevations, wall sections, 3D details,
and blow-up details.
Fabrication and detailing. At this stage, the
activities related to fabrication and detailing include
carrying the responsive system from the prototype
phase to actual construction phase, where a thor-
ough study of mechanisms, systems, materials, pan-
els, glazing, and technologies is conducted.
Sustainability analysis. At this stage, the activ-
ities related to sustainability include extracting simu-
lation and optimization data for documentation and
producing technical drawings, and carrying out fur-
ther analysis for actual construction based on data for
materials and systems.
Cost analysis. At this stage, the activities related
to cost analysis include updating cost data and ex-
tracting it for documentation of quantities and pric-
ing, and conducting further refinement for actual
construction based on updates from sustainability
and construction data.
DISCUSSION
The benefits of addressing responsive systems within
the integrated design and project delivery realm
rather than a discrete phase of design were seen
as twofold: (1) facilitating the process of designing,
building and operating responsive systems, and (2)
augmenting the basic principles and dynamics of the
architectural design studio. First, the skills, tasks,
and tacit knowledge required for designing, build-
ing and operating responsive systems could be de-
livered to students of architecture in a way that fos-
ters collaboration and allows for group thinking and
learning. As students assume specific roles in the
process or are conscious of the types of activities re-
quired to comprehensively fulfill the design and op-
eration of a given responsive system, the tacit knowl-
edge required is infiltrated indirectly into the gen-
eral design process. Observations from the Spring
semester case study showed that the explicit roles re-
lated to sustainability, fabrication, facade design and
BIM management and their integrated roles among
the teams forced the students to develop their re-
sponsive system designs in a much more elaborate
and all-encompassing process. The students realized
that even if they did not work in a model where their
role was discretely defined as a specialist in any of
the assigned domains, they were still able to capture
what was required of them as an integrated team in
order to produce and deliver their designs.
At the same time, it was important not to com-
promise the dynamics of the design studio nor im-
pede fundamental skills typically acquired in a de-
sign studio setting. The proposed phasing of the in-
tegrated design process addresses specifically this is-
sue. Students are still exposed to a thorough devel-
opment, detailing and documentation process fol-
lowing their conceptualization process and their ex-
tensive non-conventional iterations with digital fab-
rication, physical computing and programming. The
added value, however, is that the students perform
these documentation procedures and go through in-
tensive technical drawing exercises while being in-
formed by a rich cycle of iterations, digital and phys-
ical prototyping, testing and operation. Another
added value is the rationale that is carried along
each of the design phases at different levels, where
students can feel more comfortable about their de-
signs, having tested them virtually and physically.
Throughout the proposed phases, students can jus-
tify their design decisions in different domains, in-
cluding constructability, cost and value engineering,
sustainability and environmental control, and opera-
CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 79
 tion and management.
Looking at the large picture, engaging students
in a model far from a conventional educational set-
ting, but rather a simplified model of architectural
teams in practice like the one proposed in this pa-
per, would further their understanding of teamwork
and interdisciplinary collaboration in the AEC indus-
try. We hope to further develop this work by testing
this pedagogical framework in the coming semesters
and build on the feedback of students and of practic-
ing professionals. Including participants from other
disciplines such as structural and MEP engineers in an
interdisciplinary course would also enrich our under-
standing of this framework and help develop it to a
wider scope of implementation.
CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a pedagogical framework for in-
tegrating responsive systems in the architectural de-
sign studio. Based on the findings of two design
studios at The American University in Cairo, the pro-
posed framework engages students in a design pro-
cess that utilizes the concepts of integrated project
delivery in its phases and activities. The framework
builds on introducing students to a number of neces-
sary skill sets, activities and concepts in order to de-
sign, fabricate and operate responsive systems, such
as BIM management, facade design, fabrication and
detailing, cost analysis, and sustainability analysis.
The paper demonstrates how these activities can be
integrated in different phases of the design, rang-
ing from conceptualization to implementation doc-
uments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank all participating students in
both AENG 4556 Architectural Design V studios for
Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 at the Department of Con-
struction and Architectural Engineering at The Amer-
ican University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt. Without their
hard work and the dedication of the teaching assis-
tants Ahmed ElShafei and Amira Abdel-rahman, this
work would not have been possible. We are also
80 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Concepts - Volume 2
grateful to all professors and colleagues who par-
ticipated as reviewers for this course and provided
invaluable constructive feedback and insights for
further development, including Basil Kamel, Khaled
Tarabieh, Ebtissam Farid, Mostafa Rabea, and Dina El-
Zanfaly. We would finally wish to thank the American
University in Cairo for supporting this effort.
REFERENCES
Blikstein, P 2013, 'Digital Fabrication and ‘Making’ in Edu-
cation: The Democratization of Invention', in Walter-
Herrmann, J and Büching, C (eds) 2013, FabLabs: Of
Machines, Makers and Inventors, Bielefeld: Transcript
Publishers
El-Zanfaly, D 2011 'Active Shapes: Introducing guide-
lines for designing kinetic architectural structures',
Proceedings of the 15th Iberoamerican Congress of
Digital Graphics (SIGRADI 2011)
Fox, M and Hu, C 2005 'Starting From The Micro: A Peda-
gogical Approach to Designing Interactive Architec-
ture', Proceedings of Conference of the Association for
Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA 2005),
pp. 78-93
Zuk, W and Clark, R 1970, Kinetic Architecture, Van Nos-
trand Reinhold, New York
Özkar, M 2007 'Learning by Doing in the Age of Design
Computation', Proceedings of the 12th International
Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design
futures (CAAD Futures 2007), pp. 99-112
[1] http://info.aia.org/siteobjects/files/ipd_guide
_2007.pdf
CAAD Education - Applied
From Shaping to Information Modeling in Architectural
Education: Implementation of Augmented Reality
Technology in Computer-Aided Modeling
Jacek Markusiewicz1 , Jan Słyk2
1,2
Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology
1
j.markusiewicz@gmail.com 2 jan.slyk@arch.pw.edu.pl

While learning computer-aided modeling techniques, students of architecture

should not only gain knowledge on how to model three-dimensional forms, but
also how to define and understand the information beneath the shapes.
Architectural presentation as an intellectual communication-focused process
requires new media to channel information in a contemporary way. These can be
text, image, sound, video or a digital model. The integration of augmented reality
in teaching computer-aided modeling in architecture school provides more
thorough learning experience as it opens new opportunities. The authors present
the process of implementing AR technology in architectural education - its
theoretical background, the outcome of students' work and technical solutions.
They argue that the use of AR interface increases the effectiveness of user-model
interaction in comparison to standard mouse-based techniques of
three-dimensional manipulation due to the intuitive touch-screen interaction and
direct control on the camera.

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Computer-aided Modeling, Unity 3D

INTRODUCTION teaching computer-aided modeling in architecture

The physical elements of a building's structure, the-
oretical concepts being the outcome of functional,
ergonomic or financial constrains, as well as histori-
cal and cultural context all form a unique characteris-
tic of an architectural project. A model representing
the project should focus on information. Thus, while
learning computer-aided modeling techniques, stu-
dents of architecture not only should gain knowl-
edge on how to model three-dimensional forms, but
also how to define and understand the information
beneath the shapes.
The integration of augmented reality (AR) in
school provides more thorough learning experience
as it opens new opportunities such as interaction, ac-
cess to video and sound data and the possibility of
organizing content in a multilayer layout. This im-
plies the necessity to master multiple skills: advanced
knowledge of architectural modeling using BIM tools
and/or freeform surface modeling software, man-
agement of data concerning specific project, tools
of communication between the author and the ob-
server. All of these are crucial for future architects.
In this paper, the authors describe the process of
implementation of AR technology in architectural ed-

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 83

 ucation using the example of the course of modeling
held in the Faculty of Architecture at Warsaw Univer-
sity of Technology in academic years 2013/2014 and
2014/2015. The authors describe the theoretical and
academic background of the process, the outcome of
students' work that involves augmented reality, the
technical solutions that have been applied and the
educational significance of the course.
ARCHITECTURAL REPRESENTATION
The way one perceives and understands their sur-
rounding affects one's needs and their fulfillment. Ar-
chitects traditionally represent reality with sketches,
technical and perspective drawings, physical and
digital models. By using these means of represen-
tation, they create images of their work. Processing
these images helps predicting the results of future
materialization. The conceptual model and the fi-
nal result are not identical in architectural practice
both in conceptual stage (verification of ideas) and
in phase of construction (issuing of instructions). The
understanding of architecture is conceived due to
the interpretation of sensory impulses - mainly due to
visual perception. One acquires information by ana-
lyzing optical effects, tactile and acoustic sensations
and past experiences. The language of architectural
representation reduces collected data to compact
message. By sketching and creating models, archi-
tects create hierarchies of their observations and pos-
sible solutions. Geometry - as mathematical means
for 3d space interpretation - is essential in achieving
understandable representation. (Słyk 2012)
Thales introduced geometrical concepts such as
line, point, angle, as well as theorems on relations be-
tween objects, similarity and proportions. The sys-
tem built on his thoughts led Euclid to formulate 'Ele-
ments' - the base for geometrical research until 18th
century and Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri's 'Euclides
ab omni nævo vindicatus'.
The works on perspective of Ambroggio Loren-
zetti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Piero della Francesca
as well as the science of optics investigated by Al-
hazen, Witelon and later by Simon Stevin and Jo-
84 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
hannes Kepler, gave us the ability to represent three-
dimensional objects with drawings. Thanks to 17th
century works of René Descartes the theory of space
and the theory of numbers could be combined in a
coordinate system. Algebraic description of geome-
try opened the possibility to computational manage-
ment of objects and transformations in 20th century.
The year 1963 and Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad
was a breakthrough for architectural drawing. The
first computer-based design tools were a digital ver-
sion of a 19th century drawing board they replaced.
Later, they evolved to advanced dynamic databases,
supporting building information management, its
process of construction and lifecycle. Today's tools
provide users with shaping, analyzing and editing ar-
chitectural creations based on digital models.
Antonino Saggio defines architecture as dual:
consisting of objective and subjective space. The
first is strictly based on materiality and measure-
ments. The latter involves individual perception
(Saggio 2010). Jan Słyk points out that a model (or
hypermodel) and instruments of perception (that can
be amplified through interaction and affecting mul-
tiple senses in an innovative way due to technology)
are instruments sufficient for understanding archi-
tecture (Słyk 2012).
COURSE OF MODELING
The subject of the course "Computer-Aided Model-
ing" held in the Department of Architecture is to
create models of historical and modern examples
of projects that had major contribution to the ar-
chitecture of single-family houses. These models
have three main objectives in the process of architec-
tural education. Firstly, they are tools to learn com-
puter aided modeling. Secondly, they allow students
to better understand building components such as
walls, slabs, columns etc., which is crucial at the early
stage of architectural studies. Finally, during the
modeling process, the students gather information
on the modeled building and thus gain knowledge
on the structural, functional and aesthetic solutions
implemented in acclaimed examples.
 During the course the students are involved in CONTENT TYPOLOGY
three major stages of using information technology Following media classification by Piotr Gajewski, it
in architecture: (1) information modeling, (2) param- is assumed that the presentation can be augmented
eterization and (3) communication. with one of the following content types: text, image,
At the beginning of the course, the students ac- sound, video or an additional digital model. (Gajew-
quire the necessary information about each building ski 2001)
and transform it into a digital model. The geometry
Figure 1 of the model is complemented with data about the
Augmented specific context. This data varies from structural so-
content of lutions, to materiality, function and spatial solutions,
Farnsworth House to historical background or building's relation to the
presentation. (All surrounding. This information can be defined as at-
figures by tributes inside of BIM program, additional 3d form,
Markusiewicz 2015) schematics or text message.
After the initial modeling stage, parameters
changing the perception of the model may be intro-
duced. Every building has elements that can be af-
fected by variables. It this stage we focus especially
on the examples that are modular, parametrically
generated or contain kinetic elements. These exam-
ples can be defined with scripts or parametric mod-
els. Other examples can be altered through different
means in form of interactive presentations revealing
various aspects of the project, videos showing the
Figure 2 construction process or structural simulations.
Farnsworth House At the end, a message for potential spectator is
alternative content. defined in form of a presentation. The constraint is
a static printed panel on which the work has to be
presented. This often results to be an insufficient
medium to effectively present the work when con-
fronted with a digital model enhanced with addi-
tional media.
The message resulting from the modeling pro-
cess is supposed to meet the criteria of a new
medium as described by Lev Manovich, i.e. numer-
ical representation, modularity, automation, variabil-
ity and transcoding (Manovich 2002). Implementa-
tion of augmented reality gives the students the op-
portunity to show their work in a more flexible way,
whereas the spectators are provided with a more un-
derstandable presentation.

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 85

 The text accessible through augmented reality Figure 3
application can either provide users with extra in- Video showing
formation or it can become a hypertext allowing ac- physical simulation
cess to external resources such as online repository of a curtain in
of information on the model or its particular com- Shigeru Ban's
ponent. The presentation of Urbanowicz-Muszyński building.
twin house in Warsaw by Bohdan Pniewski is com-
plemented with fragments of a critical article on the
building from 1936 'Arkady' written by Edgar Norw-
erth. The spectator chooses between the analytical
description provided by students and historical opin-
ions.
Images or series of images provide better under-
standing of the modeled object by e.g. showing his-
torical evolution of the surrounding area or focus-
ing on real-life details that were not included in the
model itself. The panel presenting students' work on
the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe is an
example of a virtual presentation consisting of text
and images organized in different layers that are only
accessible via augmented reality technology. The
printed panel itself contains abstract graphics and
when browsed with an AR application it is supple-
mented with visualizations and description in two al-
ternative organizations. [Fig. 1 and 2]
Sound is often used either to strengthen users'
perception or as a more artistic impression. It can
also provide access to a musical piece that was an in-
spiration to the architectural form. The Philips Pavil-
ion by Le Corbusier became a motivation to create a
Grasshopper definition for parametric generation of
geometrical forms based on rhythm, scale and length
of a musical composition. The students based their
creations on two musical pieces that can be accessed
through QR codes that are placed on the panel.
Videos combine the assets specific to both im-
age and sound resulting to be useful when present-
ing the work through a flythrough animation, physi-
cal simulation of kinetic elements or a more personal,
graphical analysis of the project. Students mod-
eling Shigeru Ban's Curtain Wall House performed
physics-based simulation of the curtain's behavior
with Grasshopper and Kangaroo Physics. The simula-

86 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2

 tion was recorded as an animation and rendered on
top of a printed still frame extracted from the video.
Viewing the printed panel through an AR application
gives the impression of motion of a static printed el-
ement [Fig. 3]. Another interesting example of video
usage was an artistic impression on Le Corbusier's
Heidi Weber Pavilion. It is an animated decomposi-
tion of the building's elements and its conversion to
a planar colorful composition. [Fig. 4]
Figure 4
Heidi Weber
Pavilion video
impression.
An interactive model accessible through augmented
reality allows free and intuitive perception from dif-
ferent angles and distances and can be easily altered
by turning on and off particular layers of informa-
tion, such as architectural elements (external walls,
roof ) or hierarchical organization (floors, functions).
One example is a digital model of Jacobus Johannes
Pieter Oud's Weissenhof Row Houses that can be cus-
tomized by a spectator. By touching the screen of a
handheld device, one browses through a sequence
of different layers of the model: (i) the whole row of
houses with closest surrounding, (ii) one module sep-
arated from the context or (iii) the module with exter-
nal walls turned off to show the interior [Fig. 5]. An-
other example is Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater,
where the user can decide which floor to turn on or
off to better understand the complexity of the func-
tion. [Fig. 6]
The model can be further supplemented with
other media, such as sound or text rendered when
zoomed on a point of interest. In Czesław Przybyl-
ski's Willa Julisin's model one can hear piano music
when zooming a handheld device on the living room,
which focuses on its main function via the sense of
hearing. In Wright's Robie House the viewer gains ac-
cess to hyperlinks containing more specific informa-
tion when zoomed on a piece of furniture. Such digi-
tal augmentation constitutes the multilayer typology
of a hypermodel. It may emphasize certain charac-
teristics of the project the model represents and en-
hance its perception by affecting determined senses.
APPLICATION INTERFACE
At the early stage of implementing augmented real-
ity in the course of modeling in the academic year
2013/2014, a set of freeware computational tools was
used as addition to the standard modeling software
taught during classes. Metaio Creator was used as
a tool for converting planar graphics to AR trackers
and supplementing them with digital content with
an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface that does not
require programming. Final setups were published
with Metaio Cloud and could be accessed via QR
codes with a free mobile application Junaio.
In the academic year 2014/2015 the solution de-
scribed above was replaced with a custom AR appli-
cation. The reason was to ensure bigger flexibility
in programming particular application features, pro-
vide access to augmented content without the use of
QR codes and become more independent from third-
party software.
The first version of the application was created
by Jacek Markusiewicz using a game development
platform - Unity 3d with Vuforia extension provid-
ing assets and SDK for augmented reality imple-
mentation. Digital models exported from McNeel's
Rhinoceros3d as Wavefront .obj or .3ds files are im-
ported as assets to the Unity project and assigned
to corresponding trackers, that are abstract graph-
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 87
 ics designed for the application's purposes. The be- Figure 5
havior of virtual camera is established by Vuforia plu- Weissenhof Row
gin. Interaction is defined with C Sharp scripting lan- Houses by J. J. P.
guage in Unity's MonoDevelop IDE. The platform al- Oud as presented in
lows the usage of materials and effects rendered in the Unity-based
real time. It also facilitates compiling the final appli- application.
cation for a specified platform.
The AR application provides the students and
spectators with intuitive touch-screen interaction
and simplifies model browsing by giving them direct
control on the camera. This type of interface seems
to be increasing the effectiveness of user-content in-
teraction in comparison to standard mouse-based
techniques of three-dimensional manipulation. In
the authors' opinion, hardware aspects of human-
computer interaction is the field of computer-aided
modeling that needs most of attention when con-
trasted with highly advanced modeling and analysis
software that users nowadays have access to. The
way users edit and browse three-dimensional con-
tent with a mouse, a keyboard and a screen is un-
derdeveloped - its effectiveness and intuitiveness can
and should be improved.
One of the reasons to that is what Słyk calls a
double projection effect. Standard computer mouse
navigation is by definition two-dimensional. Thus,
all three-dimensional operations such as zooming,
panning and orbiting have to be projected from the
three-dimensional imagination of the user onto a
two-dimensional plane on which a mouse can op-
erate. The actions performed with a mouse have to
be then processed by software and applied in three-
dimensional coordinate system. (Słyk 2012)

88 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 6
Wright's
Fallingwater
interactive model.

What we define as three-dimensional navigation
in software, in real life is a simple and intuitive ac-
tion, where looking at an object from different dis-
tances and different angles does not require intellec-
tual effort and consists of moving and rotating ei-
ther one's head or the object they perceive. How-
ever translating such movements and rotations (of
either a virtual camera or a three-dimensional ob-
ject) into mouse operations results in mathematically
complex transformations that have to be defined by
the user. In other words, in real life one's brain per-
forms inverse kinematics transformations that meet
our needs, whereas while using computer software,
one needs to perform forward kinematics transfor-
mations in order to achieve the desired effect.
The double projection and the forward kinemat-
ics manipulation may lead to imprecision, latency
and, what is most important, the shift of user's focus
from the content to tool management.
Even though human-computer interaction ex-
perts such as Jef Raskin and Bruce Tognazzini ques-
tion the existence of fully intuitive interfaces (Raskin
1994, Tognazzini 1992), research shows that many
types of interaction such as tangible user interfaces
positively affect the efficiency, cognitive processes
and three-dimensional abstraction of a user (Kim and
Maher 2006, Sharlin 2004 after Abdelmohsen and
Yi-Luen Do 2007). Augmented reality seems to be
at least partially solving navigation issues as look-
ing and perceiving is intuitive and follows the inverse
kinematics mechanism: pointing a handheld device
camera on a virtual object visible on the screen is di-
rectly understood as camera transformation.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE APPLICA-
TIONS
Architectural presentation is an intellectual process
that focuses on communication. The use of aug-
mented reality can channel a message through mul-
tiple senses and provide interaction between the re-
ceiver and the medium of communication. The stu-
dents that employ augmented content in their pre-
sentations tend to use different means of expres-
sion than the ones that present their work in a tra-
ditional way. The printed panels of the first are more
schematic and contain less explicit information while
the digital content accessible through a mobile appli-
cation is complete.
Moreover, the possibility of including media
such as video and sound, otherwise impossible, en-

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 89

 courages students to do so, resulting in more time REFERENCES
spent on creative work during the semester. Such Abdelmohsen, S. and Yi-Luen Do, E. 2007 'TangiCAD:
workflow is exceptionally well received by the stu- Tangible Interface for Manipulating Architectural 3D
dents, which is reflected in the results of a survey Models', Proceedings of the 12th International Con-
ference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Re-
conducted amongst 66 course participants in June
search in Asia
2014. Course's scientific and educational content Caillois, R. 2001, Man, Play and Games, University of Illi-
was graded 4.71/5 (4.25 being the average score of nois Press
all courses held at the faculty), didactical skills of the Gajewski, P. 2001, Zapis Myśli o Przestrzeni, Politechnika
tutor were also graded 4.71 (4.17), tutor's attitude to- Krakowska
wards students 4.79 (4.40), technical conditions and Kim, M. and Maher, M.L. 2006 'The effects of tangi-
ble user interfaces on deisgners cognitive actions.',
equipment 4.61 (3.97) and formal aspects such as
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on
grading criteria: 4.76 (4.20). Finally, the students eval- Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia
uated their own involvement as 4.5/5, being higher Manovich, L. 2002, The Language of New Media, The MIT
than usual (4.13). Press
AR-based presentations also seem to affect the Raskin, J. 1994, 'Intuitive Equals Familiar', Communica-
way spectators explore architectural models. Con- tions of the ACM, 37:9, p. 17
Saggio, A. 2013, The IT Revolution in Architecture.
tent of such presentations is not directly accessible
Thoughts on a paradigm shift., lulu.com
but requires exploration. Due to its hierarchical or- Sharlin, E., Itoh, Y., Watson, B.A., Kitamura, Y., Sutphen, S.,
ganization, some additional information has to be Liu, L. and Kishino, F. 2004, 'Spatial Tangible User In-
searched for by either zooming on specific elements terfaces for Cognitive Assessment and Training', Bi-
or triggering an event with for instance a touch. This ologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Informa-
provides an element of mystery and surprise and tion Technology, 3141
Słyk, J. 2012, Źródła Architektury Informacyjnej, Oficyna
leads the spectator to think they are playing a game
Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, Warsaw
- which results in their greater immersion. (Caillois Tognazzini, B. 1992, Tog on Interface, Addison-Wesley
2001) Professional
Further development in applying augmented re-
ality in architectural education is planned. The course
of modeling shows that both students and specta-
tors respond positively to working with architectural
model through this technology. Its intuitive interac-
tion and efficient navigation can be further investi-
gated in applications that not only allow users to per-
ceive architectural content but also alter it by reor-
ganizing, customizing and finally modeling architec-
tural or urban elements. Although it still seems un-
likely to create a fully functional architectural or free
form modeling software based on augmented reality,
the authors want to introduce elements of AR-aided
interactive modeling in the future courses to explore
the possibilities of facilitating architect-computer in-
teraction.

90 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2

Modular Light Cloud - Design, Programming and Making
Towards the Integration of Creative Actions

Jacek Markusiewicz1 , Marcin Strzała2 , Krzysztof Koszewski3

1,2,3
Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology
1
j.markusiewicz@gmail.com 2 marcin@strzala.pl
3
krzysztof.koszewski@arch.pw.edu.pl

Modular Light Cloud is an installation that is conceived to explore the

boundaries of architecture and art. Its interactivity is a metaphor of mutual
influences that derive from activities performed in space - associated with motion,
sound and light.It is an experimental project focused on the integration of
architectural elements, structure, information technology, performing arts,
electronics and digital fabrication in architectural education.The project was
completed in a two-week student workshop in collaboration with a contemporary
dance artist. The students were taught the basics of parametric design,
programming of electronic components and digital fabrication during tutorial
classes. The making process combined three stages of development: design,
construction and programming of interaction.The final form consists of two
irregular spatial trusses made of aluminum profiles connected with 3d printed
nodes. The profiles are equipped with LED strips and electronic components:
light sensors, sound and communication between them. These systems control the
intensity of light emitted by the diodes based on the inputs.The result is a working
prototype presented as interactive installation featuring contemporary dance
artist. It was displayed at art festivals and other events.

Keywords: Parametric design, Interactive installation, Artistic performance,

Digital fabrication, Responsive design

INTRODUCTION referential, independent domain (Schumacher 2011).

Architecture - as discipline - is experiencing dynamic
changes in understanding its condition among other
creative activities. Contemporary theoretical ap-
proach ranges from opinions situating architecture in
broader, expanded field (Vidler 2008), seeking inspi-
rations and gaining experience from a wide array of
arts and sciences, to positions of architecture as self-
But even while seeking the roots of autopoiesis of dis-
cipline we are encouraged to look outside of it - trig-
gered by experience of interdisciplinarity and cross-
referencing, implemented in day-by-day practice. Ex-
amination of material, functional, programmatic as-
pects of architecture, frequently associated with ad-
vances in computational technology, must be sup-

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 91

 plemented by exploration of non-physical, mental,
symbolic aspects of our creations. This is the reason
why architects tend to cross blurred boundaries be-
tween their discipline and fine arts, examining the
potential of interactivity, real-time, sensuality, mem-
ory, emotions and feelings. Since space is the realm
of their creativity, architects experiment with fields
of art that use it as one of substrates - like instal-
lations. These are not necessarily "architectural ob-
jects", or buildings, turned into works of art (like Gor-
don Matta-Clark works)(Świtek 2013). They are rather
dissected aspects of human activity, that may hap-
pen in space, like works of Lab[au], Diller+Scofidio,
Mark Goulthorpe, Marco Casagrande (Bonnemaison,
Eisenbach, 2009). Computational methods facilitate
equipping them with sophisticated interactivity, in-
troducing invaluable possibility of adding human
factor. Such installations may be perceived as works
of art, but also - as created by architects - as specific
tools for exploring these peculiar immaterial proper-
ties of architecture.
This affinity is not only one-directional. Explo-
ration of spatial aspects of human existence has be-
come a vital theme of discourse related to arts and
humanities in the last decades of 20th century, and
this interest lasts until now. So called "spatial turn"
(Soja 1996) resulted in many works and publications
related to these aspects, suddenly there were not
only architects who shape our everyday environ-
ment. From minimalist roots of "architectural sculp-
ture" leaving white box of the gallery in the sixties
of the past century, to architectural scale sculptures
of Richard Serra, overscaled objects of Claes Olden-
burg, to Olafur Eliasson installations - artists entered
the realm of creation in space, treating it simultane-
ously as substrate and context for their works (Świtek
2013). Moreover, interrelation of contemporary art
and problems of the city is getting stronger. "The fu-
ture of art is urban" as says Nicolas Whybrow (Why-
brow 2011).
These mutual influences create inspiring back-
ground for experiments related to the potential of
space as technically aided field of interaction and ex-
92 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
pression. On the other hand all mentioned inquires
emphasize epistemological role of such experiments
in architects' activity. Modular Light Cloud, as de-
scribed hereafter, is one of the examples.
THE WORKSHOP
Modular Light Cloud (MLC) is an interactive structure
designed and built by students of architecture during
a two-week summer workshop. The workshop was
organized by Architecture for Society of Knowledge
master program at the Faculty of Architecture, War-
saw University of Technology. It took place in August
2014. The project was conceived as a result of co-
operation between students, tutors and a contempo-
rary performance artist invited to the workshop. The
structure, as stated in project's initial conditions, was
supposed to be interactive, parametrically designed
and constructed using available materials - such as
aluminum profiles - using digital fabrication technol-
ogy.
As part of workshop arrangements the tutors
prepared tools and materials for the participants.
On one hand, these were hardware equipment el-
ements: LED strips with aluminum profiles, elec-
tronic components of various types and a 3d printer.
On the other hand, computer-modeling software
(Rhinoceros 3d), custom parametric design algo-
rithms (Grasshopper definitions) and microcontroller
programs (Arduino scripts) were provided. During
the workshop the tutors delivered introductory lec-
tures on parametric design, electronics and digital
fabrication. The tutors defined project's require-
ments and were fully involved in the design process
by giving daily desk critiques and sharing their expe-
rience in the matter.
The performance artist's task was to act as
project's client, define the specifications for the form
and interaction as well as to prepare final perfor-
mance. The role of the artist was crucial due to con-
stant negotiations with workshop's participants lead-
ing to improvements in project's solutions. The artist
introduced basic knowledge on performance art and
provided consultations for students.
 Workshop participants gained the necessary
knowledge and skills that were later used in de-
sign and production process. The installation was
shaped taking into account its structural perfor-
mance, the artist's interactivity conditions, aesthetic
values, available resources and time dedicated for
construction. After completing the design, the par-
ticipants took part in the making process that con-
sisted of preparing reactive structural elements made
of aluminum profiles and LED strips, assembling elec-
tronic circuits with protective elements and connec-
tors, as well as 3d printing of joints for the final assem-
bly that took place during last days of the workshop.
[Fig. 1 and 2]
Figure 1
Conceptual phase
of the workshop.
Figure 2
The fabrication
process: circuit
assembly.
Prototypes and artifacts generated during both de-
sign and production contributed to knowledge on
the explored technology and were part of iterative
process, which led to the final outcome.
MODULAR LIGHT COUD
Modular Light Cloud as designed and produced dur-
ing the workshop is a sum of three complementary
components: spatial form, interactive layer and dig-
ital fabrication technology. All three aspects affect
each other influencing the degree of complexity of
the project; hence, they had to be developed in par-
allel.
The structure is based on two three-dimensional
irregular trusses made of aluminum profiles
equipped with LED strips connected using 3d-
printed joints. The trusses mark an interior space
enclosed in a 4x4x2.5 m cuboid. The profiles ad-
jacent to the interior space are equipped with LED
strips; whereas the joints that combine them - with
electronic circuits. When lit, the LED lamps draw a
three-dimensional composition consisting of planar
convex polygons. [Fig. 3] The profile lengths were
optimized parametrically to match modularity of LED
strips. The form's irregularity caused every joint to
be unique. Parametric design and digital fabrication
provided the designers with a lot of freedom in shap-
ing the structure. However, there were certain limits
to be taken into account, e.g. a big number of struc-
tural elements combined in one joint and acute an-
gles between them would increase the size and thus
production time of such joint. Another condition was
the placement of sensors and their accessibility.
One of the principal form-shaping aspects of
Modular Light Cloud was its interactive layer. Due
to the usage of aluminum profiles equipped with
LED strips, two functions could be integrated in one
reactive-structural element. On one hand, the profile
provides stability and works as a structural member
of the truss; on the other hand Arduino-controlled
LED lamp complements the structural element with
virtual content.
The final part of the project, which physically in-
tegrated the above issues, was to develop and man-
ufacture the relevant joint elements. Due to the
uniqueness of each joint and freeform fabrication
potential, additive manufacturing methods were se-
lected as an instrument of production. In this partic-
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 93
 Figure 3
Modular Light
Cloud

ular case a fused deposition modeling based Strata-
sys Dimension 1200es units were used. Due to the
time factor and the limited duration of the work-
shop, a two-pronged approach to the project was
developed. The first goal was to design an abstract
model of network structure made of LED fixtures.
In this case the objective conditions such as maxi-
mum length, stiffness, strength and ergonomics of
the project were taken into the account. The second
goal was to design aesthetic form of a joint connect-
ing the network elements together.
a program written in C and uploaded to the board
using Arduino IDE. The program converts input read-
ings into numerical values and specifies output sig-
nals that drive LED strip actions and communication
between the circuits. The systems are autonomous
and no external computer is needed to define inter-
action. [Fig. 4 and 5]

INTERACTIVITY OF MLC
The interaction of Modular Light Cloud is controlled
by electronic circuits based on Arduino Nano 3.0
boards. The circuits are powered with 12 V DC and
the behavior of sensors and actuators is defined with

94 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 4
A scheme showing
the electronic
circuit with its
inputs (1), outputs
(2) and
communication
module (3).
The most relevant signal used as interaction in-
put is sound as it is a medium of communication be-
tween the artist and the structure. This is due to
the significance of noise, vibrations and voice in the
performance. Their amplitudes and frequencies af-
fect the intensity of light emitted by particular parts
of the structure. Microphones connected to interac-
tive circuits provide readings of sound. Sound wave
is a complex signal composed of multiple frequen-
cies of different amplitudes. Decomposition of these
frequencies was solved programmatically using Fast
Fourier Transform, i.e. a mathematical transforma-
tion that breaks down complex wave into a sum of
simple trigonometric functions, frequencies and am-
plitudes of which can then be estimated (Cooley and
Tukey 1965). This allows custom control of different
parts of structure depending on the pitch and vol-
ume.
The second input used to affect the performance
of the installation is light. Light sensors were built
based on a photoresistor and a fixed resistor. Illu-
minating the photoresistor lowers its resistance and
thus amplifies voltage on the fixed resistor. This
change of voltage is read by Arduino board. When a
programmatically specified threshold is reached, the
circuit triggers a predefined sequence of LED illumi-
nation.
The actuators of the installation are LED strips.
Their brightness is controlled using pulse-width
modulation (PWM), that is a method of controlling
average voltage by switching a transistor, to which
the LED strips are connected, on and off at a fast rate
(Huang 2011). The brightness can be controlled in
two ways. On one hand, the light intensity is propor-
tional to sound input volume. The proportionality is
not linear as it is also influenced by the sound pitch.
Middle frequencies influence the light to a greater
extent than low and high rates. This is because the
sounds emitted by the artist are of middle frequen-
cies while low and high frequencies are considered
unwanted noises. On the other hand, during the se-
quence triggered by light input, the LED brightness
is modulated gradually from minimal intensity (no
light) to maximal and back to minimal after a speci-
fied period of time.
The circuits are equipped with a simple com-
munication module used during light-triggered se-
quences. The communication is binary and takes
place through wire connections between every pair
of adjacent circuits. By controlling voltage on output
pins and reading voltage drops on input pins, a sig-
nal can be exchanged between all circuits. The pre-
defined sequence of illumination takes advantage of
that possibility. After LED brightness modulation be-
gins in one of the circuits, a delayed signal is being
sent to all the adjacent circuits, which triggers LED
brightness modulation in those. Then, the signal is
being passed to next adjacent circuits and so on. This
creates a chain reaction effect that gradually illumi-
nates the whole structure. [Fig. 6]
The structure is powered with three 12V/150W
power supplies. Supply wires were placed inside
of aluminum profiles the way that groundings of
all power supplies and interactive circuits are con-
nected, power transmission wires of different power
supplies are not joined, each interactive circuit is
powered with exactly one supply and the circuits are
connected in parallel to each other. Two signal wires
are placed in each aluminum profile that connects
two interactive circuits. Each LED strip is divided in
two parts, each part being managed by the adjacent
circuit. [Fig. 7]
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 95

DIGITAL FABRICATION
Between architectural idea and its realization there
is an area of discontinuity much wider than the one
found in other fields of art (Słyk 2012). By the term of
96 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 5
A node equipped
with an electronic
circuit.
digital fabrication we understand a number of indus- Figure 7
trial and technological processes aimed at facilitating The artist
and speeding up and at the same time eliminating er- interacting with the
rors in manufacturing products, in the present case structure.
architectural elements fabricated via means of addi-
tive manufacturing. Of course as with other methods,
the choice of a solution entails a number of conse-
quences, such as the nature of the material, manu-
facturing speed, its resolution/precision. The correct
use of a given tool requires a full understanding of its
principles and is crucial for the development of valid
solutions (Wright 1901). In this particular case this
understanding of the machine and freeform fabrica-
tion potential of additive manufacturing was used as
a complimentary element of research by design ap-
proach.
Due to the time constraints the connector ele-
ment needed to be designed before the final struc-
 ture of the Modular Light Cloud. A generative ically generate all forty-two joints. Although each of
Grasshopper definition was created to address this the connectors was unique, all of them were gener-
problem. This allowed for fabrication of prototypes at ated using the same procedure:
the stage of determining preliminary scale, function
and form of the installation. The network model that 1. The program recognized position and as-
was designed later was used as an input to automat- signed numbers to all nodes in the structure.
2. Additional axis pointing at central part of the
Figure 6
A sequence of LED
illumination
triggered by a light
input.

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 97

 structure was added, for each of the connec-
tors that had to be equipped with an elec-
tronic circuit. Then, for each of the sections
beginning or ending at a given point a per-
pendicular plane was set. On each of these
planes, at the intersection with corresponding
section a circle with a diameter equal to the di-
ameter of the LED profile plus wall thickness
parameter of the sleeve carrying (3 mm) was
created.
3. All the circles assigned to that node were
moved along corresponding section away
from the node's center. The offset was cal-
culated to avoid collisions and overlapping of
the forming planes.
4. All circles in that node were capped and con-
nected with minimal surface generating vol-
ume of each individual joint.
5. The bushings for LED profiles were generated.
These took the shape of tubes.
6. The final step in nodes generation was the ad-
dition of spigots connecting tubes with the
main element. A number indicating the cor-
responding node was added on each pin.
7. Finally, the program would generate a list of
all the necessary elements needed for the fab-
rication process.
As expected, the project of joint element had to un-
dergo a series of optimizations at the stage of rapid
prototyping as well as during the production cycle of
final products. These changes had an impact on two
main issues: the time required for fabrication of a sin-
gle node and thus the whole structure as well as the
material usage along with physical properties of the
object.
As a result of the design process and discussions,
two solutions for the main part of the joint were pre-
sented. Although similar in shape, they differed by
production time that if multiplied by 42 nodes would
sum up for a total of 3360 minutes - roughly 56 hours.
Even assuming a continuous use of two printing de-
vices and ignoring the time necessary to prepare the
files, post process finished models, etc. this meant
98 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
more than a day of production. Estimating minimal
supply of security it comes up to more than two ex-
tra days spent on fabrication. Taking into account
already overwhelming production time of over 240
hours as well as other relating matters such as prepar-
ing and programing of electronics, a decision was
taken to develop the first solution. [Fig. 8]
After deciding on the joint element shape, the
next step was to optimize geometry of the tubes that
connected nodes with LED strips. The most impor-
tant issue was the strength of the element, as it had to
bear the greatest loads. In subsequent iterations the
main parameters such as length or thickness of the
walls of the tube elements were changed and tested.
No less important was the shape of a hole for mount-
ing electronics and wiring the installation.
Figure 8
The two options
taken into
consideration when
designing a joint
element.
However, the internal structure of printed element
was the most important aspect of 3D printing tech-
nology. In practice only the outer stroke along with
a fixed or predetermined thickness were produced
as full volume. All of the remaining space was filled
with a grid of controlled shape and density. Being
aware of this property affected the efficiency of fab-
rication - both from material durability and econom-
ical point of view. In the case of equipment (Strata-
Sys Dimension 1200es) used during the workshops
we were dealing with grid deposited in one of three
possible variants: Low Density (where the distance
between the printed forming lines is about 5 mm);
High Density (where the distance between the lines
is approximately 2 mm); and a solid (in which follow-
ing lines are printed one next to another tightly filling
 the space). [Fig. 9]
Figure 9
Preparing a
parametrically
generated 3d
model of a node for
production.
In this case no grid pattern was created, however
it is worth noting that successive layers are printed al-
ternately in the Y and the X-axis. This solution avoids
formation of internal stresses resulting from cooling
of the material. In the case of the two previous meth-
ods, this problem is negligible. This specificity has an
impact on a number of interrelated factors that in-
crease with the amount of material used for printing.
The first factor is the printing cost, where the relation
is direct and closely linked to the budget foreseen for
the implementation. The second factor is the print-
ing time, to which the change in the density of the
filling is not directly proportional. Incrementing the
density by one step increases the print time by 10%
to 20%. Which meant that applying High Density grid
would take 110% and the Solid one 130% of the basic
time needed for Low Density filling. At the same time,
the amount of material used will be approximately
140% and 200% in relation to the quantity consumed
in Low Density mode. The final factor is the strength
of the print. Similarly as in the first point, the relation-
ship here is direct. Applying the High Density grid,
which is increasing quantity of a material to a small
extent, causes a significant improvement of the me-
chanical properties of manufactured items.
Based on the experience described above final
optimization decision was to fabricate all tubes as
solids because of the need to bear the greatest loads
and problems with dissectioning of the models ex-
posed to the shear torque. The density of main node
elements was based on sketch simulation done in
Kangaroo plugin for Grasshopper.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The final result is a working prototype presented
as interactive installation featuring contemporary
dance artist. It was presented in a 10-minute spec-
tacle entitled "Glow". The act is a contemporary
metaphorical representation of a music box with a
ballerina imprisoned inside. Instead of depending on
the mechanism, the ballerina is using it as her instru-
ment. Her actions cause the machine to glow and
she is desperate to stay in its light. The performance
itself is an attempt to explore relations between dy-
namic human emotions and programmed, technol-
ogy driven interactive structure, allowing interpreta-
tions related to contemporary, technologized archi-
tecture. All the interaction between the artist and the
MLC takes place in space, shaped and structured by
the installation itself, thus making it again an archi-
tectural trope.
Modular Light Cloud was inaugurated during
Warsaw art festival Wawa Design in September 2014.
The performance was later a part of Syntezje Festi-
val in Cracow and in Warsaw edition of Museums at
Night at the Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw Univer-
sity of Technology. The system of structure genera-
tion, its fabrication and assembly along with the in-
teractive circuits can be adapted to create different
installation versions. It was used as part of 'MON-
adOLOGIa: a Treatise on Relationality' - a spectacle
inspired by Gottfried Leibniz's monad theory - dis-
played at Warsaw's Museum of Modern Art. [Fig. 10]
Technological innovation was not a major objec-
tive for the creators of Modular Light Cloud. Interac-
tion, parametric design, digital fabrication and per-
forming arts are not entirely new to architecture and
its relation to art, as it was stated in the introduc-
tion. However, the collective usage of these aspects
in architectural education is noteworthy. During an
intensive two-week workshop, students had the op-
portunity to familiarize with emerging technologies
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 99

leading to the creation of an installation based on
human-machine interaction. The knowledge and ar-
tifacts generated during that time are certainly base
for further research and can be developed during fu-
ture workshops and experimental projects organized
by Architecture for Society of Knowledge at Warsaw
University of Technology.
REFERENCES
Benedikt, M. 1969, 'Sculpture as architecture: New York
letter, 1966 – 67', Minimal Art, pp. 61-91
Bonnemaison, S. and Eisenbach, R. 2009, Installations
By Architects: Experiments in Building and Design,
Princeton Architectural Press
Cooley, J. and Tuckey, J. 1965, 'An algorithm for the ma-
chine calculation of complex Fourier series', Mathe-
matics of Computation, 90, p. 297–301
100 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 10
An alternative
configuration of
MLC system
designed for
'MONadOLOGIa'.
Greenfield, A. 2006, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiq-
uitous Computing, New Riders Publishing
Henricks, T. S. 2010, 'Caillois’s Man, Play, and Games An
Appreciation and Evaluation', American Journal of
Play, 3, pp. 157-185
Huang, J., Padmanabhan, K. and Collins, O. M. 2011, 'The
sampling theorem with constant amplitude variable
width pulses', IEEE transactions on Circuits and Sys-
tems, 58, pp. 1178 - 1190
Schumacher, P. 2011, The Autopoiesis of Architecture: A
New Framework for Architecture, Wiley
Soja, E. W. 1996, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and
Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Wiley-Blackwell
Słyk, J. 2012, Źródła Architektury Informacyjnej, Oficyna
Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej, Warsaw
Vidler, A. 2008, 'Architecture’s Expanded Field', Architec-
ture Between Spectacle and Use, 59, pp. 143-154
Whybrow, N. 2010, Art and the city, I. B. Tauris
Wright, F. L. 2008, 'The art and craft of the machine',
 in Pfeiffer, B. B. (eds) 2008, The essential Frank Lloyd
Wright: Critical writings on architecture., Princeton
University Press
Świtek, G. 2013, Gry sztuki z architekturą. Nowoczesne
powinowactwa i współczesne integracje.,
Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja
Kopernika

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 101

Workshop Digital Manufacturing
A New and Practical Approach to Combine CAAD and Digital Manufacturing
in Architectural Design Education

Stefan Junk1 , Rebecca Matt2

1,2
University of Applied Sciences Offenburg
1,2
{stefan.junk|rebecca.matt}@hs-offenburg.de

The opportunities for the use of Digital Manufacturing in the field of architecture
have increased tremendously over the past years. Today, already a large variety
of methods and processes are used for the production of architectural models or
even prototypes and design models. By now, this new technology has also become
firmly established in the education of students. In this context, especially the
theoretical basics of digital manufacturing, that is to say the integration of CAAD
with the manufacturing process, and the special characteristics of the additive
manufacturing, i.e. assembly in layers, are taught. As a demonstration of the
practical application of the new technology of 3D printing, this paper will focus
on the Workshop Digital Manufacturing. Due to the new approach of this
workshop, which relies on the assembly of a 3D printer from an assembly kit, the
students gain profound insights into the technology and functionality of 3D
printers. In a next step, the students realize various models with the 3D-printer
and in doing so develop design guidelines for additive manufacturing
autonomously.

Keywords: Digital Manufacturing, Design education, 3D-Printing, Architectural

models

INTRODUCTION binding and laser melting, are used to generate the

A number of different generative manufacturing
methods, also referred to as additive manufacturing
(AM), digital manufacturing (DM) and rapid prototyp-
ing (RP), have become established in the market in re-
cent years. These allow actual sample parts to be pro-
duced directly from CAAD part models. The mate-
rials currently used in additive manufacturing range
from various metal and plastic powders through to
polymers and paper. Different technologies, such as
components layer for layer. This eliminates various
process steps required with conventional, i.e. sub-
tractive methods. For example, there is no longer any
need to set up machine tools or program tool paths
for cutting tools. This saves a significant amount of
time and costs of machining but also materials in the
design phase (Junk and Tränkle, 2011).
There are many different sized machines for AM
systems in the market at the moment. These range

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 103

 from products for private users through to profes-
sional solutions for industrial users which are capa-
ble of producing both sample parts and series com-
ponents. One market trend in respect of professional
DM systems is the development of larger and larger
machines, with the restriction to smaller parts be-
coming increasingly less important. In addition to
this, a large number of systems that have come on
the market in recent years allow private users to ac-
cess the world of 3D printing for less than EUR 1000
(Wohlers, 2014). Build-it-yourself kits that can be put
together by technically-versed private users in a mat-
ter of hours and put into operation are the cheapest
option. Apart from these, there are also plug-and-
play systems, such as consumer 3D printers, that are
all set up and ready to use. This attractive option
is playing a key role in generating the current hype
about DM and 3D printing in daily newspapers and
on the TV, which is helping to popularize this new
technology (Ahn, 2014).
LITERATURE REVIEW
The use of Digital Manufacturing technologies to
train students is being examined in architectural de-
sign education. The advantages when using design
versions are especially emphasized in this (Silva and
Lima, 2013). It was shown in a comprehensive study
on the impact of this new technology on the train-
ing of architects that students are more integrated
into the design process and also become more cre-
ative. Additionally, they are enthusiastic about the
new ways in which models and prototypes can be
generated and benefit from direct feedback through
the physical, and therefore "tangible", models (Celani
et al., 2010). Further research show how artefacts can
be captured by 3D scanning. They can then be pro-
vided to the students via a web browser (Rodrigues
et al., 2011).
But also in the technical programs of study and in
design classes, like e.g. mechanical engineering and
media, 3D printers and 3D scanners are increasingly
employed in teaching. The use of 3D printers has
been a tried-and-tested way of supporting design
104 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
projects in the teaching of mechanical engineering
for some years (Novakova-Marcincinova et al., 2012).
By using 3D printers there is no need for intricate
handmade models, which means considerably less
design and optimization time and effort (Widden and
Gunn, 2010).
Due to the fact that most laboratories today are
usually only equipped with a small number of large
and professional equipment for digital manufactur-
ing, the majority of the students has only very limited
or indirect access to digital manufacturing opportu-
nities. The practical experience and an understand-
ing of the new design possibilities offered by digi-
tal manufacturing can, therefore, only be communi-
cated to the students to a limited extent.
There has been a range of approaches recently
to using greater quantities of 3D printers to train
students as well at various universities around the
world (Ford and Dean, 2013, Mostert-van der Sar et
al., 2013). For example, the Vaal University of Tech-
nology (South Africa) set up a laboratory with 20 per-
sonal 3D printers in 2011 (Wohlers, 2014). However,
there are repeated reports of plug-and-play 3D print-
ers being purchased. Therefore, the main aim of
these approaches is to have the devices used. How-
ever, as it is difficult to teach the way in which they
work through this, the resulting guidelines on the de-
sign of parts for 3D printing can only be imparted to
a limited extent.
PROCESS CHAIN IN ADDITIVE MANUFAC-
TURING
At the beginning a 3D data model is always needed
for 3D printing. The process chain in additive manu-
facturing begins with a virtual 3D model of the part
to be produced. The second step is to transfer the
3D model in a data format that can be read by the
DM system. The manufacturing process is divided
into pre-processing, the actual, generative manufac-
turing of the architectural model or component and
the following post-processing (see figure 1).
In pre-processing, usually executed using
system-specific software, the 3D data is read in and
Figure 1
Process chain from
a virtual to a
physical model in
additive
manufacturing.
checked for consistency. Any faults in the model can
be resolved. Some minor changes to the texture,
e.g. the color, are still possible. The orientation of
the part in the construction space is also determined
in pre-processing. If necessary, a support structure
is generated to prevent protruding elements of the
part from snapping off during the additive manufac-
turing process. The slicing of the part, including the
support structure, into layers is the most important
part of this process step.
Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is used for the
generative construction process in this instance. In
this, a filament made of ABS is inserted into a noz-
zle and heated there until viscous. It is then applied
to a base. Once one layer has been completely ap-
plied, the base is lowered or the nozzle raised and
the construction process begins again. In final post-
processing, the additively manufactured part is then
separated from the base. The support structure may
also have to be removed.
There are various ways in which each step in the
process chain can be implemented. This can depend
on e.g. how experienced the user is, from more inex-
perienced private users through to well-trained and
experienced professional users. Therefore the var-
ious ways in which the students used the process
chain is explained precisely below.
Creating the data
There are various ways in which the data can be cre-
ated. In the simplest case of an inexperienced user,
for example, a 3D model can be downloaded from
an online database. Users with basic CAAD knowl-
edge can use browser-based or open-source CAAD
systems, the basic versions of which are often avail-
able free of charge. There are usually tutorials and
webinars available for those wishing to teach them-
selves how to use such simple CAAD systems. Profes-
sional users, on the other hand, may use professional
CAAD or BIM systems with a wide range of design el-
ements. However, extensive training is needed on
such systems and often many years of practical de-
sign experience as well. There is also the option of
using 3D scanners to capture existing objects. This
technology is used primarily at the recording from ex-
isting buildings but also to the documentation in ar-
chaeology.
Transferring the data
Essentially, two neutral data formats are used to
transfer data from the CAAD system or 3D scanner.
One of these is the STL format, which offers a simple
representation of the geometric data using triangu-
lated surfaces. The VRML format is used when infor-
mation on the surface relating to color or texture is
also to be transferred, as it can transfer color informa-
tion in addition to purely geometrical information, as
opposed to STL.
Preparing the data
Private users can send 3D data to a service provider
who will prepare the data and then produce the phys-
ical model for them. Users with their own 3D printers
can usually use the software provided by the DM sys-
tem hardware manufacturer to prepare the data to be
read in and for the manufacturing process. This often
allows for direct, error-free transfer of the print data
to the system. In addition to this, there is also a range
of simple to professional software packages that can
handle these data preparation tasks.
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 105

Producing the physical model
In addition to service providers, there are a large
number of other ways of producing the actual physi-
cal model. These range from build-it-yourself kits for
technically gifted private users through to affordable
beginner models in the form of consumer 3D print-
ers. There are already over 100 different systems of
this type on the market (de Beer, 2013). More expen-
sive systems that usually offer better quality, shorter
build times and larger build sizes compared with sys-
tems for private users are available to professional in-
dustrial users.
Post processing
Using a consumer printer or a professional DM-
system requires post-processing by the user. This,
first and foremost includes the removal of the sup-
porting material. This step can be done either me-
chanically, e.g. by detaching, or chemically, e.g.
by dissolution in an alkaline bath. In this example,
no supporting material was used, because the 3D
printer was only equipped with one extrusion nozzle.
Though, the components were not printed directly
onto the construction platform, but rather on an in-
termediate layer, the "raft", which had to be removed
after the manufacturing process.
106 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 2
Connecting the
design process to
the setup and use
of a 3D printer in
the workshop.
FORMAT OF THE DIGITAL MANUFACTUR-
ING WORKSHOP
This paper presents a teaching method by which the
limitations, that are still present in today's educa-
tional environment, can be overcome. The founda-
tion for an understanding of digital manufacturing is
the process chain from CAAD or BIM, via interfaces
and data preparation to the actual additive assembly
process and the generally required post-processing
of the manufactured models. To enable students to
clearly comprehend all steps in this process, the stu-
dents implement these themselves in practice.
Hereby, the students work in very groups of two
or three persons, so that each member of the group
can gain insight into the 3D-technology. A special
feature is that the students assemble a 3D-printer
from a self-assembly-kit and then commission the
3D-printer. This offers them the opportunity, to fully
comprehend the functionality of the 3D-printer and
to understand the basic conditions that have to be
observed in additive manufacturing. In this contribu-
tion the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method is
used. This process is especially prevalent in home-
printers and forms the basis for many products and
assembly kits on the market today.
The workshop has a 3-step concept illustrated in
figure 2. First, an assembly kit is assembled by the
students from the Master's program, and then the 3D
printer is being commissioned. There were several
working groups with two or three students in each. A
typical build-it-yourself kit for an FDM 3D printer was
used. This kit was called "FabbsterG", and is produced
by the company Sintermask in Lupburg, Germany [1].
Unfortunately, this 3D printer does not provide a sec-
ond extrusion head for support material which re-
duces the freedom considerably.
Once the printer was assembled and ready for
operation, the students were tasked with creating
two different parts. Firstly, a part had to be down-
loaded from a freely accessible database. Secondly,
the students had to design a part using a profes-
sional CAAD system. The parts were 3D-printed sub-
sequently detached from the construction platform
and the raft in post-processing. The students also had
to document their experience from the workshop in
the form of AM design guidelines and with a prof-
itability study.
Data generation using a database
The students took a 3D model from a database for the
next step of the workshop. First they looked online
for possible data sources. One important criterion
was that the 3D data model had to be free to down-
load. The data model also had to meet certain tech-
nical criteria. The model had to fit in the 3D printer's
installation space. It also had to be possible to pro-
duce it without an additional support structure.
The data format for the data transfer to the 3D
printer software for pre-processing wasn't really an
issue here as the data was often already available in
STL format in the database. Therefore, no color infor-
mation was transferred either, i.e. the models were
monochromatic. However, some groups took the op-
portunity to use different colored construction mate-
rials in order to change the color of the various layers
of the physical models.
The example here is an antique temple that is
composed of several parts. This way, it becomes pos-
sible to realize e.g. the stonework and the roof con-
struction in different colors (see figure 3).
Data generation using a professional CAAD
system
In the next step of the workshop, the students used
a professional CAAD system to generate their own
components. Their initial experience from their at-
tempts in the previous step was used in this step to
ensure right from the design that the parts could be
produced using a generative manufacturing process.
The design guidelines developed are explained in de-
tail in the following section. The STL interface inte-
grated into the CAAD system was used for the data
transfer.
The students were tasked in this regard with
selecting the various options for the interface (e.g.
precision of the representation) according to the re-
quirements of the 3D printer. The size of the triangu-
lar facets in the STL format is of particular interest in
this. If large facets are selected, curved surfaces are
very roughly depicted. If the facet size is set unnec-
essarily finely, the data volumes and thus the file size
are unnecessarily inflated.
As an example, the reconstruction of a terrain
model with a railway viaduct from the Black Forest is
shown in figure 4. It becomes apparent, that in par-
ticular small details, like e.g. poles for overhead lines,
cannot be represented in 3D printing
RESULTS FROM THE WORKSHOP
As a result of this practical, hands-on approach, the
students autonomously develop guidelines for the
design of blueprints and their realization as architec-
tural or terrain models through additive manufactur-
ing. In addition, the students receive direct feed-
back on the geometry of the design or architectural
model, which they can then immediately implement
in the optimization or a variation of their design. This
permits the validation of the design and the decision-
making in the selection among different models.
In addition, students can also evaluate the qual-
ity of the surface or the inclusion of certain parame-
ters in the data exchange (e.g. data format and preci-
sion of the geometry data), or in the data preparation
(positioning, thickness of layers and selection of ma-
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 107

terial) for the digital manufacturing process.
As a variation on this approach, the manufac-
turing of architectural models that were available by
means of databases was also carried out. In this in-
stance, students were in particular able to experi-
ence today's possibilities but also limitations in the
manufacturing of existing data records and the re-
production accuracy of details. Aside from design
and technical aspects, the workshop also commu-
nicates knowledge regarding necessary production
times and the production cost for models and pro-
totypes using this method.
Various design rules but also operation instruc-
tions that have to be adhered to when selecting parts
from a database and designing new parts emerged
from the workshop:
• For the parts to adhere well to the base plate
and support, they should have as big a base
as possible and therefore good adhesion.
• Thin cross-sections in the lower section of the
part should be avoided as there can be fast
movements and therefore vibrations during
the build process, especially if the construc-
tion speed is high.
• Very delicate cross-sections should be
108 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 3
Example of
architectural model
form database:
Temple of Vesta,
CAAD-model (left)
and printed model
(right).
avoided as these can be difficult to represent.
• Curved shapes are preferable during cross-
section transitions as sharp edges are difficult
to represent.
• Projecting elements not supported by a sup-
port structure should be designed with a max-
imum angle of 45° to the vertical plane.
• The size of the 3D printer's installation space
must be observed (230 x 230 x 210 mm,
LxWxH). Of course, parts protruding beyond
this can be scaled using the software in pre-
processing.
• The color of each layer can be changed by
using different colored construction materials
during the construction process.
• The different colors of the filaments result in
different characteristics. These have to be
considered e.g. in terms of printing speed and
the temperature at the extruder nozzle.
• Large, flat components tend to warp. To pre-
vent warping, a heated printing bed should
be used. If appropriate, the printing should be
realized directly onto the construction plat-
form, without using a raft.
Figure 4
Example of a terrain
model develloped
by students:
Viaduct from the
Black Forest,
CAAD-model (left)
and printed model
(right).
EVALUATION OF THE WORKSHOP
To be able and review the value of the workshop and
its reception by students attending the course, eval-
uations with questionnaires were done at the end.
In this evaluation, students can indicate in how far
they agree with the individual criteria. In this respect,
the question is e.g. to what extend the students
were able to develop their practical skills through the
workshop and how much they have been involved in
the experimental work. In addition, the students also
report on the quality of the didactic approach.
The analysis of the student evaluation results has
shown that the students agree that the experiments
have inspired their interest in the new technology.
Furthermore, the teaching of practical knowledge re-
ceived very good reports. What is more, the active
inclusion of the students in the experiments, as well
as the collaboration during the test preparation of
the 3D printer was widely approved of. Although the
didactical performance of the tests received a good
evaluation, there is still some need for improvement.
But overall the total of the selected criteria was as-
sessed to be between good and very good. Com-
pared to the mean value of all other courses this rep-
resents an above average result
CONCLUSIONES AND OUTLOOK
With this new and comprehensive approach, due to
the autonomous and hands-on studying, the stu-
dents are able to identify and evaluate the possibil-
ities and limitations of digital manufacturing of ar-
chitectural models with regard to design, procedure
and cost effectiveness, also in comparison with con-
ventional technologies. To test the efficiency of the
approach presented here, the students have been
asked about this teaching concept in the course of a
class evaluation. The results show that the students
make great progress. In addition, they are highly mo-
tivated by the close involvement in the assembly and
commissioning of the 3D printer.
Further more, improvements for future imple-
mentations of this teaching approach will be estab-
lished. An expansion of this concept to other digi-
tal manufacturing processes or the inclusion of data
generation by means of 3D-scanners (e.g. for the
recording of culture heritage like historical buildings
or ornaments) will be investigated. Moreover, ad-
ditional improvements and technological develop-
ments shall be integrated into future courses. That
is to say that in the future different 3D printers will be
used, which are equipped with heating plates and a
second extruder nozzle. Consequently, it will be pos-
sible to use different materials and to fully explore the
design possibilities of DM with the aid of a second
support material.
REFERENCES
Ahn, SH 2014, 'An Evaluation of Green Manufactur-
ing Technologies Based on Research Databases',
International Journal of precision engineering and
manufaturing-green technology, 1(1), pp. 5-9
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 109
 de Beer, N 2013, Additive Manufacturing: Turning Mind worldwide progress report, Wohlers Associates, Fort
into Matter, California Community College Chancel- Collins, CO, USA
lor's Office, Sacramento, CA, USA [1] http://www.fabbster.com
Celani, G, Duarte, J and Pupo, R 2010, 'Introducing Digital
Fabrication Laboratories in Architecture Schools', in
Bennadji, A (eds) 2010, CAAD | CITIES | SUSTAINABIL-
ITY: 5th International Conference Proceedings of the
Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design
: CAAD | CITIES | SUSTAINABILITY: 5th International
Conference Proceedings of the Arab Society for Com-
puter Aided Architectural Design, The Arab Society for
Computer Aided Architectural Design, Fez and Mo-
rocco, pp. 65-74
Ford, P and Dean, L 2013, 'Additive manufacturing in
product design education: out with the old and in
with the new?', in Bohemia, E (eds) 2013, Design ed-
ucation - growing our future, Design Society, pp. 611-
616
Junk, S and Tränkle, M 2011, 'Design for Additive Man-
ufacturing technologies: New Applications of 3D-
Printing for Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Tooling',
in Culley, S (eds) 2011, Proceedings of the 18th Inter-
national Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 11),
Impacting Society through Engineering Design, Vol. 5:
Design for X / Design to X, Design Society, pp. 12-18
Novakova-Marcincinova, L, Fecova, V, Novak-Marcincin,
J, Janak, M and Barna, J 2012, 'Effective Utilization of
Rapid Prototyping Technology', Materials Science Fo-
rum, 713, pp. 61-66
Rodrigues, MA, Kormann, M and Davison, L 2011 'A case
study of 3D technologies in higher education: Scan-
ning the metalwork collection of museums sheffield
and its implications to teaching and learning', 2011
International Conference on Information Technology
Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET), pp. 1-6
Mostert-van der Sar, M, Mulder, I, Remijn, L and Troxler,
P 2013, 'Fablabs in design education', in Bohemia, E
(eds) 2013, Design education - growing our future, De-
sign Society, pp. 629-634
Silva, N and Lima, E 2013, 'Rapid Prototyping and CAD/-
CAM in Building Design Education: A Very Early In-
troduction to Mass Customization', in Sobh, TM and
Elleithy, K (eds) 2013, Emerging trends in comput-
ing, informatics, systems sciences, and engineering,
Springer, New York, NY, USA, pp. 867-875
Widden, M and Gunn, K 2010, 'Design–build–test of
model aerofoils for engineering education using
FDM', Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 5(4), pp. 189-
194
Wohlers, T 2014, Wohlers report 2014: 3D printing and
additive manufacturing state of the industry annual

110 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2

A Course on Biomimetic Design Strategies
Sevil Yazici1
1
Ozyegin University
1
www.sevilyazici.com
1
sevil.yazici@ozyegin.edu.tr

Although redesigning curricula by integrating the CAD tools into architectural

education has been an ongoing interest, a new understanding towards solving
design problems holistically should be investigated in architectural education.
Because natural systems offer design strategies to increase performance and
effectiveness with an extensive formal repertoire; incorporating multi-faceted
biomimetic principles into the design process is necessary. It is critical to
increase skills of students towards algorithmic thinking, as well as to deal with
performance issues and sustainability. This paper aims to discuss an
undergraduate elective course titled "Sustainable Design and Environment
through Biomimicry" which was taught by the author in architectural degree
program of Ozyegin University Faculty of Architecture and Design in Fall
2014-2015. Following the exploration of individual research topics, findings
were implemented into design problems. The challenges encountered in the
teaching process and future lines of the work are discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Biomimetic principles, Computational design, Architectural

education

INTRODUCTION ing the relationship between nature and architec-

Ecological and systemic awareness was first pre-
sented by Aristotle (384-322 BC) as a metaphysical
vision of the systemic and ecological order of na-
ture in his biological systematic. Systems are estab-
lished through the interaction of its components. If
the system disintegrates, the components loose its
synergetic properties (Skyttner, 2005). Likewise, the
entire alive and inanimate matter found in nature
is connected to each other within a system unity.
Biomimicry aims to investigate complex, however
highly efficient matter found in nature, as an interdis-
ciplinary research field.
Two major approaches were defined consider-
ture: One of them is based on the inspiration of
architectural form through natural forms, imitation
of its properties such as patterns. The other one
is based on learning from natural forms by trying
to understand behavioral and generative properties
(Selçuk and Sorguç, 2009). Design strategies are
changed from top-down to bottom-up. An integra-
tive approach in design is necessary to unite vari-
ous disciplines (Kolarevic, 2008). Computational de-
sign techniques enable establishment of systems,
even with complex properties in a holistic manner.
Biomimetic principles were used in the past years in
design projects by focusing on structural and archi-

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 111

 tectural demands within integrated computational
design systems, in terms of form finding and fabrica-
tion strategies (Menges, 2008; Bueno, 2009; Oxman,
2010). The work based on biological principles offers
design strategies for higher performance and effec-
tiveness (Schwinn et. al, 2012).
There has been an ongoing interest of educa-
tors in redesigning curricula, by the means of inte-
grating computational design tools into the architec-
tural education (Kvan et al, 2004). Assessment of de-
sign process and production in the context of sus-
tainability, in order to ensure the diversity and pro-
ductivity of biological systems became a critical as-
pect in today's architectural design production. This
requires innovative solutions from energy efficient
systems, to reduction of material amount used in a
building. Issues related to the effectiveness and per-
formance assessment, including structural or envi-
ronmental performances are generally considered as
separate courses and not integrated into the design
studio in undergraduate level in general. It is a neces-
sity to increase awareness in this problem, as well as
to challenge new design methods in architectural ed-
ucation. Therefore, multi-faceted biomimetic princi-
ples should be considered in the design process and
incorporated to the architectural design education,
along with computational design tools.
This paper aims to discuss an undergradu-
ate elective course titled "Sustainable Design and
Environment through Biomimicry" in the axis of
biomimetic design strategies and computational de-
sign. The course was conducted in Architecture Pro-
gram of Ozyegin University Faculty of Architecture
and Design in Istanbul at Fall 2014-2015. The intent
of this course was to solve design problems as inte-
grated systems.
TEACHING METHOD
The course consisted of 19 students, ranging from
1st to 3rd year of undergraduate architectural educa-
tion and the skills and knowledge of the students var-
ied. In terms of technical skills, although some par-
ticipants obtained skills related to the advanced 3d
112 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
digital and parametric modeling, some of them had
no experience with CAD tools in the past. They were
given four different modules as a part of the course:
1. Introduction to the systems thinking and
computational design
2. Discussing sustainable design strategies
3. Specifying individual research problems
4. Application of research findings into a design
problem
In the first module of the course, concepts such as
holism, goal seeking, inputs and outputs, transforma-
tion of inputs to the outputs, hierarchy and differen-
tiation were investigated as a part of systems think-
ing (Yazici, 2011). Following the discussion of theo-
retical background of the course related to the sys-
tems thinking and computational design, sustainable
design strategies in general architectural profession
were discussed in the second module. Commonly
used terms, such as green, ecological, environmen-
tally friendly etc., assessed with rating systems like
LEED and Breeam that are goods and services, laws,
guidelines and policies that affect the ecosystems
and environment minimal or less, were discussed.
The first two modules took place in the first 6 weeks
of a 15 weeks semester.
By establishing a general understanding related
to the current condition of the building industry,
students investigated individual research topics, in
terms of biomimetic principles, a matter or phe-
nomenon found in nature. The task was to imple-
ment their findings into a design problem as a part
of a building system, such as a façade, mechanism,
building material or as an organizational logic. The
intent of the research project was to bring solutions
to increase energy efficiency by accommodating dif-
ferent performance requirements, from energy to
structural performances, as well as by reducing the
amount of material used. Parametric modeling en-
ables to create differentiated systems. By introduc-
ing and adjusting parameters, transitions, from one
phase to another one can be achieved by produc-
ing a family of results, which creates a large sample
 pool available for comparison (Vermisso, 2011). Top-
ics which students investigated varied from linden-
mayer systems and voronoi, to phototrophy, gecko
feet, topology optimization and more. Students
with different technical skills used different media to
present their ideas, by specifying parameters, rules
and relationships of the system.
The outputs can be investigated in three differ-
ent categories; including generation of morpholog-
ical and organizational relationships, translation of
properties and processes in nature adapted to the de-
sign process.
Generation of morphological and organiza-
tional relationships
Although natural systems seem to obtain only some
basic rules, the output may be highly articulated
and complex, such as in fractals, swarm, chaos etc.
Extracting some rules from nature and re-building
Figure 1
Ege Simsekalp:
Lotus flower and
L-sytems.
mathematical models of systems have been an inter-
est by architects/designers in the past decade. It is
identified that the first group of students observed
natural systems, in terms of its morphological/orga-
nizational properties. Lotus leaf and bird bone struc-
ture were analyzed as organizational models.
Lotus leafs are large, however their cross sec-
tional thickness is small and obtain a long and de-
tailed vascular network, in which the weight is dis-
tributed evenly. Lindenmayer systems (L-systems)
were investigated to get a deeper understanding of
the system. L-systems can be defined parametrically:
G = (V, , P ); ∈ which (1)
V, w and P represent the variables, a string of sym-
bols from V defining the initial state of the system
and a set of production rules or productions respec-
tively. Because L-systems are defined as formal gram-
mar systems, which are used to define the behavior of
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 113

plant cells and model growth processes generating
fractals, the model was used by a student in the class
as a form generation method in the design process.
The results were varied from a structural system, into
a façade element and a partition wall pattern. A para-
metric model was generated to test different options
(Fig. 01).
Bird bone structures were investigated by an-
other student in terms of its formal organization.
Based on the research undertaken, it was found out
that birds have been affected under many skeletal
evolution and presented adaption by time. To opti-
mize the energy of a flying bird, the bone structure
needs to be light and should obtain voids to mini-
mize its weight. The participant's intent was to de-
sign a structure with less weight by introducing voids
and increase structural efficiency. Therefore, voronoi
model, based on portioning plane into regions based
114 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 2
Mustafa Gokoglu:
Bone structure and
Voronoi.
on distance to points in a specific subset of the plane,
was used in the parametric design medium. Para-
metric model could be adjusted by defining the vol-
ume of the voids within the structure and reduce the
weight of it (Fig. 02)
Translation of Properties
Observations in nature can be interpreted, ab-
stracted in some level and translated into building
components or mechanisms, such as kinetic systems.
In regards to the biomimetic approaches used in ar-
chitectural design process, there is a shift from the
static aesthetics of organic form into a performance
based bio-materiality, driven by responsiveness. This
can be investigated through the evolution of botani-
cal specimens (Perez, 2006).
As a part of the course, one of the students
focused on the phototropism activity observed in
 plants. Phototropism is irreversible response to the break the connection with the surface. In terms of ab-
external stimuli and plants are directed towards the stracting and translating this property, into another
sun. Auxin hormone (IAA molecules), which controls form of use in a building system, the participant de-
elongation in plants, changes its position based on veloped a building material, which was modulated
the direction of the sun. Normally, it is found on the by a certain degree of differentiation and could be
top or in the middle part of the plant. If the plant called as new brick. The interlocking mechanism of
doesn't get sun light from different parts, then the the elements enabled to avoid the use of mortar,
IAA molecules are positioned in the place that there which is inevitable for masonry structures. Therefore,
is no sun, and the plant growth direction is affected the amount of material would be reduced towards a
by that. more sustainable construction of a building (Fig. 4).
The working principle of phototropism move-
Figure 3 ment of plants were translated into a responsive fa-
Onur Tekin: cade mechanism, consisted of solar panels. A kinetic
Phototropism and mechanism was necessary in response to the sensors,
responsive façade. which should calculate the sunlight angle and inten-
sity of the light. Receiving the sun light vertical or al-
most vertical in relation to the solar panels should in-
crease the amount of energy collected. Based on the
angle of the sun, the facade would able to respond
to the sun light and collect the sun energy efficiently.
Therefore, sun monitoring systems were necessary
to maximize the energy performance. Components
and several iterations regarding the facade openings
were designed. A parametric model was developed,
in which individual façade panels could be controlled
and were able to rotate, by generating a global pat-
tern on the façade (Fig. 3).
Another student investigated Gecko, a lizard
species which lives in humid tropical regions. Gecko
has a very flexible movement capability compared to
a lizard. The reason is that gecko's toes obtain hair-
like extensions called setae, micro-hairs over 2 mil-
lion in number and their size is 1/5000 of a millime-
ter. A strong adhesion occurs between the surface
that gecko moves and the micro-hairs. It demon-
strates a mechanism driven by van der Waals force,
a weak force which is the sum of the attractive or re-
pulsive forces between molecules or between parts
of the same molecule. When gecko moves, it pushes
its foot to the surface and pulls it back slightly, so
that the micro-hairs interact with the surface at max-
imum. If gecko's toes would be covered by an ad-
hesive material, gecko would need more energy to

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 115


Processes in nature adapted to the design
process
Optimization is a process observed in nature. For in-
stance, bionic materials like bone and wood are opti-
mally designed in respect to their loading. By investi-
gating structural optimization methods (Kato, 2010),
topology optimization was investigated further by
another participant of the course. The main concepts
of an optimization problem were investigated, in-
cluding design variables, which can be altered in the
optimization process; objective functions, which rep-
resent the goal of the optimization; and constraints,
which represent design criteria to be satisfied.
Topology optimization method solves a problem
of distributing a given amount of material in a de-
sign domain subject to load and support conditions,
by maximizing the stiffness of the structure. It calcu-
lates stresses affecting the geometry based on spe-
cific boundary conditions and loads, and organize ef-
ficient structural arrangements. Maximum stiffness
with minimum material is achieved in various or-
116 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
ganisms for different function. For instance, adding Figure 4
and removing material from the geometry based on Turgut Sert: Gecko
tension; was investigated by ESO/Evolutionary Struc- and building
tural Optimization and BESO/Bi-directional Structural material.
Optimization (Xie et. al, 2005; 2011). Similarly,
EifForm was developed for truss systems that uses
topology optimization (Shea et. al. 2005).
One participant investigated bone structure,
shaped according to the pressure and tension forces
of the muscles through the evolution process and
naturally optimized; and applied the principles of
topology optimization in a design project, a table de-
sign, with the intent of generating a structurally ef-
ficient geometry by removing materials which were
structurally not necessary. In the process, CAD and
parametric modeling tools, as well as optimization
tool Millipede (Topostruct Script), a structural anal-
ysis and optimization component were used. The
boundary conditions, including loads and support
regions of the table were defined. During the pro-
cess, series of iterations have been developed. Al-
though these geometries presented enough infor-
mation about the topology, iterations did not have
clean geometries because of the low precision of the
computation. Therefore, they were re-modeled for
achieving a smoother geometry (Fig. 5).
CONCLUSIONS
Evaluating architectural design process by means of
sustainability becomes inevitable in today's produc-
tion. In undergraduate architectural education, is-
sues related to the effectiveness and performance
assessment, including structural or environmental
performance, are generally considered as separate
courses and not integrated into the design studio in
general. Students should obtain a higher awareness
towards the environment in which they live and re-
lated performance issues. Natural systems can be
identified through highly defined, rational and rule-
based models, which can be translated into com-
putational design models. Although the idea of re-
designing the curricula with an understanding to in-
tegrate computational tools into architectural edu-
Figure 5
Hasan Caner
Uretmen: Natural
processes and
topology
optimization.
cation as an integral part is not novel, there is a ne-
cessity to develop a more comprehensive approach
to adapt multi-faceted problems in the design pro-
cess, by developing algorithmic thinking. The elec-
tive course titled "Sustainable Design and Environ-
ment through Biomimicry" taught by the author was
conducted in Fall 2014-2015 at Ozyegin University
for undergraduate students, in order to deal design
problems as holistic systems, as well as to enable
awareness towards performance issues and sustain-
able design. As the scope of this course, natural sys-
tems were examined and findings of a selected mat-
ter or phenomenon were implemented in a design
solution. Based on the outputs, it is identified that
students learn from natural systems in three differ-
ent ways including generation of morphological and
organizational relationships, translation of properties
and processes in nature adapted to the design pro-
cess.
The major difficulty encountered in the process
was that since biomimicry is an interdisciplinary field,
students had challenges to interpret the information
which was not directly related to the architecture /
design profession. For the future lines of the work,
the intent is to teach this method not only to the
architecture students, but to the multidisciplinary
groups of students from different departments, such
as mechanical and structural engineering, biology
and computer science, so that the participants might
focus in the research phase and collaborate effec-
tively.
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 117
 REFERENCES sign Method: Material Formations Workshop', Dearq
Bueno, E 2009, 'Algorithmic Form Generation of a Radio- Journal, 09, pp. 90-101
larian Pavilion', International Journal of Architectural
Computing, 7, pp. 677-688
Kato, J 2010, Material optimization for fiber reinforced
composites applying a damage formulation, Ph.D.
Thesis, University of Stuttgart
Kolarevic, B 2008 'Architecture in the Post-Digital Age:
Towards Integrative Design', Proceedings of eCAADe
2008, Antwerpen (Belgium) , pp. 653-658
Kvan, T, Mark, E, Oxman, R and Martens, B 2004, 'Ditching
the Dinosaur: Redefining the Role of Digital Media in
Education', International Journal of Design Comput-
ing, 7
Menges, A 2008, 'Manufacturing Performance', Architec-
tural Design, 78, pp. 42-47
Oxman, N 2010, Material-based Design Computation,
Ph.D. Thesis, MIT
Perez, S R 2006 'PolyForm: Biomimetic Surfaces, Syn-
thetic Landscapes', Proceedings of ACADIA 2006, pp.
471-482
Schwinn, T, Krieg, O D, Menges, A, Mihaylov, B and Re-
ichert, S 2012 'Machinic Morphospaces: Biomimetic
Design Strategies for the Computational Exploration
of Robot Constraint Spaces for Wood Fabrication',
Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the
ACADIA
Selçuk, S A and Sorguç, A G 2009 'Exploring Complex
Forms in Nature Through Mathematical Modeling:
a Case on Turritella Terebra', Proceedings of eCAADe
2009
Shea, K, Aish, R and Gourtovaia, M 2005, 'Towards
Integrated Performance-driven Generative Design
Tools', Automation in Construction, 14 (2), p. 253– 264
Skyttner, L 2005, General Systems Theory, World Scientific
Publishing
Vermisso, E 2011 'Cross-disciplinary Prototyping: Ped-
agogical Frameworks for Integrating Biological
Analogies into Design Courses', Proceedings of ACA-
DIA 2011, pp. 380-389
Xie, Y M, Felicetti, P, Tang, J W and Burry, M 2005, 'Form
finding for complex structures using evolutionary
structural optimization method', Design Studies, 26,
pp. 55-72
Xie, Y M, Zuo, Z H, Huang, X, Tang, J W, Zhao, B and
Felicetti, P 2011 'Architecture and Urban Design
through Evolutionary Structural Optimisation Algo-
rithms', Proceedings od International Symposium on
Algorithmic Design for Architecture and Urban Design
Yazici, S 2011, 'Computing through Holistic Systems De-

118 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2

Teaching and Learning CAAD and CAM in a Fluid Era
Tools and Strategies for the Analysis and Synthesis of Ill-Defined
Construction Problems

Ivo Vrouwe1 , Laurens Luyten2 , Burak Pak3

1,2,3
KU Leuven, Faculty of Architecture
1
www.ivovrouwe.net
1,2,3
{ivo.vrouwe|laurens.luyten|burak.pak}@kuleuven.be

In this paper we discuss a series of tools and strategies to support learner-centred

construction education in the complexity of the era today (Bauman, 2000). By
using these tools in the education of CAD and CAM in construction education at
universities for the arts, design and architecture, we aim to support the student in
the abstract aspects of Bloom's (1956) cognitive learning domain. In order to
present a coherent spectrum of educational tools and strategies, we start with the
introduction of a tool for problem-analysis. The tool is explained by applying it to
the context of spatial design construction, digital design and fabrication. Then we
shortly discuss the process of design-evaluation. Next we introduce three models
for design-synthesis. Afterwards, a test case is used to elaborate on the different
tools and strategies which are tested and evaluated.

Keywords: Pedagogy, CAAD Education, Digital Fabrication, Problem-Solving,

Cognitive Psychology

INTRODUCTION tively involved in professional practice after graduat-

Students at universities for the Arts, Design and Ar-
chitecture (ADA), are often confronted with complex
digital systems and elaborate spatial structures dur-
ing their education involving Computer Aided Archi-
tectural Design (CAAD) and Computer Aided Man-
ufacturing (CAM). The complexity of student learn-
ing in these courses is often enhanced by the fluid
character of the era of today. In this context, a fluid
era is understood as a rapidly changing age that un-
dermines all notion of durability and stability (Bau-
man, 2000). Accordingly, the knowledge transferred
to first and second year students today, is highly likely
to become obsolete by the time the student is ac-
ing. Therefore a revision in teaching and learning is
compulsory in order to link the end of the students'
education to the start of their professional careers.
The great body of knowledge and large num-
ber of parameters and decisions to be captured in
CAAD, CAM and design engineering courses can pro-
voke a sense of discouragement to ADA-students
with minimal background in making and construc-
tion, and limited abilities in abstract thinking and
abstract reasoning. Generalising concepts, finding
patterns and removing unnecessary details require
abilities often associated with engineers and scien-
tists (Roberts, 2009). ADA-students in the courses at

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 119

 universities we teach, generally have difficulty with
these tasks (Vrouwe, 2013). However, learning the-
ories indicate that when students are provided with
sufficient sense of competence and enough auton-
omy in their work and actions, they often obtain ad-
equate intrinsic motivation (Deci et al., 1991) in or-
der to attack the tasks and challenges ahead. As
opposed to being extrinsically motivated by earning
points and diplomas, this type is driven by internal
rewards like the enjoyment of making, interest in the
topic and the satisfaction of making progress. Con-
sequently, students experience abstract and difficult
challenges as being more meaningful and less insur-
mountable. Though, when these needs are not met,
non-learning (Illeris, 2003) is likely to occur and stu-
dents start to lose focus and motivation and shift
their attention to digital social networks and similar
distractions.
In order to frame the discussion on teaching and
learning in this paper, Bloom's taxonomy of the cog-
nitive domain (Bloom et al., 1956; Krathwohl, 2002) is
used (figure 1). The taxonomy was first introduced in
1956 and was revised in 2002. Both the taxonomy of
the cognitive domain are divided into a lower and a
higher level but differ in order and designation of the
individual categories. When we take the revised ver-
sion for example, the lower level describes the cate-
gories 'remembering', 'understanding' and 'applying'.
In the higher levels we find the categories 'analysing',
'evaluating' and 'creating'.
Traditionally, engineering education aims at the
assessment of student learning at the lower level of
120 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
the taxonomy (Arens, Hanus, and Saliklis, 2009). By
using a staff- or teacher-centred approach in educa-
tion, the teacher is an active instructor by giving lec-
tures. In turn, the student is a spectator or passive
reader. In this setting, knowledge is transferred and
exercises of well-defined problems are demonstrated
in large classrooms during sessions of approximately
one hour. Finally, during assessments and exams,
students are asked to reproduce the knowledge from
the course by answering questions and to demon-
strate their understanding by solving slightly altered
problems as instructed by the teacher.
In recent years, the staff-centred approach has
become ineffective to a greater extent (Wagenaar,
2014). Consequently, Barr and Tagg (1995) discuss
a paradigm shift from an instruction paradigm to a
learning paradigm. As opposed to learning as be-
ing a spectator sport or passive activity, the new
paradigm aims at active involvement of the stu-
Figure 1
dents in structured exercises, challenging discus-
Bloom's Taxonomy
sions, team projects, and peer critiques (Chickering,
of the Cognitive
1995). As a result of the change from the passive
Domain. Traditional
paradigm of spectators to an active paradigm of pro-
version by Bloom,
ducers, the aim of student assessment shifts from the
Engelhart, Furst, Hil
components in the lower level in Bloom's taxonomy
and Krathwohl,
of the cognitive domain to the competences in the
(1956) on the left
higher level.
side, Revised
In order to strengthen the construction educa-
version of
tion towards the learning paradigm, and support
Krathwohl (2002)
ADA students in our classes to achieve the higher lev-
on the right side.
els of the cognitive domain, we will introduce the
tools and strategies that are designed by the first au-
thor as part of his doctoral research called 'Sense-
making in Construction'. First we will discuss a tool
for problem-analysis and shortly explain various as-
pects of aspect evaluation. Then, a series of strategies
for design synthesis will be presented and evaluated
through tests in a workshop environment.
TOOLS AND STRATEGIES
As discussed in the previous section, Krathwohl
(2002) describes three components in the higher
level of the cognitive domain. From the lower cate-
 gory 'analyse', to the higher categories 'evaluate' and
'create', the complexity as well as the embedded cog-
nitive processes increase. In textual description and
visual representation in Krathwohl's work, the com-
ponents are presented as independent units. How-
ever, in educational practise, he emphasizes an over-
lap in the categories in order to provide a fluent tran-
sition of activities during courses and workshop exer-
cises.
Figure 2
Operation model of
the categories of
the higher level of
the cognitive
domain.
In figure 2, we describe an operation model where
the three categories of the higher level of the cog-
nitive domain are placed in sequence. In this model
Figure 3 we perceive an operation where a problem is taken
Problem Analysis into constituent aspects first. The nature of these as-
(Image on the left pects is highly dependent on the problem at hand.
side), Aspect For example, in spatial design construction, aspects
Evaluation (Image like 'material', 'product', 'processes', 'connection' and
in the middle) and 'structure system' can be discussed. In poetry aspects
Design Synthesis like 'cadence', 'form', 'rhyme', 'rhythm' and 'verse'
(Image on the right can be considered. Secondly, the aspects acquired
side). during the first step are discussed, explored, tested
and evaluated. Finally, the most satisfactory set of
aspects is put together into a novel and coherent
whole.
In order to support the operation model as dis-
cussed in figure 2, we distinguished three compo-
nents called 'Problem-Analysis', 'Aspect Evaluation'
and 'Design Synthesis' (as presented in figure 3).
For the first component of the operation model, a
problem-analysis-tools is designed. The tool assists
students in the process of subdividing complex prob-
lems into smaller constituent aspects. As a result of
this division and abstraction process when analysing
the problem, the aspects can be studied in a smaller,
less complex context. By first studying the aspects in
small combinations of two to three items, knowledge
and understanding of the matter at hand can be ac-
quired in coordinated and structured steps.
Opposite to the independent 'parts' of atom-
istic part-whole relationships, this tool distinguishes
'constituent aspects' in order to preserve the holis-
tic properties of the whole. In problem solving us-
ing part-whole relationships, parts can be solved in-
dependently from the whole as it is the case with
for example complex mathematical or software prob-
lems. Constituent aspects however behave interde-
pendent. In this case, the student is directly con-
fronted with the multitude of aspects of the design
problem at hand and the relations of one aspect to
the other. Consequently, the change of one aspect
may influence the decisions in another (van Merriën-
boer and Kirschner, 2007). To visualize these inter-
dependent aspect properties, the aspects in figure
2 and figure 3 are positioned in an overlapping and
linked sequence.
In order to illustrate the use of the problem analy-
sis tool in pedagogical design workshops, two tax-
onomies are designed. The first taxonomy, presented
on the left side in figure 4, discusses spatial design
construction and is introduced during the eCAADe
2013 conference (Vrouwe and Swieten, 2013). The
second taxonomy, presented on the right side of fig-
ure 4, discusses digital design and fabrication and
is introduced during the eCAADe 2014 conference
(Vrouwe and Pak, 2014). Both taxonomies discuss
seven constituent aspects named supertypes and
positioned vertically. Each of these aspects is subdi-
vided into five subtypes, positioned horizontally.
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 121

When a student is presented with a design problem
concerning spatial design construction or digital de-
sign and fabrication, the analysis process of subdivid-
ing the task into constituent aspect (i.e. supertypes)
is supported by the taxonomy presented in figure 4.
By studying a combination of small sets of subtypes
the student acquires adequate knowledge and un-
derstanding of the aspects discussed. These studies
can range from written research and presentations to
building mock-ups and prototypes (Vrouwe, 2013).
After finishing the problem-analysis component
of the operation model, the student starts with the
second component of the operation model called
aspect-evaluation. In the universities we teach, the
level of skill needed in this phase is often well devel-
oped through studio and project education. There-
fore no particular tool or strategy for this compo-
nent is designed in the presented research. In the
evaluation-process, the aspects are reflected against
an underlying concept, a predominant idea or a set of
program requirements first. Then, the aspects prop-
erties are calibrated against one another. When, in
this process, one aspect is changed or adapted, this
may influence the choice of others. Therefore, eval-
uation is often described as an iterative process dis-
cussing combinations of testing alternatives.
The aspects, deriving from the aspect-evaluation
form the basis for the final component of the op-
eration model. For this stage a series of design-
synthesis-strategies is designed. In this strategy 'syn-
thesis', as used in the original taxonomy of the cog-
122 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
nitive domain, is applied because of the connota- Figure 4
tion in relation to the function of the tool. By these Problem Analysis
synthesis-strategies, the studies of the constituent Tools; Taxonomy for
aspects are integrated into a whole by a step-by-step Spatial Design
process. Construction
The first model discussed is the Parallel- (Image on the left
Synthesis-Strategy, presented on the left side of fig- side) and the
ure 5. In this model, the student starts with a large set Taxonomy for
of constituent aspect and brings these elements to a Digital Design and
design in a undefined and unstructured process. In Fabrication (Image
practice, this synthesis process proves to be ineffec- on the right side).
tive. The large number of parameters and decisions
to be captured at once during these exercises are
often considered as overwhelming. Accordingly, stu-
dent start skipping aspects, which brings the exercise
to an incomplete and incoherent design (Vrouwe,
2013).
When complex models fail in practice, most de-
sign models emphasise dismantling the exercise to a
scale that is manageable by the student. However,
novice learners solve simple tasks differently than
complex ones (van Merriënboer, Clark and de Croock,
2002). Consequently, whatever skill is learned in a
simple task, may not be useful in a more complex
variant. In order to avoid the insufficient effect of
parallel-synthesis-model, whole-task experiences are
used. These experiences are based on real-live tasks
and are presented as a holistic whole. By linking easy-
to-difficult tasks in a coherent sequence, the com-
plexity of the task is increased gradually without iso-
lating exercises. Consequently, the student is likely to
be provided with sufficient sense of competence and
autonomy in their work and actions along the course
in order to remain motivated to finish the challenges
ahead (van Merriënboer and Kirschner, 2002).
In order to test different whole-task models, two
models are designed. The first model is the Linear-
Synthesis-Strategy as presented in the middle of fig-
ure 5. This strategy describes a series of iterations
that are linked in a linear sequence. At first, the se-
quence starts with a spatial form. This form can, for
instance, be a folded paper model a cardboard study
or a foam miniature. Then, with each step in the
Figure 5
Parallel-Synthesis-
Strategy (Image on
the left side) Linear-
Synthesis-Strategy
(Image in the
middle) and
Pairwise-Synthesis-
Strategy (Image on
the right side).
sequence, an aspect of the spatial form is replaced
by one of the aspects as discussed in the evalua-
tion phase. For example, the paper model can be re-
placed by a cardboard model first. In this step the
complexity of material thickness and decreased ma-
terial flexibility is introduced. Secondly, the process-
ing aspects are introduced. Instead of cutting with
scissors or knives, different tools will be explored in
order to machine rigid materials. Then, the sequence
can be finished by introducing the chosen connec-
tion details, finishing processes, increasing the com-
plexity gradually.
The second whole-task model, as presented on
the right side of figure 5, is the Pairwise-Synthesis-
Strategy. The strategy consists of multiple steps, in-
creasing the complexity exponentially. In the first
step of the strategy, a large set of aspects is studied
in combinations of two. In this phase small mock ups
are made combining aspects like material, product,
process and finishing. With every step, the outcomes
of the former step are combined in another study un-
til all aspects are brought together into a holistic and
coherent whole.
TEST CASE DISCUSSION
In order to discuss the opportunities and challenges
of the design-synthesis strategies as described in the
previous section, an experimental test case was pre-
pared. This study was an eight-day construction
workshop ((figure 6, figure 7 and figure 8) assisted
by CAD and CAM based on a problem-based-learning
approach (Newman, 2005). In order to keep the ob-
jects of production manageable within the bound-
aries of table top 3D printers and laser cutters, the
scale of furniture design was chosen.
The workshop was carried out by four teams
of eight second-year bachelor spatial design stu-
dents from Utrecht University of the Arts. Generally,
the students have limited background in CAD and
CAM. In the exercise, the taxonomy of digital design
and fabrication was used for analysis. Furthermore,
both the Linear-Synthesis-Strategy and the Pairwise-
Synthesis-Strategy were used. In order to compare
both the serial-synthesis-strategy and the pairwise-
synthesis-strategy, two teams worked according to
the one model and two teams according to the other.
All four groups designed a sleeping couch. The
construction is assembled by digitally manufactured
connection details. The couches are designed for use
in their own living environment. By day, it is a couch.
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 123
 In the evening, the couch is transformed easily into a
single or double bed.
At the start of the workshop sequence, the two
synthesis strategies were explained. Then, groups of
eight students were chosen and divided by using the
Belbin test. The Belbin Team Inventory is a person-
ality test that measures preference for specific team
roles. In the model nine team roles are described
ranging from action roles to social roles and think-
ing roles (Gündüz, 2008). Starting from the students
team roles that scored the highest in the Belbin test
results, specific tasks were assigned within the team.
One person of the group was assigned the role of
chairwomen or chairman. Subsequently, the remain-
ing students took on the role as manager, builders,
planner or researcher.
First, the chairman and the manager discussed the
assignment. Then the assignment was divided into
constituent aspects by using the assigned taxonomy.
Next, the planner assigned the work related to the
124 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
different constituent aspects, to the different individ-
ual team members and worked out a working plan for
the workshop period.
Every week a reflection on the process was
scheduled. In the first weeks, the chairwomen, man-
agers and planners participated in these meetings.
During the meetings, workshop progress, group dy-
namics and prospects were discussed. In the fol-
lowing weeks, researchers and builders joined the
discussion. Finally, the workshop period was com-
pleted by a video presentations from each group.
The videos showed a montage of all steps of the pro-
cess and forms the basis for a final discussion on the
process.
In order to reflect on the student experience of
the use of the synthesis strategies, interviews, ex-
hibitions, presentations and the success reflection
method of Benammar et al. (2001) were used. With Figure 6
the succes reflection method, a group-wide reflec- Aspect-studies of
tion was conducted, using a four-step process. The the furniture
method started with small group discussions that re- construction
sulted in the naming of success factors using pens workshop.
and post-its. These success factors were words or
sentences that describe aspects that add to the suc-
Figure 7
cess of using synthesis strategies during the work-
Digital
shop. Then, using a series of steps, the collected suc-
aspect-studies of
cess factors from each group formed a basis for group
the furniture
reflection and feedforward.
construction
The grouping of the outcomes of the success
workshop.
reflection described four success-themes, namely,
group work, materials, process and phases, and ex-
ecution. In the first theme qualities of the synthe- Figure 8
sis model with respect to management and collabo- CAM-details of the
ration were elaborated. In this series of aspects the furniture
quality of the assignment of task within the group construction
was appreciated. By dividing the assignment into workshop.
constituent aspects, clear tasks could be assigned
to individual team members. As the result of the
clear structure which occurs, collaboration and com-
munication was better supported. Furthermore, the
team roles helped to accelerate the building process.
Because all students were assigned with specific re-
sponsibilities, not all students were involved in re-
flection moments each week. Consequently, at every
time of the workshop period, a group of students was
active.
In the second theme, the material qualities of
the exercise was discussed. In this series of aspects,
the research aspects of the exercise was valued the
most. By dividing the process in smaller aspects the
students describe a sense of overview of the task at
hand. As a result of the small steps, described in
the synthesis model, design decisions with respect to
material and construction can be coordinated easily.
Furthermore, the discussion of various proposals, as-
sisted the quality of group discussion and construc-
tive design decisions.
The third theme, was the result of workshop
phasing. By making a description of workshop
phases, the students experienced a clear process and
a distinct working structure. Supported by the con-
stant attention to planning and responsibility, the
weekly reflection was experienced as a constructive
meeting where decisions were made quickly and eas-
ily.
In the final theme, the quality of design-synthesis
by hands-on learning was valued. During the exer-
cise, the students were motivated in the learning pro-
cess, by the active interaction with the constituent as-
pect on the one side and the collective goal on the
other. Furthermore, the motivation was enhanced
by the application of software and digital manufac-
turing processes in a world-scale object, in a lim-
ited amount of time. The short period in which
the model was designed and produced provided the
student with a sense of a sprinting mind-set rather
than an endless process. Where in studio exercises,
the conceptual phase of the design process is often
emphasised, in this exercise all phases were experi-
enced equally. Consequently, the relativity of skill
and action of specific phases and activities was expe-
rienced. Accordingly, performing a specific role in a
team of multiple disciplines, provided a taste of the
experience of professional practice.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE SUGGES-
TIONS
In the case study, the presented synthesis-strategies
was effective in supporting the students in the as-
pects of abstract thinking and abstract reasoning
of problem solving in construction education sup-
ported by CAD and CAM. By subdividing a complex
design task into manageable constituent aspects, the
students were able to interact with the different com-
ponents effectively. Results from the success reflec-
tion indicate that the use of aspect model studies
supported the understanding of the studied aspect.
By using a iterative process of model reflection, as-
pect proposals for use in the final design were under-
stood adequately by the group members.
In interviews, students indicated that by using
the synthesis-strategies, they were able to bring a se-
ries of aspects to a coherent whole using the step-by-
step approach in an active and playful way. This qual-
ity, provided the student with competence and au-
tonomy in order to solve complex construction chal-
lenges. Consequently, the students gained sufficient
intrinsic motivation in order to finalize the project ef-
fectively.
The competencies as described in higher level
of the cognitive domain were effectively supported
by the tools and strategies provided in this research.
This quality was well reflected in the final exhibition
of the designs. The different aspect were well anal-
ysed and evaluated using a wide range of model
studies. Then, the relation of one aspect to the other
was studied in synthesis iterations by testing, explor-
ing and combining.
By using visual representations of the different
steps of the design, combined with the study models,
the students showed their ablility to construct knowl-
edge and understanding in the act of creation. With a
shift on the emphasis on the competencies described
in this level, rather than the emphasis on the transfer
of abstract knowledge, the students could construct
the knowledge, required in construction design exer-
cises, during the design process.
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 125
 With the shift from a teacher- to a learner-
centred model, the student was introduced to real-
world and ill-defined problems (Simon, 1973; Rit-
tel and Webber, 1976). Accordingly, with a focus
on the knowing-how, rather than knowing-that, the
students developed competences that are less time-
dependent (Wagenaar, 2014). Therefore, the stu-
dents were more likely to be prepared to act in the
fluidity of professional practice of today and were
better to respond to real-time information and sys-
tems.
In the success reflection session, no obvious
differences between the group using the linear-
synthesis-strategy and the group using the parallel-
synthesis-strategy were found. In future research, the
different observation and reflection tools will be used
in order to compare both models more effectively.
Consequently, the comparison of differences in qual-
ity of use and the quality of resulting models will be
an interesting research trajectory to be followed.
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hensive theory of learning', Int. J. of Lifelong Educa-
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tion, 22(3), pp. 396-406
Krathwohl, D.R. 2002, 'A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy:
An Overview', Theory into Practice, 41(3), pp. 212-218
van Merriënboer, J.J.G., Clark, R.E. and de Croock, M.B.M.
2002, 'Blueprints for Complex Learning: The 4C/ID-
Model', Education Technology Research and Develop-
ment, 50(2), pp. 39-64
Merriënboer, J.J.G. and Kirschner, P.A. 2011, Ten Steps to
Complex Learning, Routledge
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duction and Overview of the Key Features of the
Approach', Journal of Veterinary Medical Education,
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eling Ability?', Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 12th In-
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lems', AI, 4, pp. 181-201
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Sensemaking', Message, 1, pp. 34-43
Vrouwe, I. and Pak, B. 2014 'Framing Parametric and Gen-
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eCAADe Conference
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cation, 1(2), pp. 273-302
Integrating BIM in Education: Lessons Learned
Ivana Vinšová1 , Henri Achten2 , Dana Matějovská3
1,2,3
Czech Technical University in Prague
1,2,3
http://www.molab.eu
1
ivana.vinsova@gmail.com 2,3 {achten|matejdan}@fa.cvut.cz

Although we teach BIM since 2006 at the Faculty of architecture at Czech

Technical University in Prague, the education has never been fully integrated into
the curriculum of the school. In 2013/2014 this changed, and three tracks were
initialized to integrate BIM: (1) teaching BIM in the first year; (2) applying BIM
in a selected first year design studio; and (3) applying BIM in a selected third
year Bachelor graduation design studio. The implementation of the work is
described, results are presented, and we draw conclusions for future work.

Keywords: Building Information Model, Education, BIM integration, BIM

Pedagogy

INTRODUCTION sidered essential to design studios. From this fact

At the Faculty of Architecture, Czech Technical Uni-
versity in Prague, we are teaching BIM since 2006 (see
Table 1).
BIM adaptation in Czech republic is very low
(Vinšova, Matějovská and Achten 2014): we can say
there is an "island of knowledge" concerning BIM;
support from normative, governing, and professional
institutions is very low; initiatives to use BIM comes
from developers or enlightened clients. In other
countries in Europe (for example Germany, Belgium,
UK, Finland, and Denmark) adaptation is at a much
higher level (Russell and Elger 2008; Boeykens et al
2013; Kocaturk and Kiviniemi 2013; Ibrahim 2014;
Dieckmann and Russell 2014). All this leads to the
situation that BIM and CAAD are not perceived as
a priority in our Faculty. Teachers who are also
practitioners with their own architects' office are un-
willing to consult software outputs, and the digi-
tal ability of students is not appreciated. Visualisa-
tions and schematic plans are supposed to be suffi-
cient; therefore good quality 3D models are not con-
it is clear that boundary conditions for introducing
BIM in a more structural way at our school are not
favourable. Already in 2007 Techel and Nassar noted
that a more comprehensive embedding of BIM in ed-
ucation yields better results than a specialized BIM
course alone (Techel and Nassar 2007, pp. 635).
Within the curriculum, we were able to teach BIM
in the first year Bachelor program in two semesters in
compulsory courses, and in the second year in two
voluntary courses. It has to be noted that in the com-
pulsory courses basic CAAD skills have to be taught
(AutoCAD, as it is the most used software in Czech
republic), therefore exposure to BIM is rather small.
It de facto concerns BIM 1.0 level teaching (Revit and
ArchiCAD): 3D model, 2D representations, and de-
rived geometry. In the second year voluntary courses
(focussed on Revit) the beginners' course teaches ba-
sic 3D building model using materials and compo-
nents and deriving 2D representations. In the second
semester advanced course parametric modelling and
families are taught, project organization, collabora-

CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 127


tion between various specialists, collision detection
and so on.
In the winter semester 2013/2014 three parallel
activities were started to better integrate BIM in ed-
ucation at our faculty: in the first year direct expo-
sure of students to BIM and cooperation with one first
year's design studio, and in the third year so-called
Bachelor graduation project BIM integration in a se-
lected design studio as pilot project. In the remain-
der of this paper we will present the integration pro-
cess, discuss results, and present future continuation
of this work.
TURNING POINT: INTEGRATION OF BIM IN
CURRICULUM
In the winter semester of 2013/2014 we were able to
widen the offer of BIM in education in the curriculum
of the faculty:
• In first semester CAD course, students could
choose between AutoCAD (traditional, non-
BIM course), Revit (BIM), and ArchiCAD (BIM).
• In first semester basic design studio (called
"ZAN") option to work out tasks with BIM soft-
ware and digital sketching tools.
• In the Bachelor graduation project a selected
design studio offered option to work out
diploma project in BIM.
These tracks are incorporated in the regular curricu-
lum of the faculty.
Option 1: First year starting BIM course
In Czech republic secondary education there are two
types of schools: gymnasiums, offering general edu-
cation (80% of total number of students); and special
education secondary schools offering specialisations
in technology (12% of total number of students), arts
128 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
Table 1
History of teaching
BIM software at
Faculty of
Architecture, CTU
(6%), medicine, language, economy, and so on. Both
school types provide entrance to university level ed-
ucation. Additionally there are secondary vocational
schools offering more specialised education - those
graduates typically enter practice after receiving their
diploma. Future students from specialised schools in
technology (and in a few cases arts) already have ba-
sic knowledge of CAD.
Before the start of their studies in the Bachelor
programme of the faculty of Architecture, we con-
tacted all enrolled future students and offered them
a choice of three course types in the first semester
CAAD course:
1. Regular AutoCAD (no BIM).
2. Revit (BIM).
3. ArchiCAD (BIM).
The students were informed about the options that
they could choose. It is important to note that the
teaching had to be prepared in such a way as not
to disadvantage any choice over the others. Table 2
shows the proportion of students that choose a par-
ticular software.
Table 2
Number of students
that choose a
particular software
option in first year
education.
For the course we set a number of requirements:
• No previous knowledge of CAD is required or
expected from the students.
• No knowledge of building structures and ex-
perience of draughting techniques is sup-
posed.
• We teach the basics of 3D modelling and the
 design of BIM models (in particular elements
from its library).
• We focus on the basic principles of creating
BIM models using known factors and simpli-
fied foundations.
• Because the outputs had to be the same re-
gardless the software that was used (Auto-
CAD, ArchiCAD, Revit) we were limited with
the content that was taught.
From our experiences we noted that students who
worked with BIM did not miss the traditional 2D ap-
proach based on AutoCAD (which is usually only re-
quested from the other teachers). They were even
able to produce the documents for another course,
called Descriptive Geometry, using Revit or ArchiCAD.
In the following years in most cases students are
handed documentation in the design studio in Au-
toCAD format, and the assumption of most design
studios is that students hand in their work in Auto-
CAD format as well. Here is a task for us to convince
our colleagues that students with BIM skills should
be allowed to hand in BIM models as well. This is
something which needs to be achieved throughout
the whole faculty.
Option 2: First year integration with "ZAN"
In the first year curriculum students have a specific
design studio called "ZAN" (Basics of Architectural De-
sign). We established collaboration with one such de-
sign studio ("ZAN" first semester), in which students
would not only try the task on paper but would also
be given the opportunity to try the alternative in the
form of BIM software and digital sketching. Students
themselves stated that using the 3D model saved
them a lot of work with 2D plans. Revit was used by
approximately 30% of students optionally. The heads
of the design studio reported that they saw particular
advantage for the students that they could compare
benefits and drawbacks of many ways of designing:
hand drawing, scale models, CAAD drawing, and BIM
modelling.
Option 3: Bachelor graduation project with
BIM
In the Bachelor graduation project, students have to
make a design and produce a comprehensive set of
architectural drawings and engineering documenta-
tion that almost reach shop-drawing detail level. Po-
tentially a lot of advantage can be gained from a
BIM approach here, but we noted rather poor per-
formance in this year's production because of reluc-
tance to use BIM by most heads of the design studios
(described above in the introduction).
We obtained an EU grant (project "BIM in bach-
elor project") that allowed us to implement BIM ed-
ucation in the Bachelor program of our school. This
provided for us first opportunity for regular use of
BIM in the design studio of the Bachelor Degree. It
was our first attempt to introduce students to the
whole complexity of BIM process. Students worked
on their bachelor�degree project based on the out-
line of their studies. In addition they created a sim-
plified HVAC and plumbing model, isolated bearing
parts of the designed building, and finally they de-
tected collisions between models. Students were
free to choose ArchiCAD or Revit for their BIM work.
The EU project also allowed us to provide suc-
cessful students with a "BIM-certificate" (in associa-
tion with CZ-BIM - Council of BIM in Czech republic), as
an additional reward for the extra work to invested
in the diploma work. At the moment this is not im-
plemented yet. We expect that the engagement of
students in their diploma work using BIM will have
positive feedback on the BIM teaching in the regular
curriculum, as we will get to know better their needs
and requirements for the design process.
We found that 10% of the students did not com-
plete their BIM work in time to manage the limit for
the assessment of the bachelor project. This is ac-
tually the same proportion as those students who
worked in traditional manner. The students who
managed were all very enthusiastic. We observed
that their exit�level work was the same and some-
times higher than that of students in second year of
their studies (compared on work produced by 2nd
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 129
 year students using BIM software).
The knowledge how to create valid architectural
BIM 3D models was expected due to previous expo-
sure of the students to optional courses of CAD/BIM
software. This knowledge turned out to be not as
good as we anticipated as students were not able
to model their tasks without further help. Students
showed aspects of weaker 3D orientation in Archi-
CAD since they tend to choose an easier way to get
things done through in template finished way. In
Revit we found the 2D documentation lacking since
students often exported and finished 2D lines and
texts in AutoCAD. Here a major stumbling block ex-
perienced by students is the requirement to produce
shop drawings according to Czech norms for draw-
ings. Converting BIM drawings to make them accord-
ing to norms required a lot of effort with low added
value.
In addition to architectural BIM process we intro-
duced students to the option of analysis and simula-
tion of the models. Although the students expressed
interest in this aspect, none of them used it because
of two reasons: (a) it implied a lot of additional work
on top of their regular work�load; and (b) the design
project supervisors did not accept design decisions
taken on basis of analysis and simulation.
The official requirements of a Bachelor gradua-
tion project is to include the design of the HVAC (esp.
air�conditioning) and plumbing systems. The pro-
cedure of BIM model was explained, example was
shown to the students in many workshops during the
semester, and they were granted sufficient time to
work on it. Despite all this the results were under-
whelming; only a low percentage of students were
able to create the 3D model (Figure 1). Thus model
coordination and collision detection were hardly
used.
Through the Bachelor graduation project we ob-
tained the following experiences:
• It is necessary to intensively help students
complete their project using BIM, especially
in detailed construction plan, otherwise they
will revert to 2D finishing of the work in Auto-
130 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2
CAD.
• It is necessary to provide the students with
general overview in HVAC, Plumbing and
Structural part of BIM model.
• It is necessary to improve knowledge of
model sharing and (collaborative) team-
working.
• It is necessary to increase student interest
about analysis and simulation.
• It is necessary to cooperate with other design
studios and help BIM students to finish their
bachelor's project by BIM rules.
Figure 1
BIM usage in
Bachelor
graduation
projects.
To assist the students with their BIM models, we re-
lied on a team of expert students who were already
proficient in the use of BIM. These students proved to
be of critical importance as they were able to address
problems very quickly and keep the students moti-
vated to use BIM.
FUTURE WORK
Due to the low success rate of students and low qual-
ity of the BIM models we are considering future co-
operation with students of profession from Faculty
of Civil Engineering so the work would be separated
and resemble practice more. This is in line for exam-
ple with the approach presented by Gu and de Vries
(2012). However so far we have not been successful
on this front, because students in Civil Engineering
are not sufficiently prepared for this collaboration.
To gain more finished BIM models we are plan-
ning to change entry conditions of the subject. We
plan to cooperate with a larger number of design
studios managed by preferably younger heads (who
would be less opposed to the notion of BIM). This co-
operation would only extend to a small number of
chosen students who will receive more attention dur-
ing the years when they learn BIM software.
Students have a difficult time keeping up the dis-
cipline to maintain a BIM model during their studies.
We need to keep them reminded and motivated, for
example by pointing out increased likelihood of ob-
taining work after studies is much higher when a stu-
dent has BIM skills.
Students are very well aware that the demand for
graduates with BIM knowledge and skills is ever in-
creasing, and that they need this in order to be com-
petitive on the market.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledge the support of EU grant "OPPA
CZ.2.17/3.1.00/36034 Architektura a praxe KA č.2" for
initiating the BIM studio in the study year 2013-2014;
the student assistant team in Revit education: Mar-
tin Bukovsky, Lucie Hanzlíková, and Lukáš Kohout; the
bachelor design studio headed by Ján Stempel and
Ondřej Beneš and their students; the ZAN design stu-
dio headed by Hana Špalková and Michal Bartošek
and their students; and all the students who under-
took the Revit and ArchiCAD first year course.
REFERENCES
Boeykens, S, De Somer, P, Klein, R and Saey, R 2013 'Ex-
periencing BIM Collaboration in Education', Stouffs,
Rudi and Sariyildiz, Sevil (eds.), Computation and Per-
formance – Proceedings of the 31st eCAADe Confer-
ence – Volume 2, Faculty of Architecture, Delft Univer-
sity of Technology, 18-20 September 2013, Delft, The
Netherlands, pp. 505-513
Dieckmann, A and Russell, P 2014 'The Truth is in the
Model: Utilizing Model Checking to Rate Learning
Success in BIM Software Courses', Thompson, Emine
Mine (ed.), Fusion - Proceedings of the 32nd eCAADe
Conference - Volume 2, Department of Architecture
and Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering and En-
vironment, 10-12 September 2014, Newcastle upon
Tyne, England, UK, pp. 417-426
Gu, N and de Vries, B 2012 'Two Approaches to Im-
plementing BIM in Architectural Curricula', Achten,
Henri; Pavlicek, Jiri; Hulin, Jaroslav; Matejovska, Dana
(eds.), Digital Physicality - Proceedings of the 30th
eCAADe Conference - Volume 1, Czech Technical Uni-
versity in Prague, Faculty of Architecture (Czech Repub-
lic) 12-14 September 2012, Prague, Czech Republic,
pp. 39-48
Ibrahim, MM 2014 'Thinking the BIM Way: Early Inte-
gration of Building Information Modelling in Educa-
tion', Thompson, Emine Mine (ed.), Fusion - Proceed-
ings of the 32nd eCAADe Conference - Volume 2, De-
partment of Architecture and Built Environment, Fac-
ulty of Engineering and Environment, 10-12 Septem-
ber 2014, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK, pp.
427-435
Kocaturk, T and Kiviniemi, A 2013 'Challenges of In-
tegrating BIM in Architectural Education', Stouffs,
Rudi and Sariyildiz, Sevil (eds.), Computation and Per-
formance – Proceedings of the 31st eCAADe Confer-
ence – Volume 2, Faculty of Architecture, Delft Univer-
sity of Technology, 18-20 September 2013, Delft, The
Netherlands, pp. 465-473
Russell, P and Elger, D 2008 'The Meaning of BIM', Ar-
chitecture in Computro [26th eCAADe Conference Pro-
ceedings / ISBN 978-0-9541183-7-2], 17-20 September
2008, Antwerpen, Belgium, pp. 531-536
Techel, F and Nassar, K 2007 'Teaching Building Infor-
mation Modeling (BIM) From a Sustainability De-
sign Perspective', Em‘body’ing Virtual Architecture:
The Third International Conference of the Arab Soci-
ety for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD
2007), 28-30 November 2007, Alexandria, Egypt, pp.
635-650
Vinšová, I, Matějovská, D and Achten, H 2014 'The Un-
bearable Lightness of BIM', Thompson, Emine Mine
(ed.), Fusion - Proceedings of the 32nd eCAADe Con-
ference - Volume 2, Department of Architecture and
Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering and Envi-
ronment, 10-12 September 2014, Newcastle upon
Tyne, England, UK, pp. 411-415
CAAD Education - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 131
CAAD Education - Tools
Flexible Matter
A Real-Time Shape Exploration Employing Analogue and Digital Form-
Finding of Tensile Structures

Ioanna Symeonidou1
1
Graz University of Technology
1
ioanna.symeonidou@gmail.com

The paper presents a research on real-time shape exploration employing

analogue and digital form-finding and concludes with a proposal for a teaching
methodology that led to an intensive student workshop which took place at Graz
University of Technology during 2014. The aim was to experiment with analogue
and digital tools in parallel, counter-informing the design process. The
experiments involved physical form-finding following the tradition of Frei Otto at
the Institute of Lightweight Structures in Stuttgart as well as computational
form-finding employing mainly dynamic relaxation techniques of spring-particle
systems. The combination of techniques and methodologies eventually led to a
feedback loop across different media that explored both qualitative and
quantitative characteristics of the projects at hand. By establishing feedback
between digital media and physical prototypes, the creative process is
immediately informed by the material characteristics and properties which in
turn give rise to a real-time exploration of form.Simulations of physical forces for
architectural form generation are increasingly gaining ground in architectural
education as there is a broad selection of computational tools readily available
that allow quick experiments to be conducted.

Keywords: Form-finding, Analogue-digital, Parametric design, Tensile

structures, Kangaroo physics simulation

ANALOGUE COMPUTATION AND LEARN-
ING BY DOING
Form-finding is a well-established method in archi-
tecture and engineering aiming to define the opti-
mal geometry with respect to the structural behav-
ior for certain boundary conditions. There is a long
history of experimentation in this field, supported by
scientific research and built examples. Frei Otto was
the pioneer to research, study and categorize these
structures, together with his team at the Institute for
Lightweight Structures in Stuttgart. Their physical
experiments and models have been documented in
the famous volumes of IL books; although most of
the IL series were published in the early 70s, which is
much before the wide use of computational design
in architecture, they remain an essential reading for

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 135

 computational designers of our times.
For more than 15 years the morpho-ecological
discourse has been influencing the work of architects
and academics. According to Hensel and Menges,
the term Morpho-Ecology is a correlation of morpho-
genesis (the birth of form) and ecology (the study
of the relationships between organisms), a term that
denominatres a framework for architectural design
rooted within a biological paradigm and giving rise
to structures that are functional and performative
(Hensel and Menges, 2007).
In the last few years the discourse is moving
towards the overlaps between machine computa-
tion and material computation. Achim Menges af-
firms that current design research is moving towards
"a synthesis of form, material, structure and perfor-
mance in a process of integral materialisation, which
finds its conceptual roots in the processes of becom-
ing in nature"(Menges, 2012)
It is not a coincidence that also Frei Otto re-
ferred to his experiments as natural constructions,
not merely for their morphological resemblance to
natural forms but mainly because "these are con-
structions which reveal the processes of their cre-
ation with particular clarity. The form-finding pro-
cesses are those which, given a set of conditions and
following the prevailing laws of nature give rise to
visible forms and constructions under experimental
conditions. As they take place without human inter-
vention they are also termed autonomous formation
processes" (Barthel, 2005)
A tensioned membrane, just as a soap film, poss-
eses a self-organizational property of finding its own
form, it tries to minimize its material (energy) to span
between the given borders. The pressure is the same
on both sides, of the membrane or soap film, so the
material system settles in a configuration with mean
curvature as close to zero as possible. Thus a mem-
brane is able to 'compute' form. De Landa describes
it as an 'analog search algorithm'.
We refer to physical form-finding experiments as
'analogue computation' because the material 'com-
putes' its form, it self-organizes to find a stable state
136 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
for a given setting of boundaries, tension cables and
anchor points. The design process inherently em-
beds performance criteria; there is a real-time explo-
ration of optimized configurations. Each modifica-
tion in the location of an anchor point or tensile force
will have a direct repercussion on the form so that
all forces acting upon the model are in equilibrium.
Thus design decisions are taken by the material itself
and the forces acting upon it.
In the framework of the student workshop pre-
sented in this paper, the challenge was to adopt an
integral approach to computation that goes beyond
a mere fascination with the medium. The aim was
to address computation in its multiplicity negotiating
material, structure, design, function. The focus was
manifold; on one hand to address tensile structures
and go beyond the established morphological vo-
cabulary of hypars and vaults into more creative, non-
standard and therefore unexplored geometric mani-
festations (See Figure 1). On the other hand we were
concerned with the pedagogy of teaching construc-
tion technology and design to architecture students,
the aim was to explore innovative teaching methods
through a modus operandi of learning-by-doing, fol-
lowing the doctrines of Piaget, Papert and Montes-
sori.
The role of model making in architectural edu-
cation is well established in the academic curriculum
and new digital media have brought a new dimen-
sion to traditional model-making (Stavric et al., 2013).
Brett Steele, director of the Architectural Association
in London, alludes to the common belief that "archi-
tecture is only ever learned by getting your hands
dirty" (Self and Walker, 2010). He explains that this
is done through the construction of physical proto-
types, 1:1 models, whose "working difficulties and
eventual results offer the designers vital insight and
understanding into how they take a next tentative
step forward". In an attempt to contribute to the on-
going discourse about what lies in the intersection of
analogue and digital media in the design process, we
realize that there is a conceptual gap when design
thinking is addressed. The technological develop-
Figure 1
Samples of
analogue and
digital form-finding
experiments by
students at Graz
University of
Technology
ments in CAD/CAM have achieved a seamless trans-
fer of information from designing to making, a file-
to-factory continuum from the computer screen to
the CNC machine. However the creative process itself
is not so easy to trace, very often thoughts are frag-
mented, discontinuous, yet creative, jumping from
one idea to another, taking one informed decision,
followed by a random or controversial design ges-
ture. In the same fashion a designer implements dif-
ferent media during the design process, "Prototypes
and other types of expressions such as sketches, di-
agrams and scenarios, are the core means by which
the designer builds the connection between fields of
knowledge and progresses toward a product" (Stap-
pers, 2007) It is not possible to come up with a car-
tography of how a design idea is developed. Many
agree that a design process is iterative, including trial
and error, multiplicity of sketches media. As Parthe-
nios explains in his paper for the Critical Digital Con-
ference at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard
"conceptual design is not a linear process, it consists
of sub-processes which are individual but interact
with each other" (Parthenios, 2005). Our aim here is
not to delve in the mysteries of design creativity, it
is rather to provide access to diverse media for de-
sign experimentation and set up a workshop frame-
work where student work is more self-guided, "with
the student given greater opportunity to test their
own assertions and to build their own confidence
and repertoire of design experimentation" (Self and
Walker, 2010)
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 137
 THE SET-UP FOR ANALOGUE EXPERI-
MENTS
Following the tradition of Frei Otto, during "Flexible
Matter" workshop at Graz University of Technology,
the analogue experiments were carried out on a mea-
sured plexiglass frame where elastic textile (with elas-
ticity in both directions) was tensioned. If the ten-
sion forces are isotropic on the surface, i.e. the same
T value in all directions and in every point on the sur-
face, the membrane will tend to adopt the form of a
minimal surface (a surface with zero Mean Curvature).
The first set of experiments involved measured mod-
els and the form-finding of typical tensile structure
primitives, such as the Hypar, Conic and Barrel Vault,
together with possible combinations of the above.
Thus, already from the initial design stages, the elas-
ticity and material characteristics led to a vocabulary
of possible formations within the broader category of
tensile structures. This set of experiments also stud-
ied the repercussion of a 2D cutting pattern on the
3D form, understanding the translation of forces into
geometry, the continuity and discontinuity of force
transfer as a design gesture. The physical models
and material tests were carefully studied and docu-
mented in order to extract a first set of observations
regarding material behavior.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH THROUGH
MAKING
There is an immense body of research on tensile
structures and numerous built examples throughout
the history of architecture. It would be an omis-
sion not to study the relevant bibliography in depth.
In this context studying the bibliography does not
merely mean to gather information from published
media. The nature of the subject matter at hand re-
quires further action. Considering a pedagogical ap-
proach of learning by doing, the students investi-
gated the case studies by making models, by under-
standing the morphogenetic principles that govern
the construction (See Figure 2). This was not an ex-
ercise about copying the external form, it was rather
an exercise about understanding the principles that
138 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
generate the form. A hands-on approach offers a
tacit knowledge which combined with the theoreti-
cal background leads to more informed decisions. As
Koskinen explains a design process "may start from
theories, methods, and fieldwork findings, and just
as often it begins with playing with materials, tech-
nology, and design precedents [...]Without this cul-
ture of doing, many things of interest to designers
would go unnoticed" (Koskinen et al., 2011) With this
attitude in mind the workshop's experimentation de-
parted from known case studies to further evolve into
original design ideas on a second stage. The built ex-
amples that were used as case studies were drawn
from various different periods of architectural history,
thus ranging from the Institute of Lightweight Struc-
tures in Stuttgart (Figure 3) to the Paradise Pavilion
by Chris Bosse.
Figure 2
Analogue
form-finding model
of Rosa Parks made
from elastic textile
and plexiglass
components
Figure 3
Digital form-finding
model of ILEK,
Stuttgart simulated
in Kangaroo plugin
for
Rhino-Grasshopper
 DYNAMIC RELAXATION FOR FORM GENER-
ATION
Extracting the underlying generative logic of the ana-
logue experiments and understanding the forces in
play is the first step towards building a digital setup
that simulates the physical behavior. Solving similar
problems with Dynamic Relaxation of spring-particle
systems has been used for over three decades in the
engineering world (Day, 1965), however the recent
integration of visual algorithms such as Kangaroo
Physics in Grasshopper (Piker, 2013) has resulted in
a very user-friendly and intuitive tool in the hands of
architects (see Figure 4).
Figure 4
Typical parametric
definition including
simulation of
spring-particle
systems, setting the
rest-length of
springs, variable
stiffness values and In an attempt to mimick the physical behaviour of a
anchor-points for material system, we translate physical properties into
the simulation in mathematical equations that generate the geometry
Kangaroo Physics in the computational enivironment. Thus an elastic
Engine textile can be represented by a spring-particle sys-
tem, translating mesh vertices to particles and mesh
edges to springs, in other words a system of points
and lines. Though the code is not visible to the user,
the core is based on an algorithm that iteratively
computes forces, velocity and lengths of springs that
behave according to Hooke's Law. Having obtained
an understanding of the forces acting upon the mod-
els the students were able to build their own defi-
nitions, compare the results to the physical models
and rectify any of the two. In several cases the form-
finding experiments revealed some unpredictable re-
sults that emerged from the self-organizational ca-
pacity of the system to regulate and distribute forces
to reach equilibrium. As Piker explains "one great ad-
vantage of physically based methods is that we have
a natural feel for them, and this intuitive quality lends
itself well to the design process [...]through the appli-
cation of real-world physics we can make computa-
tional tools that really work with us to design in a way
that is both creative and practical" (Piker, 2013).
OBSERVATIONS ON THE DESIGN PROCESS
Our attempt to introduce bibliographical research
through making highlighted a series of findings. Stu-
dents did get their "hands dirty" and acquired expe-
riential knowledge about tensile structures. The pro-
cess involved less thinking and more making, they
faced problems and developed strategies to solve
them. Unlike traditional bibliographical research
which is carried out individually, in this learning envi-
ronment individual learning led to collective knowl-
edge gain in the workshop as everyone learnt from
each other's experiments and case studies. With
this process, we established a common working lan-
guage and an initial understanding of structural per-
formance in order to proceed as a group to the next
stage of creative process. The students were there-
fore able to take informed decisions. They had al-
ready developed certain fluency with analogue and
digital skills, therefore they were not any longer con-
cerned with learning the tools. Aware of the poten-
tial of the material system at hand in a conscious and
intuitive level, they were liberated from the restric-
tions of the tools and motivated to pursue their de-
sign ideas.
AN INTEGRAL DESIGN APPROACH
For the final phase of the workshop the students
worked on their own design ideas. During the devel-
opment of the projects they implemented in parallel
analogue and digital media. There was a conceptual
feedback across media which aided students to take
informed design decisions. It is important to clarify
that we are not looking at analogue-digital processes
as two competing strategies, but as complementary
tools that provide different type of input yet interre-
lated one with another. Analogue tools proved more
efficient with handling qualitative characteristics of
the design, transmitting the atmosphere of the ar-
chitecture, understanding empirically the forces act-
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 139
 ing upon the structure and dealing with issues of The presented projects (Figures 5,6,7) show an
assembly and detailing. On the other hand digi- overview of the techniques and methodologies in-
tal tools can handle huge amounts of data, making vestigated during "Flexible Matter" workshop that
them appropriate for handling quantitative charac- took place in May 2014 at the Institute of Architec-
teristics of the design, they allow quick changes but ture and Media at Graz University of Technology. It
they require certain experience with real-world phys- addresses issues of design research through praxis,
ical forces so that the user can calibrate the values for and design processes that encourage creative design
drag, spring force and edge conditions. They are ab- thinking towards an integral approach in architec-
stracted and idealized representations of lightweight ture, which integrates material behavior, function-
structures and as such they allow for quick sketches. ality, material economy, aesthetics and optimized
When the design is finalized the analogue and dig- structural performance.
ital approaches look very similar to each other, al-
most identical, however what is crucial to underline
Figure 5
here is that design decisions took place on both me-
Architectural
dia, meaning that the design was not finalized on the
application of a
computer and then transferred to the textile, or the
digitally form-found
opposite. Explorations were taking place in parallel in
membrane
both media driving the design to solutions that were
both aesthetically pleasing and structurally stable, so
that it can be further developed into an architectural
artefact. In particular the use of prototypes in early
design stages conveys a lot of embedded design in-
formation. However, as Stappers explains, "the value
of prototypes as carriers of knowledge can be implicit
or hidden. They embody solutions, but the problems
they solve may not be recognized"(Stappers, 2007). Figure 6
Therefore they represent great design tools for an ex- Experimental digital
ploratory phase of design ideation. form-finding model
This paper wishes to present the results of simulated in
the aforementioned intensive hands-on workshop Kangaroo plugin for
and raise new questions on design methodologies Rhino-Grasshopper
and contemporary architectural educational agen-
das. The aim was to intrinsically involve analogue and
digital design processes, not as separate routines, but
as an integrated design approach were the two me-
dia counter-inform each other from the very begin-
ning of the design lifecycle.
Understanding the association between geom-
etry and material behavior, the elastic properties of
membranes or computational spring meshes and the
obtained form, leads to a 'synergetic approach to de-
sign integrating form, structure, material and envi-
ronment' (Oxman and Rosenberg, 2007)

140 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Figure 7
Analogue
form-finding model
for a sculptural
installation
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to acknowledge the contri-
bution of Graz University of Technology students:
Anna-Maria Jäger, Anna Moteva, Clara Primschitz,
David Ferreira Arias, Florian Scheucher, Gilbert Mur-
rer, Huanghuang Yan, Ina Lichtenegger, Martin Kos-
suth, Lukas Andreas Zitterer, Markus Monsberger,
Maykal Borislav Mateev, Stefan Neumann, Rui Patri-
cio and Philipp Wayd.
Special thanks goes to Prof. Milena Stavric who
continuously assisted the course, helping with tech-
nical and practical issues. The results of the workshop
are also documented at the Institute of Architecture
and Media website: iam.tugraz.at
REFERENCES
Barthel, R 2005, 'Natural Forms-Architectural Forms', in
Nerdinger, W (eds) 2005, Frei Otto. Complete Works,
Birkhäuser Architecture, Basel ; Boston
Day, A 1965, 'An introduction to dynamic relaxation', The
Engineer, 219(5688), pp. 218-221
Hensel, M and Menges, A (eds) 2007, Morpho-Ecologies:
Towards Heterogeneous Space In Architecture Design,
AA Publications, London
Kilian, A and Ochsendorf, J 2005, 'Particle-spring systems
for structural form finding', Journal-International As-
sociation for Shell and Spatial Structures, 148, p. 77
Kolarevic, B 2004, Architecture in the Digital Age: Design
and Manufacturing, Taylor \& Francis
Koskinen, I, Zimmerman, J, Binder, T, Redstrom, J and
Wensveen, S 2011, Design Research Through Practice:
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 141
 From the Lab, Field, and Showroom, Morgan Kauf-
mann, Waltham, MA
Menges, A 2011 'Behavior-based Computational Design
Methodologies', Proceedings of the 31st Annual Con-
ference of the Association for Computer Aided Design
in Architecture (ACADIA), Banff, Alberta
Menges, A 2012 'Material Generation: Materiality and
Materialisation as Active Drivers in Design Compu-
tation', Transactions on Architectural Education No 59,
Munster, Germany
Oxman, N and Rosenberg, JL 2007, 'Material-based de-
sign computation: An Inquiry into digital simulation
of physical material properties as design generators',
International journal of architectural computing, 5(1),
pp. 26-44
Parthenios, P 2005 'Analog vs. Digital: why bother?',
Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Critical
Digital, Cambridge
Piker, D 2013, 'Kangaroo: Form Finding with Computa-
tional Physics', Archit Design, 83(2), pp. 136-137
Self, M and Walker, C 2010, Making Pavilions, Architec-
tural Association Publications, London
Stappers, PJ 2007, 'Doing design as a part of doing re-
search', in Michel, R (eds) 2007, Design Research Now,
Birkhäuser Architecture, Boston, MA
Stavric, M, Sidanin, P and Tepavcevic, B 2013, Architec-
tural Scale Models in the Digital Age: Design, Repre-
sentation and Manufacturing, AMBRA, Wien

142 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Parametrized Systems: Conceiving of Buildings as
Assemblies of Varied Parts
Heike Matcha1
1
Aachen School of Architecture
1
www.fh-aachen.de/en/menschen/matcha/
1
matcha@fh-aachen.de

We describe and discuss a design and research project that together with students
explores the new possibilities current design tools and manufacturing processes
give architects to design systems for building components that transcend the
limits of fordist serial mass production in favour of post-fordist individualized
mass production, most importantly the supersession of a few equal building
components for many similar ones. Contrary to many projects with similar
content and intent, ours starts not with the digital tools but with production
techniques and materials. Constant physical materialization plays the main role,
digital tools assist.

Keywords: Parametric Systems, Design Build Class, Design Tools, Digital

Manufacturing, Digital Materialization

BACKGROUND ing systems can be conceived and applied in con-

In order to get built at all, buildings have to be sub-
divided into parts that can be handled by people.
Finding systems that simplify the production of these
parts has always been an important part of architec-
tural conception. This started millennia ago with us-
ing found stones assembled into walls.
Until recently, such systems were bound by the
constraints of manufacture or serial mass production
to the application of as few equal parts as possible.
Today, individualized mass production allows for the
production of parts that are all different without in-
creases in cost. The difference of the parts, though,
has to follow a logic of similarity: all parts have to
be related like members of a family and the relation-
ships described as variants in parameters controlling
the shape and structure of the individual instances.
This completely changes the way in which build-
struction, especially with regard to variance: where in
serial mass production, introducing variance necessi-
tated complex components that could play many dif-
ferent parts, the components now can be very simple
and the variance introduced through their individual
differences.
PARAMETRIZATION IN ARCHITECTURAL
EDUCATION: MOTIVATION FOR FOCUS ON
PHYSICAL MATERIALIZATION OVER DIGI-
TAL TOOLS
Introducing such processes and possibilities into ar-
chitectural education can be divided into 2 parts:
on the one hand introducing a conceptual under-
standing of parameters and parametrization, and
on the other hand familiarizing students with the

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 143

 digital tools necessary for the application of such
parametrization.Both parts are necessary. Dealing
with the first without the second denies the true
power of parametric concepts to unfold properly.
Dealing with the second without the first tends to
produce rather superficial projects that fail to de-
velop beyond replication of already existing projects.
Although digital design tools and manufacturing
technologies are indespensable for realizing the full
potential of parametrization, we have found that bas-
ing a project on their introduction and exploration
tends to lead students to de-couple the projects de-
veloped thereby from the conditions of physical real-
isation. Properties of building materials and ways of
joining them to one another tend to get subjugated
to the looseness of the digital realm.
In the described design course we therefore start
with and focus on physical realization. The students
constantly have to produce physical models and take
into account their properties, especially with regards
to connecting building parts with one another. Dig-
ital tools are introduced and explored in parallel, but
are very clearly and conciously used to only augment
ideas which start in the physical domain.
Through this focus, we aim to produce projects
which incorporate materialization instead of con-
fronting it - something that tends to happen in
projects which are being driven by digital tools in-
stead of being augmented by them.
As digital tools we employ Rhinoceros and
Grasshopper. As their functionality is amply de-
scribed in widely available literature, we here focus
exclusively on the aspects of materialization in the
physical realm.
4-STEP DESIGN COURSE STRUCTURE
Our design course is divided into 4 steps which grad-
ually build up an understanding of building parts,
parametrization for their variation, questions of con-
necting the parts, and how assemblies of parts can
become spatial physical structures and buildings.
These steps, as said before, explicitly start in the
physical. Students have to build models of their pro-
144 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
posals. Digital tools are introduced in parallel. This
way, students cannot loose sight of questions of ma-
terialization, and the digital tools serve as augmen-
tation for non-digital ideas, and not as producers of
ideas that do not consider materialization.
The students begin by conceiving building sys-
tems that serve no specific functional aim other than
an overall spatial structure. Gradually, more function-
ality and relation to buildings are introduced, and in
the final step, the students build a 1:1 scale model of
a pavilion-like structure.
Design course step 1: Experimental
parametrized building system
The students have to study different materials
and production technologies and propose a three-
dimensional building system that uses one of each
(Figure 1). The focus here is not (yet) on the function-
ality of the built structure, but on the physical proper-
ties of the materials, how they can be connected and
how they can be produced using a specific produc-
tion technology chosen by the students.
Design course step 2: Simple design object
built from parametrized building system
The first step is repeated, but this time, the students
have to build an actual usable object: a lamp (Figure
2). Lessons learned, possibilities encountered and
problems solved from Step 1 are applied.
Our choice of a lamp as objective is based on sev-
eral factors. Its size: it is small enough to be trans-
ported easily. Its number of parts: it is possible to
build a lamp with a relatively small number of parts,
so as not to overextend the students' capabilities. Its
spatial properties as a design object: Already in such
a non-architecturally small object, aspects like spatial
qualities, transparency and light distribution can be
studied.
Figure 1
Design Course Step
1: Building systems
(Students Henkel
and Detko, Aachen
School of
Architecture)

Figure 2
Design Course Step
2: Lamp design
studies (Student
Project, Aachen
School of
Architecture)

Design course step 3: Pavilion architecture
designed on the basis of a parametrized
building system
Again, the discussions and results from the previous
steps are re-considered to design an object with in-
creased scale, complexity and proximity to an archi-
tectural building: a simple pavilion, basically merely
a roof to provide simple shelter from sun and rain.
Although in this step, the projects are built as scale
models only (Figure 3), questions of weight and
transportability have to be considered. How large
can the individual parts be, so that they can still be
transported from production facility to building site,
lifted from one place to another with standard equip-
ment and handled with tools (Figures 4 and 5) ?
Design course step 4: 1:1 Scale installation
built from parametrized building system
In the final step, the students in course chooses one
of the projects from step 3 and build (parts of ) it as
a 1:1 scale prototype (Figures 6 and 7). Questions
of transportability and handling become even more
important and also become 'real' for students as op-
posed to 'merely' theoretical as in the previous steps.
Furthermore, the students now have to organize
as a group with a common objective. This means that
they have to divide labour, that is to identify and as-
sign specific tasks. Typically, they discover new in-

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 145

 Figure 3
Design Course Step
3: Pavilion designs
(Student Project,
Aachen School of
Architecture)

Figure 4
Design Course Step
3: Pavilion designs
Component
Assembly Studies
(Student Project by
Esra Bektas, Marc
Mevißen, Ümmü
Dedeoglu, Selin
Sönmez, Aachen
School of
Architecture)

146 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Figure 5
Design Course Step
3: Pavilion designs
Component
Assembly Studies
(Student Projects by
Nazli Ceyhan,
Alexandra Koch,
Nadja Schneider
(left) and Frederic
Walk, Matthias
Wenn, Falk Frühling
(right), Aachen
School of
Architecture)

Figure 6
Design Course Step
4: 1:1 Scale
Prototype - Milling
and Assembling of
Building
Components
(Student Project by
Larissa Niemann,
Michael Meuffels,
Alena Puchleitner
and Lara Waibel,
Aachen School of
Architecture)
dividual skills, capabilities and talents: students who spond to changing design conditions. The incorpo-
may not have developed strong designs may be very ration of physical properties of real materials, man-
adept at organizing the group, or finding transporta- ufacturing of parts from them and transporting and
tion or sponsoring. Students who may not be very handling those parts into students' design thinking
accomplished at using digital tools or building small- is much improved through the experiences gained in
scale models may come into their own in the large- the project.
scale manipulation of physical parts. In the future, we aim to extend the duration of
the project from 1 to 2 or more semesters in order
REVIEW AND OUTLOOK to increase the degree of experimentation with para-
Overall, the students' understanding of buildings and metric possibilities in the digital design space.
their components is deepened and made more fluid:
no longer do they cling to rigid and fixed objects,
but rather to relational fields of possibilities that re-

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 147

 Figure 7
Design Course Step
4: 1:1 Scale
Prototype - Finished
Project in School
Exhibition (Student
Project by Larissa
Niemann, Michael
Meuffels, Alena
Puchleitner and
Lara Waibel, Aachen
School of
Architecture)

REFERENCES
Matcha, H. and Barczik, G. 2009, 'Productive Processes', in
Agkathidis, A. (eds) 2009, Modular Structures in De-
sign and Architecture, BIS Publishers
Matcha, H. 2010, 'Regelbasierte Planung - Parametrik',
in Hauschild, M. and Karzel, R. (eds) 2010, Detail
Praxis: Digitale Prozesse, Institut für Internationale
Architektur-Dokumentation
Matcha, H. and Karzel, R. 2013 'Lehre als Praxis als
Forschung: 1:1 Entwicklung von Messeständen
unter Einsatz parametrisierter Software und com-
putergesteuerter Herstellung', ECHT?! Zum Bezug
von Praxis und Lehre in der Architekturausbildung,
Katja-Annika Pahl (Hrsg.), TUDpress 2013

148 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Parametric Modeling: An Advanced Design Process for
Architectural Education
Mohamed-Anis Gallas1 , Kevin Jacquot2 , Sylvie Jancart3 ,
Frederic Delvaux4
1
Lab For User Cognition & Innovative Design-Univesité de Liège / Centre de
Recherche en Architecture et Ingénierie (MAP-CRAI/UMR CNRS-MCC) 2 Centre
de Recherche en Architecture et Ingénierie (MAP-CRAI/UMR CNRS-MCC) 3,4 Laboratoire
de Culture Numérique en Architecture-Univesité de Liège
1,3,4
{ma.gallas|sylvie.jancart|frederic.delvaux}@ulg.ac.be
2
jacquot@crai.archi.fr

The first part of this paper is giving an overview, experimentation results and
feedback of a six years experience of parametric design education in schools of
architecture from France and Belgium. The second part addresses a structure of
an advanced educational process of parametric modeling able to support
architectural design praxis.

Keywords: Parametric design, Digital design, Form generation, Digital

fabrication

INTRODUCTION They do not require any textual programming skills

Parametric geometry modeling is a field studying al- whereas they can achieve the creation of complex 3D
gorithms that compute geometry (Kelly 2013). A parametric scenes in short time span and "efficiently
major barrier concerns the level of effort necessary explore alternative forms without having to manually
to implement the algorithms: "the task is foremost, build each different version of the design model for
the tool need only be adequate to it" (Woodbury each scenario" [3].
2010). Since 2003 and the release of a new para-
metric software like GenerativeComponents [1] or OVERVIEW OF PARAMETRIC MODELING
Grasshopper [2], the conceptual representation con-
EDUCATION
taining the algorithms can be achieved through vi-
The first part of this paper is giving an overview, an
sual dataflow programming language (VDPL) dedi-
experimentation results and feedback of a six years
cated to 3D modeling. The amount of abstraction be-
experience of parametric design education in schools
tween VDPL and machine language is high enough
of architecture from France and Belgium. The sec-
to allow non-programmers to implement complex
ond part addresses a structure of an advanced educa-
parametric 3D models. Users with basic knowledge
tional process of integration of parametric modeling
of geometry 3D modeling can specify a sequence of
and digital continuum able to support architectural
relationships and operations to automate the con-
design praxis.
struction of geometry in the form of links and nodes.

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 149

 Cognitive operations and design thinking
After the first digital age defined by productions such
as blob, developed by the use of animate form (Lynn
98), we attend an evolution of production, tools and
methods in digital architectural design. Among the
different tendencies on digital architectural design,
the parametric way has a specific place. Parametric
modeling led to the development of a model that is
not a single object, but the potentiality of a family
of objects called instances. As teachers, we often at-
tend to the same situation: at the end of the paramet-
ric design studio, some students cannot identify how
they arrive to the solution. The main reason seems
to be a gap between the knowledge application and
the skills trained during the lessons. In fact, the most
important problem is the lack of knowledge and skills
about digital design in general and specifically about
the digital design in architecture. The theoretical as-
pect of architectural design is still on a traditional
way.
Education context and technological muta-
tion
As we know, the last fifteen years are witnesses of a
mutation of the architectural production through the
improvement of digital design and fabrication tools.
It is now more and more possible to overtake a situ-
ation noted by A. Picon (2010) about the rupture be-
tween free-form seduction and tectonics . This evo-
lution is mainly due to a methodological threshold,
which enables the integration of computational pro-
cesses like parametric in the core of the architectural
design process. We also attend an evolution of the
structures closely linked to the matter and the conti-
nuity namely digital data transmission in the "design
to fabrication continuum" of building elements, in-
deed the whole building process. To meet this trans-
formation, teachings, should integrate a computa-
tional approach both theoretical and practical allow-
ing the student to acquire a culture in contempo-
rary architectural practices, knowledge and paramet-
ric modeling capabilities and reach an experience in
the "design to manufacture continuum". At the prac-
150 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
tical teaching of the parametric, the crux lies in the
transition from paper sketch to the parametric struc-
ture (Couwenbergh 2015).
Design pedagogy and digital design con-
cepts
More precisely about the architectural design think-
ing, we have to point an essential notion: there are
significant differences between traditional architec-
tural design and the digital mediated design. We
can say the digital design constitutes a unique body
of knowledge and architectural concepts (Oxman
2008). Many researchers have proposed as a founda-
tion for design education and pedagogy that digital
design has an influence on the development of the-
oretical, computational and cognitive approaches.
Seven years ago, R. Oxman wrote that "any new
framework for design pedagogy must be responsive
to condition in which digital concepts are integrated
as a unique body of knowledge consisting of the re-
lationship between digital architectural design and
digital design skills". Designing and modeling free-
form surfaces and curves as building elements that
are associated with different components and have
multiple patterns are not an easy job to do with tra-
ditional methods. This is the power of algorithms and
scripts that are further pushing the limits (Khabazi
2010). Custom CAD tools are examples of lowest al-
gorithmic level in design, and the parametric model-
ing skills are not capable enough. High level of para-
metric modeling skill means using the computational
power in a design process. It is obvious that even to
think about a complex geometry, we need appropri-
ate tools, especially software packages, which are ca-
pable of simulating these geometries and controlling
their properties. Before training these skills and us-
ing such tools, there are a few elementary theoret-
ical basements to teach. As a first step in the edu-
cation of digital parametric design, the historical ap-
proach is paramount to provide context on the one
hand and on the other to highlight the concept of
parametric, which existed long before the arrival of
the computer. It is necessary to first address to the
origin of the terminology (parameter and parametric) tegration of material and structural constraints, or for
questioning the history of science (Apollonius , New- example the capability in shape versatility.
ton, Pascal, etc.), then take a look at its use in the arts
(Dürer, etc.), architecture (Gaudi, Moretti, etc.) and AN INTEGRATED PARAMETRIC MODELING
structure (Frei Otto , Sergio Musmeci, etc.) (Couwen-
EDUCATION METHOD
bergh 2015).
The second part of this paper proposes a process of
integration of parametric modeling and digital fabri-
Parametric digital modeling cation in architectural to support design praxis. The
As we know, the defining feature of a parametric
proposed process is a result of our experience in para-
model is not the outputs but rather the need to con-
metric modeling education and research in digital
struct and maintain relationships associated with the
design praxis. The proposed process is structured
model. Some researchers develop this approach as
in three steps: analyze, implementation and experi-
the creation of process instead of formal product. In
mentation. This process associates digital design and
this design model, the visual representation is not a
fabrication tools to physical representation and mod-
direct production from hand but appears as the re-
eling tools as freehand sketching and makeup real-
sult of a computational process in which the user has
ization (Sanguinetti and Kraus 2011). It combines
to manipulate geometrical concepts through a pro-
also mathematics, non-Euclidian geometry, fractal
gram (visual or textual). The student has also to be
design and design knowledge to create a design pro-
aware that the parametric model is defined by a set
cess by iteration. This educational approach gives the
of heterogeneous elements (geometric or positional
opportunity to students to apprehend the many ap-
numerical constraints) put in relation to form a coher-
plication fields of parametric modeling that go be-
ent whole (de Boissieu 2013) and the design logic of
yond the expected framework of algorithmically gen-
the model creates the complex relation sets as a net-
erated forms.
work of associations (Oxman and Oxman 2013). An-
other topic, consequence of the latter subject is that
ANALYSE STEP (MULTI-LEVELS)
the result of the computational modeling process is
A parametric model is based on both an explicit rep-
not simply a shape or an object but provides the pos-
resentation of an object and a conceptual represen-
sibility of a wide (or infinite) space of design solutions.
tation containing the parameters and the operations
The output variations can be achieved by the vari-
(Agbodan et al. 1999). It is a dual structure, with on
ations of the parameters included in the schematic
the one hand the geometric shape and on the other
structure of the model. In this way of thinking, we
hand the algorithm. But to implement the algorithm
can say that the design method comes out of the lin-
that in turn will compute the geometry, it is first nec-
ear and vertical design process only controlled by the
essary to analyze the intended shape in order to iden-
architect. Every specialist steps in the first stages of
tify its parameters and the generative operations.
the architectural project development. The last im-
The analyze step starts by the definition of the geo-
portant prior information for the lessons is that the
metric, physical and logical operators and the entities
designer himself decides what parameters to use and
characterizing the different features of the intended
what the range amplitude of the variations is the
model. This process is based on the formalization of
most relevant. In the next section of this paper, we
the geometrical knowledge required to design the
will expose in our respective education how we ex-
parametric model. At first, the concepts of the field
plore different methods about construction of para-
under study have to be named, structured and pri-
metric design models and their outcomes, like the
oritized to aid in the organization of the knowledge
passage from sketch to logic model schema, the in-
of the domain. It defines a model that is a synthetic

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 151

 and abstract representation of reality allowing a bet-
ter understanding of it in the context of a determined
purpose. This knowledge model identifies and de-
fines every feature of a shape and its relationships
with other features. Knowledge has to be modeled
in order to make explicit the geometrical constraints
(i.e. the relationships) that govern the spatial proper-
ties of the entities (i.e. the features) and linked them.
Only then it is possible to develop the design rules
that generated the final shape. Moreover, once the
geometric knowledge of the studied object is mod-
eled, it can be enhanced with semantic knowledge
such as physical properties (acoustics, lightning, etc.)
according to the purpose of the project (analysis, sim-
ulations and manufacturing). The analyze step is sup-
ported by sketching activities. Sketching as a free-
hand drawing activity helps students to quickly rep-
resent the different step characterizing the modeling
process (Schon 1984). They use it also to identify and
characterize the major entities (geometrical, logical)
used to materialize these steps. Using sketches, stu-
dent can analyze the modeled object features and
imagine different ways to create a parametric model
of the aimed object (architectural or structural issue)
(Gallas and Delfosse 2015).The drawing, the modi-
fication and the annotation of the sketching activ-
ity create an iterative process that supports the op-
timization of the parametric model (Sanguinetti and
Abdelmohsen 2007).
IMPLEMENTATION STEP
Architecture students are not intended to be expert
on programming. They may, however, be considered
as end-user programmers who "write computer pro-
grams to satisfy a specific need, but programming is
not their primary job function" (Lewis et al. 2009).
Since 2003, visual programming languages have be-
come popular among design communities as they al-
low students to focus on the problem solving activ-
ities rather than on the syntax of the programming
language (Giordano and Maiorana 2015). Thus mod-
ern CAD tools are very similar to flowcharts. They
share a visual program syntax that uses geometrical
152 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
symbols to map the flow of relations from parameters
through operations, decision, etc. (Marttila-Kontio
2011). In CAD, designers have to switch between the
programming environment and the model view sev-
eral times to make even the most simple modifica-
tions and evaluate their effects on the model, which
results in a loss of focus and efficiency (Maleki and
Woodbury 2010). The duration of the definition and
the transformation of the parametric model depend
on the designer knowledge level of parametric mod-
eling method and tools. Experts users can reduce
time spend on the parametric model generation and
more focus on the design activities (supported by the
generated parametric model). For novice uses, mod-
eling activity is considered as an additive constraint
that influences the design process. They spend the
most part of their designing time to create the para-
metric model and not to operate it to support the
design process. We propose a method (material-
ized by a physical device) to support the transla-
tion of the parametric model generation steps re-
sulting from the analyzing step and materialized by
sketches. We create a physical device called paramet-
ric puzzle integrating rectangular components (tabs)
that describes the major geometric and logical enti-
ties used to describe the modeling process. Design-
ers are asked to translate analyzed sketches repre-
senting the parametric modeling steps into a phys-
ical algorithm workflow very similar to flowcharts.
This method allows a high level of modification and
evaluation of the parametric workflow breaking away
from the complexity generated by parametric mod-
eling tools. Designer could generate different work-
flows and modify them to define the most optimized
approach (using less number of entities and opera-
tions).
EXPERIMENTATION STEP
Parametric modeling is often used to design and ex-
plore new architectural and structural solutions char-
acterized by a high level of complexity. To achieve
this task, the designer needs to evaluate the gener-
ated instances behavior and their ability to support
design constraints. The evaluation results helps de-
signer to select the most pertinent solutions and by
the way the most pertinent model parameters. The
first experimentation level is a virtual evaluation real-
ized using simulation tools and algorithms linked to
the parametric model. The association of the para-
metric model and the simulation tools creates an it-
erative process structured on three activities: pro-
pose, evaluate and assess. Using the iterative pro-
cess, the designer can integrate different design con-
straints (translated in logical, geometrical and physi-
cal operations) and propose a collection of optimized
configurations. The second level of implementation
aims to evaluate physically the behavior of the gen-
erated solutions. It is a confrontation step with the
physical and material reality of the designed object.
It help designer to determinate if the designed ob-
ject could support the real constraints. The material
experimentation is implemented by the realization
of the project (or object) components and the eval-
uation of their behavior. The use of physical models
and mock-ups is one of the most pertinent technics
of material experimentation. Designers can visualize
and physically evaluate if the designed object satis-
fies their intentions and verifies all the design con-
straints. They can modify and transform the physi-
cal model to ameliorate its performance or integrate
new constraints. By this way, physical object is used
as a design support device that influence and modify
the parametric model to integrate the new features.
The experimentation step is the lowest abstraction
level of the parametric design process. At this step,
the designer has all the information about the mod-
eled object and its modeling process. These informa-
tion are progressively defined through analyze and
implementation steps. In the next part of this paper
we will present some of the pedagogical experiences
integrating (at different levels) this parametric mod-
eling method.
METHOD IMPLEMENTATION
The presented method is integrated in different
courses and workshops of digital modeling and fabri-
cation from three European universities. We present
the courses structures and purposes and how para-
metric modeling is integrated. The first institution
is the faculty of Architecture of the University of
Liège (Belgium) proposes for the fifth consecutive
year an optional course in expression and commu-
nication, worth 2 credits within the framework of
a two-year master program for Architecture. The
course based on a previous experience developed
from 2003 to 2005 (Bianchi and Defawes 2005), is in-
tended to develop themes relating to formal and ma-
terial research as part of the approach to architec-
tural projects: it combines, digitally, the emergence
of form, its control, and the media devoted to the
materialization of designed objects (in their broadest
sense). This relevant approach is reflected in the use
of tools, which can aid design and lead to increased
control over the project. In addition, the use of de-
sign assistance tools offers methodological opportu-
nities.The analyzing step is supported by the integra-
tion of mathematical theories behind the research
of architects concerned. The mathematical theories
help students to define the morphological structure
of the modeled object. The integration of mathemat-
ical concepts gives to students an analyzing context
that simplifies the definition of the geometric oper-
ation and entities structuring the parametric model.
The courses continues by introducing the students to
the use of programming language used in the chosen
modeling tool to generate complex 3D forms and to
control them. Students learn to manipulate standard
commands in architectural software packages, with
a view to creating complex geometrical forms. The
example integrated below (see figure 1) shows how
parametric equations of wellknown curves are inte-
grated to define the project concept and the para-
metric model features.
The second institution is the school of architec-
ture of Nancy (France) that combines for the sixth
consecutive year parametric design courses and a
five-day workshop within the framework of a gradu-
ate program in digital culture for Architecture (Shad-
khou and Bignon 2009). The course is indented to
deepen the knowledge of students of methods and
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 153

digital tools in computer-aided design through the
use of new generation parametric techniques based
on visual programming (Grasshopper). The work-
shop of digital design and fabrication, flowing the
courses, is the spearhead of parametric education in
the program. It tries to experiment contemporary ar-
chitectural practices (non-standard architecture de-
sign and complex shape generation) using paramet-
ric modeling, 3D printing machines and digital fab-
rication devices creating a digital continuum from
digital file to physical object (Marin et al 2009). The
workshop creates a design process to enhance archi-
tectural shape exploration and materiality by using
parametric modeling and digital fabrication tools.
The students use a reference object (from the nature)
as a base model to design an exhibition space. They
identify the formal structure of the reference object
and represent using sketches. The students use the
154 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
Figure 1
Example of
student’s work
using mathematical
functions to
generate the
project shape
identified structure to propose an architectural so-
lution and materialize it using parametric modeling
tools. The designed response respects the functional
and material constraints explained at the beginning
of the workshop. The sketches (see figure 2) are used
as a design tool to materialize the designed solution
and define its different modeling steps.
In this way, the students participating on the
workshop use simple paper model and more elab-
orated mockup to experiment the generated para-
metric model structure. They use the physical model
to determinate how to join the project components.
The result of this first experimentation was integrated
in the parametric model by adding new geometric
functions generating the assembling system. A sec-
ond virtual experimentation based on 3D modeling
help students to validate the assembling system and
to start the fabrication process.
Figure 2
The use of sketches
as design and
implementation
media

The Faculty of Applied Sciences of the Univer-
sity of Liège and its Engineer-Architect Department
(Belgium) integrates parametric modeling as a part
of Computer Aided Design courses. We propose a de-
sign exercise where students used parametric model-
ing tools to generate original forms integrating struc-
tural and construction constraints (create an interac-
tion between structure and form). It combines, digi-
tal tools for modeling and fabrication tasks, and phys-
ical tools for the parametric analysis process. The
analysis step comes before the modeling one to help
Figure 3
Physical model
experimentation
and mock-up
realization
students to focus on parametric model structure and
features and not on the use of the modeling tool
(Davis et al. 2011). We use the parametric puzzle (see
figure 3) as a main device to analyze the designed ob-
ject and define the main parametric modelling steps.
We imagine the parametric modeling exercise as a re-
verse design process. The process starts by analyz-
ing a physical model (mock up) representing a pavil-
ion with a complex structure shape. They identify
the structure components and tries to imagine how
they could be designed. Sketching activity is used to

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 155

 represent modeling process steps as a high-level ab-
straction activity.
The defined modeling steps are materialized us-
ing the parametric puzzle components. The students
used it to translate the sketches in as graphical al-
gorithms integrating geometrical and logical entities
as a middle-level abstraction step. The device helps
them to generate different ways of modeling and to
select the most pertinent. The last step of the model-
ing process integrates the translation of the graphical
algorithm using physical components to a graphical
algorithm using Grasshopper components as a low-
level abstraction activity. The use of the parametric
puzzle as a parametric design device help students to
create different levels of abstraction during the para-
metric modeling process.
CONCLUSION
This paper presents an advanced design method
adapted to pedagogical architectural design con-
text. The proposed method is structured in three
156 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
major steps: analyze, implementation and experi-
mentation. We integrate different pedagogical de-
vices to support the proposed method activities. The
method activities and devices were evaluated in dif-
ferent design contexts to determinate their efficien-
cies.The evaluation of the project realized with stu-
dents from the Faculty of Architecture of the Univer-
sity of Liège (Belgium) shows that the integration of
the mathematical theories during the analyze step
helps them to define the structure of the designed
models (not only the project form). The designed
models are well optimized generating controlled
forms and including reversibility functions.The use of
the parametric puzzle device was experimented dur-
ing the digital modeling courses of the Faculty of Ap-
plied Sciences of the University of Liège (Belgium).
The group of students using this device understands
quicker the parametric modeling method and how to
use it in real design context (compared to students
from precedent years). They use this process to an-
alyze other complex design context and to define
Figure 4
Students using the
parametric puzzle
device to define a
parametric
modeling process
(quickly) more efficient parametric models.The inte-
gration of the prototyping devices during the exper-
imentation step helps students to integrate material
constraints during the design process. This process
was experimented during the digital design and fab-
rication workshop organized by the School of Archi-
tecture of Nancy (France). The evaluation of the de-
signed projects and the design process shows that
the integration of experimentation activities and de-
vices create an exchange between design and mate-
rial. This integration process generates new design
solutions and a new materiality. This method is part
of a global research work that aims to enhance the
integration of digital design aid methods to create
a digital continuum from concept to physical object.
The next step is to define an optimized process for the
integration of the digital continuum in design stu-
dios.
REFERENCES
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model architecture for parametrics. In : Journal for
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ence d'enseignement: « Architecture paramétrable
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de Boissieu, A 2013, Modélisation paramétrique en con-
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lette
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: un changement de paradigme en conception
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sual scripts: Improving collaboration through mod-
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tural Computing, 9, pp. 361-375
Gallas, MA and Delfosse, V 2015 'Sketch-based and para-
metric modeling Association of two-externalization
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shop on Software Engineering Foundations for End-
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a continuum, Chania
Marttila-Kontio, M 2011, Visual Data Flow Programming
Languages, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Eastern Fin-
land
Oxman, R 2008, 'Digital architecture as a challenge for
design pedagogy: theory, knowledge, models and
medium', Design Studies, 29, pp. 99-102
Oxman, R and Oxman, R 2013, Theories of the Digital in
Architecture, Routledge
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tion, Birkhauser, Basel
Sanguinetti, P and Abdelmohsen, S 2007 'On the Strate-
gic Integration of Sketching and Parametric Mod-
eling in Conceptual Design', Proceedings of ACADIA
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[1] http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Promo/Generative%2
0Components/default.htm
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_Modelling_101_v3.pdf
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 157
Programming for Architecture: The Students’ Point of
View
Rita Aguiar1 , Afonso Gonçalves2
1,2
INESC-ID, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon
1
rita.aguiar@tecnico.ulisboa.pt 2 afogoncalves@gmail.com

The following paper presents a reflection on computational design education in

Architecture schools. For approaching this subject, the specific case of the
Programming for Architecture course taught at Instituto Superior Técnico -
Universty of Lisbon is presented and analyzed through the students' point of view.
The aim of the course is to focus on representation methods through
programming, introducing the fundamentals of computational approach to
architectural design. We will explain and discuss the subject teaching methods,
the structure of the course and the school environment. Also we will express the
students' opinion regarding the class organization, the contents of the program
and the usefulness of programming, as well as suggestions for an improved
strategy for teaching computational methods to Architecture students.

Keywords: Programming classes, Students opinion, Learning methods, Rosetta,

3D modelling

INTRODUCTION plement this new approach to architectural design

The pace at which CAD tools have crept up on the
workflow of architects and designers alike in later
years has meant that the teaching of such tools are
now an integral part in most, if not all, university cur-
ricula. However, the road to implementing these new
tools in a pedagogical context, with many of them
requiring different ways of thinking and problem-
solving strategies, has not been without its setbacks
and obstacles (Duarte, 2007). Divergent opinions are
even greater on the subject of introducing subjects
related to the field of Computer Science, leading to
a discussion on the importance and to what extent
programming courses support architecture students'
way of thinking (Wurzer et al 2011).
The most logical way to understand the suc-
cesses and failures of programs that have tried to im-
is to know how students feel about them. Knowing
and understanding the way Architecture students are
receptive to these relatively new concepts is an im-
portant step towards guaranteeing the success and
future motivation of young designers in using these
tools.
The aim of this study is, thus, to understand, from
the students' point of view, the way such concepts
are received by students, using for that purpose a
specific case study observed at Instituto Superior Téc-
nico (IST). IST is an Engineering institution in Lisbon
where every year students from the Integrated Mas-
ter's Degree in Architecture take a course on Pro-
gramming for Architecture (PA).
The study tries to focus on structural aspects of
teaching programming and computational design,

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 159

 especially on the difficulties and expectations of the tural projects. These include recursion, constructive
students regarding what they experience every year geometry, understanding and using data structures,
as part of their school curricula. Many issues reported higher-order functions and parametric representa-
by the students might often be more conjectural tion and processing of surfaces and curves. Figures
and/or too tied to the institutional nature wherein 1 and 2 are some examples of what students should
these subjects are taught so trying to keep the study be able to accomplish by the end of the semester.
focused on the structural issues behind their opin-
ions was of major concern for us. Figure 1
The students were approached with open infor- Example of
mal questions during interviews in addition to a for- implementation of
mal survey answered by 30 students. Based on their recursion and
opinions and in the observation of what happened randomness
during the semester, we tried to do a synthesis of behavior
what we consider essential and more representative
of what students think and feel. After this reflection
on the case study, we present some suggestions of
possible improvements that could contribute to mo-
tivate Architecture students to have more interest in Figure 2
programming and to use it in their future activity. Example of
processing data
CASE STUDY structures
Programming Language
The programming language taught to students in
PA is Racket, a general purpose, multi-paradigm pro-
gramming language of the Lisp/Scheme family. The
language is used in a variety of contexts such as
scripting, general-purpose programming, computer Figure 3
science education, and research [1]. The students use The final project of
Racket native programming environment - DrRacket, the 2014/2015
to write their programs with the aid of a specific li- academic year.
brary of pre-defined functions called Rosetta. With
Rosetta, students have access to a multitude of func-
tions that they can embed in Racket code to create
and manipulate geometry in a CAD application, such
as AutoCAD or Rhinoceros. Rosetta is a program-
ming environment that supports multiple program-
ming languages (known as front-ends) and multiple
CAD tools (known as back-ends) (Lopes 2012).
Class structure
The PA course is taught weekly in three units of one-
Course subjects
hour theoretical lectures, and one unit of two-hour
During the theoretical component of this course, stu-
laboratorial lectures.
dents are confronted with several concepts neces-
The theoretical lectures are administered in the
sary for programming and creating relevant architec-
traditional method supported by interactive slides

160 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Figure 4 containing demonstrations that result in the direct
Level of interest application of the subjects. The teacher explains the
showed by the way the computer processes the code exhibited in
students the slides, helping students understand its execution.
The laboratorial lectures are administered at one
of the university's computer labs where students are
challenged to solve exercises related to what they
learned during the theoretical lessons. A detailed
guide with illustrations of the intended results is
given to students. The semester ends with a final ex-
ercise where students are paired and asked to model
Figure 5 a parameterized version of a well known building,
Importance of previously chosen by the students themselves. Fig-
programming in ure 3 is an example of this exercise
architectural
curricula STUDY RESULTS AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Raised interest and experienced difficulties
The conducted study showed that, generally, stu-
dents were impressed with the potential of pro-
gramming. As observed in Figure 4, most students
showed great interest on the covered subjects when
asked about the "interest that the subject raised" on
Figure 6 a scale of 0 to 10.
Difficulty in On Figure 5 we also notice that students under-
assimilating the stood and accepted the importance that program-
concepts ming can have on the Architecture curricula.
However, the results of Figure 4 show a greater
dispersion than Figure 5. It is possible that this has
to do with the fact that students expressed some ini-
tial difficulty in using an algorithmic language that
is described through textual code with demanding
syntactic and semantic rules. These difficulties were
well expressed by the interviewees, including the stu-
Figure 7 dents with higher grades. This is increased by the
Rhythm of the fact that most of them had no prior contact with such
presentation of the subjects: in 30 students, only 7 had previous contact
contents with programming. This leads them to show some
difficulty in developing the ambiguity-free thinking
perspective that is required for working with comput-
ers.

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 161

 On Figure 6 we can observe that the answers col-
lected do not seem to demonstrate that there has
been a great difficulty assimilating the concepts
taught in class but again we notice some dispersion
in the answers.
The interpretation of this result might be on what
students understand as assimilation. If they are think-
ing in the context of the theoretical lectures, then
the clarity with which the teacher exposes the issues
might be an important factor that leads to a more fa-
cilitated assimilation of the contents, not necessarily
meaning students do not find them difficult.
Understanding what the teacher says does not
mean that the knowledge is internally understood
and interiorized since this can only occur when the
information is organized and processed according to
the mental structure of the student.
This is where difficulties can appear. According
to what we observed, in the beginning there were
not major difficulties although it is a matter that gen-
erally students do not consider to be easy. The exer-
cises were simple and the results of the first test were
reasonable.
The difficulties started to appear in exercises that
involved the use of more elaborate and demanding
concepts having a great demand in terms of devel-
oping a greater analytic capacity in interpreting what
is being asked and also in finding strategies for prob-
lem solving. Given the way the question was asked,
the possibility of bias in the matter of a psychological
issue of personal self-esteem must be also taken into
account.
According to Figure 7, when we asked if stu-
dents found the course timeframe appropriate, the
results show the general opinion that the program is
too extensive for the class time. This, then, requires
an accelerated rhythm that, for many students, does
not provide enough time for developing and inte-
grating the information received in class. The con-
sequences may lead to students feeling discouraged
to keep attending class, especially considering how
demanding and time consuming the rest of the Ar-
chitecture degree is. If for whatever reason a student
162 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
skips a lesson, it is much more difficult for him to fol-
low the next classes.
Students expressed a great emphasis on the im-
portance of practical classes since they feel the need
to interact with the computer in order to verify the
effect of the code they elaborate.
One of the obstacles encountered regarding the
final project was how to manage time efficiently and
apply the knowledge learned in class, as well as
knowing how to organize the programmatic content
in a systematic way. Starting is where students feel
the greater hardships since they have to take what
is complex and simplify it to the point that it can
be translated into code. There should also be a pre-
viously understanding of the geometry and mathe-
matics involved in the project design. The elabora-
tion of a more complex project benefits from the use
of functions that are introduced at latter stages of the
course.
If the students start thinking in the project early,
they do not have the most important means to elab-
orate it. If they start it very late, then the time they
have left is short. This resulted in the teacher giving
a good help, presenting in classes the key functions
for its elaboration.
When asked their opinion on "Should this sub-
ject be extended to another semester?", 12 students
answered "yes" while 17 answered "no". Naturally,
their position towards this question is dependent
on many factors, such as the interest that the sub-
ject provoked on them, the difficulties they felt and
the perception of the importance that this will have
in their future careers. According to the interviews
there seems to be a consensus that if the subject was
divided in two semesters the course would be much
easier to follow, especially in regards to the final
project which could be done in a second semester.
Opinions on the impact of programming in
architectural design
In general, students were deeply impressed by the
subject of programming, to the point where they
look at design in a new perspective.
 Students realized the potential of programming
in architectural design, especially in the extent to
which with a few lines of code they can draw shapes
that are intangible by either their manual abilities
or the restrictions imposed by CAD tools (Leitão et
al 2010). The ease with which, through variation
of function parameters, students can produce varia-
tions of a model is also a very helpful feature when
searching for the ideal form to their designs. But
here the students' impression is that programming is
only useful when designing and drawing monumen-
tal, complex and exotic buildings. Students doubt
that programming can be useful for the type of work
which has to be elaborated during the Architecture
degree.
Potential use in other subjects
One of the aspects to which students expressed great
interest was the integration of what they learn at PA
and the other courses they attend, especially with Ar-
chitecture Project. In 30 students inquired, 20 an-
swered positively to this integration. Obviously this
requires that professors in charge of these courses
show acceptance and willingness to having students
make use of programming in their classes. But the re-
ality shows that many are used to a more traditional
modus operandi for architectural design and remain
skeptical and not receptive to such integration. How-
ever, if the teaching of computer science subjects is
to have any success in the Architecture curricula, then
Figure 8 they must be tailored to the needs of the architects.
Thoughts on using Students learn best when they see a connection be-
programming on tween what they are learning and their current or fu-
future Architecture ture needs (Duarte 2005).
projects The use of programming in other disciplines will
have to come from students' own initiative regard-
ing their own projects, but there is also a time pres-
sure to consider in the equation. During the pro-
gramming course, students learn how to elaborate
small independent projects but they do not exercise
their integration into broader projects. Students who
had the subject recently do not yet feel confident
enough to risk using methods that are still not com-
monly used on academic design disciplines. If stu-
dents had the programming course a long time be-
fore, unless they continued their training with pro-
gramming since then, they fear they will have forgot-
ten much of what they learned, feeling even less se-
cure to integrate this knowledge in their projects.
Use of programming in their future career
as architects
Figure 8 synthesizes the answers to a question re-
garding the students' thoughts on using program-
ming on their future Architecture projects.
The dispersion of the answers may reveal some
degree of uncertainty regarding the perspectives
while mode 5 may indicate a certain hesitation in the
answers. The mean value is 5.2 while the median is 5.
Through informal talks with the students we
could conclude that, generally, students feel that the
way Architecture is practiced in Portugal does not
create high expectations for the use of programming,
while in other countries, several studios already seek
professionals with programming skills.
We also concluded from the interviews that there
were students interested in the possibility of pro-
gramming for other backends such as Revit and
ArchiCAD because sometimes AutoCAD is simply
unfeasible. The team behind the development of
Rosetta has already understood this importance and
is actively working on having this integration.
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 163
 SUGGESTIONS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE
RESULTS
The focus of academic education is the student,
hence the importance of hearing what students have
to say. It is crucial to understand the educational
background in order for a teacher to employ the most
appropriate methods and communication strategies.
With the proper methodology students feel more in-
terest in further extending their knowledge and skills.
What follows now are a set of suggestions that
the authors consider to be relevant in addressing the
issues presented previously taking into account the
profile of Architecture students.
Program and teaching methods
Initial motivation. We consider of great importance
that, from the very beginning, students be amazed
with the potential of programming. Consequently, in
order to motivate students to become interested in
programming, the teacher should find ways to capti-
vate the students' interest, probably through images
of great visual impact during the very first lesson, and
showing how few lines of code can produce surpris-
ing results, and give examples of the powerful effect
that parameter variation can have in the resulting im-
age and its usefulness in the search of the desired
shape.
Type of lectures. Considering that proficiency in pro-
gramming requires practice it seems more suitable to
have a mixed system of theoretical-practical classes,
instead of the traditional method of entirely theoret-
ical lessons separated from practice. Students under-
stand programming concepts better if they have the
opportunity to test their programs right away.
The suggestion is not to undermine the impor-
tance of theory but rather understanding the bene-
fits of interconnection with practice. Switching be-
tween more expository stages and more experimen-
tal stages will help keep the interest of students and
motivate them at later stages.
Time management. It is important to tailor the pro-
grammatic content of a programming course to the
time students have available. This adjustment can be
164 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
made in extent and/or in depth.
With respect to extent, without undermining a
general knowledge of all the capabilities of program-
ming, there could be a selection of what is more
important in Architecture use. In what concerns
depth, the best solution would be beginning with
very simple examples and deepening with progres-
sively more complex examples till the available time
for the theme is reached. Thus, the depth attained
would depend on the ease with which students are
learning.
Presentation of the various themes in parallel to
the conception of a more elaborate project. Dur-
ing classes, students learn through small exercises
the various components of the program.
It could be more beneficial if, from the begin-
ning, students were presented with a more extended
exercise instead, that also made sense as an archi-
tectural whole, especially conceived for this purpose.
This exercise could incorporate the various concepts
that are to be learned through the subject. This
means that some of the smaller exercises executed
during the semester could be directly incorporated
in this project. This way, students could be taught
from the beginning about how to approach a more
complex exercise in addition to preparing them for
the final project.
Selection of exercises oriented to a future use.
The study that we conducted shows that students do
not feel very encouraged to use what they learned in
their works on other project subjects.
One specific exercise the students are shown
during class is how to take an urban site plan (Figure
9), provided by municipal services or topographers,
and develop the equivalent 3D version with the aid of
programming. This involves cleaning spurious data
from the drawing and extracting relevant geometry
information from a CAD application to use it in the
programming environment.
After a study of what students normally do in
these subjects, some of the exercises in practical
classes could be conceived so that they could be ap-
plied in the project subject.
Figure 9
Exercise of taking a
2D site plan and
turning it into a 3D
model. Downtown
of Lisbon City.
From the visual to the abstract. During the last
decade, it has been discussed how far programming
courses support the architecture students' way of
thinking (Wurzer et al 2011). It has also been reported
that Architecture takes on a much more problem-
oriented approach to design than the algorithmic
thinking behind programming (Lawson 2005). What
seems certain is that Architecture students have a
very strong visual mindset so focusing on visual com-
munication during the teaching process should be
privileged. The visual representation may even be
the starting point for understanding more abstract
concepts, as illustrated farther in connection with the
concepts of recursion and higher-order functions.
Regarding what has been mentioned, we think
that for an Architecture student it is preferable to
start presenting the concept in a visual form first, us-
ing for that purpose a simple example that is more
relatable to Architecture rather than presenting com-
plex or purely mathematical examples.
Simple examples have the advantage of captur-
ing the maximum attention of the student on the
new concept, saving them the effort to understand
other complex aspects of the example. This could
eventually constitute a kind of background noise and
prevent the student from looking clearly at the new
concept.
Sequence of the presentation of the contents. The
suggestions we present in this section take into ac-
count what we proposed before and are intended
for a type of course where students use a front-end
programming language where they can embed func-
tions from a library that produces objects in a CAD
tool as backend.
After the initial motivation we referred before,
students could have their first contact with the com-
puter by means of elaborating a simple program in
which they would experiment and use the program-
ming language and functions from the library to gen-
erate a simple image in the CAD tool. Then, after the
students had elaborated this, the teacher could ex-
plain, in a schematic way, the architecture of the soft-
ware being used.
In connection to this, the teacher could begin
teaching the language in a more formal way. When
appropriate, students can execute examples and ex-
ercises in the computer improving the comprehen-
sion and helping maintaining a good mood.
We think there is an advantage of presenting
functions and the associated concepts from the li-
brary as soon as possible to be used in more visual ex-
amples that may help students to understand more
formal and abstract concepts of the language.
During the semester, the choice of contents and
the way they are presented should take into account
that this course is aimed at Architecture students and
not Computer Science students. Although many ef-
forts have been made in the past to do so, we con-
sider that this matter could still be improved.
Concepts more difficult to achieve. As previously
stated, several powerful concepts that we commonly
use in programming, such as recursion and higher-
order functions, are more difficult to assimilate, con-
sidering that they represent a new way of thinking for
most students.
In the case of recursion, the immediate percep-
tion of the spectacular effect and usefulness of its use
in solving architectural problems would facilitate a
quicker apprehension of this concept by the student.
The concept of higher-order functions is more diffi-
cult to grasp and so more time and observation of
new useful examples have to convince the student of
its potential.
Recursion. In order to contextualize the matters be-
ing discussed, let us look at the concrete example of
a simplified drawing of a staircase. The intention is to
draw the representation of this staircase with n steps,
starting at a point P and with a riser length of r and
a tread length of t. The recursive construction can
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 165
 be well understood according to figure 10 retrieved produces as image, another function whose graph is
from the teacher's book. obtained from the graph of the first function by a ver-
In reality, the concept of recursion is visually well tical translation applied by the vector (0,1).
represented in the figure which translates verbal lan- The visual illustration of the function shift1 ap-
guage describing the process of drawing an n-step plied to the function square would be such as in Fig-
staircase the same as drawing one step first and then ure 13.
based on it draw a staircase with n-1 steps.
Figure 10
The representation of the algorithm and its im-
A simplified stair
plementation and coding should follow, so that the
and the recursive
students feel the effect immediately, in particular the
process of how it is
variation of the parameters.
drawn.
Higher Order Functions. Before presenting it in an
abstract way, the concept could be apprehended in
an experimental way through the elaboration of a se-
quence like the following:
The teacher asks the students to define a func-
tion that, given a point, creates a cylindrical single
column of certain dimensions centered at point P. Figure 11
Next, the teacher asks the students to define a A series of
function that uses the previous one, but not given cylindrical columns
as argument to this new function, and creates an
alignment with a certain orientation of n cylindrical
columns at a certain distance from each other.
The execution of the program for 5 columns
would produce an effect as can be seen in Figure 11.
Continuing, the teacher would then ask the stu-
dents to repeat the same steps but for creating pris- Figure 12
matic columns. The execution would produce the ef- A series of prismatic
fect in Figure 12. columns
Finally, the teacher would present the solution of
a single function capable of producing the same re-
sult as before but with the particularity that it would
receive as argument any of the two previously de-
fined functions to create a single column as opposed
to having to use two different functions to produce
alignments, one for each type of column.
This way, and simultaneously with the apprehen-
sion of the concept, the students would realize the Figure 13
benefits of the use of higher order functions. Visual
Next, a very simple mathematic example could representation of
be showed like the following. the function shift1
Let us define a function named shift1 that re- applied to the
ceives as argument a real function of real variable and function (1)

166 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

 A very suggestive description in mathematical lan-
guage is:
(f → (x → f (x) + 1)) (1)
This type of description could also be used to visu-
ally illustrate the semantics of the execution of com-
mands of the given language.
As an example, and to illustrate the semantic be-
hind Racket's code execution, the usage of the func-
tion shift1, when given as argument the function
square and the result applied to the value 5 could be
suggestively presented as in Figure 14.
Figure 14
Visual
representation of
the semantics of
the use of shift1 in
Racket language
Continuation of the theme in new courses
The students' general opinion is that one semester is
not enough time for the extent and level of demand
in the course's program, and if it was divided and
complemented in two semesters it would be more
accessible. Yet, when confronted with the prospect
of an additional semester, 12 students expressed a fa-
vorable opinion and 17 unfavorable.
This can be explained by the fact that, according
to what we have stated throughout this work, stu-
dents show interest in regards to programming but
the difficulties experienced and the unmet expecta-
tions do not motivate them to go further. If that is in-
deed the case, then we can legitimately assume that
the reorganization of the course's program into two
semesters may allow the first semester to be much
less overwhelming, more attractive and could moti-
vate students to continue in a second semester.
Envisaging a scenario of a programming course
divided in two semesters, a more introductory but
motivating first semester could prepare students
for the second semester. Throughout the second
semesters, students would then elaborate a project
using the proper methodology, possibly even explor-
ing the application of programming in other areas
of their curriculum. A second semester could even
be optional as not to force students, who are clearly
not interested in the theme of programming, to con-
tinue.
The question is whether the proposal to add a
second semester would, in this context, be welcomed
by the body responsible for coordinating the Archi-
tecture course.
Integration in other disciplines of learned
methods
Finally, it is very important to settle for convinc-
ing those responsible for architecture courses and
faculty the importance of increasing programming
nowadays and especially in the future so that there
is an openness and willingness to reinforce learning
these methods and to introduce its use in other sub-
jects.
CONCLUSION
A study of a particular case was presented. All the in-
formation regarding this study was based on the ex-
perience of students that attended the PA course dur-
ing the 1st semester of the school year of 2014/2015,
at Instituto Superior Técnico.
We concluded that, although students expressed
their interest in programming and accepted the im-
portance that programming can have on the aca-
demic Architecture curricula, they felt it is unlikely
they would continue using and integrating what
they learned in other subjects or in their own de-
sign projects. This is due to many factors among
which we consider most relevant the lack of applica-
bility the subjects have on the students' work in other
courses, the difficulty in managing the time needed
for elaborating the final project, and the lack of en-
couragement shown in other courses in trying to in-
tegrate new digital design tools in their educational
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 167
 programs.
We hope this study provides useful reflections
on this subject and that will contribute with rele-
vant suggestions geared towards an improved strat-
egy for teaching computational methods to Architec-
ture students. For a broader view on teaching meth-
ods and other stories of success and failure this study
would need to be expanded to other contexts. As
for future work, it seems pertinent to approach stu-
dents from other backgrounds, other educational in-
stitutions and possibly even professionals who make
daily use of these technologies in their practice. It
may also prove useful to compare the results of our
studies with other similar analysis that have already
been developed in other institutions.
ture', 1ST eCAADe Regional International Workshop
Leitão, A., Cabecinhas, F. and Martins, S. 2010 'Revisit-
ing the Architecture Curriculum: The programming
perspective', FUTURE CITIES [28th eCAADe Conference
Proceedings, Switzerland, pp. 81-88
Leitão, A. and Proença, S. 2014 'On the Expressive Power
of Programming Languages for Generative Design -
The Case of Higher-Order Functions', Proceedings of
the 32nd eCAADe Conference, England, pp. 257-266
Lopes, J. 2012, Modern Programming for Generative De-
sign, Master's Thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico/Uni-
versity of Lisbon
Wurzer, G., Alaçam, S. and Lorenz, W. 2011 'How to Teach
Architects (Computer) Programming: A Case Study',
29th eCAADe Conference Proceedings, Slovenia, pp.
51-56
[1] http://racket-lang.org/

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was partially supported by national funds
through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnolo-
gia (FCT) with reference UID/CEC/50021/2013, and
by the Rosetta project under contract PTDC/ATP-
AQI/5224/2012.
We thank our colleagues who contributed to the
elaboration of the survey and attended the inter-
views, although they may not agree with all of the
interpretations/conclusions of this paper. We would
also like to thank Ana Rita Santos and Sandra Mon-
teiro for their help in the revision phases.

REFERENCES
Celani, G and Vaz, C 2012, 'CAD Scripting and Visual Pro-
gramming Languages for Implementing Computa-
tional Design Concepts: A Comparison From a Ped-
agogical Point of View', International Journal of Archi-
tectural Computing, 18, pp. 122-137
Duarte, J. 2005 'Towards a New Curricula on New Tech-
nologies in Architecture', Giaconia, P. (ed.), Script:
Spot on Schools, Editrice Compositori, pp. 40-45
Duarte, J. 2007 'Inserting New Technologies in Under-
graduate Architectural Curricula', Predicting the Fu-
ture 25th eCAADe Conference Proceedings, Germany,
pp. 423-430
Lawson, B 2005, How designers think: the design process
demystified, Architectural Press, Burlington
Leitão, A. 2013 'Teaching Computer Science for Architec-

168 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

 Strategies for Metallic Vault Structures
Aluminium Composite Panels Used as Structural Elements

Pablo Baquero1 , Effimia Giannopoulou2 , Jaime Cavazos3

1
UIC 2 Faberarium 3 Cavazos Engineers
1,2
www.faberarium.org 3 www.Cavazos.gr
1,2
{paniba|efeminno}@faberarium.org 3 jaime@cavazos.gr

This article explains parametric, fabrication and teaching strategies used during
a workshop for constructing a full scale, self supporting, vault metal structure
realized with parametric manufacturing methods. The key aim is to construct an
easy assemble and transportable pavilion, while focusing on new design and
construction methods of a façade system in which the structure, joint and skin will
integrate functions in a unifying structural system. For the investigation, we
explore materials commonly used in façade industry, such as aluminum profiles
and aluminium composite panels (ACP).

Keywords: Spring System Simulation, Catenary, Digital Fabrication and

Construction, ACPs, Aluminium profiles

INTRODUCTION of emerging and dynamic phenomena through se-

In order to achieve a new kind of paradigm for archi- ries of algorithmic strategies for the form-finding op-
tectural practice, through the teaching inside work- timization, structural analysis and cutting patterns of
shops, we are trying to establish a close relation with a structure called Calycas (see figure 1).
the manufacturing industry and take advantage of
Figure 1 the new technological advances in the material sec-
Calycas exhibited tor to demonstrate how parametric strategies and
during Athens digital manufacturing techniques provide effective
International connection between design and production in real
Facade Conference, scale. This workshop research was focus on discrete
October, 2014. surface relaxation geometry (meshes), as construc-
tion system, explore the material usage of aluminum
profiles and ACPs where the typical roles of cladding
and support structure are reversed. The cladding
panels are used as structural elements and the alu-
minium profiles are used as a mesh that weaves the
two elements together. The advantage of using com-
putational tools is to examine the design potentials

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 169

 OBJECTIVES - RESEARCH AREA
The main objective of the workshop was to construct
a real scale pavilion combining two metal materi-
als and to understand the skin facade behavior and
structure.
Vault Finding
Based on the concept that the triangular mesh is the
most efficient from structural point of view and hav-
ing the advantage of planarity of faces (Pottmann et
al. 2007), this investigation starts from testing spring
systems and catenary behaviour on flat triangular
meshes with symmetry in the outline shape and a
center point.
Particle-spring systems are based on lumped
masses, called particles, which are connected by lin-
ear elastic springs. Each spring is assigned a constant
axial stiffness, an initial length, and a damping co-
efficient. Springs generate a force when displaced
from their rest length. (Kilian and Ochsendorf 2005).
The benefits of Particle-Spring Systems and physics
engine simulator (Kangaroo) for form-finding, is that
help us to investigate the behaviour of a catenary in
real time. Similary, previously architects and engi-
neers Antoni Gaudi with its hanging cables, Frei Otto
tensile structures and Eladio Dieste with the Gaus-
sian Vault techniques, have used as main principle
the Robert Hooke law.
Looking at nature as inspiration, the purpose
was to flip the metal catenary structure, optimize the
amount of triangles by applying different physical
170 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
forces goals such as gravity, min max edge lengths,
self-weight loads and six anchor points.
Node Challenges
Emerging from the interdisciplinary field of architec-
tural geometry, the design research of Calycas is en-
gaged with discrete free form structures, multi-layer
surfaces and geometrical problems occurring, while
looking for a construction solution. A very common
method, in order to realize the intended shape of the
vault as steel-glass construction, in principle is easy
to find a 3d triangular mesh, which approximates that
shape, and let beams follow the edges of this mesh,
with glass panels covering the faces. (Wallner and
Pottmann 2011). To follow a similar design logic, it
is necessary to solve problems related with the gen-
eration of the beams and their planarity.
Pottmann has proved that only in triangle
meshes near-spherical, the mesh offset can be at ap-
proximately constant distance and node axis can be
approximately orthogonal to the mesh, which means
an optimized node is a mesh vertex where the central
planes of all emanating beams pass through a fixed
line, the axis of the node (Pottmann 2007). Other-
wise, the beams to meet in the same node axes have
to twist, which results in non-planarity of the beams.
In the case of catenary mesh vaults it is also difficult to
avoid elongated triangles is some parts of the struc-
ture.
Figure 2
Frame and Shell
Visualizations of
distribution of
deflection.
 Structural Speculations ficient construction method, made of laser cut alu-
The collaboration with the façade engineering com- minum folded stripes, connected with threaded rods
pany proved to be effective. Considering material (see figure 4).
aspects, performance and distribution of forces and
loads along the structure's joints, the investigation
ranges from the vault form-finding to the assembly
Figure 3 and how the two case materials are affecting each
Detail of wood other and cooperate under external forces. Materials
connector. were chosen for each structural component based on
Barcelona experience, properties and aesthetics.
workshop, 2013 The intention was to integrate functions by using
one connector and cover the mesh faces with hexag-
onal folded panels in an attempt to test if the ACP
is able to support the lateral forces of the structure.
With the Millipede library of very fast structural anal-
ysis algorithms for linear elastic systems, the beams
are analyzed as frame elements (see figure 2a) and
the mesh as shell element (see figure 2b). The struc-
ture is considered to be fixed to the ground. The ad-
vantage of using this software is that it can work in-
side Grasshopper, so the form-finding is connected
Figure 4
with the FEM analysis. The deflection results of the
LaDose Project
frame analysis for the global structure are helping to
made as part of
identify the weak areas and possible location of rein-
workshop.
forcement of beams, in the bottom of the leg, where
Thessaloniki
an extra folded piece is added. The shell FE analysis
2012-2013
is locating the maximum deflection area, where the
joints proved to need reinforcement in case of extra
loads. The ACP hexagons reduce the deflection of the
aluminum frames due to their rigidity (see figure 2c) .
Computational methods allow high-level integration
and simulation of the geometry. Physical materializa-
tion though, is the best way to test the performance
of the system.
Experience from previous projects was also valu-
able. A similar to Calycas, but wood, structure was
constructed in same scale, with double disc connec-
tion system and no covered faces (see figure 3). An-
other project, related with this research, is the La-
Dose. An hexagonal free-form mesh structure was
the starting point for the fabrication of discrete sur-
faces. For the beam generation, many different pro-
cesses were tested, in order to achieve the most ef-

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 171


WORKSHOP METHODOLOGY
The workshop teaching agenda was arranged in
three phases from design to fabrication: Modeling,
manufacturing and assembling techniques. The goal
was to explain the parametric process, systematize
the geometrical relationships, together for modeling
and manufacturing techniques. Using as an organiz-
ing and teaching method a efficient tool of Grasshop-
per, the cluster, is permitting a clear understanding of
each part and manageable manipulation of the geo-
metrical result in one workflow.
The advantage of breaking a big definition in
many clusters was to find and edit more easily the
information needed, for example, which are the spe-
cific inputs necessary to orient or unroll pieces, while
the outputs of the clusters continue to be linked with
the rest of the definition to update data. The simulta-
neous feedback between each phase, due to all clus-
ters connection, facilitates the optimization of the de-
sign workflow. This method is also beneficial when
many people are contributing in the same project,
but in different parts of the definition.
PARAMETRIC MODELING STRATEGIES
The metallic vault is generated from 3 component
systems for the beams, joints and skin:
172 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
Figure 5
Routing details
from ACP
fabrication manual.
• A self-supporting triangular mesh, generates
the beams, made of aluminum bars, 3mm
• 63 mesh nodes, generate the connectors be-
tween the beams, made of ACP, 4mm
• An hexagonal mesh generates extrusions,
made of same ACP.
The vertices of the triangular mesh are locating the
position of the discs (R50mm), placed perpendicular
to the normal of each point. The same vertices are
moved towards the center point of the base bound-
ary triangle, generating the edges of the beams. Each
edge of triangle is scaled based on a specific distance
from the node. The new nodes generate hexagons,
which are scaled and moved to generate 3d open-
ings, as extrusions towards the direction of the face
normal.
In this stage the design is informed by the ma-
chinic fabrication techniques of ACP. In the fabrica-
tion manual, the principles of milling for folding, the
thickness of the crease line is depending on the fold-
ing angle. For sharp edges (down to 45°) a V-groove
of 135° should be made. The base of the groove
should always be flat and about 2 to 3mm wide (see
figure 5). The panels are routed in the rear side, ex-
tracting the aluminium sheet and part of the core
(see figure 6). The scaled new edges for the genera-
 tion of the hexagons is taking in account this param- beams with the ear technique and 3 metal screws for
eter, in order to leave necessary material close to the each beam. The beams and the discs are designed to
corners for the folding. be connected with the dovetail technique facilitate
the assembly.
Figure 6
Test sample of ACP.
Figure 7
All componets
organized at
workshop place

Figure 8
Part of Calycas.

Based on the above design logic, 4 linked clusters

are formulating the parametric strategy: 'Beam Con-
struct', 'Disc Construct', 'Hexagon Construct' and 'In-
tersections'. The outputs of each system are defined
and placed as inputs for the rest. For example, some
of the outputs of 'Beam Construct' cluster and 'Disc
Construct' cluster are inputs for 'Intersections' cluster.
This actually is the most challenging part to under-
stand, where the information is taken from and which
intersection line belongs to which beam and disc.
Using the same definition, students could gen-
erate variations for each component system and dis-
cuss about different methods of joining and assem-
bling which is essential when it comes to such com-
plex geometries and assemble time is the main con-
straint. The intention to incorporate the ACP skin as
part of the structural system is achieved by design-
ing the hexagonal components to join directly to the

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 173


MATERIALIZATION PHASE
Manufacturing Techniques
The benefit of visiting some of the largest manufac-
turing industries of aluminum is to get introduced to
the manufacturing and coating process of aluminum
and composites and their unique properties. almost
unlimited possibilities of design profiles and univer-
sal applications of the material.
In this phase of the workshop, we are explaining
all the necessary to orientate from 3d to 2d elements,
in order to introduce participants to the production
process and digital manufacturing techniques with
3-axis CNC router and laser cutter. The parametric
strategy is formed in clusters, one for each system:
'Orientation of beams and slits', 'orientation of discs
and slits', 'unroll hexagons and number faces'. Con-
174 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
Figure 9
Organizing diagram
of the 3 systems
with numbers and
location of pieces.
sidering that all pieces are different, numbering pro-
cess is essential for each element and slit, so all num-
bers are engraved. All processes, from modelling to
fabrication are automated inside the same Grasshop-
per definition, counting material cost and cutting
time.
Construction Logic
Along with the design of the pavilion, the construc-
tion logic is conceived in such a way that the structure
can be assembled and disassembled easily and trans-
ported as 4 parts, three legs and top head. Counting
the help of 24 students, the 159 aluminum bars and
63 discs were organized by number and the 45 ACP
pieces were folded and secured with screws and bolts
( see figure 7). Various aspects related with safety, or-
 der, scale, forces, tools and time were resolved in an
empirical way before construction.
Figure 10
Assembling al parts.
Assemble Logic
For the assembly, 4 groups of 6 students and one su-
pervisor, were responsible for each part of the struc-
ture (see figure 8). A code system diagram developed
for this project demonstrates the number and loca-
tion of pieces, the construction logic behind and the
interconnection of the modeling and manufacturing
process (see figure 9). Black numbers represent discs
and those numbers are the same as the vertices num-
bers coming from the mesh. The green numbers cor-
respond to the beams. The blue numbers belong to
the hexagons, which are the same as the face num-
bers of the initial mesh. The triangle between discs
54, 10 and 29 shows where the connection between
4 parts is located. The table on the right side of di-
agram shows the connectivity of the vertices (discs)
that correspond to the beams and the hexagons to
the faces. Finally, all four parts were lifted together
in order to be connected with the discs between (see
figure10).
CONCLUSIONS
The aluminium composite panel that was used
weighed twice as much as the originally planned
panels, because it had a fire rated core instead of a
core made of HDPE. This extra weight caused a failure
in the connecting discs made from ACP. The ACP ma-
terial was not able to support the lateral and buckling
forces of the structure with the increased self weight.
Therefore the discs were replaced with discs made
from steel.
The workflow went almost as expected, al-
though some aspects in the design of Calycas need
to be optimized, like the joint design system and es-
pecially, the connection system between the 4 parts.
Further studies include a different type of geometry
and material, or a 3d printed optimized connector, in-
stead of the planar discs. Although, the coordination
of the student teams worked very well, the assem-
ble process could be taken further with an efficient
way for securing the 4 parts, in order to reduce the
amount of people necessary to build a bigger struc-
ture.
Further contribution to the market, will be inter-
esting to include design and digital fabrication of dif-
ferent types of mass production aluminum profiles
so each piece will not need to be CNC machined.
The ACP material, as a skin component, has possibil-
ities and needs additional research, as in cases of 3d
façade systems, for environmental analysis and struc-
tural performance incorporation, as mentioned in an
open discussion during the exhibition and interna-
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 175
 tional conference, estimating future trends on build-
ing envelopes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We like to specially thank ETEM, ELVAL COLOUR,
Cavazos & Associates and all the participants for their
contribution and support.

SPECIFICATIONS
Materials: Silver Metallic FR (fire resistant) aluminium
composite panels 3200 x 1250x 4 mm, aluminum
sheets 3mm or 30 bars of 5000 x 60 x 3 mm,
screws and bolts. Machines/Tools: Laser Cutter, CNC
Router/Hammer. Dimensions: Weight <150 kg, 3.2 x
3.7x 2.6 m.

REFERENCES
Orciuoli, A and Baquero, P 2014 'Teaching strategies for
Digital fabrication', Sigradi 2014
Pottmann, H, Asperl, A, Hofer, M and Kilian, A 2007, Ar-
chitectural Geometry, Bentley Institute Press
Pottmann, H, Brell-Cokcan, S and Wallner, J 2007, 'Dis-
crete Surfaces for Architectural Design', in Chenin,
P, Lyche, T and Schumaker, L L (eds) 2007, Curves
and Surface Design: Avignon 2006, Nashboro Press,
p. 220
Wallner, J and Pottmann, H 2011, 'Geometric computing
for freeform architecture', Journal of Mathematics in
Industry, 1:4, pp. 3-4

176 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Memos from an Inconvenient Studio
Unsolicited Projects for Responsive Architectures

Andrew Wit1 , Mahesh Daas2

1,2
Ball State University
1
a@wit-o.us 2 mahesh@bsu.edu

Computation, robotics and intelligent building/fabrication systems are finding

themselves ever more prevalent within both practice and education. The
assimilation of these new tools and methodologies within the pedagogy of
architectural education continues to gain greater importance as we perceive their
rapid evolution and integration within surrounding emergent fields. Through the
model of an Inconvenient Studio, this paper examines the intersection between
interdisciplinary collaboration, architectural robotics and computation as a
means of gaining a broader understanding of how the architectural learning
environment can be transformed into a self-organizing system for emergent
solutions. The pedagogical prototype for an Inconvenient Studio was broadly
focused on the topics of architectural robotics and responsive architectures
interpreted through a range of robotic technologies and their manifestations such
as biomorphic, mechanomorphic, polymorphic and amorphic robotics. Through a
set of three "Memos" (Self-Organization, Autonomy, Sentience), this paper will
describe how students created innovative technology-driven think tanks that
produced design entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Interarctive architecture, Programming, Intelligent environments

INTRODUCTION debate on their effect within the discourse of design

Computation, robotics and intelligent building/fab-
rication systems are finding themselves ever more
prevalent within conversations in both practice and
education. However the tools, methodologies and
entrepreneurial know-how necessary for their inte-
gration into and for the restructuring of the profes-
sion currently remain untested.
The growing need for architecture and archi-
tectural education to adapt to these new tools and
methods of design has begun spurring a continuing
pedagogy (Senagala 1999, Senagala, Vermillion 2009).
This paper investigates the intersection of design and
technology and its potential to reshape architectural
education through the pedagogical prototype An In-
convenient Studio.
Current Studio Typologies
The conventional design studio is typically organized
as a top down hierarchy. Such authoritarian and
parental organizational models can be categorized

CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 177

 through these five frameworks (Daas, M. & Wit, A.
2015):
• 1. Master - Apprentice (Figure 1 - Type A)
• 2. Master - Group (Figure 1 - Type B)
• 3. Master - Group or Apprentice + Outside Client
or Community partner (Figure 1 - Type C)
• 4. Master - Apprentice + External Network (Fig-
ure 1 - Type D)
• 5. Master-Apprentice immersive model where
the surrounding community becomes the stu-
dio's learning environment (Figure 1 - Type E)
Although these five models of organization can al-
low for high levels of variation within the studio en-
vironment, they continue to be limited in the ways
by which they could motivate individuals and enable
new knowledge to be created while continuing to
learn existing knowledge. These models also depend
excessively on the teacher as the sole source of dis-
ciplinary authority, which becomes a bottleneck in
a world where knowledge has been growing by the
minute. With the architectural discourse now bridg-
ing the realms of robotics, biology, computer science,
kinetics and beyond, the conventional studio models
begin to reveal their fault lines.
178 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
An Inconvenient Studio
In this paper we discuss a pedagogical prototype, an
Inconvenient Studio (figure 2). Over the past decade,
the Inconvenient Studio prototype has situated it-
self as an innovative sub-institution within the ar-
chitectural discourse, with a long-standing reputa-
tion for the creation of innovative, interdisciplinary,
technology-driven design entrepreneurs rather than
designers of artifacts. Utilizing self-organization
strategies and student empowerment through intel-
lectual autonomy, the studio has investigated the
topics of robotics and responsive architectures and
their manifestations that include amorphic, biomor-
phic, mechanomorphic, and polymorphic robotics
(Daas 2014).
The students were allowed to create their own
entrepreneurial pathways through the course. Stu-
dents autonomously organized into think tanks, and
developed topics, schedules, proposals and funding
strategies that were all unique to their own specific
goals and aspirations. Through this unique system
of self-organization, the studio functioned as a sub-
institution for learning where students learned from
each other. Rather than supplying a syllabus and a
grading rubric, faculty acted as Intellectual Venture
Capitalists, providing students with a seed fund of
$1, some initial materials, and access to outside in-
formation networks such as a local non-profit innova-
tion incubator whom helped guide students through
the process of creating their startup companies while
Figure 1
aiding in the formulation of problems that could be
Current
solved through emerging digital technologies.
Architectural Studio
Acting as autonomous agents, students were
Models
immersed with all the responsibilities a start-up
company would have. Students managed dead-
lines, budgets, raised funds, created press releases
and advertisements as well as maintained a web
presence all in addition to their design and re-
search. Through this self-organizing process, three
unique entrepreneurial companies were formed with
projects ranging from robotic furniture to interactive
global installations. This paper presents the studio
experiences through a series of three memos: self-
 organization, autonomy, and sentience.
Figure 2
An Inconvenient
Studio Model
MEMO ONE: SELF-ORGANIZATION
Self-organization is a fundamental characteristic of
life that allows for the creation of global level coor-
dination from local level interactions. This collective
organization could allow for the creation of complex,
interconnected bodies that possess higher levels of
inherent intelligence than individuals. Although a
"collaborative" environment arises from these inter-
connections, the system remains autonomous and
extremely flexible as individual units retain the abil-
ity to strategize, design, experiment, prototype, and
operationalize their inventions.
The students were given the opportunity to self-
organize. We called ourselves intellectual venture
capitalists, and chose not to give students projects,
schedules, funding and so on. In the beginning
stages two distinct levels of organization were devel-
oped by the students: The first level of organization
was at the collective level as a singular think tank.
This level of organization led to such responsibilities
as graphic design, project management fund raising,
project documentation and so on.
The second level of organization led to the
founding of small, three to four person "en-
trepreneurial units" or companies. Through a series
of small student-led robotic exercises and peer work-
shops, students tested their skills, reconfigured their
organization and then finalized their small group
offices around a unified design philosophy located
somewhere within the discourse of architectural
robotics. In the end a series of three unique compa-
nies were created, each with its own unique stance
and personality with projects ranging from robotic
furniture to interactive global urban installations. Al-
though initial gaps in knowledge and technology
were high, each group developed specialists that
could solve specific problems.
Throughout the course of the semester, this
seamless flow of knowledge between individual and
group while dealing with complex issues like compu-
tation and robotics within the discourse of architec-
ture has revealed that the current studio pedagogy
must reconfigure and adapt to keep up with rapidly
emerging global technologies.
Emergent Systems
In complex, self-organized systems, unique, larger
and more complex patterns tend to emerge from the
aggregation of individual components. This process
allows for the development of potentially unforeseen
solutions. Throughout the course of the semester,
this same phenomenon was witnessed as collabora-
tions, projects and interdisciplinary research devel-
oped.
The student-led companies came together to ini-
tiate a series of weekly open school-wide events. The
goal of these events was both to gain and dissemi-
nate knowledge while opening college wide discus-
sions on the topics of computation and architectural
robotics.
These school wide events took various forms,
ranging from weekly informational workshops
hosted by both outside and in class experts, a bi-
weekly global video conferencing lecture series
bringing in innovative leaders from around the
world, monthly debates with outside faculty as well
as a bi-weekly new letter and studio blog to inform
the local/global community on their evolving re-
search and projects.
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 179
 Notes on Self-Organization
The power of self-organization is being widely rec-
ognized and practiced in the real world. Such com-
panies as Zappos are shunning traditional structures
of hierarchy and opting for self-organization. In the
case of Zappos, the system of self-organized man-
agement is being called "holacracy" (holacracy.org).
Development over the course of the semester
showed the immense possibilities within self-
organization as well as frequent difficulties. One of
the difficulties some of the students faced was their
ability to relate to others to collaborate. Instances
where strong or passive personalities came together
typically struggled to solidify research directions or
projects. Companies created under a diverse frame-
work featured individuals with unique skillsets typ-
ically saw a much easier progression through their
project development then those consisting of sim-
ilar goals. Students learned that while the process
of organization is challenging, that is how signifi-
cant things could be accomplished. The power of
self-organization was evident in instances where stu-
dents possessed or gained a heightened sense of
self-awareness and eventually actualized their full
potential.
MEMO TWO: AUTONOMY
The relationship between real or perceived auton-
omy and a host of variables such as creativity, job
performance, and innovation has been well estab-
lished (Lu, Lin&Lang, 2012; Liu, Chen &Yao, 2011; Wang
& Cheng, 2010; Deci & Ryan, 1987; Schwenk, Kock &
Gemuenden, 2014; Gooderham, Sandvik, et. al, 2013;
Malouff, Calic, et. al, 2012; Anderson, Potocnik & Zhou,
2014). The studio placed emphasis on individual and
group autonomy by empowering them with the abil-
ity to set goals, manage their time, manage their re-
sources, and self-evaluate their learning.
Autonomy of various kinds is a challenge to ad-
dress within the pedagogical and curricular frame-
work of institutions. Institutions and teachers who
work within territorial frameworks see autonomy as
an act of establishing or broadening various bound-
180 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2
aries. However, we see autonomy as the ability for
the individuals and groups to engage within a broad
and strategic framework of institutional resources, in-
tellectual context, and the context of knowledge as
nodes in a network that do not need boundary defi-
nitions.
Autonomy is also a challenge for individual learn-
ers who may have become accustomed to being told
what to do, how to do, and when to do. We found
that individuals who are reluctant to take responsi-
bility sometime shun autonomy. This reluctance in
turn not only affects the individual, but the group as
a whole as they struggle to define their values and
goals. In that sense, autonomy became a touchstone
of the individual's ability to think critically and hone
leadership skills.
Notes on Autonomy
Within the studio, autonomy emerged in many ways.
One of the most prominent was through the for-
mation of three unique companies, all with distinc-
tive ideals and interpretations of the relationship
between the architecture and robotics. Although
all beginning in the same place, the pace in which
each group developed varied extremely based on
the individual's willingness to operate within an au-
tonomous environment. Where some groups flour-
ished branching out to solve problems, others strug-
gled as they waited for internal top down direction.
One office within the class (designFUNCTION) not
only embraced the integration of the architecture
and robotics, but also saw it as a natural and neces-
sary evolution of the discipline. Rather than looking
to solve typical design questions, this group looked
at current local or global systems that could be inno-
vated upon through the integration of robotics. From
the creation of a robotic desk lamp that adjusted il-
lumination and form based on external lighting con-
ditions and occupant location to a globally intercon-
nected, big data driven urban intervention which
brought global inhabitants together through local in-
teractions, (designFUNCTION) allowed the problems
and tools to inform their processes of thinking rather
than the creation of an artifact. Over the semester,
their willingness to rapidly evolve their individual
philosophies of design allowed for further develop-
ment of innovative projects throughout the course of
the semester.
Other groups struggled much more as they
maneuvered their way through the complexities
within the semester. As the learning curve for the
course was quite steep with the initiation of new
design methodologies, computational/robotic tools
and group dynamics, some groups required weeks
to grasp these new concepts of design thinking.
Through arduous struggles, each group slowly but
surely began to bend their preconceptions, and cre-
ate projects that were based on solving complex
problems with innovative solutions rather than the
creation of artifacts.
One such example was with the group TRANS4M.
Whereas (designFUNCTION) quickly realized the need
for integration of advanced technologies into archi-
tecture, TRANS4M struggled from the start to un-
derstand their connection. In addition, strong per-
sonalities within the office structure created an at-
mosphere that was initially not conducive to au-
tonomous growth. Through a common interest in
furniture and the advancing of flat-pack processes,
TRANS4M began reformulated their office philosophy
focusing on robotic furniture for dense urban envi-
ronments. Through their struggles, TRANS4M was
not only able to redefine themselves as a robust in-
terdisciplinary, autonomous organization, but also
help with the furthering and redefinition of their sur-
rounding peers.
MEMO THREE: SENTIENCE
The abilities to sense, feel, and experience the world
are the hallmarks of living beings. Sentience and cog-
nition are distinctly different but related activities. A
big part of design field deals with not just knowing,
but also feeling. As the studio explored artificial in-
telligence and robotics, we also placed emphasis on
sentience as a guiding principle of learning and cre-
ating. At regular intervals, the studio convened to
understand the importance of sensing, feeling, and
experiencing, and how such an understanding could
inform their work.
Working with robotics can have the tendency to
feel rather cold in their current physical manifesta-
tions and interfaces. Typically associated with me-
chanical efficiency, creating robotics that stimulates
our senses can be quite the challenge. Throughout
the course of the semester, a constant question was
how could we generate reactive/adaptive spaces or
objects that not only intelligently solve problems, but
also stimulate the users' senses.
As current buildings and artifacts remain in a
static state, experiences are initially programmed
through physical manifestations and experienced
similarly by each subsequent user. The varying of ma-
terials, textures, lighting conditions, etc. helps cre-
ate a series of environments that portray a predefined
narrative of the object to viewers, while creating low
levels of sensorial variation.
On the other hand when working with reac-
tive spaces or objects, our familiar static nature no
longer exists. Standardized construction materials
and methods must be reinvestigated to allow for the
adaptive nature, opening up new opportunities for
how individuals design and experience these new
spaces. Through the integration of interactive ele-
ments such as interactive lighting, reactive surfaces
and operable furniture, in conjunction with global in-
terconnectivity and activity, students redefined our
current preconceptions of how architectural robotics
look and interact with their surrounding environ-
ments.
Notes on Sentience
Although we are working with robots, it is important
to remember that humans are not robots. It is not
necessary for information to be directly programmed
into us, and many times as within the typical stu-
dio environment this tendency can hinder the stu-
dent's creativity and innovative collaborative nature.
Ironically, conventional pedagogies treat students as
vessels waiting to be filled with information, and au-
CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 181
 tomatons waiting to be "instructed" by the instruc-
tors. Humanizing robots and re-humanizing stu-
dents and instructors as thinking and feeling learners
and co-creators is an important principle behind the
Inconvenient Studio pedagogy.
PROJECTS
Many projects emerged throughout the course of the
semester. Each further defining the direction and
pedagogical framework of the offices. We will now
briefly outline a sampling of this work and the strug-
gles students faced moving though the steep learn-
ing curves associated with architectural robotics and
entrepreneurial process.
nected through the Internet of Things, this group
designed not only the local physical/interactive ar-
tifacts, but also their user interfaces, data collection
and dispersal systems, as well as a global implemen-
tation strategy.
Through local interactions such as touch, prox-
imity, speech or smart phone apps, users were able to
communicate with each other though sound, visual
and physical manifestations while redefining the sur-
rounding local environment (figure 5). On the other
hand, global interaction also allowed for local play-
ers to communicate and reconfigure interconnected
pods in locations around the globe while simultane-
ously recording and transmitting the results online.

Lego-Bots + Arduino programming Figure 3

During the first three weeks, students were immersed (designFUNCTION)
in a series of robotic projects that would set their in- urban interactive
dividual directions for the remainder of the semester. robots prototype
Rather than beginning with typical design problems,
students were rather given a series of tools, i.e. Lego
Mindstorm robotics and Arduino components (figure
4). With these tools students where then asked to
think of a problem they encounter within their daily
lives that could be solved through the integration
of robotics. Projects ranged from robot desk lamps
and operable bending active based façade systems Figure 4
to rain activated canopies that could track users to Lego-Bots Initial
minimize enclosure footprints. Prototyping
Through these exercises, students not only
formed their offices, but also honed their program-
ming skills while gaining a better understanding of
the relationship between architecture and robotics.

design(FUNCTION);
With a focus on enhancing spatial experiences Figure 5
through the merging of urban space, human/robot (designFUNCTION)
interaction and emerging reactive technologies, urban interactive
one of the student-formed firms, design(FUNCTION), robots proposal
strove to reinvent not only how we design physi-
cal spaces, but also how we interact with "space" on
a global scale. Through the creation of a series of
globally connected, interactive "Pods" (figure 3) con-

182 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

 TRANS4M:
Rather than focusing solely on the intelligence
imbedded within robotics, TRANS4M investigated
the potentials hidden within advanced material sys-
tems, mechanical folding and digital fabrication in
conjunction with robotic actuating systems. Though
their formulation of a robotic furniture system (figure
6), problems such as weight, strength, shipping and
cost played heavily into the various prototypes pro-
duced by the group.
Through a series of rigorous tests, the group de-
veloped a rapid system of manufacture using sub-
tractive CNC milling, resin-based 3D printing and
laser cutting. This methodology allowed for the cre-
ation of a robotic furniture piece that could adapt
to different conditions, span a maximum distance of
eight feet, retain a maximum loading capability of
250 pounds per axis, yet only weighing a total of
eight pounds.
Figure 6
TRANS4M Robotic
Furniture Proposal
CONCLUSION
As computation, robotics, and intelligent building/-
fabrications systems continue to find themselves
ever more prevalent within both education and prac-
tice, it has become increasingly more imperative
for educators to reimagine our current pedagogical
frameworks to allow for the assimilation of these new
tools and means of thinking about artificial and nat-
ural intelligence.
The pedagogical prototype of an Inconvenient
Studio allowed students the opportunity to be im-
mersed in not only new technologies, but also within
a new mode of thinking and feeling. Through these
processes of self-organization, emergence, auton-
omy and sentience, students were able to create
interdisciplinary office structures and projects that
went beyond their (or our) wildest imagination. Al-
though the process could be trying, a strong sense
of community and accomplishment arose from the
students as they formulated their new collaborative
frameworks.
Through the lens of these three memos within
a single instance of an Inconvenient Studio, we have
witnessed the potentials inherent within a self-
organizing studio environment focused around cut-
ting edge topics such as architectural robotics and
computation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledge the work of the following students
from the spring 2014 studio co-taught at Ball State
University by the authors:
• design(FUNCTION): Caylon Beville, Shannon
Buchanan & Adam Dally
• TRANS4M: Tyler Kraft, Kristen Lange, Heather
Murray and Alex Webber
• stimuLATE: Michelle Bayt, Kyle Edwards, Caleb
Nunez
REFERENCES
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 BRAYER, MA 2013, Flight Assembled Architecture: Gra- Senagala, M and VERMILLION, J 2009 'An Inconvenient
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novation', Proceedings of CAADRIA 2015, Daegu
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and the control of behavior', Journal of personality
and social psychology, 53(6), p. 1024
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ton Architectural Press
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Autonomy and Formalization Influence the Effect
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Between Control and Autonomy, Eglar, pp. 204-221
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Schutte, NS 2012, 'Evidence for a Needs-Based
Model of Organizational-Meeting Leadership', Cur-
rent Psychology, 31(1), pp. 35-48
McCullough, M, Mitchell, WJ and Purcell, P 1990, The Elec-
tronic Design Studio: Architectural Knowledge and
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proach to Digital Technology Integration in Archi-
tectural Curriculum', Proceedings of ACADIA 1999,
Salt Lake City, p. 16

184 | eCAADe 33 - CAAD Education - Tools - Volume 2

Collaboration and Participation
Democratic Play
Crowd-Sourcing through Digital Games for Architectural Design

Joshua Choi1
1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1
http://archipleasure.com/filter/jjjc/Joshua-Choi-2
1
joshuac@mit.edu

This thesis presents a system that uses games. It allows people to participate in
the process of designing an architectural space. The site for the design project of
this experimental methodology is a courtyard on MIT campus.The games are
initially prepared by the architect through sampling various objects, materials,
lighting, and figures from different media such as photogrammetric models
around the building site and other relevant 3D modeling/animation contents. The
goal of this design system is to collage those components into a final architectural
form through a democratic process.The games are distributed to students, faculty
and staff who will be the users of the space being designed. Through playing
these games, they provide preference about the architectural program and
various design decisions regarding formal composition, details, and finishes.
This crowd-sourcing occurs both implicitly and explicitly while the game is being
played, and the collected feed-back informs the architect about design
development.This thesis questions the role of the architects in a democratic
process of design: Are we the designer of the space, or creator of a system that
controls the design process?

Keywords: Gamification, Video game, Democratic design, Participatory design,

Photogrammetry, Game engine

INTRODUCTION pus, the game is constructed based on architectural

This thesis explores an alternative methodology of an
architectural design process using game as a crowd-
sourcing tool for collecting architecturally relevant
data. The game, titled Democratic Play, invites non-
architect users to participate in a design thinking pro-
cess for developing architectural awareness to help
create a more genuinely public space. Set in the
backdrop of one of empty courtyards on MIT cam-
knowledge, and designed to collect direct responses
to various architectural elements of the surrounding
space from participants. Such democratic data col-
lecting process enables architects to share their de-
sign power with the general public in a manner free
of hierarchical constraints; in turn, this process en-
ables a more genuinely intimate participation from
the actual users of the space, resulting in the true

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 187

 Figure 1
Concept Sketch for
Democratic Play

'public' space. Figure 2

The motivation for this thesis was the desire to Cartoon images
think critically about the current state of architectural from "the
design process. As the field of architecture requires Architecture
highly specialized knowledge and skill sets, the de- Machine" which
sign process at times ends up being hierarchical. depict how
Users of spaces are often excluded from the intimate architects do not
design process that creates the spaces, sometimes re- understand what
sulting in architecture that produces unexpected re- clients really want.
sponses for and from the users (Negroponte, 1970). (Negroponte 1970)
Regardless of the theoretical or pragmatic success of
the end result, the final structure ends up including
a latent threat of authoritarianism. Thus, this thesis
suggests an alternative methodology that combines
architectural motivation and advanced technology
such as game engine, photogrammetry, and crowd-
sourced data analysis to achieve a greater level of
equal participation from all users of the space.

188 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

The origin of participatory design traces its roots back
to Scandinavian countries in the 1970s. Participatory
design focuses not only on the style of a design, but
also on the design development process. Including
both the original creator and the final user in the de-
sign process, participatory design facilitates demo-
cratic design process that aims to produce design
that is more responsive and suitable for the future
users due to genuine consideration of users' behav-
iors and preferences. Participatory design is desir-
able for enabling people to develop realistic expecta-
tions, reducing resistance to change, and increasing
workplace democracy by providing the right to be in-
volved in the decision making process for future users
(Gregory 2003). Democracy, in this sense, is referring
to the mode of interaction that provides equal partic-
ipatory capacity for all the interest groups involved
in the design process, and should be distinguished
from its political connotations.
The expansion of this thesis involves two
methodologies: crowd-sourcing and game-playing.
Both are utilized in a complimentary way to facili-
tate participatory data collection. Crowd-sourcing
enables data collection in a hierarchy free capacity;
game-playing ensures that the crowd being invited
to engage with the data collection process will par-
ticipate efficiently and voluntarily.
1. Crowdsourcing
The term crowdsourcing is the combination of the
words "crowd" and "outsourcing" (Howe, 2006; [3]).
It is a method of distributing tasks to people, usu-
ally through on-line platforms, then to collect data
from them in order to accomplish a particular task.
Oxman and Gu argue that "crowdsourcing is a new
concept for breaking with the traditional hierarchical
model of collaborative design" (2012). Crowdsourc-
ing, especially through on-line platform, enables the
direct sharing of opinions and ideas, which decen-
tralizes the hierarchy of the design process. On-
line crowdsourcing platform appears to be "power-
ful democratic and socializing forces of communi-
cations" which potentially have a strong impact on
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 189
the design decision making process (Oxman and Gu,
2012).
Arcbazar is an example which has applied the
logic of crowdsourcing to architecture in a disruptive
way. In this platform, designs are collected through
form of competitions and clients have an access to
those design services. Creators of Arcbazar argue
that through participation of masses, they can "even
assist in developing a new product or service, refine
a design, compute or derive various algorithms, or
assist in providing, arranging, or evaluating signifi-
cant quantities of information into viable data" (As
and Angelico, 2012). Democratic Play proposes the
unique way of collecting big data, which is through
game-playing. In this particular system, the main role
of architects is to prepare the platform for public's in-
volvements to crowd-source feedback, and then to
analyze the data in meaningful ways in which the
final result is more expected and preferable by the
public.
2. Game-Playing
In addition to crowdsourcing is game-play for an-
other method of participatory design process.
But what is a game? Perhaps more easily defined
in contrast to work, an activity primarily characterized
by productivity and efficiency, no single exhaustive
definition exists for what a game is. But it is possible
to posit a few basic premises: game refers to an un-
productive activity that is undertaken purely for its
entertainment value. Important basic components
of game are goals, rules, challenges, and interaction
between the participant and the other components
in ways that maximize the participant's experience of
fun.
However, all games are not just about fun. They
are also capable of providing "creative expression, in-
struments for conceptual thinking, or tools for so-
cial change" (Flanagan 2009). Within the field of
game there exists something called "serious" game.
Abt describes serious game as "an explicit and care-
fully thought-out educational purpose and are not
intended to be played primarily for amusement"
(1970).
 A good example for a 'serious' game that applies
crowdsourcing is 'Fold-It,' an online game created by
University of Washington that doubles as an exper-
imental research tool for protein folding (Figure 3).
Recently, an AIDs-related protein problem that went
unresolved for fifteen years was solved in just three
weeks of game play, suggesting that participatory in-
put can be more powerful than sophisticated compu-
tational algorithms. Fold-it shows how crowdsourc-
ing through game-playing is an ideal model for dis-
tributed problem-solving and production that has
potential for not only solving scientific problems but
also generating creative ideas (Brabham, 2008).
Despite such nontraditional development in both
form and content of game, the foundational concept
of game remains unchanged for the serious games:
having fun. This fun factor is the key attraction point
for generating crowd-sourced data used in this the-
sis. Game-play engages people in their most intimate
emotional and intellectual capacity, and is thus able
to generate highly personalized responses, which
serves as data input for future design process. To
achieve this end, it is crucial that the game is easy
to understand for anyone who wishes to participate
while including accurate architectural knowledge for
the players to provide useful data.
Oxman and Gu points out the difficulty in adopt-
190 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
ing crowdsourcing in design due to lack of techno-
logical understanding. They argue that "what is re-
quired is the clear definition of the principles of oper-
ative and technological requirements of online envi-
ronments that can support design activities suitable
for crowdsourcing and provide design environments
enabling crowd participation. Only through the es-
tablishment of such enabling conditions will we be
able to foster, motivate and exploit crowd wisdom
in design" (2012). Coupled with photogrammetry
(explained below), game engine can help solve the
technological barrier by enabling architects to cre-
ate a realistic environment for crowdsourcing. Game
engine can easily simulate navigational system, en-
vironment recreation such as weather, wind, and Figure 3
sound, human density, and physics for structures The figure shows
in comparison to having only the conventional ar- twelve examples of
chitectural drawing on the two-dimensional paper. crowd-sourced
Also, game engine enables easy computation for protein data
recording and collecting participants' behavior data. through game-play
Moreover, photogrammetry, an emerging technol- of Fold-It. Each data
ogy, can help creating visually realistic digital envi- is meant to be
ronment for more intuitive interaction and engaging analyzed by
experience. scientists for
medical research.
3. Photogrammetry
Further contributing to the goal of creating an ac-
curate interactive platform is the technology of pho-
togrammetry. In order to control the quality of peo-
ple's input during the game play, the game should
contain accurate and abundant architectural infor-
mation. Photogrammetry is a science of extracting
three dimensional information from an object with
its photographic texture. Examples of photogram-
metry are the Google map's three dimensional land-
scapes and buildings which are captured through
satellites.
Photogrammetry has been used in architecture
restoration where existing condition must be kept
accurate to study. However, during architecture
design process, existing condition is generally re-
created using 3D modeling tool, which makes the
existing condition simplified without textures. Of-
 ten times, architectural renderings shows site con- essary architectural information for setting up the
dition in white boxes for adjacent buildings on the game by doing intense site research, which includes
flat ground without actual topographical informa- capturing significant architectural objects using pho-
tion, leaving blank much potentially important infor- togrammetry. For step two, using collected data
mation for the client. from step one as a building block, architects create
The main reason this omission is the lack of time games with user-friendly interface. For step three,
for manually re-creating real site condition. Pho- architects distribute the game to the public for gen-
togrammetry provides quick and easy solution for erating crowd-sourced feedback. After an adequate
this issue as it can help architects to capture 3D mod- amount of data is gathered, architects analyze the
els of existing condition with photographic textures. data for future design development. Step three can
With photo-realistic setting, participants have better be repeated multiple times for further design devel-
experience involving in the design process helping opment with updated games.
them provide better data. This idea is well expressed
Figure 4 by Lynch, who writes in 'The Image of the City,' "noth-
Photogrammetric ing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to
model of Corinthian its surroundings" (1960). The way people truly under-
capital from Italy stand the city or the design component within the
created with city has to relate to the surrounding environment.
around 20 photos Thus, photogrammetry plays a crucial role in creat-
in Autodesk 123D ing the most realistic digital environment for partic-
Catch. ipants to understand the design in order to provide
their honest feedback.
A captured photogrammetric model such as Fig-
ure 4 is a simple mesh with photographic texture cov-
ering it. By carefully adjusting each mesh to repre-
sent an architectural component, it is possible to re-
assemble multiple models into a new spatial design
just like making a 3D collage (Nagakura, Tsai and Choi
2015, see esp. Fig. 4 on p. 687). With such photo-
Figure 5
realistic setting, participants have better experience
Site plan showing
involving in the design process helping them provide
surrounding
better data.
buildings and
Lobby 7 of MIT
EXPERIMENT BEGINS...
Ideally the game-playing platform for this thesis
should be on-line with hundreds of participants.
However, this experiment was done with around 20
people (I thank for all the participants), which I be-
lieve works as a proof of concept in demonstrating
the new methodology, Democratic Play.
There are three steps to creating 'Democratic
Play': research, construction, and distribution. In
the first step, professional architects prepare the nec-

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 191

 STEP ONE: Research
Step-One has two phases, secondary research and
field research. Secondary research or desk research
helps prepare appropriate programs for the given
site. For this portion of the experiment, I chose the
empty courtyard within the MIT campus shown in
Figure 5.
The site is surrounded by the Architecture de-
partment, Mechanical Engineering department, and
Lobby 7, which serves as one of the most public and
touristic spot on MIT campus. The site condition pro-
vides an interestingly dynamic mixture of multidisci-
plinary groups and visitors, yet it does not serve any
useful functions to those groups of people.
I studied floor plans of buildings around the site to
find spatial hierarchy and relationship between exist-
ing academic programs. As predicted, science labs
and offices were dominant programs at MIT. There
were very few public spaces other than Lobby 7 for
visitors and students alike to enjoy: a small gallery
192 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
for Environmental Engineering on the first floor and
even smaller architecture gallery on the fourth floor;
two commons for each engineering and architecture
department; small cafeteria with around 12 seating
tables. The calculation for area ratio for public spaces
are only about 3% for students, faculties, and visi-
tors, and 7% for students and faculty. There were not
enough public spaces for visitors, students and facul-
ties to relax, study or do events and exhibitions.
At the end of the secondary research, I prepared
ten suitable programs with proper dimension found
on the site for participants to choose from during the
later stage of this democratic process. During the
game play, participants will be able to use these ten
programs as design components (Figure 6) to pro-
vide their preferences; ten programs are architecture Figure 7
studio, labs, common room, gallery, class, office, lec- upper image
ture room, meeting room, garden and café. represents the
For the field research, I went to the site to cap- original
ture more 500 photographs to process photogram- photogrammetric
metry to create a photo-realistic digital site environ- site model while
ment for the game system. I took around 80 pho- the image below
tos per façade, and processed each façade separately represents
to minimize the computational power requirement, optimized site
then assembled facades in 3D modeling tool. The model
trees in front of the façades were challenging; digital
models ended up missing large portions of meshes
that were behind the trees, which had to be fixed
manually with 3D modeling tool. After fixing façades
and removing unwanted meshes such as trees, dig-
ital trees were planted to regenerate the site condi-
tion as realistic as possible (Figure 7). Now, I am ready
to make games.
STEP TWO: Creating Games
Using the photogrammetric model and ten programs
from Step One, two games are created for this exper-
iment: Section Game and Navigation Game. Section
Game collects data regarding sectional program dia-
gram that each player can designs according to her
preference. Navigation Game collects two types of
data: circulation paths and screenshots. Every game
created for Democratic Play should be designed care-
Figure 6
ten programs
prepared from the
research in the
order of cafe,
common room, fully regarding the implementation of all the nec- instead of colored boxes from the first iteration; ten
architecture studio, essary rules and constraints so that the game helps program boxes have general furniture layout in order
lecture room, class, participants to intuitively express their architectural to guide players visually.
meeting ,office, preferences without being required to have special- As the sample size of participants available for
gallery, lab, and ized architectural training. the experiment was limited, this iteration was not ad-
garden equate for generating sufficient data. There was too
Figure 8 much freedom for the ways in which boxes could be
the third iteration moved, which resulted in lack of sufficient patterns
of Section Game for proper data analysis.
For the third iterations (Figure 8), I implemented
gravity to provide greater reality simulation. If you
drag a program box into the air, it drops to the
ground level. This feature introduced certain design
constraints for the player; if a player prefers the gar-
den on the second floor, then he needs to put a struc-
tural box or other programs on the first floor first.
Figure 9 Since there is a gravity acting on each box, players
the first iteration of need to start creating a pattern from the ground to
Section Game top. Contrast to the second iteration, the third iter-
ation with this element was useful in organizing the
outcome to be more recognizable with patterns for
the analysis.
Navigation Game records individual participant's
circulation path and also allow players to note their
preferences by taking photos of their likes and dis-
likes. This is for the future step, but the overall con-
text for using these two types of data to analyze
player's experience can be achieved with machine
learning algorithm. The general flow of implement-
The first iteration of Section Game shown in Fig- ing machine learning is following.
ure 9 tested how players can drag and move col- 1. The machine learning algorithm, or super-
ored box onto a section drawing for them to create vised learning, will use 'like' and 'dislike' photo
a simple public vs. private diagrams. This allows as a training data. Training data is example
them to express their preference for public v. pri- data that has desired output (Guttag 2013). In
vate spaces. White represents public, black repre- this case, 'like' photo represents positive expe-
sents private, and grey represents semi-private. For rience while 'dis-like' photo represents nega-
the second iteration, I implemented the photogram- tive experience of a specific location.
metric model and inserted ten program components 2. Based on the training data, the computer will

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 193

 learn how players experience the virtual space Figure 11
to predict how they experience in all other lo- Visualization of
cations even if they have not taken any pho- twenty data from
tos. Section Game
3. The algorithm will be able to produce a visu-
alization map of player's experience from all
circulation path data, which identifies specific
locations that architects can develop.
4. 4. Using those data output, architects can not
only develop the design of the space but also
update the game system for future crowd-
sourcing purposes

An interesting observation was made during the test

game play with a random space I designed. Re-
sulting photos of 'like and dislike' showed a good
sense of how players behaved: most of 'dislike' pho-
tos were spaces in shadow, unfinished, or unused
spaces which could be developed. In contrast, 'like'
photos were spaces under skylights or with trees and
benches as seen in Figure 10. This observation was in-
teresting because they were acting very close to the
real world scenario, which hints the benefit of using
game engine in simulation of a designed space. Also,
it proves how a simple data such as 'like' and 'dislike' Figure 10
can start to help to identify specific design tasks ar- Top two rows are
chitects can focus on developing; the potential future like-photos and a
case is that with machine learning algorithm, the ob- bottom row is
servation and analysis can cover more complex de- dislike-photos
sign spaces with more variables other than 'like' and taken from three
'dislike'. players during
Navigation Game
STEP THREE: Crowdsource Data
Third step begins by distribution of two games for
crowd-sourcing data. Future users of the space, vis-
itors of MIT, mechanical and architecture students,

194 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Figure 12 and staff were involved in this step to provide feed-
An example data by back. Initial data of Section Game is analyzed to cre-
'Bumjin' from Figure ate initial design iterations, then those iterations are
11 put in Navigation Game for design developments.
Step Three is repeated multiple times with synchro-
nized updates on game systems based on people's
preferences.
A total of twenty participants played Section
Game, resulting in twenty unique section diagrams
shown in Figure 11. For this experiment, I decided to
simplify the data in order to derive three design iter-
ations.
First, each section data was exploded into ten set
of data representing ten program boxes. Then each
program box is clustered into three categories, which
are public, private, and semi-private. Lastly, the data
is collapsed into those three categories (Figure 12).
Using these resulting new set of section diagrams, I
began to search for the pattern to generate design
iterations.
The first pattern I found was that for every hor-
izontal private space, there was public space under-
Figure 13 neath. The second pattern found was that the verti-
Design A, Design B, cal public space was most of the time sandwiched by
and Design C. both private and semi-private space and visa-versa.
Closed box Using these found patterns, I created three general
represents private, massing models as a starting point for design devel-
box with big opments shown in Figure 13.
window represent
semi-private, and
empty space and a
skeletal box
represent public
space
With these three designs, I introduced a simple par-
ticipatory system, voting. I distributed three designs
to all the participants of future space users to rank
their preferences. Consequently, Design A was least
favored, and thus removed; people favored Design B
for its big open plaza at the center, while Design C
was favored for its relationship with existing exterior
walls of MIT buildings which can create interesting
contrast with new structure in future.
From this point on, assuming the role of a profes-

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 195

 sional architect, I updated two separate Navigation Figure 14
Games with two design iterations for each game. Visualization of
7 out of 20 participants in Section Game contin- circulation path and
ued on for Navigation Game, which produced 7 data photos from four
sets for each Design B and Design C. Each data sets in- players for Design B
clude 'like and dislike' photos and a circulation path
(Figure 14).
Figure 15 represents a visualization of data for
Design B from Navigation Game. Left figure is col-
lapsed circulation paths. The red dot represents the
location of all the photos taken and the larger dot
represents more photos taken. Right figure repre-
sents all the players' time spent on every position
they circulated. The different color represents dif-
ferent player while the height of bars represents the
amount of seconds they stayed in the position.

FUTURE STEP
The upcoming thesis will implement machine-
learning algorithm to analyze crowd sourced data
computationally. Those results will help identify
what to design for architects for further develop-
ment. However, there is more than computational Figure 15
challenge; there are still many different ways to de- Data visualization
velop design after identifying future users' feedback for Design B of
and design problem. Navigation Game
In order to study how architects can make de-
sign decision with identified design problem, I need
to experiment with many different tools for the par-
ticipants to use during the game in addition to 'like'
and 'dislike' photo function. For example, in the fu-
ture iteration, a player may potentially move around
furniture, or even relocate a room so that at every end
of the game, the design of the space can undergo
a significant infrastructure transformation by differ-
ent players. Tentatively titled as Transform Game, this
stage can take place collaboratively at the same time,
so that one can see other players changing the sur- REFERENCES
rounding environment as one plays the game. In this As, IA and Angelico, MA 2012 'Crowdsourcing Archi-
tecture: A Disruptive Model in Architectural Prac-
way, architects can also study the interconnectivity of tice', Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of
the participants design decision-making process. the Association for Computer Aided Design in Archi-
tecture (ACADIA 2012, ISBN 978-1-62407-267-3), San
Francisco, pp. 439-443

196 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Brabham, DCB 2008, 'Crowdsourcing as a model for
problem solving: An introduction and cases', Con-
vergence: The International Journal of Research into
New Media Technologies, 14, pp. 75-90
Flanagan, MF 2009, Critical Play: Radical Game Design,
MIT Press, Cambridge MA
Gregory, JG 2003, 'Scandinavian Approaches to Partic-
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62-74
Guttag, JVG 2013, Introduction to Computation and Pro-
gramming Using Python, MIT Press, Cambridge MA
Howe, HJ 2006, 'The Rise of Crowdsourcing', Wired, 14.06,
pp. 1-4
Nagakura, T, Tsai, D and Choi, J 2015 'Capturing History
Bit by Bit', Proceedings of eCAADe 2015 (Volume 1), Vi-
enna, pp. 685-694
Negroponte, NN 1970, The architecture machine; toward
a more human environment, MIT Press, Cambridge
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[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/aids-p
rotein-decoded-gamers_n_970113.html
[2] http://www.123dapp.com/catch

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 197

[2+2] Two Architects and Two Galleries
Jon Moorhouse1 , Herbert Peter2
1
Univerisity of Huddersfield / Constructive Thinking Studio 2 Academy of Fine Arts
Vienna / Artuum Architecture
1
j.moorhouse@hud.ac.uk 2 hp@artuum.at

This paper addresses the needs of exhibition curation with the concept of a virtual
gallery (which may or may not be translated into reality). Curation is often an
overly linear process - as opposed to an iterative exercise, whereby collaboration
between stakeholders is somewhat limited by time, distance and the opportunity
for virtual communication. This suggests that the implementation of a system for
sharing visual data - especially in the real-time mode that a virtual studio might
offer - could facilitate a more dynamic and iterative design process, where the
design team remains engaged throughout.Two (architectural) designers - from
Vienna, Austria and Liverpool, UK - are collaborating to create a process for
exhibition design for existing venue, involving international stakeholders in
remote locations. The key outcome for this research is to create a framework for
future collaborative workflow that enhances the delivery of exhibition design
through improved decision-making, without the need for all of the team to have
extensive software knowledge.The paper thence reflects on current experience,
reporting changes in curatorial processes and suggesting areas of added value
that might benefit future works.

Keywords: Communication, Collaboration, Virtual Building Exploration

INTRODUCTION potentially restricted.

Any architectural or design project is, by nature,
a series of decisions influenced by different stake-
holders and circumstances such as space, content,
concept, methodology, fabrication, cost and interac-
tion. Given these variables it can be argued that im-
proved communication and data exchange might as-
sist in optimising these decisions in a beneficial way.
In the design of exhibitions within galleries, there
are usually several stakeholders (team) from differ-
ing organisations, with often distant locations. This
means that the opportunity for iterative collabora-
tion is limited and the process tends to be linear and
The main decision-making for what is included
within the exhibition falls to the curator whilst the ar-
rangement and display tends to be led by the orga-
nization running the exhibition space. Agreements
are made between the team relating to artist(s), con-
cept, costs, production and interaction. The exhi-
bition designer tends to translate these agreements
into visual constructs and ultimately working instal-
lation drawings. Whist this is a simplification of the
process - curators do a lot more than mount exhibi-
tions, Vidokle (2010) suggests that curators 'adminis-
ter the experience of art' through extended (curato-

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 199

 rial) practice - the advancement in curation and the
media through which art is made and exhibited, sug-
gests that more/deeper interaction between the de-
sign and production team would be beneficial.
When considering an exhibition of the work of
one (or more) artists, works under different owner-
ships might be brought together and then exhibited
in several locations. For example, the Corbusier ex-
hibition curated by Stanislaus von Moos et al. con-
tained over 500 exhibits (Vitra 2009), many from the
Fondation le Corbusier, but many others came form
a wide range of collections. The exhibition was ar-
range chronologically and themed around the five
key cities that influenced the artist. Many of these ar-
tifacts will not have existed before in the same time
and place, and will now have returned to their perma-
nent homes. Only a catalogue remains as a record,
reflecting an exhibition that took place in 5 venues.
There is therefore an opportunity to develop a richer
way to prepare, record and represent exhibitions in a
form that not only facilitates greater collaboration in
pre-exhibition curation, but also leaves an experien-
tial trace after the exhibition is finished.
BACKGROUND TO WORK
The first author began to work with the Tate Gallery
in Liverpool in 1998 on a system of modeling interior
spaces and then overlaying artifacts and images as
a curatorial aid. This was a reaction to an observa-
tion that works were moved into a space, arranged
and then often rearranged several times prior to final
positions being agreed. As this occurred at the very
end of the planning process, often near the time of
exhibition opening, there was potential for decisions
to be made that would not involve all key stakehold-
ers. By modeling exhibitions in advance, we were
able to understand where artifacts would fit, how
they would be moved through the space, how they
would be invigilated and how they would relate to
other artifacts. Moreover, it became possible, using a
heritage architecture approach, to consider how the
gallery's own fabric might be effected by interven-
tion. It quickly emerged that a bi-product of this ap-
200 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
proach would be a virtual gallery record of each ex-
hibition. Through continued agile collaboration be-
tween practices, particularly using BIM model shar-
ing, we began to develop processes that are directly
transferable from architectural to exhibition team-
work. (Clark & Moorhouse 2014)
The second author, through his project to model
and record the destroyed synagogues of Vienna from
1998 (Martens & Peter 2012) began to develop tech-
niques in both modeling and representation that
would lead to his virtual gallery approach to assist-
ing curators from 2005 onwards. In particular, the re-
quirement for highly detailed and realistic interpre-
tations from sometimes limited data, together with
a desire to produce a virtual environment that is im-
mersive and user driven.
The authors have been collaborating and sharing
techniques since 2007 and, through regular presen-
tations to the companies whose software they use,
have driven the development of features and tools
that assist and enable their curatorial processes.
ENABLING AND ENHANCING CURATORIAL
PROCESSES
Exhibition design brings together the notion of an
'event' - the collection and exhibition of works, within
an environment - the gallery space, for an expe-
rience - that happens when the gallery is visited.
The role of the curator in generating this exhibi-
tion might be described as a 'junction-maker' (Obrist
2014). Often within the conceptual phase, the cu-
rator, producer and exhibition architect are working
very closely together. Content, and factors such as
size, weight, location, transport, availability, fragility
need to be known, shared and documented. Once
these considerations are determined, and communi-
cated between the collaborators, the relationship be-
tween concept and production can begin to emerge.
The curator and producer need to therefore provide
the architect/designer with good quality information
about each piece of art, whether that be in 3D digital,
photographic or descriptive/specified forms. The cu-
rator and architect will allocate content into spaces
and the architect will then produce detailed design
that is of use to both the curator and producer en-
abling cost analysis and programming.
To assist this process we create a 'virtual exhibi-
tion space' via a Building Information Model (BIM).
The quality of this detailed model is to be very high,
capturing every single detail of the space, includ-
ing dynamics such as air conditioning, electrical in-
frastructure, wall construction, finishes, lighting, day
lighting, floor and ceiling construction, security, fire
protection and emergency access. Having a BIM/FM
model for the gallery is useful from the outset for as-
sisting at conceptual stage. It actually changes the
way a curator can look at, and experience both the
space and their proposed interventions. Birnbaum
(2008) cites Gilbert and George's ode to art '...to look
and look and look and then look again' in the con-
text of curation. By being able to model the space
in full detail and then by employing the representa-
tional methods for artifacts derived from our related
work we can encourage the same early-stage collab-
oration that we achieve in more usual architectural
design. Moreover, when we are undertaking subse-
quent commissions we already have a ready model
of the gallery space. We can also use our model as a
facilities management tool, referencing previous ex-
hibitions, findings restrictions and delapidations. By
sharing these tools, we necessarily change and en-
hance the curatorial process, moving the linear to the
iterative, in line with architecture (or heritage) design
methods.
MODELING AND SHARING PROCESSES
A building information model (BIM) is created from
3-Dimensional survey data. As the gallery will hold
multiple exhibitions over time, this model will pro-
vide a developable 'back-drop' for future interven-
tions - storing information regarding dilapidations,
accessibility. lighting, fixing potential and other cura-
torial notes. It might also hold an incremental archive
of completed exhibitions. The BIM can consist of in-
terior construction and dynamics or can be a more ar-
chitectural model capturing the whole building. The
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 201
elements that are shared can be restricted if desired.
The BIM can contain multiple 'worlds' that host pre-
vious exhibitions and proposals, with curatorial and
production commentary that explains possibilities,
limitations and experiences.
The model can be shared from a BIM server via
the Internet between the design team, creating a
mechanism for virtual interaction with the curator(s)
and other stakeholders. Communication could also
be via a run-time building explorer export of the BIM
through which the curator can hyper-link to the BIM
server to forward notes and comments. In this way,
the visual status of the project is accessible to all par-
ties throughout the design phase, facilitating better
interaction.
We have therefore developed a collaborative
communication tool using a real-time virtual build-
ing that allows the arrangement of art within a virtual
space.
We are currently using ArchiCAD 18 Bimserver,
BIMx Hyper Models and cloud-based activity record-
ing tools (such as Basecamp). From experience, we
know that, once the model has been built, the other
members of the design team need little training or
experience to participate. The architects (authors)
are able to host the model on their BIM Servers and
once the other participants have downloaded the
full model, information and updates are delivered by
small packets of data. We are able to release sections
of the model to the control of the collaborators. As
the virtual art is created as objects, we are in control
of creating parameters that we can lock. The curator
is then free to move the artifacts around in their own
time, (or via a screen share if necessary). Once the
artifacts are in place, the curator can release control
back to us or the producer to continue generating
production information. There are occasions where,
due to cost and licensing issues, curators do not have
direct access to our software. In this case we can ei-
ther use screen sharing, or we release run-time BIMx
files that allow the curatorial team read only access
to the models. This reflects our preferred working
method with architectural clients where we wish to
 be in full control of editing. BIMx is also the format WORKING EXAMPLES: DETAILS
through which we communicate completed designs. In the above-mentioned project for ZEITkunst
Niederoesterreich (contemporary art in Lower Aus-
WORKING EXAMPLES: DESIGN tria), exhibiting Renate Kretschmerand and Joerg
Gallery 2010 is a collaborative gallery project in Liv- Schwarzenberger, curated by Hartwig Knack and Dr.
erpool. The curation team led by Lucy Byrne with de- Alexandra Schantl, and designed by Herbert Peter
sign and facilitation by Jon Moorhouse and Construc- (artuum architecture), simplified sculptural models
tive Thinking worked with 10 commissioned artists were made using photographs. The project, mod-
to produce 20 pieces of work. The virtual gallery ap- elling in ArchiCAD 17 was shared using BIMx and
proach allowed over 15 stakeholders to communi- virtual walkthroughs for the web were created using
cate during the creation of the artwork and the cu- iVisit.
ration of the exhibition. Early versions of BIMx (Vir- Figure 1
tual Building Explorer) were used and curatorial tool 2010 virtual gallery
objects were scripted in lieu of a tagged informa-
tion facility. We scripted the BIM to randomise the
order that the art was presented (figure 1) and this
facilitated debate on the presentation format. As
the theme of this exhibition was collaboration and
the artists ultimately produced images using differ-
ent media on the same sized canvasses. These in-
cluded Nicole Renee's layered paint build up (figure
2) that required a grainy depth to our modeling, and
Stephen Collett's high resolution graphic / photo-
graphic images needing a sharp and clear matt finish Figure 2
(figure 3). To reflect the versatility of the formatting, artwork object:
we also installed a facility to allow the audience to vir- Nicole Renee
tually rearrange the gallery.

WORKING EXAMPLES: DELIVERY

The elevations and plans shown in figures 4 and 5 are
generated directly from the BIM. The artworks are ob-
jects that show on the plan as catalogue number and
Figure 3
elevational references to assist the producer. These
artwork object:
scripted objects are reusable for other artwork. As
Stephen Collett
the objects are moved around within the model, the
elevations and plans update.

202 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Figure 4
Elevational live
working drawing

Figure 5
'live' working plan

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 203

 Tablets and smartphones are supported to put Figure 6
focus on detailed design or concept or presentation modelled 'billboard'
opportunities for those who simply wish to view and sculptures
interact rather than edit.
Art-libraries allow easy handling of realising the
curator's concepts and ideas
sculptures can be inserted as 'billboards' or as 3D
library parts.
3D scanned / point cloud sculptures and spaces
can be integrated into design process.
Virtual walk-throughs (web or device-based) can
be defined or are free for the viewer to define, and are Figure 7
used as control and presentation tools Actual Exhibition
Documentation and drawings are created from
the virtual 3D model and used on site whether vir-
tually (e.g. on tablets) or conventional scaled paper
prints.

Figure 8
web-based iVisit
virtual exhibition

In this project exhibiting Gunter Damisch, cu-

rated by Dr. Alexandra Schantl, designed by Herbert
Peter / Artuum Architecture, 'billboards' were used
for the concept model. The second image shows the
actual exhibition before opening (figure 6). Figure 7 Figure 9
illustrates the actual exhibition for comparison. Modelled
In this third project for the same gallery/space, sculptures
exhibiting Franz Xaver Oelzant, curated by Dr. Elis-
abeth Voggeneder and Dr. Alexandra Schantl with
design again by Herbert Peter / Artuum Architecture,
iVisit was used as a tool to create a virtual gallery
for the website (figure 8). Here much more accurate
models were used for the sculptures. (figure 9)

A SUMMARY OF TOOLS AND PRACTICES

To create an exhibition space we use CAAD-software
in teamwork mode, which allows the freedom of
worldwide interaction.

204 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES
The clear advantage to using a BIM model that is
shared between the team is that we all have access
to the virtual representation of the space and the ar-
tifacts contained within. We can get a good feel for
how to use the spaces, how people might flow, what
an artifact looks like from a particular distance or an-
gle, under certain lighting conditions, or even how
the exhibition will flow from one artifact to the next.
We can see how the artifacts will need to be trans-
ported, displayed, fixed and removed. We can also
tag information to each object via the BIM and also
via the BIMx viewer. Each object can contain hyper-
links. This is important because it means that, after
a BIMx model has been produced, it is not inert, but
'live' as the hyperlinked connections can be edited.
Through these tags and links we can access highly de-
tailed information about both the artifacts and their
originators. The hyperlinks could be used to track an
artifact as it is exhibited in different places, or to en-
rich the exhibition by linking it to related works from
the same era or school.
There are also opportunities to create proposal
options. Clearly we can do this within our BIM and
share directly or through IFC, but we can also cre-
ate several options for parallel models within a single
BIMx file. This means that an artist, for example, can
be sent a virtual model depicting several options for
displaying their work and can feed back their prefer-
ences.
The BIMx, as a model that is accessible on most
mobile devices, can form an alternative programme
or catalogue. It then becomes a resource, and a rich
trace of an exhibition that may have closed or may
have never been.
There are advantages in workflow as the curator,
producer, architect / designer and the gallery itself do
not have to be in the same place as each other, yet the
interaction can be almost as if that were the case. This
means that the interaction between the team at con-
cept phase is much richer and design issues can be
discussed and resolved in virtual space. The designer
and curator can then extend their working time to-
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 205
gether. Given then, the level of detail and resolution
that is achievable before work commences on site,
time on site can be much shorter. This clearly saves
costs and reduces the risk of damage to works, but
also suggests that the gallery can have less 'down-
time' and therefore more / longer exhibitions. The
gallery, through virtual means, can also reach a much
wider audience.
PRACTICAL DISADVANTAGES
The 'real space-feeling' is translated by screen and
tools - simply visual impressions - gallery spaces and
art interacts in real world and is of a different scale.
This in one of the important points that visitors needs
to feel. Creating, designing an exhibition virtually
needs in-depth experience of moving between de-
sign and reality to bridge that virtual- real space feel-
ing. Sculptures are even harder to arrange in vir-
tual spaces, because of the inability to experience
the 'weight-interaction' between a sculpture and the
space or in between sculptures. This can be en-
hanced using high quality virtual reality headsets.
To prepare a virtual design we need at least one
good photograph of the peace of art to insert into vir-
tual gallery concept. These are not always available
and pieces may be in archive. For sculptures, a series
of photographs are required.
CONCLUSIONS & FURTHER WORK
We suggest that using collaborative BIM as a vehicle
for curation and exhibition design enhances the com-
munication potential between different stakehold-
ers. As we develop means to communicate, we also
develop different working methodologies through
experience and opportunity. By presenting back to
the software developers, we also encourage the de-
velopment of new tools. Working in this way, we
can find new opportunities for recording, arrang-
ing and sharing exhibitions. Whilst to date we have
managed to improve automation, design, visualisa-
tion, communication and delivery - saving time, send
cost whilst potentially producing a more collabora-
tive product, we are also opening up the possibil-
 ity for virtual exhibitions to become records, arte-
facts, means of remotely or historically viewing ex-
hibitions; the potential for virtual-only exhibitions;
a means to explain and share artwork (especially
through VR headsets) and potentially a means to cat-
alogue archives in a visual and meaningful way. We
aim to collaborate more deeply within the activity of
curation itself and develop tools for 'open curation'
that others might use.

REFERENCES
Birnbaum, D 2008, A Brief History of Curating, JRP Ringier
& Les Presses du Reel
Clark, S and Moorhouse, J 2014, 'Winning work with BIM',
in Klashka, R (eds) 2014, BIM in Small Practices: Illus-
trated Case Studies, RIBA
Martens, B and Peter, H 2012, The Destroyed Synagogues
of Vienna : Virtual City Walks, Lit Verlag
Obrist, H 2014, 'The Art of Curation', The Guardian, 23
March 2014, p. 1
Vidokle, A 2010, 'Art Without Artist', e-flux, 16, p. 1

206 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Decentralized Version Control and Mass Collective
Collaboration in Design
A Case Study of a Web Application Utilizing the Diff Algorithm and
Automated Design Generation

Yasushi Sakai1 , Daisuke Tsunoda2

1,2
Nikken Sekkei ltd.
1,2
{sakai.yasushi|tsunodad}@nikken.jp

Especially in early design phases, there is still potential to achieve collective

design in architecture. To investigate the possibilities of mass collaboration, this
study is based on a web application (http://lmnarchitecture.com) which
implements the same technology that present software development stands on.
Within those plans, the system calculates the resemblance between the models
utilizing an algorithm that computes the difference between texts. The system
requires the users to choose one model that is existent, and calculates the
resemblance in real-time. As a result, a tree diagram is collectively achieved each
having the link of inheritance. Two types of "Bots" (automated plan generation)
was implemented to examine the effect of human-machine collaboration. As a
result, there were 1750 models submitted in three months. Throughout the models
created by humans, in this system, 49% of the models were inherited by the same
user, and 23.04% of the models inherited bots.

Keywords: Democratization, Collective modeling, Design automation, GIT

INTRODUCTION tectural tradition shows that designers still work in-

It is obvious that we humans attained knowledge by
learning, which is essentially the stacking of experi-
ences of the past. Additionally, ever since science
has achieved its method , the accumulation of knowl-
edge has bolstered us to discover and innovate new
ideas. One technique was to illustrate the chain of in-
heritance in knowledge is to use a tree diagram. Al-
though the work of Architecture is fully collaboration
involving different kinds of specialties with a wide
range of consults, the field still has room for inves-
tigating potential of systematical inheriting. Archi-
dependently, without a clear intention to exchange
ideas in design. This view can be derived from what
architects uses as tools for design. Attempt to collab-
orative spatial design has followed since the advent
of the internet, yet modern CAD systems still lack in
decentralized version control which is crucial to multi
user participation.
On the other hand, software development is
rapidly changing its process influenced by the move-
ment of social networking. Today numerous open
source programs are developed by the collaboration

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 207

 between vast varieties of people who never meet
physically. As a result, the evolution of software re-
sembles the form of nature having different versions
and functionality. Moreover, software development
can be interpreted as a scientific method where each
study increments its knowledge balancing citation
and new ideas. Studies achieve reputation from the
number of citations as much as the innovativeness.
To integrate this accumulation of knowledge in the
field of spatial design, it is necessary to measure the
difference between alternatives, and clarify what was
added and deleted.
This study tries to unleash the power of collab-
oration and enabling remix of design by literately
showing a tree diagram. Not only enabling a new
way of evaluation by providing the diagram itself, the
achieved data structure has potential for a new sub-
ject - development of automated design intelligence.
Supported by today's explosion of data, data min-
ing and machine learning is now the trend of various
fields of science.
PREVIOUS STUDIES
Methods of collaborative design
Multi participation in design has long been one goal
in architects. Before the advent of CAD systems, ar-
chitects have relied on physical models to gain feed-
back from multi individuals. However, the process of
how the model was generated is hard to reproduce
and have decreased its number by cost. Historically,
the relations and influence among different archi-
tects and their work has long been tacit. The "Open
Building" idea will lead in theory, were "users/inhabi-
tants may make design decisions as well" introduced
from Habraken. Other methods such as classification
of design methods into patterns Christopher Alexan-
der (1977) is another approach for inclusive design.
Internet and methods borrowed from soft-
ware development
The defiance can be observed in the early days of
intercommunication progress, starting from the col-
laboration via internet and video chat. Attempts fol-
208 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
lowed using a virtual reality atmosphere, such as on-
line conversation using Second Life. As Rosenman
(2007) points out, there are still "issues of multi repre-
sentations of objects, versioning, ownership and rela-
tionships between objects from different disciplines."
One study from Burry (2005) using SVN in the
process of design, another version control system
widely used in the context of software development
combined with Gehery Technologies' Digital Project,
share the same intent. The study argues that direct
utilization of SVN was not possible within binary data,
and took an approach of file locking method which
simulates the process. To circumvent the binary is-
sue, for this study, the data structure was included in
the development of the web application. The scala-
bility to consumer software remains, yet gains con-
trol of the version controlling process. File locking
procedure can be seen in modern BIM software giv-
ing functionality of multi-user participation. How-
ever, the file locking procedure is limited to central-
ized version control. Only one model can be edited
in one time and restricts users to work concurrently
in one design. In other words centralized version
control creates a hierarchy throughout the versions,
this aspect is suitable to later phases of architec-
tural design, where effective accumulation is what
we needed to crystalize the proposal. Opposed to
SVN, this study's version controlling mechanism is
"decentralized". Since the proposals have no hierar-
chy, it is easier to have gain interactions between ver-
sions.
Functions of modern CAD and BIM software
In the world of software for designing, Autodesk's
Vault has the capability to track versions in a file level,
while the mechanism rely on file locking, essentially
a centralized method that hierarchy exists. Moreover,
Robert Aish (2000) argues that the concept of "files"
affect the project to be fragmented, and negates
holistic perspectives to perceive the project. To meet
this, modern BIM software has the functionality of
multi-user participation within the project, yet Vault
and these BIM software share the centralization of de-
Figure 1 sign documents. Again, centralized methods are said
Tree diagram view, to be effective in the later design phases for sophisti-
ranking listed in the cation of a single design plan that is ready to be de-
right side bar. veloped. However, such hierarchies if they are too
rigidly adhered to, may inhibit the effective flow of in-
formation in collaborative design. (Cumming, 2005)
Another approach, Autodesk's Fusion has the
closest to this study, partial components can be ver-
sion tracked and exposed to the internet. Fusion
presents the possibility of collaboration not only in-
side projects, but within projects. The distinction
Figure 2
with Fusion and this study is integration of the Diff
Evaluation view. 3D
algorithm which handles the similarity within alter-
representation of
natives (versions). While Fusion compares design by
the model with
recording every user operation, the web application
basic information in
for this study compares models by data. This en-
the left. Users are
ables to calculate the distance between given de-
able to evaluate
signs, which is crucial to analyse, sort and integrate.
and give credit to
the models or
proceed to model SYSYEM AND FLOW
making. Process of User
The system holds two aspects of method; the tech-
nical software architecture side and the social archi-
Figure 3 tecture side that takes account of the incentives of
Reimbursement the participants. There are two activities for the users,
method. Recursive model creation and evaluation. To be a user, the sys-
"cash back" of tem requires to register and sign-in to this system. Af-
points goes to the ter logging-in, the system gets the last time of each
parent model activity from the user database. This time interval
corresponding with constrains excessive operation that will destruct the
the similarity ratio. system. The evaluation needs 10 seconds to recover,
while creation requires 3 minutes.There are three ma-
jor views: tree diagram, model evaluation, and model
creation. Figure 1 shows the first view, the tree dia-
gram, that any visitor will see when she accesses lm-
narchitecture.com.
The tree diagram has a link to every single model,
directing to the evaluation view (Figure 2). The eval-
uation view shows a basic information of the model
along with the 3D representation, this view enables
users to give point to the model by clicking "add
points".

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 209

 Figure 4
Plan creation view.
Color blocks
indicate the
function of the
volume.

Figure 5
Diagram of Diff
algorithm.

210 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

 Each "add points" operation will prepare 10 points to
the model and their parent models. The points are
affected by the "similarity ratio", which returns a part
of the points depending to how similar the model is
to its inheritance. This reimbursement of the points
is a recursive process until the points are lower than
the value of 1. Figure 3 shows that recursive process
of model evaluation. No valuation basis is presented
by the system, users evaluate by viewing the model.
The "make plan" button directs the user to the in-
terface to create models shown in Figure 4. The sys-
tem forces the user to select a base model to inherit.
The model creation is the place where users are
stack different types of blocks of function and create
a new model. While modelling, there is one constrain
that the total cost of the model should not exceed
Figure 6 30,000,000 yen . Each type of volume has different
Types of automated cost.
model generation. Additionally, if the model has two or three sto-
(Bots) ries, the total cost is multiplied by 1.2 and 2.0 respec-
tively. The budget constraints and moderates the
models while controlling the solution space to make
popular models that is credited by evaluators. The
"similarity ratio" is concurrently calculated, using the
"Diff" algorithm, introduced in the next section. After
the modelling process, the user gives a unique name
to the plan. The model attains points from the parent
model corresponding to the similarity ratio (=inborn
points), and saves the image and adds the data to the
database.
Software process
As mentioned above, the system is a web application,
accessed by WebGL compatible browsers. The sys-
tem uses "Django", a web-framework based on the
programming language python, and database stor-
ing the information.
The client side (browser side) is developed in
JavaScript, using three major libraries. The first one
is "Three.js", which handles the 3D rendering of the
models when observing and editing the model. The
graphical representation uses WebGL, which is in-
creasingly gaining attention for visualizing 3D ele-
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 211
ments. 3D modeling has long been a professional
skill, from the barrier of the difficulty and the cost of
software. Yet for this study, the user will only need a
browser to participate to this web application. The
user interface was designed to be simple as possi-
ble, limiting it to block stocking.The second library
is "Data.js" that is used to visualize the tree diagram
on the main view. The third library is Google's "Diff-
Patch-Match", the Diff algorithm calculates the sub-
traction within the two models. The algorithm takes
two strings and compares it to get what was added
and deleted throughout the revision. The system uti-
lizes this algorithm to achieve the distance by get-
ting ratio of the amount of altered data identical data.
(Figure 5)
Automated model generation - "Bots"
Apart from the human user participation, the system
holds two types of method to propagate models au-
tomatically using previously submitted models. They
can be interpreted as "bots", alike to what we have in
the internet to collect data and link information rele-
vance known as search bots.
One type of bot is based upon randomness
adding and deleting cluster of function blocks
(=rooms). This bot is limited intelligence, since there
is no strategy in creating a better model, which is
wholly dependent in the whole systems natural se-
lection. (Figure 6 Left)
Another bot uses the technique of "crossing"
known in the field of genetic algorithm, sampling dif-
ferent parts from two models and combining them
together. (Figure 6 Right) This bot is capable of look-
ing up the top model and the second model to patch
work the plan. This way the bot reflects the current
 Figure 7
The overall tree
diagram that was
submitted to the
web application
[accessed 29 April
2015]

212 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

 trend and bolster what is popular. With the human image of the tree diagram each connected to their
participants and bots, the entire system collectively parent (inherited) model. Stroke thickness indicates
searches the best model. the similarity ratio: the stronger it resembles the par-
ent.
Figure 8
16 users including one account as BOTs was reg-
Magnified view of
istered to this system. Figure 9 shows the ranking
network of plans.
within the experiment by models.
Another aspect to investigate is the relationship
between the parent and child model. The result
shows that within the models that was submitted by
human, 49.7% of the model inherited the same user.
(By themselves)

DISCUSSION
Figure 9
This study, questions the present system of competi-
Top rated plans, '
tion in architecture practice, which in this case, the
jaldabaoth' is
evaluation process and its result is distributed in a
responsible of
sequence of contribution of searching the solution
auto-generation of
space. This study shows that strategy to do so is nec-
plans
essary to multi-user collaboration in design. Neither
of the Bots had a learning routine, meaning lacking
strategy across plans. Although, this can be said that
bots had no intelligence to learn, the result showed a
spontaneous strategy to overcome the human com-
petitors. Unlike human participants, the automated
Figure 10 process has no limitation in time, in other words the
inheritance cost for producing one model is nearly zero for ma-
tendency of models chines. The machine has potential to effectively pro-
created by users duce accurate models, once the appropriate lean-
(human) ing mechanism implemented. Figure 10 indicates
the chart of inheritance within man made models,
which can be interpreted the ratio of collaboration.
Throughout this experiment, approximately half of
the users used models of their own, in other words,
modelers are willing to collaborate with different in-
dividuals near 50%. Moreover, the result shows that
in a blind situation, humans are open to work to-
gether with bots (Table 1). It is clear that collabora-
RESULT tion in design still needs further exploration, and the
There were 1750 models submitted to the database result of this study needs constant iteration to mea-
within 3 months. sure the will and potential of true collaboration. How-
Figure 7 shows the overall tree diagram submit- ever, this study constructed one example of a com-
ted to the web application. Figure 8 shows a partial plete system of collaboration in design.

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 213


CONCLUSION
Summary
This study conducted an experiment of collective,
collaborative design method using a web applica-
tion that implements a technology popular in the
field of software development. With a renowned al-
gorithm called "Diff" and the simple volume stack-
ing app combined, 16 users signed up for creating
1750 models between three months. An evaluation
method was concurrently running, making it possi-
ble to add points to the desired model once in an in-
terval. The points are exchanged corresponding to
the similarity between the parent and child (inher-
ited) models.Within the submitted models, two types
of bots (automated design generation) was intro-
duced to collaborate with human participants. Mo-
tivation for the (human) participants was controlled
using a nested competition system, where users are
given the chance to gain money when the whole sys-
tem earns some prize.49.74% models that was mod-
eled by humans inherited there previous models, and
27.23 % inherited models from other humans, and
23.04% inherited models that was produced by an
automated process.
Further exploration
While not immediate, the method of implementing
distributed version control to the process of design
has potential to both professional designers and non-
proper individuals. The system that was introduced
in this study has few elements that is scheduled to
progress. From the aspect of human participation,
crowd sourcing the generation will be more efficient
to collect design. Services such as Amazon's "Me-
214 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
chanical Turk" will be suitable for distributing work Table 1
to the mass. As the data produced by human ag- Inheritance
gregates, there will be more opportunity for machine tendency. Design
to learn. The possibility of implementing machine collaboration
learning will be the second field for further investi- between humans
gation. Other than including non-proper individu- and bots
als, application to consumer software for profession-
als is one path of evolution. Although the data com-
plexity is much higher and dense then the system
we have developed, investigation is necessary to im-
plement to tools that is utilized in practice. A rela-
tively straight forward step is to integrate this idea
to a visual programming environment, such as the
Grasshopper plugin of a 3D modeller called McNeel's
Rhinoceros. Specifically, Grasshopper files has an
xml-like data structure, which is easy to apply Diff and
other operations to analyse the data. BIM software
have the same potential, since the data structure is
easy to be interpreted as database structure. Alter-
natively, the input data can be a physical (clay) model
for to blend into the flow of early stages of architec-
tural design, yet it will limit only to geometry data.
REFERENCES
Aish, R, 2000 'Collaborative Design using Long Transac-
tions and “Change Merge”', eCAADe 18, pp. 107-111
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S. and Silverstein, M. 1977, A Pat-
tern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Ox-
ford University Press
Burry, J and Dominik, H 2005 'Sharing Design Space:
Remote Concurrent Shared Parametric Modeling',
eCAADe 27, pp. 333-339
Cumming, M. 2005 'Distributed and Constructed Knowl-
edge in Design Education', eCAADe 21, pp. 501-504
Rosenman, M.A., Smith, G., Maher, M.L., Ding, L. and
Marchant, D. 2007 'Design World: Multidisciplinary
collaborative design in virtual environments', Au-
tomation in Construction, p. 16(1)
[1] http://www.habraken.com/html/introduction.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodesk_Vault
[3] http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/sciences/s
cienc8.htm
[4] http://www.digibarn.com/stories/desktop-history
/bushytree.html
CAAD and Conceptual Design Collaboration between
Architects and Structural Engineers
Laurens Luyten1
1
Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, campus Sint-Lucas
1
Laurens.Luyten@kuleuven.be

Architectural design benefits from a design collaboration between architect and

engineers that starts early in the design process. This paper presents a proposal
for a new structural language developed to support an early design collaboration
between architect and structural engineer. This language expresses the essential
characteristics of the conceptual design of the structural engineer, and requires a
limited amount of structural engineering knowledge for the architect to
comprehend. The language is evaluated in different case studies with architecture
and interior architecture students: they show the students' appreciation as it is
found easy to learn and use, and a helpful tool in conceptual design collaboration
with a structural engineer. Although the language is developed for manual 3D
sketching, the paper briefly indicates its potentials for digital 3D representations
and more intelligent CAAD like Multi-Agent System (MAS).

Keywords: Conceptual design collaboration, Architect, Structural engineer,

Structural language

CAAD AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN IN A
TEAM WITH VARIOUS EXPERTS
Architectural design most commonly involves a col-
laboration of various design experts (e.g. architect,
structural and acoustic engineer) with interdepen-
dent design outcomes: design decisions of one ex-
pert can importantly influence the quality of another
expert's design outcome. Therefore a collaboration
of architects and engineers starting already in the
conceptual phase of the design process is a valuable
asset to control the overall quality of the architectural
design outcome.
This collaboration of architects and engineers is
influenced by their differences in design cultures and
knowledge, which start in their education (Salvadori
1991) and involve different modes of thinking (i.e. an-
alytic versus synthetic) (Peters 1991; Akin 2001; Pfam-
matter 2000; Hurol 2014). Structural engineers for
example are critical towards architects' lack of struc-
tural understanding and their seeking of structural
advice too late for optimal structural solutions, while
architects are disappointed by engineers' poor en-
gagement with the architectural design ideas and
are afraid engineers stifle their design explorations
(Charleson & Pirie 2009; Hurol 2014).
Emmitt and Gorse (2003) argue that architects
and engineers need to possess mutual knowledge
and experience in each other's discipline to be suc-
cessful in their design communication. Zaccai and
Bastick bring it a step further (Lerdahl 2001): to en-
able a successful collaboration for innovative or cre-

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 215

 ative design, there is a need for overlap of exper- application has not been noticed. Furthermore,
tise between architects and engineers. Parasonis and when it comes to conceptual design, students do not
Jodko (2013) even advocate to complete this collabo- use CAAD that much (Salman et al. 2014). They
ration team with a different type of professional with prefer manual sketching to digital, and only later in
training and/or experience in both professions. the process, when the design project gets connected
Effort has been made to support the collabo- with its engineering aspects, CAAD becomes more
ration of architects and engineers through software implemented (Ibrahim & Pour Rahimian 2010): CAAD
which facilitates information sharing, task coordina- tools contain potentials to facilitate better commu-
tion and conflict resolutions (Wang et al. 2002). One nications in complex problem solving situations, but
of the emerging technologies is Multi-Agent System lack appropriate interface technology for conceptual
(MAS), which "consist of self-contained, knowledge- design (Ibrahim & Pour Rahimian 2010; Attia & Ander-
based systems that are able to tackle specialist sen 2013; Schubert et al. 2013).
problems and which can interact with one another
(and/or with humans) within a collaborative frame- SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE TO COMMUNICATE
work" (Ren et al. 2011, p.537).
THE CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF THE STRUC-
A more established technology in collaborative
design is Building Information Modeling (BIM) which
TURAL ENGINEER
To communicate the conceptual design of the struc-
enables digital representations of physical and func-
tural engineer with the architect, the author devel-
tional characteristics of an architectural design ob-
oped a structural language of symbols within his doc-
ject. Here, research states that a single represen-
toral work. Although it was developed for manual
tation of an architectural design object is an insuf-
sketching of three-dimensional (3D) design models
ficient tool for multi-disciplinary collaboration: be-
during face-to-face meetings, it has potentials for im-
cause each discipline has its own understanding of
plementation in CAAD-software.
a design object, its representation should be multi-
The language is developed to communicate
ple according to the different discipline-specific un-
structural information filtered for the architect in the
derstandings of architects and engineers (Fruchter et
early phase of the design process. It conveys the
al. 1996; Rosenman & Gero 1996; Rosenman et al.
essential characteristics of a structural concept re-
2005). Lee et al. (2014) argue for a distinction be-
quiring a limited amount of structural engineering
tween a "private" representation of the data model
knowledge for the architect to comprehend. Under-
adapted for a specific discipline, and a filtered "pub-
standing the structural logics of the engineer's con-
lic" version which is shared between all design par-
ceptual design is essential for the architect to en-
ticipants. Such filtering of information could then be
gage in her/his design exploration: understanding
intelligently handled by agents in MAS (Sariyildiz et
the structural concept provides the architect insight
al. 2002).
in the implication of his/her possible design alter-
In spite of the importance of BIM in the indus-
ation to the structural design without the need for
try of architecture, engineering and construction, Gu
additional structural advice.
and London (2010) state that tools developed for the
This language was developed by staging vari-
early design phases and for integration of conceptu-
ous early design collaborations between the author
alisation are lacking within this BIM approach.
as structural engineer, and different architects or ar-
Certain architectural practices show that the use
chitecture students. During these collaborations it
of CAAD leads to a fundamental change in design
became apparent that the current engineering lan-
processes and design products (Hanna 2013). How-
guage of for example internal forces and general
ever, in design education this influence of CAAD-
structural typologies, could be supplemented with

216 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Figure 1
Application of
developed
language for
concept creation
and refinement
(left).

Figure 2 a more abstract language to express structural con-

Example of cepts (Figure 1). Through trial and error in various
structural order: design collaborations this new language was devel-
identification of oped and evaluated (Participatory Action Research).
structural axis (-)
and load paths (dot) A language of four layers
The proposed structural language expresses struc-
tural logic as an important characteristic of a struc-
tural concept. It enables an abstract representation
with a only a few symbols which find meaning in
four different layers: (1) structural order, (2) structural
function, (3) structural dimensions and (4) structural
design possibilities.
(1) Structural order reveals the structural rela-
tions between different structural elements for a spe-
cific load case: it shows which element is supporting
on which other element(s). It brings to the fore the
path(s) a load follows throughout the different ele-
ments of the structural concept to its supports (Fig-
ure 2).

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 217

 of structural dimensions (i.e. a structural conceptual Figure 3
element) with a wide range of possible (built) struc- Structural
tural design solutions. These solutions as material dimensions layer:
form bring the conceptual design into the realm of symbols for transfer
built reality of structures - and also of architecture of force.
as each material form contains architectural qualities.
As such a catalogue can be developed linking struc-
tural conceptual elements with a range of built exam-
ples (Figure 5).

Figure 4
Structural
dimensions layer:
symbols for transfer
of moment.

Figure 5
Example of
To enable the structural concept to bring a load to catalogue entry for
its supports, each structural element is required to a structural
perform its own (2) structural function(s).The layer of conceptual
structural function identifies the type of load transfer element.
that needs to occur in a structural element: axial or
parallel transfer of force (Figure 3), or axial or parallel
transfer of moment (Figure 4).
The structural form of an element is determined
by the required structural function(s) it has to per-
form. This is expressed in the layer of (3) structural di-
mensions. This leads to five major types of structural
dimensions: one for each type of structural function
except for axial transfer of force which is split into
tension and compression (since in the latter buckling
needs to be additionally considered for dimension-
ing). This means that expressing the characteristics
of structural dimensions also reveals the underlying
characteristics of structural functions that each ele-
ment needs to perform (Figure 3 & 4).
The layer of (4) structural design possibilities
links each conceptual element and its characteristics

218 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Figure 6
Symbols linking
internal forces with
material form.
The proposed language consists of six combinable
symbols that express characteristics of the layers
structural order and dimensions (Figure 3 & 4), and
bridges the engineer's internal forces with the archi-
tect's material form (Figure 6).
Language application
Figure 7
Articulation of
conceptual design
decisions: one form
model with three
possible structural
concepts.
The structural engineer is able to express his/her
structural concept by applying the proposed lan-
guage of symbols to a 3D form model of the design
project. This form model can be the result of the ar-
chitect's conceptual design, on which each structural
element then receives information about its struc-
tural order and dimensions. As such a communica-
tion develops of a rich 3D representation expressing
on the one hand the structural behaviour of a sys-
tem of conceptual elements, and on the other hand
creating spatial experiences that relate directly to the
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 219
architectural design. Such communication provides
a common ground for design collaboration between
architect and structural engineer when for example
conceptual design decisions are evaluated. (Figure 7)
In summary, various qualities can be identified in
the application of the proposed structural language:
• easily and quickly drawn.
• intuitively understandable.
• communicate structural logic in 3D represen-
tations (by expressing the characteristics of
the layers structural order and structural di-
mensions).
• articulate conceptual design decisions of the
engineer for negotiation (i.e. mainly the iden-
tification of the chosen structural elements,
loads, supports, load paths, required func-
tion(s) of each structural element and the type
of element connection).
• provide for more abstract building blocks of
design creation (i.e. more conceptual than
common structural typologies, which allows
for the architect a wider design exploration).
• filter structural information for the architect
(i.e. reduce the amount of engineering-
specific knowledge required to understand
structural logic, and focus information on
decisive characteristics of structural dimen-
sions).
EVALUATION OF DEVELOPED LANGUAGE
The proposed language is evaluated through its ap-
plication in two case studies with architecture and in-
terior architecture students in the educational prac-
tice of the author. In the first case study it is mainly
evaluated as a communication tool, in the second as
a collaboration tool in design.
Evaluation of language in an individual ap-
plication of architecture students
The first case study consists of a seminar with
seventy-eight architecture and interior architecture
students in the last two years of their educational
 programme. These students are familiar with the
traditional engineering languages (e.g. of internal
forces) but uninformed about the new developed
language. They are asked to express their own struc-
tural understanding of a built project of their own
choice, through a presentation in their own chosen
language(s). After handing in this presentation and a
short introduction in the new structural language of
the author, they are asked to express the same struc-
tural understanding of the built project with this new
language in a new presentation (Figure 8).
Through questionnaires most students (> 80%) ex-
press to find (1) the new structural language easy to
learn and use as they appreciate its symbols as clear
and intuitively understandable. (2) 90% of the stu-
dents found that the essence of structural behaviour
as they comprehend it, could be explained well with
the new language.
When the author compares both presentations
of the same structural story it shows that (3) when
the structural behaviour is well understood by the
students, both structural narrations are often almost
equal, and that in most cases, the students are capa-
ble of using the language correctly.
In the second part of this seminar, students are
asked to develop structurally sound concepts by al-
tering their investigated structural concept. In this
exercise there is no obligation to apply the new lan-
220 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
guage. Questionnaires show that (4) about half of
the students feel that their general structural knowl-
edge is increased by the use of this language. (5) 85%
of the students find it an asset to be able to use this
language for this variation design exercise: they ap-
preciate not having to go into designing details and
being able to work only with a more abstract con-
ceptual structure. (6) 40% of the students that used
the language during their design process express to
have found new structural design ideas at some point
through the use of this new language.
Even though there is a psychological effect for
over-appreciation when trying something new (cf. Figure 8
Hawthorne-effect), this case study shows that in gen- Student's example
eral (interior) architecture students evaluate this new of similar structural
language positively in regard to learning it, its abil- story with
ity to increase their structural understanding, and its traditional (top) and
qualities to communicate structural behaviour and to new (bottom)
enable structural design. languages.
Evaluation of language in design collabora-
tions of architecture students and engineer
The second case study consists of six design collabo-
rations between on the one hand the author as struc-
tural engineer, and on the other hand six architecture
students and one interior architecture student, all in
their master years, as architect. These collaborations
occur in face-to-face meetings within a design studio
setting spread over several weeks, and involve the
participation of an additional tutor taking care of the
architectural qualities of the various design projects.
The collaborations start early in the design process
and the communication on paper between architect
and structural engineer occurs through the use of
the new structural language (Figure 9). After the end
of the design project, students fill in a questionnaire
with open-ended questions and there is an follow-up
discussion. This leads to the following findings:
• Students describe the new structural lan-
guage used in the face-to-face meetings as
clear, direct, pure, intuitive, understandable
and quick: you can learn it by using it; it does
not need much explanation.
Figure 9
Example of
student's design
project: conceptual
structural design
sketch and
architectural
proposition before
(top) and after
(bottom) structural
consultation (left).

• Students state that the language is useful for • Some students say they find it essential to
the first phases of the design process, when limit the number of different symbols in the
there is a need for more abstract structural language in order to gain more insight into
ideas, but that something 'more' is needed the structural essence.
later on in the design process, when there is
In addition, based upon his notes and the produced
a need for more detailed information that this
project results of the students, the author concludes
language does not provide.
that (1) the language enables him to quickly and eas-
• There is a limit on the amount of understand-
ily write down the structural story of a conceptual de-
able information that can be communicated
sign proposal, with the advantage to be (2) still con-
in one drawing. Thus in case of complex struc-
sultable by students after the meeting is over. (3) The
tures or too many load cases, more than one
students seem able to grasp the expressed structural
3D view is needed.
behaviour of the structural proposition and if nec-
• The language provides structural informa-
essary change the presented structural form model
tion on the level of an architect's design cul-
within sound structural logic.
ture. Students value the visual communica-
tion (with the language) more than a spoken
one.

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 221

 CAAD POTENTIALS OF THE NEW STRUC-
TURAL LANGUAGE
The presented language is developed for manual
sketching of 3D design representations in face-to-
face meetings in which speed of communication is
essential. Its application requires important 3D draw-
ing abilities of the designer to produce these repre-
sentations, and has limitations to express complex
problems. Therefore the new language has poten-
tials for application in CAAD (Figure 10) since the
symbols can simply be adapted to digital 3D repre-
sentations in which more complex problems can be
expressed: digital layers can be turn off or on, dy-
namic views of the model allow for more complex 3D
communication and symbols can simply be added to
an existing digital architecture model.
Still, for a successful implementation during concep-
tual design collaboration, an appropriate interface
technology is required which allows for a swift com-
munication between architect and structural engi-
neer, and also for visual and tactile feedback which
contributes to an internal design dialogue also called
"visual thinking" (cf. Schubert et al. 2013).
Further potentials for this language in CAAD lie
in MAS, in which agents are used to:
222 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
• filter "private" structural engineering models
into "public" models by translating the engi-
neer's information overload on internal forces
into a more abstracted structural essence
through the use of the new language.
• link structural conceptual elements with an
array of built design possibilities through data
mining for design exploration (cf. Sariyildiz et
al. 2002).
• check the structural load path, and vertical
and horizontal stability of the conceptual de-
sign as defined by the allocated symbols of
the new language on the 3D form model.
CONCLUSIONS
The overall quality of an architectural design project
profits from a design collaboration between architect Figure 10
and engineers that starts early in the process. How- Example of
ever differences in design cultures and knowledge application of the
ask for special attention when architect and engineer structural language
work together during conceptual design: for exam- in a digital 3D
ple, an overlap of expertise is preferred to enable a model
rich communication and the development of innova-
tive design.
The design collaboration between architect
and engineer finds support in different possibil-
ities within Computer Aided Architectural Design
(CAAD) like Building Information Modeling (BIM) or
the emerging Multi-Agent System (MAS). However
when it comes to collaboration in the early phases of
design, progress is still required.
The presented structural language is developed
for early design collaboration between architect and
structural engineer. It provides 3D representations
that express and enable to understand the structural
essence of a conceptual design of the structural en-
gineer, with a minimum requirement of engineering
specific knowledge. The language consists of sym-
bols to express structural order, function and dimen-
sions of the structural conceptual elements, and con-
tains a built-in relation between these abstract ele-
ments and a catalogue of possible design solutions.
 Case studies show that for most architecture and
interior architecture students the new language is
easy to learn and use, and that the language even
helps an important number of students to concep-
tually design structures. When designing in collab-
oration with a structural engineer, the language is
well received with (interior) architecture students as
a communication and design tool in the early phases
of design. However, during the later phases this lan-
guage falls short as more detailed and accurate infor-
mation exchange is required, which traditional struc-
tural languages can provide.
The language was developed for manual 3D
sketching but has much potential for use in CAAD-
software: first of all in simple 3D digital representa-
tion software, but also in more intelligent MAS. Here,
further research is required.
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224 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Communication, Coordination and Collaboration: Media
Affordances and Team Performance in a Collaborative
Design Environment
Bimal Balakrishnan1 , Danielle Oprean2
1
University of Missouri 2 Penn State University
1
balakrishnanb@missouri.edu 2 dxo12@psu.edu

Advances in digital media are encouraging designers to adopt digital tools during
early stages of design ideation as well as to facilitate collaboration in design
teams. Collaborative environments for design teams should take into
consideration both the multimodal nature of design representation as well as the
complexity of team cognition. Collaborative tools that take a "black-box"
approach often limit affordances for design ideation and collaboration. We
describe here a collaborative environment that we put together using a
kit-of-parts approach and underlying theoretical considerations. We also describe
systematic usability evaluation of the collaborative environment by constraining
select media affordances and qualitatively examining the impact on a team's
design process. Preliminary findings were used to improve the environment and
lay the groundwork for developing tele-collaborative environments.

Keywords: Digitally-Mediated Design Collaboration, Transactive Memory,

Team Performance, Design Presentation

INTRODUCTION when designers continue to use their familiar com-

Design practice, over the decades, has moved away
from the ideal of the multi-skilled renaissance man
to that of renaissance teams (Buxton 2007). With ad-
vances in the development of specialized software
for design drawing (e.g. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro)
and input devices such as the stylus and tablets that
afford more natural drawing experience (e.g. Wa-
com tablets), digital tools are increasingly used in
early stages of the design process. Designers still
work with a variety of representational media that
help with ideation at different levels of abstraction.
Sharing representations seamlessly with collabora-
tors even in a co-located setting remains a challenge
puting tools that are good at representation, but
not on sharing or communication. Many collabora-
tive tools for design overlook the multimodal nature
of design representation and take a "black-box" ap-
proach that forces the designer to work with a given
set of tools within the collaborative platform. We be-
lieve that a "sand-box" approach where designers can
bring familiar tools and workflow will be better suited
to facilitate design collaboration. We took a kit-of-
parts approach to developing a digital collaboration
environment for co-located teams. This collabora-
tion environment was developed based on theoret-
ical considerations and was built on existing work-

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 225

 flows and practices in our studios. We then tested Theories of Team Mind
our collaborative environment by constraining select Transactive Memory. Another important theoreti-
media affordances and qualitatively examined the cal idea underlying the development of our collab-
impact on the design process. orative environment is that of transactive memory
system (Wegner 1987) through which a given group
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR DE- encodes, stores and retrieves knowledge. Transac-
tive memory systems support the underlying per-
VELOPMENT OF A COLLABORATIVE ENVI-
formance of group efforts on solving problems by
RONMENT providing access to more efficient and much larger
In developing our collaborative environment, we
stores of information as well as a much faster recall of
draw on two theoretical areas. The first one deals
pertinent knowledge to address a problem (Ren et al.
with the role of representations in the design process
2006). The success and performance of the group in
and implications for digitally-mediated design envi-
carrying out these activities become dependent on a
ronments and, the other dealing with the concept of
large pool of information being divided amongst the
shared cognition in the context of the team mind.
members of the group while, still allowing each indi-
vidual direct access to the information (Brandon and
Representation-Presentation Distinction Hollingshead 2004). In this way, transactive memory
In developing our collaboration environment, we
systems provide a platform for accessing individual
make a critical distinction between representation
memory as well as to indicate each member's exper-
and presentation in the context of architectural de-
tise. From this perspective, transactive memory con-
sign. Representation according to Carpendale and
sists of three main parts: task, expertise, and person
Montagnese (2001, p. 61) is "the act of creating an
or TEP (Brandon and Hollingshead 2004). Tasks per-
image that corresponds to the information" and pre-
taining to the overall group task and each individual
sentation as the "act of displaying this image, em-
task taken on along with knowing what expertise is
phasizing and organizing areas of interest. " Repre-
available to accomplish the task and the person who
sentations are primarily tools to aid reasoning and
holds the information. In considering these three
creative process and presentations primarily serve
parts, transactive memory system development be-
a communication purpose. The representation-
comes highly dependent on each group member's
presentation distinction is further complicated by the
perception of cognitive interdependence as each in-
fact that they lie in a continuum. This is analogous
dividual's outcome was linked to the performance
to MacEachren's (1995) depiction of cartography as
of other's in the system (Brandon and Hollingshead
a cubic map-use space with visualization and com-
2004; Wegner 1987). Meaning that without members
munication occupying opposite poles. In the design
of the group knowing the task, what expertise is avail-
process and communication, representation and pre-
able and who holds what information, a group may
sentation can be respectively mapped on to the visu-
not be successful in forming a true transactive mem-
alization - communication poles. This also will help
ory system.
to clarify distinctions between the two such as the
One aspect of transactive memory systems that
level of interaction (at value level for representation -
considers how these three parts occur is through spe-
at view level for presentation), purpose (exploration
cialization within a group (DeChurch and Mesmer-
of unknown - communicating known) and intended
Magnus 2010). Specialization allows for the reduc-
domain (private - public). We build on our prior work
tion of the individual work load for each member
(Balakrishnan et al. 2007) that leverages these ideas
while adding immense coordination efforts amongst
to develop display environments for architectural de-
all members as the group must not track not only
sign.

226 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

who knows what but who is doing what (Brandon
and Hollingshead 2004). Choi et al. (2010) noted
that information technology is one avenue to help
facilitate this type of coordination amongst groups.
Mechanistic memory is the medium for storing and
sharing all the files and records of work on a task
(Akgün et al. 2006). Collaboration software and other
information technology pieces offer different forms
of mechanistic memory available for groups to use.
Using a transactive memory system that utilizes a
mechanistic memory can improve the overall effec-
tiveness of the team while reducing the overall mis-
use of information (Akgün et al. 2006; Choi et al.
2010). Collaboration tools in particular work to en-
courage and enhance certain types of communica-
tion, furthering the development of the transactive
memory system. These tools provide information on
authorship of files, require minimal effort to retrieve
files, and allow for multiple files to be view simulta-
neously all while providing an avenue for continuous
forms of communication (discussion boards, voice
chat, etc.).
Our shared digital workspace acts as a seamless
mechanistic and transactive memory where artifacts
from individual memory could be shared with the
group and interacted by all group members. Team
members can use specialization to organize their co-
ordination in completing a task by knowing who
knows what information as well as to see who is car-
rying out which task. This leads us to believe that
key differences in the collaborative environment can
facilitate how transactive memory is utilized in con-
ducting an architectural task.
Shared Cognition. One of the biggest strengths in
groups or teams is the shared team mental model
that forms, or the aggregate of individual mental
models (Cooke et al. 2013). This idea of shared team
mental models have been identified from two key
constructs: team mental models (TMMs) and shared
mental models (SMMs). Cooke et al. (2013) makes
a distinction between the two models where TMMs
refer to stored team-level representations and SMMs
refer to changes in individual member's mental mod-
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 227
els due to influences of the team. Both types of men-
tal models work to influence the performance of the
group where TMMs aid in the overall solutions pro-
duced by the team and SMMs aid in the interper-
sonal communications between group members. In
particular, TMMs are the emergent states in which
teams can organize, anticipate and execute actions
based on knowledge, which is important to the team
(DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus 2010).
The group mental model is a representation of
the knowledge the team has to support their over-
all performance in an endeavor based on similarity,
overlap, and complementarity (Dong et al. 2013;
Badke-Schaub et al. 2007). In the creative setting
such as with design teams, the team mental model
is one built off of diversity and an understanding of
what that diversity can bring to the task at hand.
Badke-Schaub et al. (2007) describes this diversity
as a setting for distributing the cognitive load across
different members of the team to not only form the
transactive memory system but, to also aid in broad-
ening the solution space for the designated problem.
Three main factors are listed as having influence on
team mental models and subsequent performance:
the operational environment the team resides in, the
nature of the task, and at which stage in the design
process the group is working (Badke-Schaub et al.
2007; Dong et al. 2013).
However, knowledge in design problems and
tasks are not as concrete as facts and other forms
of knowledge thus making understanding of the de-
sign team mental model more challenging (Badke-
Schaub et al. 2007). This is due to the individualistic
nature of how a designer explores different factors of
the problem through various proposed solutions to
aid in determining the overall success of a solution
(Dong et al. 2013). Therefore, design team mental
models are dependent on the collective agreement
of the factors to be addressed with a design concept,
or having a common operational picture of what the
end solution should aspire to become, while still hav-
ing divergent individual perspectives. To date, ex-
ploration of design team cognition has been mostly
 Figure 1
Schematic of our
collaborative
environment

focused on the study of artifacts developed instead devices to the shared workspace or to other team
of the actual team interactions and communication members. This transfer of documents and drawings
(Dong et al. 2013). irrespective of the file type or software origin and
web URLs is achieved through an intuitive drag and
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLLABORATIVE drop transfer. Individual users can also edit any file
in the shared workspace. TeamSpot software facili-
DESIGN ENVIRONMENT USING A KIT-OF-
tates this collaboration using the PointRight system
PARTS APPROACH (Johanson et al. 2002) that facilitates pointer and key-
Our collaborative environment as illustrated in fig-
board redirection in collaborative environments that
ure 1, comprised of a 12 feet by 8 feet whiteboard
include a multi-machine, multi-display set-up. A set
that acted as the primary shared workspace for digi-
of graphics workstations including laptops and desk-
tally mediated collaboration. The whiteboard is aug-
tops equipped with a variety of 3-d modeling, image
mented by a short throw projector to share digi-
editing and presentation software and input devices
tal content as well as eBeam technology from Lu-
like Wacom tablets complete the collaborative envi-
idia Inc. for digitally capturing the interactions on
ronment. The collaborative environment is also con-
the whiteboard whether using whiteboard markers
nected to our 18 feet by 6 feet stereoscopic display
or using stylus for projected content. In addition to
to facilitate immersive visualization of designs. The
the whiteboard-capture technology, the TeamSpot
number of workstations in our collaborative environ-
collaboration software suite from Tidebreak Inc. form
ment is flexible and we have used varying configura-
the heart of the collaborative environment. The
tions from 3 to 9 workstations.
TeamSpot software connects the individual laptops
and desktops to the shared digital work surface. It
allows movement of information and artifacts across

228 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

 USABILITY TESTING AND EMPIRICAL
EVALUATION OF THE COLLABORATIVE
ENVIRONMENT
We evaluated the usability of our collaborative en-
vironment during implementation with undergrad-
uate students after obtaining informed consent (see
figure 2). Participation of human subjects in these
evaluations were also approved by our Institutional
Review Board for research. During the usability eval-
uations, the overall experience was seen as positive
with many appealing features. The feedback also in-
cluded some good suggestions for improvement and
directions for future development. We took a sys-
tematic approach to the usability evaluations. We
first provided participants with training to use the
TeamSpot software and hardware components such
as the e-Beam tracker for collaboration. We then pro-
Figure 2
The collaborative
environment in use
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 229
vided them with short-structured tasks, for example
editing a simple geometric model collaboratively or
share and edit files individually. We recorded our ob-
servations of their use of our collaborative environ-
ment to identify areas of strength and weakness.
We also conducted a systematic empirical inves-
tigation into the theoretical ideas underlying the col-
laboration environment. We created three scenar-
ios with different media affordances for collabora-
tion, drawing on the conceptual distinctions made
by Kvan (2000) between collaboration, coordination
and cooperation. We restricted certain features of
our collaborative environment to investigate the im-
pact of those features on collaboration dynamics and
team performance systematically. The first scenario
utilized all the features of the collaborative environ-
ment including the shared digital workspace allow-
ing interactions with original representations as well
 as the ability to share screen views and files between
team members on a one-to-one basis facilitated us-
ing the TeamSpot software. In the second scenario,
we used Teamviewer software in place of TeamSpot
as the main collaborative platform. This scenario did
not include the shared digital workspace where all
team members could work simultaneously on a rep-
resentation. However, it allowed one-to-one collab-
oration between the team members through screen
and desktop sharing. In the third scenario, while the
team members where still co-located, no electroni-
cally mediated collaborative platform was used. We
assigned single-family residential projects of similar
scope and type for each of the scenarios, but varied
the context and persona of the end users for the de-
sign. We collected a variety of dependent measures
drawing on existing design collaboration literature
(e.g. Gabriel and Maher 2002; Gao and Kvan 2004).
Data collected included coding of cognitive data,
design activity and communication control among
other measures of design performance. In addition
to observation and analysis of each team's use of
the collaborative environment in a given scenario,
the team members completed a questionnaire eval-
uating it. The questionnaire included Likert type
items evaluating the quality of the teamwork as well
as the formal features of the collaborative environ-
ment for that scenario. The team members also com-
pleted a detailed, open-ended questionnaire assess-
ing their overall experience, identifying appealing
features; pointing out frustrations, their perceptions
of the collaborative environment's impact on team
performance and suggestions for improvement. A
summary of the usability evaluation and empirical in-
vestigation into the collaborative affordances of our
environment is provided below after a brief descrip-
tion of the design task and team composition.
Design Task and Team Composition for
Evaluation
The design task was kept comparable for all three sce-
narios tested. The team was tasked with designing a
single-family residence for a young couple. Program-
230 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
matic requirements included a foyer, formal living
and dining areas, a master bedroom, and a kitchen
and laundry space. Some changes were introduced
in the design brief for each scenario to encourage the
team to start with fresh ideas such as new site and
slight changes in programmatic requirements. The
time to develop design ideas and generate presen-
tation drawings was kept consistent across scenar-
ios. The team completed the design task in a given
scenario in three consecutive sessions with a short
break between them. The three sessions focused
respectively on conceptual design, design develop-
ment and design presentation. The team was also
presented with a set of deliverables for each stage in
the form of digital drawings, images or 3-d models.
Three students in the final year of our undergradu-
ate program in architectural studies were identified
for the project. The selected students had worked to-
gether extensively as a team on many class projects
as well as during their internship.
User feedback from usability testing and
empirical evaluations
The participants pointed out that overall experience
was highly positive. The ability to use common
design and CAD tools on familiar computing hard-
ware along with the opportunity for any team mem-
ber to bring any digital representation to the shared
workspace and allow it to be manipulated it by others
was seen as the key. The transparency of the collabo-
rative interface, the streamlining of the communica-
tion process and the ease of use were pointed out as
other positives. The participants liked the large dis-
play of the shared workspace, the ability to show and
share screens with other users as well as the ability
to interact with another user's screen from their own
computer. Ability to take a "snapshot" and "record"
key decisions and ideas as the happen during the col-
laboration process and the ability to "archive" collab-
orative sessions was seen as a useful feature. These
features taken together in the opinion of one partic-
ipant can be seen as a design recorder that allowed
the team members to reflect on the collaborative de-
sign process and retrace design steps during the re-
vision process. The ease of switching back and forth
from working individually on their own computers to
working in a truly collaborative fashion in the shared
workspace was another highlight.
Participants suggested the need for more prac-
tice sessions for both technological and for social rea-
sons. Some features such as multiple mouse-ins on
the shared workspace while easy to learn needed
some getting used to. We also noticed that our col-
laborative platform aimed at democratizing the col-
laborative environment for all team members pre-
sented some interesting modifications to group dy-
namics. The e-Beam could only track one marker or
stylus at a time on the white board, which slowed
down the process and affected the natural rhythm of
interactions. Participants suggested Wacom tablets
as peripherals for the graphics workstations so that
other users can "sketch" at the same time. We have
since implemented this in a more recent upgrade of
our collaborative environment. Remaining sugges-
tions had to do with room layout and furniture ar-
rangement. Wherever possible, we made improve-
ments in the implementation to enhance the collab-
orative experience.
CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS
Usability analysis and preliminary data from our em-
pirical study suggests an overall positive reception
to the collaborative environment discussed here. We
are currently engaged in detailed analysis of the em-
pirical data that we collected from this project. We
expect to have a more nuanced understanding of
the relationship between media affordances and ef-
ficacy of design collaboration and to see the over-
all impact on the occurrence of transactive mem-
ory and overall team cognition. This will inform fur-
ther development of our own collaborative environ-
ment as well as help others take a kit-of-parts ap-
proach to implement their own collaborative envi-
ronment that best fits their need. We are now work-
ing to extend this co-located design collaboration ap-
proach to facilitate remote collaboration by integrat-
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 231
ing video conferencing that can work across different
network bandwidths as well as devices. If successful,
this remote collaboration initiative can inform devel-
opment of online design studio courses that retains
the richness of the interaction between the design in-
structor and the student in traditional design studios
that are taught face to face.
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232 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Learning from Collaborative Integration
The Hackathon as Design Charrette

Bara Safarova1 , Edna Ledesma2 , Gregory Luhan3 , Stephen Caffey4 ,

Cecilia Giusti5
1,2,4,5
Texas A&M University 3 Texas A&M University / University of Kentucky
1,2
{Barasafa|ednaledesma}@tamu.edu 3 gregory.luhan@uky.edu
4,5
{scaffey|cgiusti}@arch.tamu.edu

This paper examines the application of innovative and interdisciplinary

collaboration methods that emerged from the rapidly developing field of
information technology and its intersection within the realm of design and
architecture. These events, also referred to as hackathons, have risen in
popularity in recent years (Artiles & Wallace, 2013) and stem from a design
response for the increasing demand for accelerated design decisions within the
field of architecture. This paper examines the potential of hackathons as a
platform for rapid development of design ideas into prototypes within a time
constraint of 24 hours. The paper explores the hackathon as a robust
foundational element for pedagogical approaches rooted in interdisciplinary
collaboration. Using a case-study research methodology, this paper probes the
framework of the event, the outcomes, and the lessons learned. As this paper
demonstrates, the hackathon required participants to identify and explore shifting
territories through interdisciplinary teamwork to arrive at innovative solutions.
In this setting, the format of the hackathon serves as a vibrant territory that
enables a concrete theoretical contribution to design pedagogy, CAAD education,
and collaborative professional practice.

Keywords: Design tools, Digital design, Collaborative design, Data

manipulation

INTRODUCTION hackathon, that is tested within the realm of design

This paper examines the application of innova-
tive and interdisciplinary collaboration method that
emerged from the rapidly developing field of in-
formation technology and its intersection with the
realm of design and architecture pedagogy. The
paper presents an experimental application of a
discourse on both design and non-design students to
foster new ways of thinking about design and com-
munication through a time-critical activity. This pa-
per presents the results as lessons for teaching when
using this new application of an existing tool.

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 233

 Application of Hackathon to design
The framework of hackathon event is typically set
within tight time constraints and has largely been
tested and used within the computer science realm.
Recently, this format has been deployed in non-
technological industries such as architecture and de-
sign (Safadi, 2014). With its emphasis on information
technology, the hackathon format provides a plat-
form for engaging with big data, which are increas-
ingly relevant in the construction industry.
What is a Hackathon?
'Hackathon' has its roots in 'hacking' and 'marathon'
in the computer science context where 'hacking'
does not imply breaking into forbidden territory, but
rather rapid prototyping for tangible solutions within
a limited amount of time - typically 24 hours. The
format of a hackathon has been appropriated for
commercial, educational and civic purposes in re-
cent years (Artiles & Wallace, 2013). For example,
governments have utilized Civic Hackathons to ac-
tively link mobile application developers to citizens
in an effort to increase transparency and citizen-
government relationships (Nath, 2011). Hackathons,
have risen in popularity in recent years (Artiles & Wal-
lace, 2013) with experimental application stemming
from a design response for the increasing demand
for accelerated design decisions within the field of
architecture. Events such as BIMStorms and Desig-
nathon are two examples of an intersection between
hackathons and the field of design and architecture.
Designathon
The term Designathon has been coined by Jessica Ar-
tiles and David Wallace (2013) as they supplemented
the 'traditional' hackathon with additional topics and
expanded the audience to include designers as well
as coders. The 39 hours Education Designathon in-
cluded three categories Hands-On Learning, Digital
Learning, and Systems Re-Thinking and yielded a mix
of digital and analogue prototypes (Artiles & Wallace,
2013) and demonstrated the possibility of applying
hackathon format to design problems.
234 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
BIMStorm
BIMStorm is a "massive Real-Time" live charrette
of designers and consultants who collaborate re-
motely through "open standards based exchanges"
on projects using large databases and model servers
("About BIMStorm," 2012). Kimon Onuma pioneered
BIMStorms when collaborating on projects world-
wide during the mid 90s (Onuma, 2008). Based on
the idea that proprietary formats will become a hin-
drance to collaborative, interdisciplinary design in
the architecture field, some scholars (Onuma, 2008;
Kemp, 2011; Counsell, 2012) argue that focus on
knowledge and process of data exchange will be-
come central in the future of the industry. The argu-
ment provides a fertile ground for the explorations of
intersection between computer science and design
platforms such as BIMStorms, Designathons.
Design Charrette 'light'
The traditional Design Charrette stems from the last
minute finishing of architecture drawings at the 19th
century École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (Smith, 2012).
The Charrette is typically used for engagement of
key stakeholders and experts to produce a vision
or an implementation plan for a large project with
potential for contention and requiring community
engagement (Smith, 2012). Time constraint serves
both as a decision accelerator and a risk (associated
with lengthy consultation period) reduction mech-
anism (Smith, 2012). The competition format of a
Hackathon lifts the burden of accountability and con-
sensus building and allows participants to explore
novel ideas and innovate without the burden of de-
livery or failure within a short period of time.
Hackathon as common platform for early
design
The potential of hackathon format as a collabora-
tive common platform for manipulation of relevant
large databases in the early stage of design is the
contribution of this research paper. The College
of Architecture at Texas A&M University hosted a
24-hour hackathon where computer science, non-
design and design students were exposed to the tra-
ditional architecture/design environment, mentor-
ship and tools to address a contemporary issue. The
following sections describe the planning, process,
participation, outcomes and lessons learned from the
event. The hackathon ultimately served as an inte-
grative mechanism for enabling design discourse for
multidisciplinary participants.
DIVERSITY OPEN DATA HACKATHON 2014
Architecture programs across the nation find them-
selves at a synergistic and inclusive intersection-a
crossroads that links academic excellence to issues
related to diversity and equity. The goal of this
diversity-based, data-driven hackathon was to ad-
vance diversity awareness at Texas A&M University
(College Station, TX) by identifying, collecting, and
making visible a range of characteristics such as- eth-
nic backgrounds, religious beliefs, age, political be-
liefs, socioeconomic status, sexual orientations, phys-
ical ability and gender-in ways that embrace the rich-
ness of variety. Embedded is thus a shift beyond stan-
dard charts, graphs, and statistics to contextualize
data through multimedia, three-dimensional objects
and graphic representation. The format of Diversity
Open Data (DOD) hackathon was used and based
upon the ethos of transparency and collaboration.
The hackathon centers on the creation of a flexible
framework for active immersion of non-designers,
computer scientists and designers in a multivalent
design process dealing with evaluation and assess-
ment of large data sets, followed by application in
graphic, data driven or three-dimensional format.
This approach generates meaningful, clear, and tan-
gible data visualization tools that prepare students
for envisioning new linkages in subsequent curricular
activities. This study demonstrated the potential the
hackathon format has as a translatable framework for
reframing data into actionable ideas that align with
architectural pedagogy.
Problem definition
The concept of diversity is rooted in the contempo-
rary cultural imperative of inclusivity. One challenge
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 235
posed by demonstrating inclusivity, however, is that
including a wide range of aspects, facets, and charac-
teristics of a population, also increases the difficulty
of recognizing uniqueness, difference, or an individ-
ual's contribution to a specific area of study. This is-
sue becomes even more amplified once the bound-
aries of a given system extend beyond the local con-
text and taps into an even more diverse global con-
text.
Planning and Partnerships
The College of Architecture Diversity Council at Texas
A&M University partnered with the Center for the
Study of Digital Libraries to deliver the Diversity Open
Data Hackathon. The interdisciplinary steering com-
mittee worked to customise Hackathon format to
a wider, multi-disciplinary audience including stu-
dents of computer science, engineering, liberal arts
and design disciplines. The wide ranging audience
required an establishment of a network of commit-
ted mentors, who were willing to advise participants
on various methods of visualization, handling of data
and the topic of diversity. The event leveraged per-
sonnel resources from all departments of the college
of architecture, geography, computer science, col-
lege of liberal arts and local business incubator.
Hybridizing data
The expansion of the hackathon platform to other
design and non-design disciplines required the pro-
vision of source data in formats that would allow for
rapid analysis and manipulation with and without
coding capabilities. Hence publicly accessible data
related to diversity collected by Texas A&M University
were made available to participants in two versions:
reference data: 'human readable' graphs and tables
raw data for coding: 'comma-separated-values CSV
files All data were stored in an on-line git-hub repos-
itory. Sample data were made available within a call
for participants one month prior to the event. The
data used for Diversity Open Data Hackathon were all
publicly available data as part of open data ("What is
Open?, " 2014) movement. Table 1 below shows data
sources for all data made available to the participants.

The hackathon mechanism, transforming pools of
data through coding and/or hacking, proved to be a
useful platform to encourage participation at a vari-
ety of scales. It also provided the creative environ-
ment of celebrating the design-oriented "culture of
making" that when properly calibrated, gave the par-
ticipants invaluable insights on managing a range of
complex data sets and enabling tangible products.
Description of the event
The Diversity Open Data (DOD) hackathon took place
over an intensive 24-hour period in April 2014. The
central challenge delivered to participants was that
while diversity is meant to include a variety of as-
pects, facets and characteristics of the population,
its actual "measurement" is commonly simplified via
two variables: race/ethnicity and gender/sex. Partic-
ipants were first tasked with imagining reliable alter-
236 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
Table 1
Data and sources
made available to
participants.
native metrics to measure diversity in a more com-
plex and sophisticated manner. The second charge
was how to visually represent such metrics; indeed,
the expectation was for participants to transcend
conventions of graphic representation and to pro-
pose innovative ideas. The DOD was loosely divided
into three phases: team-building activities; brain-
storming and production (see Figure 1); and exhibi-
tion/showcase of alternatives/outcomes. The com-
petition venue included classrooms, studios, fabri- Figure 1
cation facilities, computer laboratories, galleries and Space claimed by a
common areas in a university building housing the Hackathon team
College of Architecture. Team-building activities was turned into a
were facilitated to increase team multidisciplinar- private
ity. To better support and encourage active engage- multifunctional lab.
ment, a team of mentors was created with defined Image credit [By
skills. To further stimulate discussion and to provide a Author].
first-hand experience in crossing disciplinary bound-
aries, teams were required to demonstrate some type
of diversity within their ranks; teams were incen-
tivized to assemble groups with the highest degrees
of diversity (Figure 2 shows selected team charac-
teristics) as defined by each team in its own terms.
In summary, the key learning objectives of the DOD
hackathon event included: engaging students, fac-
ulty, staff and the wider community in a discussion
about diversity; visualizing publicly available data of
the Texas A&M University as related to diversity; pro-
viding a platform for free expression through design
language, and to provide experience working in di-
verse collaborative teams.
Figure 2 riety of outcomes (see Figures 3, 4, 5), which were pre-
Characteristics of sented to and judged by an ad-hoc panel of judges.
teams who Prizes were awarded based on overall rating, best
participated in the understanding of diversity, team diversity, and most
final 'Show and Tell' creative as voted by the event organizers and men-
tors. One exemplary observation expressed during
one team's presentation is the fact that though indi-
viduals' differences are typically perceived to be sig-
nificant, the human genetic composition differs only
by a mere 0.1% among individuals. In tension with
this reality of a miniscule difference is the perplex-
ity of perceptions of the things that define our dif-
ferences. For many of the teams, the process of re-
defining diversity was achieved through a two-step
process: 1) quantification of particular cultural or so-
cial trends, and 2) an extrapolation of data through an
additive or subtractive process. Cultural variables an-
alyzed included things such as number of spoken lan-
guages, while social trends analyzed included things
Event statistics
such as social media usage. The teams learned that
Fifty-six undergraduate and graduate students par-
simply stating a variable quantity could unintention-
ticipated in the Hackathon. Majority of students
ally induce a marginalization of the differences.
were from colleges of Engineering and Education,
Figure 3 the rest of students were from Liberal Arts, Business
Still image from a and Architecture colleges. Though widely advertised
Data Driven within and hosted by the College of Architecture,
Document (D3) only two students from the college participated in
presentation by the the hackathon. Factors that may have contributed
Infolabelers team. to this low participation include the prohibitive time-
Image credit [By intensiveness of architecture design studio projects,
Infolabelers team]. design studio instructor restrictions on participation
and/or a misinterpretation of the term "hackathon"
Figure 4
vis-à-vis coding/programming. This gave the plan-
Still images and a
ning team an opportunity to assess the hackathon
photograph of data
format as a tool for teaching beginning design,
driven document
since a substantial majority of the participants had
(D3) visualization of
never enrolled in a design studio. The composi-
the composition of
tion of twelve teams participating in the competition
Texas A&M
ranged from homogeneous to semi-diverse by the
University student
metrics mentioned in the previous section.
population per
colleges and Hackathon Outcomes
departments. The formation and work of the twelve teams, along
Image credit [By with the discussion with the mentors, resulted in a va-
Santanu and
Friends team].

Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 237


Role of mentors
Mentors played a crucial role in overcoming the dif-
ficulty of team building across disciplines. Sixteen
mentors took part in facilitating the event: faculty,
graduate students and staff members from the Col-
lege of Architecture, Multicultural studies; New Me-
dia, Religion and Digital Studies; Geography; the
Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, and profes-
sional mentors from the technology incubator and
local businesses. The intent of the mentor recruit-
ment process was to maximize diversity among the
mentors to reflect the diversity of disciplinary ex-
pertise and to share a broad array of ideas with the
teams. Mentoring techniques varied from helping
the team define realistic boundaries to developing
a formative common vocabulary that could be de-
ployed by the team to steward active engagement
through a critical thought process. In this context the
mentor served as a "collaborative critic" who bridged
between concepts and the means to enable them.
Consequently, the role of the mentor is defined by
three modes of operation: as enabler-enabling the
teams to help the team narrow down their ideas to
a few key concepts; as strategist-developing a strat-
egy or tactic for examining the data; and as stage-to
pose questions and from which the team could self-
configure a strategy for presenting their findings in a
short amount of time. While characterizing their par-
238 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2
ticipation as intense and invigorating, most mentors Figure 5
wished that they could have spent more time at the Image stills from a
hackathon event. In subsequent feedback question- mobile application.
naire, mentors conveyed that the format was a cre- The app matches
ative mode of teaching that could be incorporated people on campus
into classroom practice. The format of the hackathon who have the least
allowed mentors to float between teams, participat- in common and
ing in conversations through various modes of inter- generates a
action. This floating enabled mentors to remain nim- postcard for them
ble, monitoring teams through a variety of stages of to post. Image
design processes. In reviewing the approach that led credit [By Three
them to the winning design solution, members of the Amigos and a
first-place team cited questions posed and sugges- Friend team].
tions made by one of the architectural design stu-
dio professor mentors and the architectural histo-
rian mentor as triggering the shift in perspective that
pushed them past the limits of their collective disci-
plinary expertise.
Figure 6
Photo of an audio
presentation
accompanied by
changing gradients
of color “What
could you see if you
didn’t look for
diversity?” by the
Paco-Taco team.
Image credit [By
Author].
LESSONS LEARNED & MOVING FORWARD
With a theoretical grounding in activity theory, the
hackathon format enables a deep dive into a partic-
ular topic, inspires teamwork and collaboration, and
triggers the imagination within a constrained time
period. Aligning the topic of diversity to teaching, re-
search, and service-intrinsic components of the aca-
demic setting-enhanced student learning and com-
munity engagement. Hackathon participants found
that attempting to define the complexities of diver-
sity through a parameter-based solution was initially
perceived as limited or limiting and that it was not an
easy task. One team posed a question that perhaps
was the most compelling answer to the challenge:
"What do you see if you don't look for diversity?" (see
Figure 6). Allowing differences to be defined by two
variables was perceived to be archaic, simplistic and
too limited; and accepting that difference exists is the
first step in redefining the term. Ultimately, the team
arrived at three key observations: first, one can utilize
data from a variety of contexts and align seemingly
parallel issues through creative visualization; second,
by viewing topics such as diversity from multiple
vantages, previously unknown patterns can emerge;
third, platforms such as the hackathon enable both
self and collective discovery at a variety of scales. As
one of the mentors noted the most valuable aspect of
the hackathon format was "triggering the shift in per-
spective that pushed each student team past the lim-
its of their collective disciplinary expertise." As an ed-
ucational tool, the DOD hackathon was shown to be
a reliable and versatile outlet for design-driven cre-
ativity. The 24-hour time constraint allowed for an in-
tense stimulation of innovative thinking, much like in
an architectural design studio charrette. The subver-
sive stimulation of the work environment was well re-
ceived, including non-design students. In this sense,
the hackathon is also an operative mechanism-an op-
timization toolkit-comparable to more complex algo-
rithms that design students usually encounter later in
the curriculum-such as uncertainty analysis and sen-
sitivity analysis-that allow collaborative design teams
to craft optimal solutions within a given boundary
of constraints. The competitive environment frus-
trated, challenged, and ultimately, inspired teams
to think beyond their perceived capabilities. Driven
by a sense of ownership and pride in the output
of their analyses, participants from non-design dis-
ciplines were able to experience one of the typical
rewards of the design studio environment. One of
the mentors noted her excitement of participating in
the "Google-like atmosphere" when she "saw a lot of
light bulbs go on in people's minds." Finally, the pre-
sentation of the outcomes enriched the individual
Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 239
and team experience, creating new levels of synergy
among team members, regardless of homogeneity
or heterogeneity in team composition. At the time
of this submission, the research team is developing
an interdisciplinary grant proposal and will be part-
nering with the Texas A&M University to bring several
of the workshop platforms to fruition. By providing
funding to jumpstart the research, the teams will be
able to transform their hackathon research into apps
and visualizations.
CONCLUSIONS
Framing the hackathon experience with issues of di-
versity challenged students in a variety of ways. First,
confronting the definition of diversity challenged the
assumptions of students who had not, in general,
questioned this concept in a profound and complex
way. Second, the restrictive time frame generated an
artificial burden that resulted in a heightened sense
of urgency. Third, the event location (unfamiliar to
most participants) was, in the end, an equalizing ele-
ment: the venue meant that most participants were
equally out of their comfort zone. Mentors catalyzed
anticipated successes in the formation of the teams
and through encouraging complex discussions on
data interpretation as well as search strategies that
led to more complex data sources. In combination,
these elements seem an innovative pedagogical tool
with potential for design studio applications. By
generating creative thinking and by forcing partici-
pants from comfort zones (spatially, temporally, so-
cially and culturally) event organizers generated new
realms of conceptual exploration. In conclusion, the
Diversity Open Data hackathon promises to be an ef-
fective tool for stimulating critical thinking and self-
efficacy in the beginning design process. Further,
within a restrictive time frame, students left empow-
ered by a high level of design freedom and first-hand
knowledge of the intricacies of disciplinary accultur-
ation. Incentivized by rewards for creativity rather
than for course credit, students felt motivated to ac-
cess untapped intellectual resources and unexplored
areas of scholarly imagination. Students hesitant to
 pursue open-ended problems were ultimately able
to activate realms of learning beyond their comfort
zones.

REFERENCES
Artiles, J.A. and Wallace, D.R. 2013 'Borrowing from
Hackathons: Overnight designathons as a template
for creative idea hubs in the space of hands-on
learning, digital learning, and systems re-thinking',
World Engineering Education Forum Innovation in re-
search and engineering education: key factors for
global competitiveness, Cartagena, p. Colombia
BIMStorm, . 2012 'About BIMStorm', Retrieved from [1],
Accessed 05/28/2015
Counsell, J. 2012 'Beyond level 2 BIM, web portals
and collaboration tools', Proceedings Of The Interna-
tional Conference On Information Visualisation, (2012
16th International Conference on Information Visuali-
sation, IV 2012)
Open Knowledge Foundation, . 2014 'What is open?', Re-
trieved from [2] - Accessed 05/28/2015.
Kemp, A. 2011, '“BIM isn’t Geospatial” …. Or is it?',
AGI Community’11, Accessed 05/28/2015, Retreived
from [3]
Nath, J. 2011, 'Reimagining government in the digital
age', National Civic Review, 100(3), pp. 19-23
Reimold, D. 2013, Journalism of ideas: Brainstorming, de-
veloping, and selling stories in the digital age, Rout-
ledge, Florence, KY
Safadi, Y. 2014, The hack-charrette: Designing a model for
engaging teams in tech innovation, Master's Thesis,
The University of The Arts Philadelphia, Pennsylva-
nia
Schrommer, J. and Musty, P.J. 2011, 'A charrette is
the center of the urban design process', Theory
Meets Practice 2003, Retrieved from [4] - Accessed
05/29/2015.
Smith, N.D. 2012 'Design Charrette: A Vehicle for con-
sultation or collaboration?', Participatory Innovation
Conference, Melbourne, Australia
[1] http://www.bimstorm.com/i/BimStorm.php
[2] https://okfn.org/opendata
[3] https://communities.rics.org/gf2.ti/f/200194/67
68101/pdf/- /RICS12Pres_ACK_Speech.pdf
[4] http://www.charrettecenter.net/articles/Charre
ttesDefined.pdf

240 | eCAADe 33 - Collaboration and Participation - Volume 2

Fabrication - Robots
Adaptive Robot Control
New Parametric Workflows Directly from Design to KUKA Robots

Johannes Braumann1 , Sigrid Brell-Cokcan2

1
Robots in Architecture | University for Arts and Design Linz 2 Robots in Architec-
ture | RWTH Aachen University
1,2
{johannes|sigrid}@robotsinarchitecture.org

In the past years the creative industry has made great advancements in the area
of robotics. Accessible robot simulation and control environments based on visual
programming systems such as Grasshopper and Dynamo now allow even novice
users to quickly and intuitively explore the potential of robotic fabrication, while
expert users can use their programming knowledge to create complex, parametric
robotic programs. The great advantage of using visual programming for robot
control lies in the quick iterations that allow the user to change both geometry
and toolpaths as well as machinic parameters and then simulate the results within
a single environment. However, at the end of such an iterative optimization
process the data is condensed into a robot control data file, which is then copied
over to the robot and thus loses its parametric relationship with the code that
generated it. In this research we present a newly developed system that allows a
dynamic link between the robot and the controlling PC for parametrically
adjusting robotic toolpaths and collecting feedback data from the robot itself -
enabling entirely new approaches towards robotic fabrication by even more
closely linking design and fabrication.

Keywords: Adaptive robot control, Real-time interfacing, PLC, Visual

programming

INTRODUCTION tuitively define the robot's toolpath (Braumann and

Within a decade, the role of robotic arms in the cre-
ative industry has greatly changed: Once only used
for high-end research in cooperation with mathe-
maticians and mechanical engineers, robots have
now become a much more common sight [1]. A large
part of this development is due to new interfaces
that are developed within the creative industry and
build upon visual programming environments to in-
Brell-Cokcan, 2014).
Today, industry has taken notice of these new
developments and is beginning to utilize software
such as KUKA|prc to quickly define and prototype
robotic processes. In parallel the creative industry is
looking into automating its robotic processes so that
robotic arms can become creative factories of their
own - towards rapidly fabricating parametrically de-

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 243

 fined products.
In this research we present a new and reliable in-
terface that allows the user to stream robot control
data directly from any PC to the robot. While most
workflows result in a robot control data file that has to
be copied to the robot (Brell-Cokcan and Braumann,
2010) - thus losing its parametric relationship with
the code that generated it - we can now bidirection-
ally couple the robotic arm with the visual program-
ming environment, streaming code to the machine
and receiving data back, which can in turn modify
and inform the fabrication process.
EXISTING SYSTEMS
The idea of interactive toolpath planning is well re-
searched and one of the core research areas in the
field of service robotics (Kunz et al., 2010). The cre-
ative industry has also put significant effort into inter-
acting with robots in a more direct fashion, for exam-
ple Bot&Dolly (Byrne et al., 2014) and SciArc (Kruys-
man and Proto, 2012) are controlling their robots
via custom network infrastructures, while ETH Zurich
interfaced their Universal Robots with Grasshopper
(Lim et al, 2013).
Research oriented robots such as the URs, KUKA's
iiwa or Schunk's LWA come with interfaces that make
external control from the outside relatively accessi-
ble, as they are often used as parts of larger robotic
setups such as DLR's Justin robot (Ott et al., 2006) or
244 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
the Care-o-bot (Graf et al., 2009). For heavy-payload
industrial robots - which are currently more relevant
in the field of architecture - we often have to re-
purpose existing industrial interfaces with their indi-
vidual strengths and weaknesses.
In the case of KUKA industrial robots, until
recently there have been three common ways of
streaming data from a PC to the robot: Via custom
fieldbus systems, by generic communication meth-
ods, and via the Real-time Sensor Interface (RSI).
While custom fieldbus systems offer great flexibility,
they are complex to set up and require additional
costly hardware. On the other side, generic com-
munication systems (e.g. using the RS232 serial port
(Figure 1) or as XML over TCP/IP via the Ethernet.XML
plugin) are primarily made for exchanging state data,
but not optimized for streaming motion data. In or-
der to achieve a fluent, interpolated movement, the
robot has to know at least one position following the
current movement target - i.e. a custom buffer has
to be implemented, which introduces a significant
amount of complexity.
The Real-time Sensor Interface's main purpose
is to offset toolpaths in real-time, e.g. by reacting
to data from a force/moment sensor in order to en-
sure that neither workpiece nor robot are damaged.
By enlarging the maximum allowed positional offset
and replacing the sensor with a custom server appli-
cation, position information can be streamed at the
Figure 1
Robot
programming
through
Grasshopper via the
robot’s serial port.
Early approaches
towards direct
robot control
(Braumann and
Brell-Cokcan, 2012)
 robot's cycle time, i.e. 4ms (250Hz) or 12ms (80Hz). output of a component with the EXECUTECMD in-
Unlike other systems that basically transfer only the put of the next component, so that one movement is
basic geometric data and toolpath parameters (e.g. called once the previous movement has finished (Fig-
target position as XYZABC, speed in m/s, accelera- ure 2).
tion in percentage, and interpolation strategies) and
Figure 2 leave the interpolation and interpretation of these
mxAutomation values to the robot, RSI requires the user to take care
structure (above), of all these parameters. Therefore, at every cycle a
PLC function block new offset value is sent that has to have these param-
for a linear eters "baked in" - i.e. a higher speed is represented
movement in by a larger distance over the same cycle time. This
accordance with IEC allows fine-grained control and extremely quick re-
61131 (below). action times, but by doing that makes the user re-
(KUKA, 2014) sponsible for even minute details that can possibly
damage the mechanics and endanger the user. Ini-
tial experiments with non-optimized code led to os-
cillations around the robot's target and significant is-
sues with latency spikes exceeding the robot's cycle
time on non-real-time systems such as Windows (and
by extension Grasshopper), causing vibrations in the
robot's movements.
A middle-ground between the aforementioned
interfaces can be found in KUKA mxAutomation,
which makes it possible for external controllers with
an embedded PLC (programmable logic device) to
command KUKA robots on the basis of regular mo-
tion instructions. So rather than having to define a APPLYING INDUSTRIAL INTERFACES IN
custom interface between the robot and a controller, THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY
mxAutomation provides a link to several brands of As part of a research project we are currently building
controllers such as Siemens Sinumerik, Rockwell, and upon an as of yet unnamed interface from KUKA that
CODESYS-based systems. utilizes generic UDP packets to communicate with
On the robot side, mxAutomation acts as an in- and control KUKA robots. So instead of having to
terpreter that accepts, buffers, and executes com- build up an expensive fieldbus infrastructure, it en-
mands and then returns data on the success of that ables us to basically use every network-capable de-
operation. Interestingly, for example CODESYS uses a vice to stream information to the robot and process
visual programming approach that is somehow simi- the returned data, from regular Windows PCs and
lar to Grasshopper, where components provide cer- laptops to smartphones and tablets, and even tiny
tain inputs and outputs, with editable code work- ARM-based microcontrollers such as the Raspberry
ing in the background. However, where Grasshop- Pi.
per code is generally run once, providing a certain re- Using an early version of this communication
sult at the end(s) of the directed, acyclic graph, the library, we created a custom "soft-PLC" that runs
CODESYS graph is called at every cycle and move- as a separate high-performance thread on a reg-
ment sequences are defined by e.g. linking the DONE ular Windows-PC and directly communicates with

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 245

 Grasshopper. The interpreter on the robot side ac-
cepts commands and queues them inside a buffer
to execute them in sequence. At every cycle, these
commands are refreshed and values from the robot,
such as all axis positions, velocity, etc. are returned to
the server program. Internally, all robot commands
are executed exactly as if they were written into a KRL
file, with all safety and interpolation options intact.
This gives us a great number of advantages over
custom-developed generic interfaces: First of all, as
an interface marketed to industry it is highly stable
and well tested. It can be deployed without requir-
ing any additional hardware on either robot or PC
side and works bi-directionally so that e.g. sensor val-
ues or robot parameters can be returned to the con-
troller. While the problem of Windows (by default)
not being a real-time capable operating system per-
sists, the integrated buffer gives us a much larger lee-
way so that brief communication issues do not have
an impact on the robot's toolpath or the stability of
the communication. However, the buffer also pro-
hibits any hard-real-time applications, i.e. processes
where millisecond reaction times are needed.
We believe one of the main reasons for the popu-
larity of robots in the creative industry to be their ro-
bustness: Instead of having to focus on the mechan-
ics of the machine, the creative user can focus entirely
on the application and rely on the robot to follow the
246 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
instructions as well as possible. Similarly, this new in-
terface opens up new possibilities without requiring
us to control every finest robot detail in real time (Fig-
ure 3).
Having a capable interface is only one step to-
wards enabling adaptive and dynamic robotic pro-
cesses. The main question remains on how dynamic
processes can be controlled by the user and how the
flows of data are laid out between the robot and the
external controller.
KUKA|PRC: A LIBRARY FOR ROBOT SIMU-
LATION
Currently the most common workflow for interact-
ing with a KUKA robot in the creative industry is split
into two parts - programming and execution: First, the
robot's movements are visually programmed within
Grasshopper and then simulated via the according
robot control plugins. Once the simulation is work-
ing, a control data file is written and then copied via
Ethernet to the robot where it has to be manually
executed. Similar to Grasshopper's process of "bak-
ing" geometry, which turns parametric objects into
static geometry that can be exported and rendered,
the parametric robot control data is condensed into
a static text file.
This process is also the default workflow of
KUKA|prc, which we developed as an interface for
Figure 3
Location of
command logic:
Entirely on the
robot controller for
regular control data
files (SRC), entirely
on the external
controller for
real-time
controllers (RSI),
distributed
command logic
(NEW).
 controlling KUKA robots through the visual program- collision checking, automated calculation of exter-
ming environment Grasshopper. In the 6 years since nal axes, etc. and can be built to work either with
the first approaches were shown at eCAADe 2009 RhinoCommon for applications within Rhinoceros 3D
(Brell-Cokcan et al., 2009), the software has evolved or openNURBS for external usage (Figure 4).
from simple code generation to a full robotic sim- For our new interactive workflows we can there-
ulation environment, building upon a custom kine- fore use the stable and tested infrastructure of
matic solver that can simulate 6 and 7 axis robots, KUKA|prc, with the library of robot commands, robot
supports up to 4 external axes and plots the entire models, tool models and robot specific functions and
axis movements of a robotic program in advance so expand it towards adaptive workflows.
that it can be immediately - either visually or auto-
matically - checked for unreachable points or singu- INTERACTIVE ROBOT PROGRAMMING
larities. As such, KUKA|prc is now being used not only Interactive toolpath planning is a highly complex
at many universities worldwide, but also at global topic, with topics such as bin picking having been re-
leaders in the aeronautical industry, in the film indus- searched for more than 30 years (Siciliano and Khatib,
try, at high-end fabrication companies, architectural 2008) without arriving at some kind of universal for-
and industrial design offices as well as FabLabs and mula. The main challenge of bin picking is that a sys-
enthusiasts. tem has to identify the countless objects in a box,
Figure 4 grab the right one with the right strategy, and at
KUKA|prc structure: the same time avoid collisions with e.g. the sides
Underlying custom of the bin. To do so, the system has to evaluate
CORE library countless possible approach-strategies towards dif-
providing all ferent objects and even simulate their physical be-
mathematical and havior (Schyja and Kuhlenkötter, 2015).
geometric However, we believe that most possible applica-
calculations tion within the creative industry do not pose this level
building upon of complexity, but instead can be tackled with exist-
OpenNURBS. The ing tools and workflows, such as the visual program-
Grasshopper ming environment Grasshopper.
component As such we built our range of tools for adaptive
exposes these robot programming, referred to as ARC, on top of
functions and the existing KUKA|prc library and components, allow-
provides an asset ing us to re-use the different assets as well as en-
library. ARC utilizes tire parametric definitions. Therefore, the user can
the GH interface as first simulate and evaluate the entire process "offline"
well as core using KUKA|prc and then connect to the robot and
functions. go "online" to stream the commands. ARC there-
fore does not have to offer any simulation capabili-
ties by itself, but only accepts data, interfaces with
the robot, and visualizes the position data that gets
sent back from the robot - keeping the software slim
It is built upon a fully original core library that de- and highly performant while allowing the user to sim-
fines the robot-specific classes and performs all core ulate other projects in KUKA|prc without disturbing
operations such as inverse and forward kinematics, the dataflow.

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 247


Through analyzing our past robot projects, we
have identified four distinctive interaction strategies
that should cover most current requirements for in-
teractive toolpaths within the creative industry (Fig-
ure 5). These strategies can be switched within the
Grasshopper component depending on the prefer-
ence of the user.
Default Mode: This is the most basic mode
whose purpose is simply to transfer commands to the
robot. Once commands are connected to the ARC
component they are immediately processed and sent
to the robot. While the robot is already moving, addi-
tional commands are streamed until the interpreter's
buffer has reached its defined capacity. From then
on, executed commands are culled from the buffer
and replaced with new commands. If the input data
from the ARC component is changed, it immediately
wipes the robot's buffer and starts streaming new
commands.
Adaptive Mode: In comparison with default
mode, adaptive mode users a much shallower buffer
that contains only the bare minimum of commands
to cover brief lags in the Ethernet communication.
248 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
Figure 5
The four developed
Interaction modes
for ARC: Default,
adaptive, real-time,
and iterative.
While usually robot programs only allow the user
to set a speed override, adaptive mode attempts to
keep the entire robot job completely parametric for
as long as possible. Only when a command is com-
mitted to the robot's buffer it cannot be changed
anymore. This allows us to incorporate sensoric feed-
back to continuously inform the fabrication process
and all its parameters
A current application of the adaptive mode is
AROSU, an EU-funded research project that explores
the structuring of natural stone (Figure 6). The new
"adaptive" toolpath capabilities are used to adjust
toolpath parameters and geometry in real-time, com-
pensating e.g. for the non-homogeneous structure
of natural stone.
Iterative Mode: In interactive mode, the ARC
behaves mostly like default mode with a similarly
large buffer, but does not accept any new commands
until the robot signals that it is ready for the next it-
eration, i.e. when the previous commands have been
processed and an optional timeout has passed. The
main applications is therefore to switch between fab-
rication and evaluation. Essentially, the user only has
Figure 6
Early, mechanical
prototype for the
structuring of
natural stone (left),
sensor analysis and
output (right).
to define a single operation such as "pick up here and
drop off there" and a set of global rules regarding the
placement. Then the robot performs an operation,
sensor data - e.g. from a 3D camera - is processed,
and the next iteration adjusted according to the cap-
tured data. Refer e.g. to Dörfler et al., 2012.
Real-time Mode: Similar to the adaptive mode,
real-time mode uses a shallow buffer to reduce the
reaction time to a minimum within ARC's framework.
However, while adaptive mode works with the en-
tire parametric toolpath, real-time mode generates
each command on the fly by taking the current robot-
position, calculating the difference to the target po-
sition and then adjusting it according to the pre-set
step-values. So if the target, e.g. based on live mo-
tion capture data, were to move, with a step size set
to 5mm and a buffer of 5 positions, the robot would
continue for 25mm before reacting to the change.
CHALLENGES AND OUTLOOK
This research marks our initial steps towards even
more integrated design and production workflows
that allow us to directly apply the flexibility of vi-
sual programming in the physical world using robotic
arms.
With its large user-base, powerful geometric
functions and accessible layout, Grasshopper marks
a very suitable platform for defining such flexible
robotic processes. However, in more in-depth anal-
ysis we observed some issues when e.g. frequent re-
draws are issued. Finally we implemented our own
display pipeline to Rhino and spun out all interfac-
ing operations into highest-priority threads that run
in parallel to Grasshopper for a minimum of inter-
ference. While this still does not make Windows a
real-time operating system, most multi-core proces-
sors have enough processing power to stream even
dense position data to the robot with a minimum of
lag. The combination of a simulation framework with
a new data-streaming interface is highly synergetic,
as e.g. jobs can be automatically simulated without
user-interaction and are only queued for fabrication
once all performance criteria such as avoiding colli-
sions and ensuring reachability are met.
While similar robot control solutions exist, this
new interface offers the advantage that the robot re-
acts in exactly the same way as if it was processing a
regular robot control data file. Furthermore, it is ex-
tremely easy to install and maintain, requiring only
a regular Ethernet cable, the range of Grasshopper
components, and the relevant KUKA software on the
robot. Once the IP of the robot has been set, com-
mands can be immediately streamed to the machine.
We believe that adaptive robot control marks a
very important step for the creative industry as it can
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 249
 be used for dynamic processes as well as automation.
Rather than having to set up complex communica-
tion infrastructures, a single robot connected to a sin-
gle PC can become a powerful creative factory, inter-
facing e.g. with a web-server to receive data from
users around the world. Through this ease of use
we hope to enable customized and reactive fabrica-
tion processes for highly individualized products on
all scales, from industrial design to architecture and
beyond.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research leading to these results has received
funding from the European Union Seventh Frame-
work Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant
agreement n°606453.
REFERENCES
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2011 'Parametric Robot
Control: Integrated CAD/CAM for Architectural De-
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Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2012 'Digital and phys-
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Interfacing Arduino with industrial robots', Proceed-
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Programming – Linking Design, Simulation, and
Fabrication', Proceedings of the 5th annual Sympo-
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(SimAUD)
Brell-Cokcan, S and Braumann, J 2010 'A New Paramet-
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puter Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA)
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nual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided
Design in Architecture (ACADIA)
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'Robotic Home Assistant Care-O-bot® 3 - Product Vi-
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tions', in Brell-Cokcan, S and Braumann, J (eds) 2012,
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ronment for Designing through Robotic Fabrication',
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Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia
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Borst, C, Albu-Schäffer, A, Brunner, B, Hirschmüller,
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T, Zacharias, F and Hirzinger, G 2006 'A humanoid
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of Robotics, Springer
[1] http://www.robotsinarchitecture.org/map-of-crea
tive-robots
Smart Architecture-Bots and Industry 4.0 Principles for
Architecture
Eliot Rosenberg1 , M Hank Haeusler2 , Rebekah Araullo3 ,
Nicole Gardner4
1,2,3,4
University of New South Wales
1,2,3,4
{e.rosenberg|m.haeusler|r.araullo|n.gardner}@unsw.edu.au

Industrial robots from the automotive industry are being repurposed for use in
architecture fabrication research in academic institutions around the globe. They
are adapted for a variety of fabrication techniques due to the versatility of their
6-axis arm configuration. Though their physical versatility is an advantage in
research, their computational and sensory capabilities are rudimentary and have
not evolved significantly in the past forty years of their existence. In the meantime
the manufacturing industry has moved on by introducing new forms of
manufacturing namely Industry 4.0. In this position paper we look at the
characteristics necessary to bring architecture robotics into line with Industry 4.0
standards. By presenting the fabrication process as a relationship model of
'tool-process-outcome' we will examine the way in which these entities and their
interrelations might be augmented vis-a-vis Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS),
Social Robotics and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) approaches such as the
Tangible User Interface (TUI).

Keywords: Robotics, Social robotics, Innovation in robotics, Industry 4.0,

Human-robot interaction

INTRODUCTION repetitive tasks in the automotive industry. These in-

Robotic fabrication is a rapidly expanding field of
inquiry in architecture research. Many institutions
are currently investigating applications of industrial
robot arms for manufacturing unique and complex
structural forms, with various notable scholarly con-
tributions by Gramazio & Kohler (2014a, b); work from
Taubman College / University of Michigan (2014), as
well as the Association for Robots in Architecture
(2014), to name but a few. The robots used in re-
search undertakings of these groups are generally 6-
axis robot arms that were initially designed for simple
dustrial robots are rudimentary machines that are op-
erated by researchers with specialised computer pro-
gramming skills. Their accuracy, speed and versatil-
ity make them an advantageous tool for architecture
fabrication research, yet in the field of robotics these
machines are far from the state of the art [ER1]. Hav-
ing applied industrial robots successfully in the man-
ufacturing industry for over forty years, manufactur-
ing is beginning to turn its attention towards newer
fields, to step away from manufacturing principles
defined in the third industrial revolution, also known

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 251

 as the digital revolution, where the use of electron-
ics and IT helped to further automate the produc-
tion process (Boerse ARD, 2013). This next step is de-
fined as Industry 4.0 (VDI Nachrichten, 2015) first in-
troduced in 2011 at the Hanover Fair outlining six de-
sign principles to support enterprises and companies
in implementing Industry 4.0 principles (Hermann,
Pentek, Otto, 2015). For the purposes of this paper
the following two of these six design principles are
considered relevant here:
• Interoperability: the ability of cyber-physical
systems, humans and smart factories to con-
nect and communicate with each other via
the Internet of Things and the Internet of Ser-
vices.
• Decentralisation: the ability of cyber-physical
systems within Smart Factories to make deci-
sions on their own.
Given this, the focus for this paper is to extend
knowledge in the CAAD research community in
robotics and architecture with particular considera-
tion of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Cyber-Physical
Systems are defined by Lee (2008) as a network of
interacting elements with physical input and out-
put instead of as standalone devices, thus bring-
ing together robotics (in its form used currently in
robotics in architecture and elsewhere) together with
sensor networks, combined with intelligence mech-
anisms. The ability of robots to interact with their
environments through sensor networks and intelli-
gence mechanisms has also been discussed in Social
Robotics (Beetz, 2014). Social Robotics is a branch of
robotics research that focuses on autonomous robot
interactivity in social spaces. The objective of this
research is to emulate the way humans make deci-
sions based on sensory data and prior knowledge in
order to perform physical tasks that may in turn re-
sult in further interactions. These robots employ var-
ious types of artificial intelligence to achieve the de-
sired behaviours. Collaborative-robots or Cobots are
social robots whose prime function is to collaborate
with humans and other cobots on specific tasks that
252 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
have been taught to them (Surdilovic, 2010). Many
industrial robot manufacturers are now introducing
their first cobots for tasks such as sorting and pack-
ing, which is intended to be implemented on the fac-
tory floor alongside human counterparts. Given the
field's infancy, the vast range of applications for so-
cial robotics remains yet to be explored (established
in the 1990's).
RESEARCH QUESTION
As argued by Rosenberg et. al. (2015) robotics in ar-
chitecture requires a paradigm shift towards apply-
ing new concepts in manufacturing, such as Indus-
try 4.0 and social robotics, and testing and analysing
them in the context of architecture. Significantly,
this position paper puts forth the hypothesis that col-
laborations in architectural practice between human
architects and intelligent social robots could pro-
duce superior results vis-à-vis spatial optimization,
complexity, efficiency, and possibly design decision-
making. Therefore we posit that in the same way
that robotic tools have already increased the effi-
ciency and accuracy of architectural fabrication pro-
cesses, social robotics could increase the productiv-
ity of the entire architectural process from design
through to production. As researchers with the ar-
chitectural field explore the ways in which computa-
tionally programmed mechanical tools can improve
the manufacturing processes of non-standard archi-
tectural parts, it seems natural to then ask -
Using Industry 4.0 standards as a benchmark for
next generation manufacturing, what elements of the
architecture workflow could be augmented by intelli-
gent social robotic intervention within the framework of
cyber-physical systems?
METHODOLOGY
Using systematic research in the form of a literature
review as a method, the paper introduces the follow-
ing to the research community: (1) Background on
Industry 4.0 in order to give the reader an overview
of findings in the field; (2) based on these findings,
an argument for a causality of Tools - Process - Out-
comes as a framework to operate in the following;
(3) comparison of tools via a taxonomy of robotics
with robots currently used in architecture and social
robotics; (4) analysis of the process of interacting with
a social robot; before (5) concluding what other out-
comes could be achieved by Smart Architecture-Bots
& Industry 4.0. Hence we refer to research in Industry
4.0 (Boerse ARD, 2013; VDI Nachrichten, 2015; Her-
mann, Pentek, Otto, 2015; BMBF, 2011; Kagermann,
2015; Sabbagh, et al, 2012; and Hermann, et. al.,
2015) as a method to apply research in robots in ar-
chitecture; with Cyber-Physical Systems here in par-
ticular social and collaborative robotics research by
XXX to inform new findings on the process how ob-
jects can potentially be designed and fabricated in
the Architecture Engineering Construction (AEC) in-
dustry.
BACKGROUND INDUSTRY 4.0
Within the Architecture Engineering Construction
(AEC) industry, robotics technology is a rapidly grow-
ing technology that is identified as a mechanism for
revolutionary change. As outlined in the introduc-
tion and through Rosenberg et. al. (2015), this pa-
per argues that the type of robots used in the AEC in-
dustry are already an out-dated manufacturing tech-
nology in other industries and that nations such as
Germany are working towards adopting new, so-
called Industry 4.0 manufacturing processes (BMBF,
2014).The origins of Industry 4.0 concepts are found
in the evolution of the Information and Commu-
nication Technology sector (ICT), which had trans-
formed organizations and economies in the digital
world (Turban, et al, 1997). Digitization, known as
the continuing convergence of the real and the vir-
tual domains is identified as the main driver of inno-
vation and change in economic sectors around the
world (reference here). The exponentially growing
amount of data and the convergence of different af-
fordable technologies that come along with the es-
tablishment of ICT networks have transformed all ar-
eas of the economy (Kagermann, 2015). ICT tech-
nologies, such as mobile broadband, cloud comput-
ing, Big Data, and the Internet of Things are ush-
ering in a new information age. Traditional indus-
tries now have at their disposal an unprecedented
degree of integration between information, commu-
nication, and manufacturing systems (Zhang, 2015).
With ICT access approaching ubiquity, policymak-
ers' next challenge is to ensure that individuals, busi-
nesses, and governments are making the best pos-
sible use of networks and applications. Countries
that have achieved advanced levels of digitization-
the mass adoption of connected digital technolo-
gies and applications by consumers, enterprises, and
governments- have realized significant benefits in
their economies, their societies, and the functioning
of their public sectors (Sabbagh, et al, 2012).
Based on these foundations Industry 4.0, devel-
oped by Germany as a white paper to pioneer the
role of industrial IT in its major sectors (Kagermann,
et al, 2013), is now a term widely used to refer to
a fourth industrial revolution and is fast becoming
a major game changer across Europe, the United
States and other world-leading Western nations. In
short Industry 4.0 refers to the interrelation of tech-
nologies that are to facilitate the emergence of the
"Smart Factory". These technologies include the In-
ternet of Things, Smart Objects, Cyber-Physical Sys-
tems, Cloud computing, and Internet of Services. It
is seen as the meeting point of the electronic mech-
anization of the manufacturing industry and the net-
worked computerization of all industries. Hence this
paper argues that the purpose of Industry 4.0 is to
eliminate current human barriers and bottlenecks by
automating processes that are more efficiently per-
formed by computers and smart machines. As out-
lined earlier Hermann, et. al. (2015) argued for six
design principles to implement Industry 4.0 scenar-
ios.
• Interoperability: the ability of cyber-physical
systems (i.e. work-piece carriers, assembly
stations and products), humans and Smart
Factories to connect and communicate with
each other via the Internet of Things and the
Internet of Services
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 253
 • Virtualization: a virtual copy of the Smart Fac-
tory which is created by linking sensor data
(from monitoring physical processes) with vir-
tual plant models and simulation models
• Decentralization: the ability of cyber-physical
systems within Smart Factories to make deci-
sions on their own
• Real-Time Capability: the capability to collect
and analyse data and provide the derived in-
sights immediately
• Service Orientation: offering of services (of
cyber-physical systems, humans or Smart Fac-
tories) via the Internet of Services
• Modularity: flexible adaptation of Smart Fac-
tories to changing requirements by replacing
or expanding individual modules
While this paper has listed two principles as particu-
larly pertinent for this discussion, each of these prin-
ciples are also relevant in the manufacturing indus-
try, the CAAD community, and where robots are ap-
plied in architecture, the objectives share similarity,
chiefly the use of a tool (the robot) for a process (cus-
tomising a design) to achieve an outcome (a prod-
uct or building). Hence the following section intends
to outline the causality of Tools - Process - Outcomes
as a framework to compare existing and new work-
flows in order to demonstrate the advantages of the
research for the CAAD community.
TOOLS - PROCESSES - OUTCOMES
For our purposes, we identify key aspects of Indus-
try 4.0 that provide the foundation for understand-
ing critical enablers in the AEC industry. These key
aspects will serve as a guide for creating a strategic
approach to developing smart infrastructure. Firstly,
this begins with the 'smart' tool. This refers to smart
machines and devices that can affect the digitiza-
tion of conventional analogue processes. Secondly
the focus is on process. Smart intuitive processes
and logical infrastructure such as Cyber-Physical Sys-
tems (CPS) can facilitate communication exchange
between humans, tools, materials, and outcomes.
Thirdly, a key aspect concerns the outcomes. Here
254 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
the paper speculates on how outcomes (designed
objects) could be realised differently through Cyber-
Physical Systems (CPS) by applying Industry 4.0 prin-
ciples, where, through 'interoperability' (the ability
of cyber-physical systems, humans and smart facto-
ries to connect and communicate with each other via
the Internet of Things and the Internet of Services)
and 'Decentralizations' (the ability of cyber-physical
systems within Smart Factories to make decisions on
their own) a new relationship between tool and used
material can advance computer-integrated manufac-
turing and digital fabrication in the AEC industry.
From Tools to Smart Tools
As Industry 4.0 focuses on the establishment of in-
telligent products and production processes, it an-
ticipates that in future manufacturing, factories have
to cope with the need of rapid product develop-
ment, flexible production as well as complex environ-
ments (Vyatkin, 2007). Within the factory of the fu-
ture, the so-called smart factory, CPS aims to enable
the communication between humans, machines and
products alike (Einsiedler, 2013), (Achatz, et al, 2009).
As they are able to acquire and process data, they
can self-control certain tasks and interact with hu-
mans via interfaces (Brettel, 2014). In order to out-
line this shift the paper will briefly reflect on how
robots are currently used in architecture before intro-
ducing a Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) approach to
robotic fabrication where specialised machines com-
municate through physical and wireless networks,
are regulated by intelligent processing of input data
and are arm controlled via intuitive user interfacing.
Robots used in Architecture Research
Gramazio and Kohler's research (ETH Zurich, 2006)
in robotic architecture assembly processes re-
established the robotic research field within archi-
tecture. Their brick-laying robot proved that robot
intervention in one specific architectural process
could elevate the architectural outcome to a de-
gree not possible with any other type of in-situ pro-
cess. Following on from this research, many other re-
search groups from academic institutions around the
world have established their own robot fabrication
research projects. These projects include foam/hot-
wire cutting, stone/diamond wire cutting (McGee
et al., 2012), milling, complex element assemblies,
additive fabrication, hybrid additive/subtractive fab-
rication, to name a few. These research projects have
a common tool - the 6-axis industrial robot arm - a
tool that was developed for use in the automotive
manufacturing industry. In an automobile factory
these robots sit in a production-line configuration
and work on each car as it comes to them. The robots
will usually weld a few joints and then repeat the
same specific process for their entire life cycle. A rea-
son many architects have explored this technology
is that the 6-axis robot is much more versatile than
the current tools being used in the production of ar-
chitecture. This way of thinking comes into line with
the Industry 4.0 model where tools and objects will
evolve into multifunctional machines like our smart
phones. However where these robotic architectural
approaches lack is the complete adoption of the In-
dustry 4.0 strategy, and resultantly 'intelligence'.
Gramazio and Kohler's research (ETH Zurich,
2006) in robotic architecture assembly processes re-
established the robotic research field within architec-
ture. Their brick-laying robot proved that robot in-
tervention in one specific architectural process could
elevate the architectural outcome to a degree not
possible with any other type of in-situ process. Fol-
lowing on from this research, many other research
groups from academic institutions around the world
have established their own robot fabrication re-
search projects. These projects include foam/hot-
wire cutting, stone/diamond wire cutting (McGee et
al., 2012), milling, complex element assemblies, addi-
tive fabrication, hybrid additive/subtractive fabrica-
tion, to name a few. These research projects have
a common tool - the 6-axis industrial robot arm - a
tool that was developed for use in the automotive
manufacturing industry. In an automobile factory
these robots sit in a production-line configuration
and work on each car as it comes to them. The robots
will usually weld a few joints and then repeat the
same specific process for their entire life cycle. A rea-
son many architects have explored this technology
is that the 6-axis robot is much more versatile than
the current tools being used in the production of ar-
chitecture. This way of thinking comes into line with
the Industry 4.0 model where tools and objects will
evolve into multifunctional machines like our smart
phones. However where these robotic architectural
approaches lack is the complete adoption of the In-
dustry 4.0 strategy, and resultantly 'intelligence'.
Cyber-Physical Systems
One element necessary for the emergence of the
Smart Factory is Cyber-Physical Systems. Baheti and
Gill (2011) describe how "...cyber-physical systems
(CPS) refers to a new generation of systems with
integrated computational and physical capabilities
that can interact with humans through many new
modalities" (page number). The aim of CPS is to
augment the interaction capabilities of the physi-
cal world through computation, communication and
control, thus resulting in more efficient automation
of physical processes. It is through the develop-
ment of Information and Communication Technolo-
gies (ICT) that the networking of computationally
controlled machines and smart objects has chiefly
been made possible. This suggests more efficient
and flexible strategies for manufacturing than cur-
rent methods offer. Yet cyber-physical systems do
not necessarily focus on Human-Computer Interac-
tion (HCI). A framework for human influence and con-
trol of the manufacturing CPS is also integral to future
architecture processes. It is therefore a requirement
of the smart architecture factory to incorporate user
interfaces that allow specialist human knowledge to
be harnessed. The interaction and collaboration of
humans and robots is studied in the field of Social
Robotics.
Social Robotics is a subfield of robotics, which
deals with robots that are intended to function in so-
cial spaces. They must perform tasks in constantly
changing environments containing interactive and
noninteractive entities. Social robots must therefore
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 255
 also be interactive entities that respond to and filter
events in real-time as they navigate the tasks they are
given. Social robots are embedded with a vast array
of sensors that are used to gather environmental and
task specific data for processing. The processing of
live data enables them to continuously review their
progress and reevaluate their strategies to achieve
the desired objectives. In future Industry 4.0 architec-
tural processes, robots will need to interact with both
human architects and the smart materials which they
will be producing/manipulating to produce architec-
ture.
Collaborative robots, or Cobots are a type of so-
cial robot that are designed to work in collabora-
tion with, and physically alongside human counter-
parts (reference). The first generation of cobots to
reach the marketplace are now being implemented
in factories where the labourforce is relatively un-
skilled. Factories where human workers jobs consist
of picking, sorting, arranging, packing, and assem-
bling are now investing in cobots to replace human
workers on the factory floor. These cobots are able to
work amongst human workers and not just in a des-
ignated safety area as is the case with earlier genera-
tion industrial robots. This is because they are able to
sense the human workers and robot workers around
them and have built-in safety mechanisms that stop
the robot from colliding with other entities in their
vicinity. Some examples of cobots that are currently
being implemented in industry are: Baxter (Rethink
Robotics), YuMi (ABB), LWR (Kuka).
Process
The second key aspect is process. Although ICT
gained advantages in the AEC industry resulting in
collaborative efficiencies, current practices still ne-
cessitate and generate segregated individual pro-
cesses that deal with design, optimization, construc-
tion, maintenance, logistics and management. As the
quality of outcomes in the AEC industry is dependent
on these rigidly linear processes, the capacity for cre-
ating smart infrastructure is limited. Another aspect
to be considered is the type of processes involved
256 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
in AEC. These processes, unlike other industries, re-
late to elements with high levels of physical compo-
nents with strict parameters of flexibility, portability
and manageability, combined as well with virtual sys-
tems and digital processes. In Industry 4.0, Cyber-
Physical Production Systems (CPPS) address vital is-
sues that deal with mechanization of these physical
components and that are relevant to the AEC indus-
try. Cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) made
up of smart machines, logistics systems and produc-
tion facilities allow peerless ICT-based integration for
vertically integrated and networked manufacturing
(Kagermann, et al, 2013). Additionally in an Industry
4.0 process not only the tools have a greater intelli-
gence the same applies to the materials used to fabri-
cate objects and artifacts. Smart materials in the con-
text of Industry 4.0 refer to any material that has been
augmented either via a bar code, QR Code, a RFID tag
or similar. Hence the material can contain informa-
tion of either how many pieces are still in the store
and create feedback to the storage facility to re-order
them via the suppliers but more importantly the ma-
terial can store information for the robot what to do
with the materials. This aspect will become subject
of further research by the authors.
Workflow in AEC
In the last decade the advances in factory automa-
tion became aware of the fact that any significant
improvement may be achieved only by considering
the tight integration of computational, physical and
social elements (NIST, 2013). The same can be said
about the AEC industry. An approach for a closer
integration of individual processes to combine into
a fluid activity would advance towards smart infras-
tructure. New emerging concepts must also be ex-
amined and considered in the process, such as Cyber-
Physical-Social Systems (Zhuge, 2010), Human Sys-
tem Integration (NASA, 2013), Smart Environments
(Poslad, 2009). Their principles refer to an Anthro-
pocentric Cyber-Physical System (ACPS) that inte-
grate the physical component, the computational/-
cyber component and the human component (Zam-
firescu, 2014).
A CPS poses some exclusive features that differ-
entiate it from the conventional systems (i.e. em-
bedded systems, sensor networks, etc.) (Rajku-
mar, 2007),(Lee, 2008), (Zamfirescu, et al, 2013):
integrality (the CPS's functionalities are relying on
the unified composability of its elements with self-
organization capabilities, such as learning, adapta-
tion, auto-assembly, etc.); sociability (the ability to in-
teract with other CPSs via different communication
technologies, not only device-centered but human-
centered as well in an open mixed network en-
vironment); irreversibility (self-referential timescale,
sensed as dynamics, not discrete, nor spatial); adap-
tive (with self-organization and evolving capabili-
ties); autonomous (control loop must close over the
life-cycle of a PS, including the assimilation of human
factor who is constantly closing the loop of any engi-
neered artefact, despite its automation degree); and
highly automated (as a key driving-force of eroding
the boundaries between its composite elements and
favouring their structural interactions) (Zamfirescu,
2014). This]
Outcomes - Human Computer Interaction
with Tangible User Interfaces
At present we are seeing social robots making their
way into industry to work alongside people for tasks
such as small parts assembly, packing, picking and
sorting in a production-line setup. These robots are
'taught' their tasks rather than being programmed in
the traditional sense. They are taught by example
and require a human counterpart to demonstrate the
tasks to be undertaken by the robot. This is achieved
by moving the robot's limbs and end effectors in such
a way as to teach the robot various processes that
they will be performing autonomously.
ABB calls this method of teaching their YuMi
robot 'lead-through programming'. However the
tasks being performed by YuMi (and other cobots
of her ilk) are quite simple and repetitive. These
tasks may vary slightly in each instance and so the
robot must have a level of intelligence that can han-
dle these variations (eg. varying orientation of parts
that are to be assembled). These variations are solved
with the use of sensors and pattern recognition soft-
ware, but YuMi's environment is still quite controlled
and her tasks have little to no room for interpretation.
Lead-through programming is an intuitive
method of cobot programming that transforms the
robot's entire physicality into a Tangible User Inter-
face (TUI). More generally, this method of program-
ming is called Tangible Programming. The term tan-
gible programming was coined by Suzuki and Kato in
1993 to describe their AlgoBlocks system which helps
children to learn programming. "Several TUIs allow
children to teach an electronic toy to move by repeat-
ing a set of guiding motions or gestures."(Tangible
User Interfaces: Past Present and Future Directions:
Orit Shaer and Eva Hornecker, 2009). Another suc-
cessful example of a TUI is the system of Navigational
Blocks designed by Camarata et al (2002), where a
multimedia kiosk in Seattle's Pioneer Square enables
visitors to explore the area by moving and rotating
wooden blocks on a query table in front of a display
monitor.
These examples demonstrate how TUIs can be
used to communicate both physical and conceptual
tasks. The practice of architecture involves both of
these (physical and conceptual) activities. It is there-
fore pertinent to ask: What kinds of tangible user in-
terfaces would be most suitable in an AEC context/-
workflow? In essence this paper outlines a concep-
tual/methodological framework for future research
into the intersecting fields of robotic architecture fab-
rication and HCI vis a vis tangible user interfaces and
tangible programming theory.
SIGNIFICANCE AND CONCLUSION
To bring robotic fabrication into line with Industry
4.0 (2014) principles we must understand how robots
might fit into a future architecture workflow. The re-
lationships defined by Tool-Process-Outcome allow
us to examine the changing nature of architecture
and how the tool might become a cyber-physical
system with intelligent, collaborative HCI capabilities
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 257
 specific to architecture. This is significant as social
robotics can be positioned within the emerging field
of 'Construction Scale Additive Fabrication' within
the construction industry (Gardiner, 2009). Gardiner
argues that design for Construction Scale Additive
Fabrication has major advantages in the manufactur-
ing process. Gardiner's research in construction and
parallel industries indicate the need for and the ad-
vantages of adopting production processes and con-
cepts from the manufacturing industry other than
fabrication alone. On this basis the paper argues for
an investigation of Industry 4.0 principles discussed
in the manufacturing industry and its translation into
the architecture and construction industries. Further
research into intuitive programming through tangi-
ble user interfaces for the communication of physi-
cal and conceptual processes between human and
robot collaborators is therefore an important step
for integrating architecture robotics into the Indus-
try 4.0 ecology of smart technologies. The investiga-
tion of this position paper, its proposed hypothesis,
methodology, implications, significance and evalua-
tion are presented, as well as proposing next steps
towards applied research projects.
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p. 1

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 259

DMR: A Semantic Robotic Control Language
Sebastian Andraos1
1
co(l)Labo
1
seb@andraos.co.uk

DMR is a semantic robot-control language that attempts to change our

relationship with machines and create true human-robot collaboration through
intuitive interfacing. To this end, DMR is demonstrated in the DMR Interface, an
Android app, which accepts semantic vocal commands as well as containing a
GUI for feedback and verification. This app is combined with a robot-mounted
3D camera to enable robotic interaction with the surroundings or compensate for
unpredictable environments. This combination of tools gives users access to
adaptive automation whereby a robot is no longer given explicit instructions but
instead is given a job to do and will adapt its movements to execute this regardless
of any slight changes to the goal or environment. The major advantages of this
system come in the vagueness of the instructions given and a constant feedback of
task accomplishment, approaching the manner in which we subconsciously
control our bodies or would guide another person to achieve a goal.

Keywords: Linguistics, Real-time control, Human-machine interaction, Robotics

Architecture is currently stagnating somewhere
between the digital and physical worlds; using our
daily design tools we can fashion almost anything we
want out of thin air while the majority of our con-
struction techniques have remained relatively un-
changed for the past hundred years, presentation
techniques are advancing with virtual reality and
game engines whilst we still produce two dimen-
sional drawings and details for building sites, and
we still value the production of a physical prototype
much more highly than we do an algorithm or virtual
model. There are obvious reasons for which this state
of affairs has arisen: we are still relatively digitally illit-
erate, especially in the upper echelons, it takes time,
and therefore money, to adapt to new techniques
and technologies, and we have a workforce of skilled
labourers that can reliably build standard architec-
tural elements, although it should be noted that in
certain countries, like the UK and Australia, that is be-
coming less of a constant than it may previously have
been.
A potential solution to bridge this gap may be
approaching in the form of architectural robotics.
From heavy-duty industrial robots to drones, all
robots are actors in the physical world controlled en-
tirely by the same 1s and 0s that inhabit the digital
one. This paper will focus predominantly on the con-
struction side of architecture as given that the design
phase has already begun to be upgraded through its
digitisation.
Industrial robots are precise, strong, fast, robust,
have existed in some shape or form since the 1950s
and are the de facto technology in manufacturing
anything from mobile phones to cars but the con-

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 261

 struction industry still hasn't made this shift. Granted
there are more and more schools and researchers in-
vestigating robots in construction but there are still
three key problems that need to be addressed be-
fore we can start bringing robots onto building sites;
communication, correction and adaptability. We still
communicate with robots through code which, by
any definition other than that of computer science,
is designed for secrecy not legibility, is typically writ-
ten a priori and stored within the robot's controller
for repeated use rather than modification. Correction
and adaptability are similar domains but differ in that
correction is taken to be the ability to avoid unfore-
seeable errors within a given action whilst adaptabil-
ity is considered modifying an action based on exter-
nal changes to the robot's environment. On a build-
ing site we inevitably have a changing environment
and, although the building site of the future may be
increasingly factory-like, there will always be situa-
tions where we can't guarantee calibration with ab-
solute certainty or where we would rather our ma-
nipulator adapt to changes making for a much sim-
pler control system, effectively giving goals or tasks
rather than explicit instructions. It is clear that cur-
rent robotic technologies are no match for their hu-
man counterparts in unpredictable scenarios but this
paper suggests a singular solution to these problems
262 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
through improved human-robot interactions, allevi-
ating communication issues with semantic instruc-
tions, error correction through real-time control and
adaptability through a highly modular system archi-
tecture allowing easy sensor integration. This solu-
tion is a language called DMR: Dear Mr. Robot.
DMR
DMR is a context-sensitive language heavily derived
from English which ties in with a semantic parser to
enable pseudo-natural language input. DMR is de-
signed to enable us to control robots in a similar way
to that in which we subconsciously control our limbs
or would teach/guide another person to achieve a
task. To that end it retains a high level of relativity,
from the declaration of motion with directions and
distances to the addition of conditionals such as "un-
til", and easily ties in with sensors to effectively give a
robotic manipulator the sense of touch or sight.
LANGUAGE STRUCTURE
(See Figure 1 for a summary of the structure)
Keywords
Keywords are the base of the DMR language and are
hard coded into algorithms used to interpret DMR.
They are all based on existing English words but have
Figure 1
Complete structure
of the DMR
Language showing
the hierarchical
nature of the
language
 been manipulated for use in the context of a robotic
control language, including the addition of new parts
of speech. DMR keyword selection is based on ordi-
nary English definitions (the definition that is most
commonly associated with the word) and the seman-
tic familiarity. Keywords retain an unambiguous En-
glish definition, taken from Princeton's WordNet se-
mantic dictionary, but have newly assigned parts-of-
speech, crucial to the processing of the language.
In order to understand a given instruction, a key-
word's typology is often more important than the
actual word itself e.g. knowing that we have a dis-
tance to move is more important than knowing the
exact distance until we actually have to execute the
action. The parts of speech designed for DMR, as they
do in natural languages, denote the potential usage
of such a word in a more complex structure, com-
mands in DMR, its combinatory potential and its in-
terchangeability.
Figure 2
Example Command
structures showing
all the possible
input and the
alignment of a DMR
phrase within this
structure
In the DMR Reference Manual keywords are pre-
sented as follows:
Left, Direction
WordNet Sense Key: adj1/20
Definition: being or located on or directed toward the
side of the body to the west when facing north
Pronunciation: Brit. /l�ft/
Use: Describes the direction to the left-hand side of the
robot or end-effector, from its point of view. On a world
plane this would typically correlate to the negative x-
axis. Opposite of Right.
Example: Move left 25 cm (Displaces the end effector by
25cm to the robot's left)
Commands
(Figure 2)
Commands, as the next hierarchical level in DMR, are
a set of six robotic actions which are identified to
cover the vast majority of use cases; movement, reori-
entation, tool actions, delays, stop/start and condi-
tionals. Although this is clearly a somewhat reductive
list it still, as it will be demonstrated, allows a great
deal of user freedom whilst avoiding redundancy and
over complication. Each command definition con-
tains a list of necessary parts of speech that must be
filled for the command to be valid and also one of
optional parts that may be included to better con-
trol the action. These lists are in constant flux dur-
ing the parsing process as certain command types are
overloaded, can perform a variety of roles according
to their input, and therefore certain inputs open or
block the possibility of adding other information, e.g.
if one were to define a movement by the angle of the
robot's joints it would be redundant to also define a
distance or direction.
A simple command declaration in DMR could re-
semble:
Move left 25
Or
Activate gripper
These can be extended to contain additional in-
formation, such as speeds, reference systems and
units:
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 263
 Left 25 cm relative to the gripper, at 0.5 m/s
Tasks
(Figure 3)
Once generated, commands can already perform all
the actions afforded to a robot via DMR but defining
a robot's actions command by command is slow and
repetitive so DMR adds tasks to the top of the linguis-
tic hierarchy, which can almost be considered con-
tainers for commands or other tasks but also control
their combination and sequencing. Tasks enable the
user to name sequences of one or more commands
and are at the heart of the extensibility of DMR.
A single task can be as simple as one move com-
mand and a name, for example a move that sets all
the robot's axes back to 0 and is named "reset", but
can become increasingly abstract and arborescent
with the inclusion of sub-tasks, variables and condi-
tionals.
Simple tasks could be setup as follows:
Reset: Set axes to 0 0 0 0 0 0
Align: Left 25 cm then rotate down 90 °
But can be advanced with variables:
Mill /Alpha (numeric): Left alpha cm then forwards 1.
Right alpha cm then forwards 1
And conditionals:
Touch: Reset, rotate down 90 ° and move forward 20
cm then move down 1mm until the force reads 1
As defined by Wahl and Thomas the goal of task-
based robotics is to "relieve the programmer from (...)
coding every tiny motion/action"(Wahl and Thomas
n.d.) and can be combined with sensors, either ex-
ternal or connected to the robot, to create seemingly
complex adaptive motions. One of the initial tasks
implemented through DMR is referred to as "pass",
takes two variables and contains a multitude of sub-
tasks with their own variables and conditionals but
allows the user to simply call "pass me a brick" and
have the robot search for, approach and pick up a
brick, then search for and approach the user's hand
before aligning itself appropriately and releasing said
brick. This could obviously be extended to placing
the brick on top of or alongside another brick and re-
264 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
peated until we have what we may call a wall. That
said the structure of DMR isn't intended for long re-
peated actions. DMR is designed to simplify real-
time communication with a robotic manipulator and
approach a state of cobotics, collaborative robotics,
which enables us to have almost natural interactions
with these manipulators for assistance in tasks we
would find either tedious, strenuous or dangerous, or
to relieve us of increasingly complex programming
to achieve tasks that we as humans have spent mil-
lions of years evolving to do incredibly intuitively, like
stack stability recognition.
Figure 3
Example Task build
up, from single
Commands to
multiple, including
sequencing and
joining, through to
variables and
conditionals.
Passing a user a brick is a menial job for a robot that
can move faster than a human, with more precision
and whilst carrying much heavier loads but serves to
demonstrate the semantic nature of the interactions.
In a similar vein to this task we could easily foresee
robots passing palettes of bricks to users in locations
that they could never have reached with such a load,
performing high speed wiring or precise façade ele-
ment installation.
PARSING SEMANTIC INPUT
The disadvantages of semantic languages are most
prevalent during the parsing phase of any implemen-
tation. Languages with formal grammars, including
most computational languages, can be broken down
into a set of production rules defining that a symbol
on the left can become the one on the right when
generating valid sentences or right can become left
when parsing. Noam Chomsky's hierarchy is a solid
basis to demonstrate this problematic and the rea-
sons for which semantics creates difficulties. In the
Chomsky Hierarchy of formal grammars there are
four tiers referred to, in order of increasing complex-
ity, as Type-3, Type-2, Type-1, Type-0. Without going
into the language theory side of the Hierarchy, each
level denotes a certain format that the production
rules must follow and the necessary means of cal-
culation. Type-3 grammars, as the simplest, are cal-
culable on a finite state automaton and require that
the left-hand side be a single symbol and the right
be at most a pair of symbols of which at least one
must be terminal, i.e. not the left-hand side of any
other production rule. Type-2 grammars are the ba-
sis of most computer languages and are context-free,
that is to say the left-hand sides of all the production
rules have only one symbol meaning the generation
of a valid string in such a language is entirely unam-
biguous and can therefore be calculated on a non-
deterministic pushdown automaton.
DMR has a type-1, context-sensitive grammar
meaning that the left-hand sides of the production
rules may have multiple symbols, i.e. a rule may only
be applicable to a symbol if that symbol is preceded
or followed by another. This conditional grammar
greatly increases the calculation complexity involved
in parsing a language to such a point as a Turing ma-
chine is necessary and to the extent that, depending
on the number of symbols in the language, it is un-
likely that the rules remain scriptable in their entirety.
This linguistic complexity means that standard pars-
ing strategies are no longer directly applicable and
therefore the DMR parser has a slightly unique setup
to balance speed and robustness.
(See Figure 4 for a graphical representation of the
following algorithm)
Assuming we begin with a phrase comprised ex-
clusively of DMR keywords, the first step is the break-
down of this phrase into syntactically separated parts
which define sequential actions and can be treated
as separate entities. Subsequently each keyword is
replaced by its part of speech and will not be rein-
troduced until the final stage of the parsing because,
as previously noted, commands are predicated on
types of values rather than the values themselves.
Once the parts of speech have been introduced they
are condensed as much as possible, i.e. a number
and a rotational unit are merged to become an an-
gle, and we generate commands for all unambigu-
ous parts of the phrase, i.e. a distance can only be
part of a movement command therefore it gener-
ates a movement command. With these unambigu-
ous commands in place we assign them limits within
which they can search for extra information, the first
command in a phrase will be granted access to any-
thing before it, the last anything after but those in the
middle are given access to the parts of the phrase be-
tween the preceding and following commands. This
search range is then used to fill the existing com-
mands with as much information as possible until, as
is very likely, we come across an element of ambigu-
ity. The preceding parse phase is designed to speed
the process up in cases where there is little or no am-
biguity but once an ambiguous word is found, such
as a second direction for a move command, the algo-
rithm is locally modified, first ensuring that neither
existing command with access to this word can use
it, and then generating its own command. Once this
new command is in place it is given rights in the same
way one of the unambiguous commands was previ-
ously and attempts to fill itself with information. This
is done recursively until we have created a maximum
number of valid commands from the original phrase.
The only case not set out above is one where two
commands have access to a word that they can both
use, a frequent occurrence with numbers as they are
applicable to almost all command types. In these cir-
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 265

cumstances we enter a command validation phase
where we weigh up the benefits for each command
from its integration of this value. The primary con-
dition is the validity of the leftmost command given
that, semantically speaking, once a value has been
assigned to a subsequent command no other infor-
mation will be added therefore if the leftmost com-
mand would be invalid without this information it
is associated with the left-hand command. In more
complex scenarios we prioritise certain contextual
factors and the information already included in the
surrounding commands such that the information is
included in its most probable location.
INTERFACE
To make DMR a fully intuitive language it has been
built into an Android application, referred to as the
DMRI (DMR Interface), which, as well as allowing
users to graphically setup commands and tasks, pro-
266 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
Figure 4
A simplified version
of the DMR
semantic parsing
algorithm following
the breakdown of a
valid yet
ambiguous DMR
phrase through all
the necessary steps
to produce machine
executable
commands.
gram end-effectors and connect wirelessly to a robot
(currently only ABB robots are supported), supports
vocal input through Google's vocal recognition ser-
vice. The interface supports two vocal input modes,
offline and online, during which a user's instructions
are converted into DMR executable commands and
tasks. In offline mode the user can dictate com-
mands, program tasks and modify these graphically
before saving them for future execution in online
mode or, shortly, export these to ABB's RAPID lan-
guage for direct execution on a robotic manipula-
tor. During online mode the user has direct, real-time
control of the robot and can therefore fully collabo-
rate as well as receive audio feedback from command
validations or other systems that require user alerts.
There are clearly safety issues inherent with this
sort of control but, as collaborative robotics becomes
a more widely acknowledged field by manufactur-
ers, many of these are currently being integrated
into new manipulators' hardware (YuMi, Baxter, etc.).
That said the most critical issue specifically related
to the execution of a manipulator via DMR is that
of miscomprehension. Whereas with most means of
programming almost all errors are user generated,
with DMR through vocal input, there is a possibility
that the words spoken are not those fed to the DMR
parser. A relatively small mistake in the recognition,
e.g. metres instead of millimetres, can have dras-
tic consequences in the execution and therefore the
DMRI includes a system of command validation be-
yond that included in the parser to ensure that any
possibly misheard commands are apprehended. This
system is still somewhat under developed but cur-
rently works through a two stage process, the first
ensures that the command is actually possible and
the second compares this action with those preced-
ing to ensure that any gross disparities are flagged
before execution, e.g. if the last few commands have
been dealing with single figure millimetres and the
one currently being checked is suddenly double fig-
ures and metres, this is flagged as a drastic jump and
an option to revert to the previous units is offered. An
extension to this system would ideally include inte-
grated feedback and a comprehensive vision system
including on-board and external cameras to ensure
that the motion is feasible and would modify the tra-
jectory of the robot whilst executing to ensure that it
remains safe.
VISION INTEGRATION
To test the DMR Interface in a more complete archi-
tecture and its capacity to connect to external sen-
sors a small vision server was developed based on
PCL (Point Cloud Library) and a developer preview
of Intel's RealSense F200 infra-red camera. This rel-
atively simple setup is mounted on the robot's end
effector and effectively allows the robot to see ob-
jects and pass their relative positions and orienta-
tions back to the controller when requested. This al-
lows the user to add object based variables to their
tasks and ensures that the robot is capable of inter-
acting with them. The vision server implemented
here is capable of seeing certain basic forms, such
as spheres, planes, boxes and hands, but is also ca-
pable of measuring these objects and, for the time
being, making crude assumptions about the object
type based on such observations e.g. a 7 cm x 10 cm
x 21 cm box, through these eyes, is synonymous with
a brick, but this purely geometric approach to object
vision enables other properties, such as colours, to be
properties of these objects allowing us to request a
blue brick rather than just any brick. For the time be-
ing this interaction is an approach, attack and tool ac-
tivation to pick up the object but the same principles
could easily be applied to scenarios such as viewing
a lever and activating it.
The advantage of using DMR for an activity such
as object retrieval is that, due to the relativity of its
movement, we never have to deal with absolute co-
ordinates and the robot is able to adapt to any mo-
tion of the target object. Indeed, the system is setup
so that even if the targeted object disappears the
robot will automatically identify an appropriate re-
placement target.
CONCLUSION
This paper proposes a novel means of real-time,
human-robot interaction through an intermediary
language and demonstrates the effectiveness of such
a solution with examples of its implementation. DMR
is shown to reduce the three problems identified with
current robotic systems; communication, correction
and adaptability, by enabling semantic input, real-
time control and an expandable system architecture.
The most pressing issues with this system are
those of safety and latency. As previously discussed
certain safety measures are in place to minimise the
risk of collisions or unintended movements but this
needs to be developed further to ensure safe and ro-
bust use of this system by untrained users. The issue
of Latency is likely to be resolved in the immediate
future and stems from the vocal recognition portion
of the calculation. If we break down the calculation
time of a typical phrase; speech is in the 1-3s range,
vocal recognition, both online and offline, is of the or-
der of 1s, converting natural language to DMR takes
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 267

between 0.1-0.4s according to the length and com-
plexity of the phrase, and the DMR parsing takes 0.05-
0.1s. Advancements in AI are going to enable much
more responsive vocal recognition systems and nat-
ural language parsing but what is noteworthy here is
the amount of time taken for the actual speech which
is clearly the most time consuming part of the pro-
cess. The latency is currently perceptible but will nat-
urally be reduced as different elements of this pro-
cess are individually developed.
Although the focus here has been on construc-
tion, the intuitive extensibility of DMR gives it the po-
tential to expand into a multitude of other domains.
Programming tasks with such ease could push DMR
into customisable domestic robots where making
coffee in a new environment could be programmed
in a matter of seconds by a lay-person, while the
collaborative aspect of DMR could benefit artists or
craftsmen with 3 dimensional moving and orientat-
ing of an object in front of the user, intuitively, in-
stantaneously and hands-free, to facilitate work on all
sides of an object from a comfortable position.
As DMR is a language, not a piece of software, it
is hoped that once a trial version of the current soft-
ware has been released to beta testers, developers
will be able to integrate DMR into other systems, from
drones to hoovers, growing an ecosystem of similarly
controlled machines. The project remains under ac-
tive development with specific focus on safety and
robustness and will be joined, in the very near fu-
268 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
Figure 5
Sequential views
from the
robot-mounted
camera showing
object
identification,
object selection
and hand
recognition for
delivery of the
chosen object.
ture, with other hardware and software development
to combat issues of on-site robotics such-as inter-
machine communication, ambient noise and multi-
modal human-machine interfaces.
REFERENCES
Chomsky, N 1957 (2nd Ed. 2002), Syntactic Structures, De
Gruyter Mouton
Feringa, J 2012 'Implicit Fabrication, Fabrication Beyond
Craft: The Potential of Turing Completeness in Con-
struction', Synthetic Digital Ecologies: Proceedings of
the 32nd Annual Conference of the Association for
Computer Aided Design in Architecture, California Col-
lege of the Arts, pp. 383-390
Mihalcea, R and Radev, D 2006 'Graph-Based Algorithms
For Natural Language Processing and Information
Retrieval', Proceedings of the Human Language Tech-
nology Conference of the NAACL, New York City
Searle, J 1980, 'Minds, brains and programs', Behavioural
and Brain Sciences, 3, pp. 417-424
Wahl, FM and Thomas, U 2002 'Robot Programming -
From Simple Moves to Complex Robot Tasks', Pro-
ceedings of First International Colloquium “Collabora-
tive Research Centre 562 – Robotic Systems for Mod-
elling and Assembly”, Braunschweig, pp. 249-259
Watt, DA and Findlay, W 2004, Programming Language
Design Concepts, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester
Design=Production
Material and Process Driven Design and Production

Hans Sachs1
1
Responsive design studio
1
hs@responsivedesign.de

With the comprehensive integration of software-based tools in actual processes of

design development and fabrication, the boundaries between design and
production become increasingly blurred. The methodology of the process of
creation changes: the design development phase reaches up to the last produced
model in a product series, in the same time the serial production cycle already
starts with the first prototype.The aim of this research project is to explore and
show the re-strengthening link between form, function, material and fabrication
particularly driven by raising prominence of digital tools for design and
production. Hereby the focus is on two points: the implementation of user
data/input in the light of 'Open Innovation' as driver of form and function on one
hand and the crafing inspired aproach of a comprehensive integration of material
properties, behaviour tradional techniques of processing into the the design
process.

Keywords: Digital production, Mass customization, Parametric modelling,

User-generated design, G-Code post processor

INTRODUCTION production. Hereby the focus is on two points: the

With the comprehensive integration of software-
based tools in actual processes of design develop-
ment and fabrication, the boundaries between de-
sign and production become increasingly blurred.
The methodology of the process of creation changes:
the design development phase reaches up to the last
produced model in a product series, in the same time
the serial production cycle already starts with the first
prototype.
The aim of this research project is to explore and
show the re-strengthening link between form, func-
tion, material and fabrication particularly driven by
raising prominence of digital tools for design and
implementation of user data in the light of 'Open In-
novation' as driver of form and function on one hand
and the crafting inspired approach of a comprehen-
sive integration of material properties, behaviour tra-
ditional techniques of processing into the design pro-
cess.
The group of presented studies and works are
rooted in the field of 'digital crafting' and 'digital pro-
duction' (see 2., 3.) and lead by the concept of 'open
innovation' (see 3.) in the context of mass customiza-
tion. Therefore the paper starts of with various topics,
which represent the main drivers in the studies listed
in this paper, followed by more detailed explanations

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 269

 of all four research projects.
OPEN INNOVATION
" It's the little things that make all the progress" (own
translation of Reichwald and Piller 2009, p. 6)
Open innovation is based on communication
and social interaction. It is "[...] a paradigm that as-
sumes that firms can and should use external ideas as
well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths
to market, as the firms look to advance their technol-
ogy" (Chesbrough 2003). Excellent examples of open
innovation, combined with parametric model based
product configuration by the customer, in the busi-
ness context are the Open Logo Project of Spread-
shirt.com (a provider for individual clothing), the
"Wikihouse" project (www.wikihouse.cc), where cos-
tumers respectively users use and further develop a
CNC-production based housing system or the Sketch
Chair study by Greg Saul, with which the customer
can create his own chair design based on a construc-
tion template embedded in a configurative web ap-
plication. These examples have in common, that
they put the customer at the heart of value creation.
Furthermore they induce playful synergies resulting
from a constant dialogue between designer and user,
object and function.
With the following research studies the enabling
powers of such participative design strategies are to
be explored. The concept of interactive value cre-
ation (Reichwald and Piller 2009) is about the active
role of the customers, an external actor who leaves
his marks or even inventively contributes to the de-
sign and development process of a product or object.
"Customers are no longer just passive receivers and
consumers [...]" (ibid., p.1, own translation). They rep-
resent much more a collaborator to the designer or
producer in the creation of value, in the development
but also the evaluation of a product.
A central role in this interactive process is rep-
resented by the communication interfaces between
the actors, the customer (private or company) and
developer (i.e. company or institution). Therefore
an essential aspect of this interactive process is the
270 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
way of involvement of the customer. Design and ar-
chitecture is creation, and it is creative. One focus
of the studies is to revive a playful experience and
to forge a constant dialogue between designer and
user, between object and function, allowing for en-
gagement, growth and change. Playing means direct
interaction with the environment, personal engage-
ment and building knowledge. The user himself has
a constant impact on his immediate environment, re-
sulting in continuous transformation and interaction.
This demands a process of participation where the
user is deliberately asked for input and engagement.
Participation thus means that designer and user join
forces in a playful act of creation. Therefore the digital
tool studies generally leave elements of design open,
and users are encouraged to participate with their
own input. The objective is that the products do not
function to their full extent unless the targeted user
becomes actively engaged. The research's design ap-
proach is thus playful in both conceptualization and
the use of computational applications as well as in
the attitude towards design referred to as the art of
manufacturing. The manufacture is equally process
and product comprising designer and user as pro-
ducers of space and creative energy.
Figure 1
screenshot of the
fully working web
configurator on
www.design-
machine.com for
CNC routed images,
(C) Sebastian
Bächer, Cologne,
2013
Strongly referenced to the presented studies, the
web-based platform 'design-machine.com' (see fig.
1) was set up by the Bächer & Bergmann GmbH to
explore and establish a comprehensive user inter-
face for potential, individualized furniture systems.
While the collection of parametric tool studies fo-
 cuses on the implementation of material and man-
ufacturing information and user input data in the de-
sign process, with design-machine.com the network
also explores possible data management strategies
Figure 2 and concepts on intuitively interactive user applica-
3D printed metal tions.
part of Airbus 380
(front) and original,
industrially
LIBERATION OF GEOMETRY
"We no longer apply a pre-set form on inert matter,
produced part
but lay out the parameters of a surface of variable
(back),
curvature. A milling machine that is commanded nu-
merically does not regulate itself according to the
build of the machine; it rather describes the vari-
able curvature of a surface of possibility. The image-
machine organization is reversed: the design of the
object is no longer subordinated to mechanical ge-
ometry; it is the machine that is directly integrated
into the technology of a synthesized image." (Cache
and Speaks 1995, p. 95)
Significant advantages of digital design and pro-
duction processes are that, numerous local and
global factors relating to the product context can be
integrated and processed individually during the de-
sign and development processes. The same goes for
structural requirements such as the final use, struc-
tural engineering and various technical functions.
Thus a higher degree of adaptivity can be integrated
in the design, development and production process
and the subsequent use of an object. Thus when it
comes to materialization, especially physical param-
eters and constraints dominate the design of an ob-
ject. There is a strengthened and more correspon-
dent relation between the development and fabrica-
tion process combined with a higher flexibility con-
sidering the geometry: in the phase of design and
manufacturing but also in the final shape.
A British research group has shown that 3D print-
ing may well trigger a revolution in production tech-
niques of airplanes. The group "EADS Innovation
works" aims to use this technique to produce whole
aircrafts in the near future. Individual connection el-
ements printed from metal are already being in use
in Airbus airplanes and can be easily modified in any
individual airplane model (see Fig. 2). In addition the
3D printing method provides great opportunities to
save material and weight.
DIGITAL PRODUCTION
The aspect of an efficient application of materials and
individual operations in the production process also
represents a key driver in the development of the de-
sign tools presented in the following topics.
Similar to the 18th and 19th century industrial
revolution, we are, today, in a process of societal
change that, among other factors, significantly influ-
ences architecture and design. This proceeding dig-
ital revolution 'refers to the advancement of tech-
nology from analogue electronic and mechanical
devices to the digital technology available today'
[1]. But while information technology and digital,
rule-based, robotic processes already dominate large
parts of our private and business live, 'traditional' in-
dustrial processes still primarily govern the produc-
tion of consumer goods.
But although industrial production still domi-
nates the world of products and consumption, dig-
ital techniques have helped - even if mostly exem-
plarily - in reinstating basic principles of craft produc-
tion in design and architecture " [...] in which ma-
terial and form are naturally intertwined into a tra-
dition of making [...]" (Oxman 2010, p. 304). The
principals of digital design and manufacturing pro-
cesses are rather linked to a way of craft production
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 271
 than industrial processes as they emphasize the qual-
ities of the materials used and provide higher flexi-
bility during the development and production pro-
cess. The connection of digital design and digital
manufacturing can be resumed as 'Digital Crafting'
(see 'Design Tool Studies'), which describes the com-
bination of work techniques typical of craftsmen with
computer-supported processes' (Sachs 2012, p.12).
The computer extends the principles of traditional
crafts by numerous options such as simulation, gen-
eration and the connection and controlling of pro-
duction processes. Furthermore this approach com-
bined with the potentials of generative modelling
- 'the generalization from objects to operations: A
shape is described by a sequence of processing steps,
rather than just the end result of applying operations'
[2] - inevitably pushes us towards new concepts of
design making and thinking and subsequently leads
to new design aesthetics.
The potential of digital processes in manufactur-
ing is currently being thoroughly investigated and
applied in various areas. So-called FabLabs are ex-
ploring the themes of interdisciplinary, also of a
more 'democratic' design and production. "A Fa-
bLab (short for fabrication laboratory) is an open
[...] high tech workshop providing fabrication tech-
niques for one-off pieces to private individuals" [3].
In these FabLabs, individual design objects and tech-
nical products are created, often by using 3D print-
ers that people have built themselves and some of
which are i.e. self-replicating and by using CNC ma-
chines, laser cutters and even discarded industrial
robots. Based on the principles of open source,
CNC production data is distributed and further devel-
oped via the Internet and new knowledge regarding
>>materialisation<< is being shared. Ideally, produc-
tion knowledge is shared using Creative Commons li-
cences and a global network of mini factories "...is cre-
ated with these networked, digital production meth-
ods" (Moorstedt 2010, p.82). These laboratories most
likely represent only forerunners of new product de-
velopment practices in the future. Under the banner
"Open Innovation" this movement of sharing, link-
272 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
ing and reflecting production knowledge and prod-
uct data is getting more and more relevant in compa-
nies marketing and design strategies.
DIGITAL CRAFTING
In this paper the research on crafting inspired
computational design and manufacturing will be
discussed and presented by a variation of self-
developed crafting related digital tools. Most of
them have been developed in cooperation with close
partners such as the Bächer & Bergmann GmbH and
Cologne University of Applied Sciences. On top of
these software tools to automatize form finding and
production processes a web-based user-interface
'design machine' (design-machine.com) has been de-
veloped in collaboration with Sebastian Bächer to
give the user the opportunity to individualize and or-
der his 'product on demand'.
The flexibility of such tools enables design mod-
ifications to an overall design layout up until the
very last moment before an automated generation
of manufacturing data. In the broader sense they do
not only serve as foundation for experimental inter-
action between customer and parametrically struc-
tured 3D objects but can also act as an interface be-
tween design software and manufacturing device. In
the presented project studies of these tools certain
crafting techniques have been used to create struc-
tural templates of design objects that can be modi-
fied, adapted and 'printed' (in the sense of produced
or sent to production) by the user itself.
The developed studies in this paper are also
based on the application of the concepts of "mate-
rial based design computation" which represent "[...]
an approach to the design of computational environ-
ments which might inculcate material attributes di-
rectly into the process of computationally supported
design, during its various stages" (Oxman 2010, p.
304). The digital shaping tools evolve from the ob-
jective to inform the design process with a 'genetic
design code'.
In this concept the design development is rather
driven by the process of making than pure strate-
 gic thinking: thinking by making. On the contrary
to industrial production, in this concept of 'making',
a wide range of data about form, function, mate-
rial, processing and individual user demands are con-
stantly and repeatedly intertwined. The way of hon-
ouring material and its strong - but ever changing -
relation to manufacturing processes leads not only to
new design aesthetics but also to a new, crafting ori-
ented way of design thinking. "Every good craftsman
conducts a dialogue between concrete practices and
thinking; this dialogue evolves into sustaining habits,
and these habits establish a rhythm between prob-
lem solving and problem finding." (Senett 2008, p.18)
With the integration of computation into these pro-
cesses of making and thinking these method of cre-
ation can be applied in a much wider context regard-
ing developers and collaborative users. Thus such
tools are certainly not only questioning traditional
top down planning methods in various fields but also
the concept of mass production and consumption in
general.
Figure 3
'Orlov Act' - physical
prototype and
Rhino-Grasshopper
3D sequence
model, (C) Hans
Sachs, Cologne,
2014
DESIGN TOOL STUDIES
Orlov Act, 2014-2015
Orlov Act is a 9x5x4m architectural media sculpture
made of 1179 individually folded 0.8 mm metal sheet
elements and 127 different opaque projection and
lighting screens made of acrylic glass (see Fig. 3).
On behalf of the architecture studio 'superartitec-
ture' and 'Flying Orlov UG', Cologne, a comprehen-
sive, fully parametric 3D model definition was devel-
oped to support the architects and planners in two
areas, the form finding process and the generation
of all production data implementing material data,
behaviour and processing information including as-
sembly logistics. The project was developed with
Grasshopper 3D for Rhino with various elements of
'Visual Basic' script.
Based on a pre-defined triangulated shape, the
definition generates manufacturing data based on
the users input considering material properties like
thickness, composition (single layer, multi layer, plas-
tic, aluminum etc..), the related folding behaviour.
The software labels all procuced parts automatically
to install all elements in its defined position. Depend-
ing on the choice of material and folding behavior of
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 273
 the respective material, the unrolled 2D cutting and
folding diagrams include specified offset calculations
in order to, once produced, result in the extact size
of the generated 3D model. Finally, when all input
parameters are set and the material is chosen, the
software generates a 3D model including all (varying)
material properties and processing behaviour. These
are then automatically unrolled and provided with all
connector elements (holes/folds etc.) and all logistic
assembly data.
Triangulated Column, 2014
a 20 m high interior, sculptural column as 'Kunst im
Bau' for the new faculty of architecture (PBSA) of the
University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf (see Fig.
4/5). In cooperation with Sebastian Bächer, the Pro-
fessorship of Design by Prof. Oliver Kruse, construc-
tion business partner PERI, a group of master stu-
dents and the schools' CNC workshop we developed
and realized a 'digital processing tool', that generates
274 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
an accurate 3D model and all necessary G-Code data
for a Homag 5-axis CNC mill to precisely produce all
parts for a concrete form work for the 20 tons of ver-
tical concrete structure extending over 4 floors. The
project has been developed with Grasshopper 3D for
Rhino in combination with 'Visual Basic' script for the
G-Code post processor that generates the machine
code from the model data in real time (see Fig. 4).
Customized Cardboard Surfboards, 2012-
2015
This cardboard surfboard core is generated by a Figure 4
grasshopper "quarter iso grid" definition, which is Process: 3D Model
inspired by Mike Sheldrake's great cardboard surf- > Grasshopper
boards. Until now the 3D board models are created in definition >
the open source surfboard-shaping software "Board- Machining-Code,
CAD" and then imported to Rhino 3D to generate the (C) Hans Sachs,
form specified cardboard parts as connector system. Sebastian Baecher,
The project's goal is to create individual, customer- Duesseldorf, 2014
shaped cardboard core surfboards based on a web-
Figure 5
based configurative shaping tool (see Fig. 6).
Prototype model
A comprehensive Grasshopper definition, devel-
Triangulated
oped based on the connector system first developed
Column, (C) Hans
and applied by Mike Sheldrake, creates partitions
Sachs, Sebastian
of the imported 3D model and creates a structured
Baecher,
3D model of the corrugated cardboard core. Spe-
Duesseldorf, 2014
cific algorithms are applied on differentiated zones
of the 3D model while these separated 'part gen-
erators' still refer to neighbouring connector parts,
so that the different systems can be joined easily
in the assembly process. Based on the 3D model,
including all 3D cardboard parts, the cutting pat-
terns of all system parts are generated to cut them
from corrugated cardboard with a CNC cutting plot-
ter or laser cutter. This project is kindly supported
by Mike Sheldrake (www.sheldrake.net/cardboards),
Tischlerei Bächer GmbH (www.tischlereibaecher.de)
Sebastian Bächer, Till Hartmann and Maik Holtiegel.
In example with the Chaise "Hive" further application
opportunities in field of interior design and architec-
ture are being tested (see Fig. 7).
Figure 6
diagram indicating
user-driven /
algorithmic
modeling and
digital production

Figure 7 Bended, 2012-2015

Iso quarter grid 'Bended' is a software tool to simulate and generate
cardboard , (C) Hans fabrication data for single curved boards. The tool
Sachs, Cologne, enables surface curvatures with changes in direction
2015 by applying different radiuses. To explore the full
potential of its application, a Python based software
tool for Rhino 5.0 has been developed which gener-
ates G-Code for the CNC milling already in the de-
sign process. Based on the user input like edge radii,
bending angles and material properties the G-Code
for various CNC machines will be generated by the
built in post processor. It can be used in a wide range
of design and architectural applications from individ-
ual furniture production to free form concrete form-
work in architectural construction (see Fig. 8).
The software asks the user to select a closed
curve, which represents the outside boundary of
the sheet to be bended. The user must also de-
fine a straight centre line of the curved area, running
through two opposite edges of the plane sheet. In
addition several parameters including material thick-
ness, cutting slot depth, cutting slot width (laser cut
width, milling tool or sawing blade width), the radius
on the respective edges and the curvature angle have
to be determined. From this constraints and design
input parameters a cutting pattern, but also milling
paths will be generated (see Fig. 9).

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 275


CONCLUSION
Even though computers and software have devel-
oped significantly during the past decades, the way
of developing architectural-, but also design objects
with CAD is still widely misinterpreted as technical
drawing assistance. In keeping with the motto 'Com-
puter Aided Drawing' instead of the more reasonable
(and correct) definition 'Computer Aided Design' the
perception of designing with computers still rather
bases on a concept of industrial design thinking.
A first mention should be made of the fact that,
during the development of this research and in-
cluded studies, the dissolution of boundaries be-
tween the disciplines evolved to be a crucial part.
During the industrial revolution in the 19th century,
the exchange between different disciplines with re-
gard to choice of materials and technology was es-
sential in bringing about change and development in
architecture and design. Today industrially produced
and used materials, especially when used in the field
276 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
of building construction are applied far below their Figure 8
technical and physical capacities. Digital, responsive Studies with
and interactive systems, used in design, fabrication 'bended' applied on
but also in the aspect of exchange of object and ma- corrugated
terial behaviours represent a -still partly uncovered- cardboard with a
but fundamental base for a real paradigm shift in ar- laser cutter, (C)
chitecture and design. Therefore a more interdisci- Hans Sachs,
plinary approach, a lively exchange of various fields Cologne, 2012
and resources is required and to be intensified.
Although these studies do not present an elabo- Figure 9
rate concept for a truly interactive and material- and 'Bended' prototype
process-informed production of architectural and de- - 24mm multiplex
sign goods, they point out that the linkage of the board, (C) Hans
referred processes represents a powerful instrument Sachs, Cologne,
for individual and in the same time efficient creation 2013
of things. Hereby the studies also mediate opportu-
nities and challenges of a broader implementation of
mass customization in architecture and design.
REFERENCES
Cache, B. and Speaks, M 1995, Earth Moves: the Furnish-
ing Territories, MIT Press , Boston
Chesbrough, H.W. 2003, Open Innovation: The new imper-
ative for creating and profiting from technology,, Har-
vard Business School Press, Boston
Moorstedt, T. 2010, 'Du bist die Fabrik', Süddeutsche
Zeitung, 10/11, p. 82
Oxman, N. 2010 'Material Based Design Computation',
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, p. 304
Reichwald, R. and Piller, F. 2009, Interaktive Wertschöp-
fung: Open Innovation, Individualisierung und neue
Formen der Arbeitsteilung, Springer Verlag, Wies-
baden
Sachs, H. 2012, 'Digital Crafting', Architectural Particles,
MAKK Köln, 1, pp. 12-18
Sennett, R. 2008, The Craftsman, Yale University Press,
New Haven & London
[1] http://www.techopedia.com/definition/23371/digi
tal-revolution
[2] http://www.generative-modeling.org/
[3] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/FabLab
 Live: Real-Time Platform for Robot Design Interfaces
Curime Batliner1 , Michael Jake Newsum2 , M. Casey Rehm3
1,2,3
Southern California Institute of Architecture, SCI-Arc
1,2,3
{curime_batliner|jake_newsum|michael_rehm}@sciarc.edu

Challenging our understanding of representation, simulation and fabrication in

architecture, SCI-Arc has been developing a unique digital/physical design
platform where the relationships between humans, machines and matter are
constantly in flux re-calibrating, reshuffling, reordering aligning digital and
physical and vis versa. The robot as a technology takes an important role in these
new ideation environments. "Live" is an applicaton which enables real-time
robotic control and grants the robot substantial agency situating it as an
interactive design tool that immediately responds to designed signal and sensor
inputs in its environment. Current research explores interactive environments,
gesture based human-machine interactions and autonomous agent driven design
programs.

Keywords: Robotics, Real-time interaction, Networking, Spatial-Interface

Context The current discourse at SCI-Arc is built around, a

In our search for technological advancements, the in- search for ideas, using the "image which means
tuitive and playful nature of design should not be ideas"(Sloterdijk 1999) as a medium.
Figure 1 lost in the complexities of information and inter-
Object Analysis and faces. While engineers strive to maintain the illu-
Representation in sion of transparency in the design and refinement
Feedback-Loop of media technologies, here artists (architects) ex-
plore the meaning of the interface itself using the var-
ious transformations of the medias as their palette
(Rokeby 1995).
The Robot House at SCI-Arc launched in 2011.
Fuelled by its unique hardware configuration, its cus-
tom software motion control solutions and its par-
ticular conceptual approach to the project, it has
since developed into a unique digital/physical de-
Curime Batliner, Michael Jake Newsum and M.
sign interface. It is a reconfigurable 3D workspace,
Casey Rehm aim to shift the discussion, which mostly
a design platform which encourages projects where
revolves around objects and images, to a discussion
matter, representation and production are in a con-
where the focus lays on networks of relationships.
stant interchangeable flux throughout the entire pro-
Moving away from simulation here the relationships
cess, aligning digital and physical and vis versa (Fig1.).

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 277

 between humans, machines and matter are in flux:
re-calibrating, reshuffling, reordering on the fly. The
robot as a technology plays an important role in this
process of mediation and is an essential component
of these new kinds of interface. While its internal re-
sources are ready for link up with available immaterial
data networks, its familiar continuity of corporeality
and familiar aesthetic assumptions of material reality
make it the perfect mediating device for the devel-
opment of a real-time digital/physical interface, link-
ing human interaction, robotic motion, artificial intel-
ligence and matter into one feedback loop (Fig.2).
Today, we measure the shortest distance be-
tween two points no longer by physical proximity,
but rather in time. As a result the shortest distance
between two points becomes real-time (Kac 1996)
But how do you interrogate a real-time interface,
its workings and its potentials without building it?
You simply cannot!
278 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
Live: Realtime robotic motion control
In this context, Curime Batliner, Michael Jake New-
sum and Casey Rehm are developing the application
"Live", the core framework for ideation environments,
which require the integration of live-programmed
robotic motion in the design process (Batliner et al.
2014). It is a robotic control software which grants
the robot substantial agency situating it as an in-
teractive design tool that immediately responds to
designed signal and sensor inputs in its environ-
ment. It breaks away from traditional work flows,
programming-simulation-execution, where the in-
dustrial robot is optimized for repetition and preci-
sion. Here, the robot is programmed to be versatile,
nuanced and interactive. Without a required pre pro-
grammed motion or series of operations, the robot
can engage directly with the current context avail-
able to the programmed logic. Specifically designed
with an eye towards universality, it is open to any
programming and scripting language which possess
the capacity to send and receive signals on the fly via
standard internet protocols.
Figure 2
Immersive Tracking
Environment
 The Live application builds on earlier research at
the SCI-Arc's Robot House where the ability to stream
via TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) connection
position and tooling information to the robot was
initially implemented (Batliner et al. 2011)(Atwood
and Harms 2012). There, new motion commands are
added to the motion stack of the controller's memory
where they are executed in order.
Live increases data-speed and adds a real-time
interface to control motion stack and tooling. As a re-
sult the user is able to interrupt the motion sequence
at any time, thus modifying the robot's next trajec-
tory and enabling the robot to interact with real-time
information. Traditionally, the robot is programmed
to execute each command in order then await for ad-
ditional instructions. In this logic, the robot is not
able to continually engage with interactive inputs,
because the speed of the arm is far exceeded by the
speed of information such as tracking the position of
a person in space. The rate that the positioning infor-
mation is sent to the robot controller would have to
be reduced to minimize residual motion from previ-
ous inputs, thus the resolution of motion and fidelity
with the interactions would be diminished. By modi-
fying the motion stack, the designer is able to remove
pending motions while communicating new posi-
tions. This lets the designer send positioning infor-
mation at rates up to .004 times per second for high
resolution motion paths while being able to modify
the motion stack at any time when tracking moving
subjects that are not able to be simulated. Live al-
lows for forward or inverse kinematic positioning as
well as vector trajectories relative to user defined ref-
erence planes. Additionally, the user has control over
how the robot will interpolate the motion, the veloc-
ity at tool center point, acceleration/deceleration of
joints, up to 32 tooling inputs and outputs as well as
synchronization triggers. In each information packet
the user has the ability to modify where the infor-
mation will be added to the motion stack and if the
positions should be stored for later use as pre pro-
grammed motions. Live communicates via TCP mak-
ing it very accessible to most scripting and program-
ing languages. Message packages are structured and
sent to the robot at a rate that is appropriate for the
design process. Existing interfaces for the Live appli-
cation have been built in Maya-Python, Python, Pro-
cessing, Rhino-Grasshopper and VVVV.
The Live application is currently explored
through three main research categories; interac-
tive environments, gesture based human-machine
interactions and autonomous agent driven design
programs.
Two case studies will be presented below. The
first will discuss interactive environments, exploring
the use of human gesture as a means of robotic mo-
tion control ultimately proposing space as a contem-
porary interface for telematic communication. The
second will present the use of Live with an addi-
tional library to explore utilizing the robot platform
as an autonomous intelligent agent. Both case stud-
ies interrogate the possibility of developing new in-
terfaces where the digital and physical are mutable
and designers can intuitively explore.
Case Study I : Eyerobot - Spatial interfaces
Architecture traditionally has played a significant role
on how we interact and communicate as people with
another. With the digital revolution and the rise of
the virtual, space as a physical entity has lost sig-
nificance as a place for communication and is re-
placed by virtual alternatives. Our daily login times
for browsing, shopping, social media exchange, our
growing collection of digital gadgets such as mobile
phones, laptops, and latest cars etc. are witnesses of
it. In this environment of permanent telepresence,
people have the ability to commute information in-
stantaneously, to send and receive sound and images
immediately, which accounts for the decreasing so-
cial relevance of the extensity of space in regard to
the intensity of time (Kac 1996).
While these new forms of communication and in-
teraction are exciting, the current state of these tech-
nologies still relies on the usage of two-dimensial
screens which do not seem to align with how we in-
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 279
 teract naturally. How can designers introduce space sent to the robot's control application, Live, as well
as a tangible medium into these new forms of com- control the live visuals projected onto the support-
munication and interactions ? ing membrane. Participants entering the space know
In "Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?" me- that the box houses industrial robot, but their bodies
dia artist and theorist Roy Ascott renders art as "a par- are hidden behind the membrane and only the tips of
ticipatory process,..., defined not by formal parame- the robots are visible at the points where they touch
ters but by behavioral relationship in which artist, ob- the slightly translucent membrane (Fig.4). Once a
server and environment are all integrated in an emer- participant enters the space, the robots engage with
gent, interactive system of morphological relation- their presence, reacting and following the movement
ships (Ascott 1990). of the person. Moving as a person in this case results
Interested in activating the role of the human in in moving the hidden machines, which then trans-
space, Eyerobot II, a seminar taught by Curime Bat- lates into a spatial reconfiguration of the space. Using
liner in 2014, asked students to prototype spatial in- the robot as a mediating device, the participant has
teractions where architecture itself becomes an en- now partial influence over the rate, as well the quality
gaging, interactive technology. The spaces should of transformation the space takes.
be able to respond, behave and potentially be in
symbiosis with the human, with the ability to be Figure 3
connected virtually across the globe. Rather than Diagram: Data
thinking about motion as an abstract concept in the Network Eyerobot
design process, students were encouraged to think
about a partially kinetic architecture with no fixed or
ideal form but with a form which is in constant flux,
manipulated by the participants.
Taking inspiration from artists such as Edward
Inhatowicz, "the senster", Ken Rinaldo "autopoiesis"
and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer "vectorial elevation - re-
lational architecture", the final experiment of the
seminar is a space that integrates robotics and sens-
ing technology into the envelope of a space (Fig.3). Figure 4
The gallery has approximate dimensions of 10*6*6 Eyerobot: Final
meters, and the intervention mounted in the center, Installation
is a box of approximate 6*2.5*3 meters. On the in-
side of the box there are four industrial robots placed
as an dynamic scaffold, rigged to a thin membrane
which separates the interior of the box from a void
on the outside reserved for the visitors/participants.
The robots on the interior are programmed to react to
human activity of the participants. In the void space,
two kinect depth sensors are measuring the human
activity, reading their skeleton informations. An ap-
plication built in VVVV and Grasshopper, interprets The playful design space resides in the control of
the information and steers the behaviours of the ma- how the installation space is manipulated and rep-
chine space. The final behaviours are packaged and resented. Variables of how the robots move, their

280 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2

 range, speed and blending are linked to the occu-
pants' skeletons as well as their relationship to the
robot arms in the space. Gestures can be repro-
grammed and added to the interface to control the
visual feedback as well as the robots' behaviors. Vari-
ations of these controls give the installation space in-
herent different presences enhancing the interactive
opportunities.
The focus in this experiment was the respon-
sive link between, human, machine and space (Fig.5).
In order to produce engaged, playful interactions, it
was important to balance the amount of participants
present in the space. The installation worked most
successful, when there were between two or three
persons present at the same time. In those moments
the space was active and the participants were at
the peak of engagement. Higher numbers of partici-
pants resulted in conversations between the partici-
pants, and when there was only one person present,
it seemed that the interactivity decreased as there
was no other human present to share the experience.
The rules of this play are simple, but a wide range of
spatial configurations and sequences emerged as a
result from these intensive interactions. Initiated in
the context of the Eye Robot seminar, this interface
has since run through a series of iterations, adding
new behaviours and expanding extensively the digi-
tal texturing of the space. Spin-off projects also have
started to investigate more closely the human-robot
relationship.
Figure 5
Eyerobot: Final
Installation
Looking at contemporary discussions about motion
in architecture, one can observe that there is a strug-
gle with what Greg Lynn describes as "the motion
picture analogy, where architecture occupies the
role of the static frame through which motion pro-
gresses. Force and motion are eliminated from Form
only to be reintroduced, after the fact of design,
through concepts and techniques of optical proces-
sion.". In this context "design becomes an active
abstract space that directs from within a current of
forces that can be stored as information in the shape
of form." (Lynn 1999) . The exciting outcomes of spa-
tial experiments, as previously described, are that
one can start thinking about architecture as an inter-
active technology which takes shape in the moment,
is nondeterministic and nuanced in its expression to
the particular user. In this form of flux and connec-
tivity, spaces have the potential to become a com-
munication platform, where spatial qualities, such
as geometrical transformations, its behaviour over
time, digital texturing, conditions of light, etc. can be
stored, layered, replayed and also be exchanged. By
making the digital spatially tangible the user acts at
the level of reality and virtuality simultaneously with-
out of the need of headsets, goggles or other attach-
ments.
Case Study II: The Utility and Trajectory of
Autonomous Systems in Robot Driven De-
sign
While developing the real-time autonomous control
library, "Henri", several specific design uses were an-
ticipated. The initial experiments with the platform
were geared towards material manipulation. Specifi-
cally, the sculpting versions of the platform were de-
signed to explore both the ability of these systems
to engage dynamic materials with precision and rep-
etition and the ability to engage materials or envi-
ronments in which human operation or surveying is
problematic. Additional functionality allows the plat-
form to autonomously control the perception and
documentation of physical events
Recent research into robotic 3d printing of lu-
nar stations, by Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis at USC
in partnership with NASA, provides a clear context
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 281
 where the ability for an autonomous fabrication sys- differs from a system like the Johns' in that it does
tem has utility (NASA 2014). Their proposed system not produce totalized goals for the physical output.
allows the 3d printing machines to analyze the alien While there is a clear application for his processes
context and reshape it to allow for standardized pro- in architecture, this platform specifically for explores
duction of a repeatable building typology. While design in conditions where the end results are inde-
their platform is built on a model where extreme con- terminate or unknowable due to the complexities of
ditions are manipulated towards uniformity for nec- the precepts. In these conditions, it is necessary to
essary performance criteria, as construction in this generate design through the codifying of intention
type of context advances, an open source platform at the level of local behaviors.
for experimenting in design and construction behav-
Figure 6
iors, which produce emergent building types and
Diagram: Data
aesthetics in these environments, can create novel
Network
trajectories in the discipline to reconsider post-earth
Autonomous
architecture types.
Sculpting
Material computation has a long trajectory in the
discipline of architecture. In the past designers, like
Antoni Gaudi and Frei Otto, used physical models to
simulate structural performance. Work explored by
Theodore Spyropoulos, Rob Stuart-Smith, Alisa An-
drasek and Jose Sanchez with their students at the
AADRL on projects like Grompies (Dezeen 2010) and
Plugin (Andrasek 2008), expand this territory further
by utilizing agent based, complex system simulation
Henri is a library, created by M.Casey Rehm (2014), of
in conjunction with material exploration. In these ex-
functions and classes which allow users to develop
amples, students develop discreet digital simulations
real-time autonomous motion control functions in
of physcial phenomena using intelligent agent based
Processing 2.0+ (Fry and Reas 2012), simultaneously
scripts, to project and anticipate perceived results to
linking digital inputs, peripheral hardware, and the
a larger architectural scale. Ryan Luke Johns' Aug-
Live application on the robot's controller. The library
mented Materiality project utilizes sensing equip-
currently utilizes ToxicLibs (Schmidt 2013) for vec-
ment to capture a mesh from a wax block and user
tor and mesh functions and SimpleOpenNI (Rheiner
defined inputs to calculate and shape the block into
2013) for Kinect functionality. The primary class of
a structurally performative geometry (2014). The
the library contains: a simulated robot, two IK models
project develops intuitive interfaces between mate-
calculating both simulated positions and incoming
rial manipulation and idealized digital form.
streamed real-world positions, variables for defining
The work done with the Henri platform looks
joint and dimensions, functions to limit robot work
to remove the discreet nature between simulation
areas and tool orientations, preprogrammed motion
and physical output while focusing on bottom up
types (jog, track, retreat, plunge), robot display and
methodologies. By viewing the design platform as
user defined functions for context analysis and and
inclusive of both the material agency of the ma-
responsive behaviors. A second class is utilized to re-
nipulated context and the intelligent agency of the
ceive incoming packages from the Live application
software package, a new model for design emerges
and updates the robot class and global framework to
where the delineation between physical and digital
the new positional information. A third class is uti-
is mutable (Fig.6). The current format of the platform
lized to calculate plane informations, speeds, motion

282 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2

types and tool activation and formated into a pack-
age. This package is then sent to the Live application.
All streaming to and from the robot occurs over a TCP
connection hosted on the computer running the Pro-
cessing app. A fourth class bundles necessary rota-
tional and translational functions to align the multi-
ple coordinate systems of the various inputs into a
single global coordinate system.
The platform, including the sensors and actua-
tors (robot, turntable, etc...), currently operates as a
model-based reflex agent per Russell & Norvig (1995).
The program creates a loop with its context, continu-
ously perceiving and affecting its environment. Pre-
cepts, in this case the Kinect and the streamed real-
world positions of the robot, are read by the program.
These precepts are analyzed in conjunction with the
programs internal model of its world, and a resultant
action is calculated. This action is then streamed to
the physical robot as an actuator to affect the envi-
ronment. Currently, the platform does not support
goal or utility orientation to evolve the behaviors of
the program. Improvement in the robot's behavior
is therefore achieved through the designers iterative
manipulation of the program.
When discussing real-time methods in relation-
ship to autonomous robotics platforms, it is impor-
tant to take into account the rate in which the robot
can effectively respond to commands or utilize data.
Even though a depth camera like the Kinect can pro-
duce a point cloud at 30fps, if the platform takes 30
seconds to move a tool into position, affect the ma-
terials and retract, the necessary capture rate can be
much slower. Additionally if the medium being oper-
ated on requires a longer amount of time in order to
produce a significantly different scan, higher rates of
capture are unnecessary. On the other hand, when
engaging a context which changes at a higher rate,
the streaming of positions can exceed the limit of the
robot's motion. For example, a human has the capa-
bility to move faster than the flange of the Staubli
RX160, so when running an autonomous scanning
function on a human subject, the rate of analysis
should outstrip the physical limitations of the robot
in case emergency corrections to a motion are re-
quired to prevent collisions.
The sculpting abilities of Henri have been tested
initially utilizing wax and a robot mounted heat gun
(Fig.7). In this configuration, a 50 lb. block of wax
is mounted to a turntable controlled by Henri by
streaming to an arduino microcontroller across a UDP
port. The kinect scanner is mounted to a fixed point
with its relative rotation and position to the robot's
origin located in the transformation class of Henri.
The Kinect, Arduino controller and the Robot Con-
troller are all connected to a laptop which runs the
Henri based application in Processing. As part of the
development of their app, a designer can also pro-
duce an interface specific to their tasks with the plat-
form which allows them to perceive the softwares de-
cision making and potential errors.
In this setup, design exploration is done by ma-
nipulating the analysis criteria and robot tooling be-
haviors. The constraints of the tooling, sensors and
material greatly affect the development of these be-
haviors. For example, the Kinect scanner, while fast,
lacks fidelity when scanning translucent materials.
Consequently, the captures from the scan frequently
feature voids in the produced mesh for analysis. As
a result, the current motion control behaviors rely
on a method of moving exclusively along connected
edges of the scanned mesh. This insures that the
robot does not attempt to move the tooling through
an unscanned region of the work area.
Figure 8 is an example of a behavior utilizing
a single agent model for producing a combination
of bulbous protrusions and voids, developed by
M.Casey Rehm and Anthony Stoffella which utilizes
aligned orbiting tool paths to accentuate the promi-
nence of convex surface features. This behavior ac-
centuates the radial nature of the heat gun's material
deformation.
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 283

While the initial explorations with Henri were in-
tended to drive tooling operations, the potential
need to create behaviors for controlling how the
robot platform perceives its context became appar-
ent. From this interest two applications developed.
284 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
Figure 7
Henri Autonomous
Sculpting
The first application was a strict capture appli- Figure 8
cation for point clouds from robot mounted Kinect Single Agent
scanners . Users can manipulate the robot posi- Sculpting Behavior
tion using the standard manual jog modes or pro-
grammed motion paths, while the Live application
streams real-time updates of the robot's position
and orientation to the application. The application
takes the incoming positions and translates simul-
taneously incoming point clouds from the Kinect
scanner into their real world positions. The result-
ing three dimensional output in point clouds and
meshes allowed for a more sophisticated represen-
tation of a physical event, extrapolating the pho-
tographic techniques of Eadweard Muybridge and
Etienne-Jules Marey into a medium which simultane-
ously describes spatial information for an event from
multiple positions with accurate depictions of vol-
ume and surface (Fig.9).
Figure 9 The second application begins to explore the
Capture Application use of Henri to automate the system's ability to con-
Interface and trol its perception of its context. Specifically the ap-
Context plication is designed to allow a robot arm to au-
tonomously focus a 3d scanner on a localized portion
of a work area too large or complex to be understood
from a fixed vantage point. The application builds
on the capture application's utilization of streamed
robotic positions, however, this application has func-
tions for analyzing the incoming point clouds and au-
tonomously re-positioning the robot arm based on
designed behaviors (Fig.10). For example, the initial
behavior searches vertices of captured meshes in a
local region and aligns the sensors to a new position
targeting the vertex with the highest normal differ-
ential to its neighbors (Fig.11).
The projects discussed in this paper build of
concepts on artificial intelligence and autonomous
Figure 10 strategies which require networking and real-time
Diagram: Data control. While those characteristics can be described
Network as virtual the outlook of the work is humanistically
Autonomous inspired trying to reconcile and find a balanced rela-
Robotic Scanning tionship between technology, human and matter. In
the first case study the human is given agency by en-
gaging with space as an interactive medium for com-
munication. By setting form into a state of flux, ex-
perience and interactivity are prioriatised over static
form. Space becomes a tangible interface where par-
ticipants perform simultaneously at the level of real-
ity and virtuality.
Figure 11 In the second case study we are looking at a
Autonomous model for design with a bottom up methodology,
Robotic Scanning where the delineation between physical and digital
is mutable. Rather than geometry, here the state of
matter informs and influences the procedure of the
machine on a one to one relationship.
While these projects are still at their beginning,
they carry the potential of challenging our contem-
porary understanding of representation and simula-
tion in architecture. The building of these new kinds
of real-time interfaces is crucial for new axiomatiza-
tions and toolboxes for art and architecture in which
the virtual and actual always coexist." (Testa.2014).

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 285

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Eyerobot project participants: Daniel John Caven,
Salvador Francisco Cortez, Solar Labrie, Nels Wil-
iam, LongBrennen Huller, Johnny Ng, Austin Andrew
Samson, Stavirani Tomara, Nikita Alex Troufanov, Uri
Wegman
Photos: Figure 1: Curime Batliner, Jake Newsum,
Figure 2: Curime Batliner, Jake Newsum, Figure 4:
Daniel John Caven, Salvador Francisco Cortez, Figure
5: Daniel John Caven, Figure 6: Elliolt Freeman, Mei
Zhi Neoh, Min Pan, Shawn Rassekh, M. Casey Rehm,
Cathy Qu, Figure 8: M.Casey Rehm and Anthony Stof-
fella, Figure 9: Daniel Caven, M. Casey Rehm, Marcelo
Spina, Figure 11: Curime Batliner, Jake Newsum and
M. Casey Rehm
\& Schuster CompanyEnglewood Cliffs, New Jersey
07632
Shanken, EA 1996, Art And Electronic Media, London:
Phaidon Press
Testa, P 2014, '-', in Wolf, A (eds) 2014, Fabrication and
Fabrication, SCI-Arc Press
[1] http://www.biothing.org/?cat=28
[2] http://cranerobotics.com/
[3] http://www.dezeen.com/2010/05/06/grompies-by-
berndon-carlin/
[4] https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/nia
c/2012_phaseII_fellows_khoshnevis.html
[5] https://code.google.com/p/simple-openni/
[6] http://toxiclibs.org/

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286 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2

Informed Design to Robotic Production Systems
Developing Robotic 3D Printing System for Informed Material Deposition

Sina Mostafavi1 , Henriette Bier2 , Serban Bodea3 , Ana Maria Anton4

1,2,3,4
TU DELFT, Hyperbody, Robotic Building, Netherlands
1
www.hyperbody.nl/
1,2,3,4
{s.mostafavi|h.h.bier|i.s.bodea|a.m.anton}@tudelft.nl

This paper discusses the development of an informed

Design-to-Robotic-Production (D2RP) system for additive manufacturing to
achieve performative porosity in architecture at various scales. An extended
series of experiments on materiality, fabrication and robotics were designed and
carried out resulting in the production of a one-to-one scale prototype. In this
context, design materiality has been approached from both digital and physical
perspectives. At digital materiality level, a customized computational design
framework is implemented for form finding of compression only structures
combined with a material distribution optimization method. Moreover, the
chained connection between parametric design model and robotic production
setup has led to a systematic study of certain aspects of physicality that cannot be
fully simulated in the digital medium, which then establish a feedback loop for
underrating material behaviors and properties. As a result, the D2RP system
proposes an alternative method of robotic material deposition to create an
informed material architecture.

Keywords: Informed Design, Robotic 3D Printing, Porosity,

Material-Architecture, Design to Production

INTRODUCTION bilities of designing and fabricating material architec-

Informed Design-to-Robotic-Production (D2RP) sys-
tems explore the extents by which rapid and flexi-
ble robotic fabrication methods can inform and en-
hance generative design to materialization and pro-
duction practices. In the case study of this paper,
the focus is to experiment with the possibilities of an
optimized material deposition system resulting from
compression-only forces inside the computationally-
derived topology. The study has explored the possi-
tures with various levels of porosities, ranging from
architectural (macro) to material (micro) scales. By
employing performative and generative computa-
tional design methods, industrial robotic production
techniques and material experiments, the D2RP aims
to close the loop from design to 1:1 scale fabrication.
With this goal, the main research components of the
presented case study are: materiality in relation to
design computation and robotics in relation to 3D

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 287

 printing.
The relation and integration of physical mate-
rial properties within digital design interfaces and
computer aided design methods have been explored
and explained in both practice and academia (Bor-
den and Meredith 2011) (Kolarevic and Klinger 2008)
(Gramazio and Kohler 2008) (Oxman and Rosenberg
2007). In this context, we can specify two major
types of approaches. In the first type, to study design
materiality, the design system relies only on virtual
modelling, simulation, analysis and abstraction of
physicality through implementation of certain com-
putation methods such as Finite Element Method
(FEM), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Particle
Systems, etc. The second approach focuses more
on constraints and potentialities of certain material
and/or a fabrication method integrated into digital
modelling platforms, i.e a parametric design model.
The proposed D2RP system establishes a feedback
loop between the two. To achieve this goal, at dig-
ital materiality level, through designing and imple-
menting of a systematic and chained strategy for de-
sign information exchange (Mostafavi et al. 2013)
a customized parametric form finding system for
compression-only structures combined with topol-
ogy optimization is established and implemented. At
physical level, the direct connection to the robotic
production system, in addition to improving the pro-
duction method has led to the direct study of certain
aspects of physicality that cannot be fully modeled
inside the digital design platform. Therefore, the pro-
duction system becomes not only a means of fabrica-
tion but also simulation.
Recent research advances in both robotics and
3D printing fields have potentially introduced new
approaches towards architectural materialization
and production. Considering materiality and archi-
tecture at multiple scales, there are a few projects
that successfully bring the two together. In some ex-
amples a scaled up printing machine that surrounds
the envelope or object will be used to horizontally,
layer by layer, deposit a certain building material
(Khoshnevis et al 2006) (Kestelier 2012) (Dini et al
288 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
2013). The explored and presented robotic 3D print-
ing project proposes an alternative method of ma-
terial deposition to create a multi-dimensional ma-
terial architecture. This is achieved considering the
behaviours and properties of the implemented mate-
rial, in this case ceramics, and integration of material
optimization routines in the D2RP system.
DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE
Customizability of the production method, consider-
ing both research and design project objectives, has
been taken into consideration in order to develop a
unique D2RP system. In this section, we provide a
short overview of the established design methodol-
ogy through describing the pilot case study, robotic
motion path generation in relation to the materiality
and a description of the realized 1:1 prototype.
Methodology and case study
Figure 1
D2RP infrastructure
: framework and
research
components
D2RP defines four main research components: de-
sign computation, tooling/production, robotics and
materiality. Each set of experiments and design exer-
cises explores possibilities of integration and estab-
lishing feedback loops between the four (figure 1).
Parallel to the lab-based explorations for the devel-
opment of the D2RP 3D Printing system , which are
described in detail in the next section, a studio design
project of the Hyperbody TU Delft group, conducted
by the authors, was considered as a pilot case study
 (figure 2). İn this project architectural and material
porosity at various scales is considered as the main
design driver and objective. Therefore the devel-
oped D2RP system is customized and implemented
according to both particular research and design ob-
jectives of the project.
In order to develop a coherent computational
design system, specific to this project the first step
was implementing methods for form finding of
compression-only structures, derived from the innate
characteristics of the material. In addition to elim-
inating tension forces in the derived topology, this
part of the design system was implemented as a para-
metric strategy to define the porosity at macro or ar-
chitectural scale to fulfill certain functional and loca-
tional requirements. Furthermore, to achieve the mi-
cro porosity level, a finite element method for ma-
terial distribution optimization was implemented on
a part of the designed pavilion. This integrated op-
timisation routine considers local and global load
and support conditions. To implement a generic
and repeatable method on other parts of the com-
pression only structure the challenge is to be able
to parametrically change the method of finite-mode
geometric representation like point cloud and mesh
to the vector based or NURBs geometry. This was
achieved by applying a segmental system in the very
initial topology, retrievable at different stages of form
finding and parametric geometric transformations
(Mostafavi and Tanti 2014). By applying the compu-
Figure 2
Overview of the
design project as
pilot case study and
multi-scale
porosity, macro,
messo, micro
tational design system, the designer is able to gen-
erate multiple configurations, in each distributing
the compression only material where needed and as
needed, considering the structural performance, at
both macro and micro scales.
The challenge of the next step is to material-
ize these differentiated densities, creating unified
topologies that express structural loads consistent to
the design approach and robotic fabrication poten-
tialities and constraints, paths and targets. At this
stage various algorithmic form finding and optimiza-
tion techniques, mostly in the Rhino-Grasshopper
platform and Python scripting-language is devel-
oped and applied. This allows the systematic ex-
ploration and evaluation of design alternatives in
the design-solution space, eventually providing the
required information for production with the ABB-
Robotstudio. Simultaneously, the initial material ex-
periments and information sets informs the design
process
Design Materiality and robotics
Material optimization for robotic production informs
the relevant ranges of robotic motion by implemen-
tation of parametric design control systems. This cre-
ates new standards for architectural fabrication and
improves productivity and performance. For produc-
tion purposes, the topology of the pavilion was sub-
divided into unique components. As the research
progressed it became apparent that due to the sig-
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 289
 nificant variety of custom building components fea-
tured in the design, the robot manufacturer's soft-
ware functionality needed further customization. For
this purpose the D2RP team has implemented a
link between the design and simulation environment
(Rhinoceros platform and it add-ons) and the rapid
code interpreter of Robotstudio. This part of the re-
search led to a direct link between the design model
and robot controller, thus enabling the implementa-
tion of a greater range of unique, longer, continuous
tool paths (figure 3). Although it is important to note
both the utilitarian and decorative qualities making
ceramics such a widely used construction material,
this paper will focus solely on its structural and emer-
gent properties.
As construction material, clay-ceramics is com-
monly used inside compression-only structures. Tra-
ditionally, the structures based on compression per-
form through stability given by their significant mass.
What the study aimed to prove was that by con-
trolled material deposition, compression structures
could become lighter, a significant improvement in
their cost and thermal insulation performance. A way
of achieving material deposition optimisation is con-
trolling the parameters of the production setup. This
is briefly described as follows.
The extruder system designed and built by D2RP
manages a plunger-based mechanical extrusion of a
diluted paste of ceramic-clay, water and additive pig-
ments. Although numeric control of clay extrusion
290 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
was experimented with and valuable results for dy-
namic extrusion were recorded while implementing
a discontinuous porous pattern, due to shifting re-
search objectives, for the fabricated prototype, solely
continuous clay extrusion was used. A custom design
routine was developed in order to extract and opti-
mize continuous motion path based on the designed
material architecture.
Throughout the process, extrusion speed was
adjusted empirically according to observed struc-
tural and aesthetic considerations. Extrusion param-
eters were controlled through line-size and nozzle
customization. These proved important factors to
consider during initial experiments as well as during
the fabrication routines. Nozzles of various profile-
size and extrusion opening area were experimented
with. For the fabricated prototype, a nozzle featur-
ing a square, 1cm aperture was selected and used. Fi-
nally, within the study's agenda of 1:1 fabrication and
architectural performance aims, it can be concluded
that the prototype achieves both improved 3D print-
ing speed and reliability.
Prototype
According to the design brief, the architectural ob-
ject connects to the surrounding urban environment
in a series of pores varying in size according to struc-
tural and aesthetic design parameters. The fragment
chosen for fabrication explores one of these connec-
tions materialising a piece of urban furniture at 1:1
Figure 3
Left to right:
Chosen Fragment
for 1:1 fabrication,
informed point
cloud on the
chosen fragment,
and one single
generated
continuous curve
used as the robotic
3D printing path.
 scale. As well as the integral structure, the prototypi-
cal piece is structurally a compression-only system.
In this project, in addition to developing a
customized design-to-production setup, the team
achieved optimization in motion path generation.
Common 3D printing techniques employ non-
differentiated routines for slicing and ordering ma-
terial layers into motion paths. The prototype was
produced embedding fabrication potentialities and
constraints into the design. Continuous material de-
position was achieved through controlled extrusion
guided by structural performance through robotic
motion. It must be noted that, although the compu-
tational 3D model comes close to the actual proto-
type, the two entities remain different mainly due to
emergent material properties. Differences between
virtual and material exemplify emergent aesthetics
inherent to the material behaviour of ceramic-clay.
The emergent aesthetics inherent to the prototype
is as much due to the 3D layering technique as it is
due to how material extrusion varies along the path
(figure 4).
Figure 4
Details: 3D model
vs. emergent
material
architecture
The study into robotically-controlled material
formation processes was inspired by the fast-pace
at which the building industry develops, constantly
finding itself in need of agile architectural solutions
to design and fabrication processes. Prototyping
plays a central part in this agile process. Prototyp-
ing involves design, realization and testing each re-
sult in real-life or laboratory conditions. By expos-
ing ranges for feasibility in design, fabrication and
exploitation, a rapid-prototyping approach becomes
vital for avoiding failure, communicating success-
ful results and foreseeing design opportunities and
threats. In this context good integration between
digital and material processes is vital; this is where
this project redefines the potential of robotic build-
ing (figure 5).
D2RP DEVELOPMENT
In the context of contemporary technological cus-
tomization with emphasis on the role designers and
users have in the third and fourth industrial revolu-
tions (Anderson 2012), the D2RP proposes a roadmap
for development and improvement of robotic 3d
printing technologies for fabrication of 1:1 building
components. The roadmap is set in the context of
an on-going physical-virtual feedback, tested in three
initial studies, concluding with creating a direct link
between design and production.
Multi-coloured light robotic 3D printing, as the
first preliminary study, involves mounting a colour
changing light source on the robotic arm. This
project addresses the characteristics of 6-axis-robot
motion connecting them to properties and informa-
tion extracted from architectural and structural dig-
ital design model. Being able to study the three di-
mensionality of robotic motion contributed to de-
veloping a new approach to 3D printing, different
than slicing in layers printing techniques. This pro-
vided possible directions for defining a 3D printing
method, in tune with the structural characteristics
of the final prototype. The study of robotic motion
defines the boundaries of the digital design-space
in relation to the physical solution-space. Further-
more it informs the parametric setup with ranges of
reach-ability and optimized orientations thus con-
tributing to maximizing it. In addition, by numerically
controlling the blinking pattern and light colours of
the mounted source, by means of an Arduino Micro-
controller, the team reached the goal of further ex-
tending design possibilities in such a way that mul-
tiple materials can be deposited at certain coordi-
nation based on the information extracted from the
geometry in the CAD interface. As the first step,
any given curve, in digital, is reproduced, in physical,
with multi-coloured light curves captured by means
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 291
 Figure 5
Urban furniture, 1:1
scale prototype,
compression only
structure

292 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2

Figure 6
Robotic motion:
Multi-coloured
Light, 3D printing
studies

of long exposure-time photography. Later this ap-
proach is tested on the whole designed pavilion rep-
resented by a network of curves (figure 6)
The robotic pattern project, as part of the sec-
ond set of preliminary studies, focuses on drawing
geometric patterns that explore variation in densi-
ties and resolutions to reach the desired porosity
and functionally- in the case this paper structurally-
graded material systems (Oxman et al. 2011) . This in-
formed the design of robotically controlled routines
for material deposition. The established parametric
Figure 7
Pattern and
material-
architecture
studies
system, derived from these experiments, involved:
size of the overall shape, thickness of nozzle for mate-
rial deposition, number of targets to describe robotic
motion and method of approaching defined targets.
As a consequence of these experiments the team for-
mulated two categories of material deposition: con-
tinuous flow and on/off numerically controlled flow
patterns. Both directions had specific benefits and
limitations. Continuous material deposition involved
a bigger abstraction of the drawing patterns, while
compensating through a unified understanding of

Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 293


the structural performance of the final prototype.
Numerically controlled material deposition enabled
a more acurate representation of the final prototype
but the logic used for production was rather more
fragmented (figure 7).
The ceramic robotic printing study explores pos-
sibilities of production of 3D printed building parts
and establishes a production method where all pa-
rameters are calibrated for the developed physical
set-up. The team designed an extruder connected
to an end-effector mounted on the head of a robotic
294 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2
Figure 8
Nozzle
customisation:
different
resolutions and
functionalities
arm, where the material source was exterior to the
robotic arm in order to maximize the freedom of
movement and reach. In order to achieve an op-
timum multi-dimensional material-architecture and
informed by previous studies on printing resolution
and variation of material deposition, a customizable
extruder-nozzle system was designed and tested (fig-
ure 8). Considering the fact that natural materials are
not fully predictable different material properties like
plasticity, viscosity, flow rate and short-term material
behaviour at different robot-motion speeds, were in-
Figure 9
A layered approach
to 3D material
deposition on 3D
surfaces
Figure 10
Robotic 3D
printing: fabrication
of the prototype
vestigated and documented in order to provide com-
plete information sets for the next prototyping phase
(figure 9 and 10).
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Advancements in robotic building can potentially
foster the pace at which architectural design and fab-
rication processes co-evolve. It is possible to envis-
age a future in which building systems are customiz-
able and increasingly automated. The D2RP devel-
oped by the TUD team is exploring and securing a fu-
ture for informed porosity in additive material distri-
butions. Porosity at macro, meso and micro scales,
refers to the optimisation of spatial configurations
and material distribution. It strives not only at con-
trolling mass-void ratios but also at achieving an in-
tegral design, from overall building configurations to
the architectured material itself.
The specific goal of the presented case study in
this paper was to scale and regulate the concept and
technology of 3d printing for architectural design
and construction, by integrating it in an informed,
chained design to production system. For the au-
thors, it was important to develop the technology not
as an isolated node but as an integrated working-
operating module ready to be used and well con-
nected to a real design problem. In a larger context,
the additive D2RP project presented in this paper is
part of Robotic Building (RB).This extended frame-
work focuses on linking design to materialisation by
integrating multiple functionalities (from functional
requirements to structural strength, thermal insula-
tion, and climate control) in the design (Bier, 2013
and 2014) of building components. The main consid-
eration is that in architecture and building construc-
tion the factory of the future employs building ma-
terials and components that can be robotically pro-
cessed and assembled. This requires development of
multi-materials, -tools, and -robots D2RP processes,
which will be implemented incrementally in the next
phases of the project.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are thankful and appreciate all the indi-
viduals and institutions involved in the realization of
this project: MSc3 fall 2014 students of Hyperbody
of TU Delft, 3TU.Bouw Center of Excellence for the
Built Environment, Delft Robotic Institute, 100% Re-
search office of TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and
ABB Benelux.
Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 295
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and Bier H, pp. 6-8, JSB, Heijningen
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ing edited by Oosterhuis K, 1(1)(DOI: 10.7564/14-
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ditive fabrication, free form construction', In Fabri-
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ings of the Education and research in Computer Aided
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Oxman, N, Keating, S and Tsai, E (2011) 'Functionally
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296 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Robots - Volume 2

Fabrication - Design
Physical Feedback Workflows in Fabrication Information
Modeling (FIM)
Analysis and Discussion of Exemplar Cases across Media, Disciplines and
Scales

Jorge Duro-Royo1 , Laia Mogas-Soldevila2 , Neri Oxman3

1,2,3
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture and Urban Plan-
ning, Media Lab, Mediated Matter Group
3
matter.media.mit.edu
1,2,3
{j_duro|dumo|neri}@mit.edu

Novel digital fabrication platforms enable the design and construction of

materially sophisticated structures with high spatial resolution in manufacturing.
However, virtual-to-physical workflows and their associated software
environments are yet to incorporate such capabilities. Our research sets the stage
for seamless physical feedback workflows across media, disciplines and scales.
We have coined the term Fabrication Information Modeling (FIM) to describe
this approach. As preliminary methods we have developed four computational
strategies for the design and digital construction of custom systems. These
methods are presented in the context of specific design challenges and include a
biologically driven fiber construction algorithm; an anatomically driven
shell-to-wearable translation protocol; an environmentally-driven swarm
printing system; and a manufacturing-driven hierarchical fabrication platform.
We discuss and analyze these four challenges in terms of their capabilities to
integrate design across media, disciplines and scales through concepts such as
multi-dimensionality, media-informed computation and trans-disciplinary data.

Keywords: Design Workflow, Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM), Multi-Scale

Data, Trans-Disciplinary Data, Computational Design, Fabrication Information
Modeling (FIM)

INTRODUCTION cal tools and processes in the service of achieving

Issues in Design of Physical Feedback Work- high degrees of design customization across scales.
flows However, the limitations associated with computa-
Recent advances in digital fabrication present an tional design tools for modeling geometrically com-
exciting opportunity to merge digital and physi- plex and materially heterogeneous structures across

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 299

 scales frame and limit further progress (Oxman 2011;
Duro et al. 2014a, Oxman et al. 2015). Specifically,
the gap between virtual and physical platforms re-
stricts integrated feedback across media, and limits
invention and imagination of new designs and pro-
duction processes (Duro et al. 2014b). Researchers
in the fields of architectural design and advanced
manufacturing are working towards the integration
of material and fabrication constraints in the design
process (Oosterhuis et al. 2007; Chiu and Yu 2008).
Academic institutions and industry are rapidly devel-
oping complex multi-material manufacturing hard-
ware able to incorporate material constraints, pre-
senting software designers technical challenges in
taking full advantage of novel hardware capabili-
ties (Shapiro and Tsukanov 2004, 2011; Chiu and Yu
2008). Such challenges are due to the fact that con-
ventional computer-aided design (CAD) tools can en-
able and support the manipulation of geometric and
topologic virtual constructs; however, they generally
lack the means to embed material data within virtual
model constructs (Biswas and Shapiro 2004; Duro et
al. 2015b) mostly since material homogeneity is typ-
ically assumed (Chiu and Yu 2008).
CAD tools, techniques and technologies are typ-
ically representation-oriented. As a result, digital de-
sign practices are generally governed by form gen-
eration prioritizing geometrical constraints over ma-
terially informed and fabrication-driven parameters
(Sola-Morales 2000; Mitchell 2009). Combined with
a shape-centric process, each CAD kernel - the soft-
ware's core functionalities - is typically based on a
strict set of low-level mathematical and geometrical
definitions. These definitions provide a certain "style"
to the software package that can be easily identi-
fied and traced in its design outcomes (Mitchell 2009;
Burry et al. 2011; Mogas 2013). For instance, due
to embedded mathematical descriptions of software
solutions, mesh-based CAD users are more likely
to generate free-form designs with high degrees of
agility (e.g. in Maya-Autodesk®). NURBS-based CAD
users, however, are more likely to generate smooth
curve and surface designs like the ones that typically
300 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
describe the surfaces of automobiles or water ves-
sels (e.g. Rhino-McNeel®). We claim that such stylis-
tic underpinnings may actually limit the user's abil-
ity to conceive new design approaches. More impor-
tantly, CAD models, even if inhabiting a dimension-
less virtual space, are scale-dependent due to repre-
sentation tolerances embedded in their base pack-
age (Beckett 2014). It is true though that mainstream
CAD software packages, such as Autocad-Autodesk®
or Rhino-McNeel®, allow virtual direct export and
manipulation of engineering analysis (CAE) and ma-
chine instruction generation (CAM) information via
scripting or parametric design plug-ins such as Dy-
namo® or Grasshopper®, respectively. However, de-
spite the overall successful integration of paramet-
ric design workflows in practice, as can be seen in
façade construction, environmental benchmarking
or structural optimization; parametric design for truly
buildable projects remains labor-intensive, slow, and
rather manual. Furthermore, such digital workflows
become particularly challenging to author and to
manage when dealing with more than fifty to a hun-
dred variables (Andia and Spiegelhalter 2014). Con-
sequently, it becomes extremely challenging to nav-
igate, control, adjust and compare between param-
eters within a single model - and even within the
same software package. This is due to the design pro-
cess engaging multiple dimensions including those
that are directly informed by fabrication and mate-
rial parameters and those that span across scales or
functional domains. If new capabilities for embed-
ding multiple dimensions of and across media, disci-
plines and scales were in place, designers would be
able to tailor material properties to environmental
constraints in close association with the digital fab-
rication platform. Consider, for example, the ability
supported by this approach to tune microfiber ar-
rangements within architectural wood columns; or
the ability to concurrently shape products at scales
relevant to human ergonomics, body shape and tis-
sue composition, spanning functional and fabrica-
tion scales - environment to body to voxel.
RESEARCH AIMS
Integrated Design across Media, Scales and
Disciplines
We have coined the term Fabrication Information
Modeling (FIM) to define the materialization of ge-
ometrically complex designs that span different me-
dia, scales, and disciplines. Three main characteris-
tics underline designs based on the FIM approach:
(1) they incorporate variables associated with de-
sign and construction media such as physical feed-
back sensing, fabrication and material parameters;
(2) they operate across multiple dimensions; and, (3)
they integrate and manage trans-disciplinary data -
parameters, constraints, or data sets from multiple
disciplines. With FIM, we aim to design and build
physical feedback workflows where materials are de-
signed rather than being selected; where the ques-
tion of how information is passed across spatiotem-
poral scales is central to the design generation pro-
cess itself; where modeling at each level of resolution
and representation is based on various (and often
complimenting) methods, and performed by differ-
ent agents within a single environment; and finally,
where virtual and physical considerations coexist as
equals.
RELATED WORK
Towards Multi-dimensional, Media-
informed, and Trans-disciplinary Design
Workflows
Multi-scalar design is an emerging field of research
in the disciplines of Materials Science and Engineer-
ing, Civil Engineering, and Synthetic Biology. Con-
sider, for example, research into the mechanics of de-
formation and failure of biological materials. Such
research integrates computational modeling of ma-
terial properties from atomic scale to meter scale
by examining fundamental links between processes,
structures, properties and functions (Cranford and
Buehler 2012). Other efforts aim to bridge the gap
between modeling and simulation of products in-
volving multiple physical processes interacting at
multiple spatial and temporal scales such as research
associated with the design and construction of fan
blades, turbo-engines, or car chassis (Fish 2013). Fur-
thermore, novel initiatives in computational biotech-
nology seek to examine living systems, considering
dimensions of multi-scale data, to advance our un-
derstanding of how human bodies function (Kidd et
al. 2014).
In the pursuit of incorporating fabrication con-
straints into the design process, File-to-Factory ap-
proaches aim to merge CAD (Computer-aided De-
sign) and Computer-aided Manufacturing (CAM) into
a seamless process (Oosterhuis 2004, 2007; Afify and
Elghaffar 2007; Scheurer 2010). This is commonly
achieved by exporting the virtual design into a spe-
cific machine file format (Chang 2004; Sass and Ox-
man 2006; Sheil 2013). Following, materials and tool
paths are set within the machine's software with lim-
ited possibility for iterations; as well as incompatibil-
ities between the original CAD environment and the
machine logic that are lost in translation. Such dis-
crete processes are all but seamless, constraining and
directing the workflow of designs that are complex
in shape and in material composition (Oxman 2011;
Duro et al. 2015b).
Current efforts in the area of structural design,
that focus on achieving material-informed architec-
tural design processes, aim at better understand-
ing the performance of existing material systems
and incorporating it into shape-generating paramet-
ric models (Fleischmann et al. 2011, Schleicher et
al. 2013). This is typically done by experimentally
studying functional-morphological dependencies of
systems such as plywood or fiber-based composites
in abstract load simulation setups. Following, ap-
proximated models are built and evaluated via virtual
structural analysis tools (Schleicher et al. 2013). Such
digital chains depend on simulation methods that
are difficult to implement with precision, and that
generally respond to a narrow set of framing condi-
tions. Moreover, the relevance of these workflows to
the quality of the product lies at the structural scale,
rather than the scale of material property. In the
area of additive manufacturing, researchers combin-
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 301
 ing software logic and digital fabrication claim that ing across scales (Cranford and Buehler 2012; Fish
soon it will be possible to use multi-material print- 2013); digital fabrication via form interpretation into
ers and nanotechnology to design completely new machine code (Chang 2004); or even understanding
materials whose behavior can be programmed (An- innovation via techniques from social sciences (Nel-
dia and Spiegelhalter 2014). Despite all these efforts, son 2006). Workflows that seamlessly embed and op-
fully integrated, material-driven digital models are erate with data from other disciplines are far more
yet to be implemented in off-the-shelf software to suitable to adapt and respond to contemporary is-
enable design processes that are fully informed by sues, and to convert complex architectural design
material behavior (Schleicher et al. 2013; Tamke et process into multi-agent discussions rather than te-
al. 2014). dious information translations.
The success of research developments reviewed
above is highly dependent on efficient and timely in- METHOD
corporation of trans-disciplinary information. Design
Exemplar Cases across Media, Disciplines,
thinking is generally considered a non-linear process
and Scales
with multiple parameters; a process that incorpo-
We demonstrate the principles for the FIM method-
rates diverse disciplinary knowledge such as, for in-
ology in four customized experimental methods: (1)
stance: structural analysis via engineering of behav-
a biologically driven fiber construction algorithm; (2)
ioral models (Silvetti 2012); complex performance
an anatomically driven shell-to-wearable translation
evaluation via biologically inspired algorithms (Turrin
protocol; (3) an environmentally driven swarm print-
et al. 2011); geometric function negotiation via mor-
ing system; and, (4) a manufacturing-driven hierar-
phometric analysis techniques (Duro et al. 2014a);
chical fabrication platform. The methods are imple-
structural property tailoring via materials engineer-
mented combining custom applets in C and Java
Figure 1
Four exemplar
cases as steps
towards a FIM
methodology; (a) a
biologically driven
fiber construction
algorithm (FCA); (b)
an anatomically
driven
shell-to-wearable
translation protocol
(STP); (c) an
environmentally
driven swarm
printing system
(SPS); and (d) a
manufacturing-
driven hierarchical
fabrication platform
(HFP).

302 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2

languages using the Eclipse IDE environment (The
Eclipse Foundation 2004), as well as C-Sharp scripts
using the RhinoCommon geometrical kernel (McNeel
2010). The resulting designs are fabricated with ad-
vanced additive manufacturing hardware using com-
mercial and customized tools, techniques and tech-
nologies.
Biologically-driven Fiber Construction Algorithm
(FCA). The goal of the FCA model is to design and
fabricate a fiber-based large-scale structure integrat-
ing three sets of constraints, namely: environmen-
tal parameters relating to solar radiation; physio-
logical parameters relating to the silkworm spin-
ning process; and manufacturing parameters relat-
ing to a computer-controlled fabrication machine.
The model is designed to integrate biological spin-
ning and robotic construction into a composite struc-
ture made of both natural and industrial silk (Figure
1a) (more information on the computational model
can be found in Oxman et al. 2014).
Anatomically driven Shell-to-Wearable Transla-
tion Protocol (STP). The goal of the STP model is
to design an armored system composed of overlap-
ping and interlocking units that can adapt to any sur-
face. Data is obtained by analyzing the scales of a
prehistoric fish exoskeleton. In the fish scale system
differentiated geometric features and varying mate-
rial properties achieve a dual function of flexibility
and protection. Observed levels of sophistication are
quantified and incorporated into a mesh data struc-
ture adapted to the human chest that can generate a
new scale system from geometric metadata embed-
ded in its vertices (Figure 1b) (more information on
the computational model can be found in Duro et al.
2014a).
Environmentally driven Swarm Printing System
(SPS). In the SPS model we design a workflow for a
distributed approach to construction of larger-than-
gantry size structures. We develop a multi agent sys-
tem composed of cable-driven robots ("cable-bots")
able to deposit material drops in a layered man-
ner. Material curing times are computed in the sys-
tem along with swarm-like motion behavior rules
of space exploration. We achieve structural emer-
gence with only punctual designer's input opening
up approaches for long distance fabrication (Figure
1c) (more information on the computational model
can be found in Duro et al. 2015a).
Manufacturing-driven Hierarchical Fabrication
Platform (HFP). In the HFP model our goal is to de-
sign and fabricate large-scale biomaterial structures.
We implement a customized computational work-
flow integrating multi-scale material distribution.
The material micro-to-macro distributions respond
to deposition of hydro-gels with variable mechani-
cal properties in single or multiple layers. The final
designs demonstrate emergent geometries and are
fabricated with a customized material deposition
platform (a portable customized multi-nozzle depo-
sition tool attached to an industrial Kuka KR robotic
arm) (Figure 1d) (more information on the computa-
tional model can be found in Duro et al. 2015b).
DISCUSSION
Analysis of Exemplar Cases towards a FIM
Methodology
Below we analyze and integrate key strategies em-
ployed in each of the models. We relate to the three
main principles of FIM: (1) multidimensionality, (2)
trans disciplinary data integration and, (3) material-
informed computation.
Multi-dimensional Characteristics. In the FCA
model, we create a scaffold with local differenced
thread distributions using robotic weaving tech-
niques. The weaving patterns and distances between
threads are informed by typical physiological spin-
ning ranges observed in live silkworms. Six thou-
sand five hundred ready-to-spin silkworms are de-
ployed onto the scaffold and produce a silken dome
with throughout density variations steered by local
changes in woven structure (Figure 2 top). A similar
local-to-global strategy is implemented in the STP
model. In this case, unit-level geometric features are
dependent on, and negotiated within, higher-level
assemblies; so that interlocks and overlaps are pre-
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 303
 served keeping the whole construct functional and Figure 2
flexible (Figure 3 top). In the SPS model, a virtual Biologically-driven
a-dimensional rule-based behavioral system gen- Fiber Construction
erates local rules for global coordination of agents. Algorithm (FCA)
This results in agents achieving construction of a analyzed in terms of
whole structure without top-down control (Figure multi-
4 top). The HFP model is the one that spans most dimensionality,
dimensions in disciplines and scales. We design and trans-disciplinary
modulate the chemical makeup of polymers at the data integration
nano-scale, use their material properties to allow for and
full bonding across printed sections, and then control media-informed
global structural emergence of shape via hydration computation.
patterns at the architectural scale (Figure 5 top).
Trans-disciplinary Data Integration. Efficient and
timely integration of trans-disciplinary information is
fundamental to the development of workflows that
integrate media-informed designs across complex di-
mensions. In the FCA model, two main data sets are
integrated into the design applet. The first one con-
siders solar radiation for a given period of time rela-
tive to the surface of a dome scaffold, and the second
one encodes the typical physiological ranges of silk-
worm spinning as explained above. The combination Figure 3
of both environmental and biological data sets al- Anatomically-
lows the design to seamlessly combine environmen- driven
tal and biological considerations (Figure 2 middle). Shell-to-Wearable
In the case of the STP model, morphometric data Translation Protocol
from a material science driven study of the scales of (STP) analyzed in
a prehistoric fish is parameterized and categorized terms of multi-
to respond to geometrical features. Principal and dimensionality,
secondary directions for the emergence of interlock trans-disciplinary
and overlap features are then linked to functional re- data integration
quirements in new synthetic designs (Figure 3 mid- and
dle). Both in SPS and HFP, structural design data is media-informed
integrated in the models. In SPS, rules for structural computation.
design intent are introduced as typological "steering
forces" affecting the swarm-based printing system
(Figure 4 middle). In HFP, the principal load distri-
butions of simple structural typologies, such as can-
tilevers or post-and-beams, are combined and en-
coded into streamline gradients that produce struc-
tural support gradients in the final manufactured ob-
jects (Figure 5 middle).

304 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2

Figure 4 Media-informed Computation. In order to design
Environmentally- and materialize complex projects such as natural
driven Swarm silk domes, biopolymer cantilevers, or articulated ar-
Printing System mors, design models must incorporate material-, and
(SPS) analyzed in fabrication-informed parameters into computational
terms of multi- models. In the FCA model we implement a func-
dimensionality, tionality that unfolds the structure and coordinates
trans-disciplinary the robotic weaving of 26 frames composing a full-
data integration scale dome. The algorithm was made fully "aware" of
and machine gantry dimensions, speeds, and feeds (Fig-
media-informed ure 2 bottom). In the STP case, functional maps in-
computation. form computation of geometric negotiations within
the scale-based system. The maps can encode bio-
mechanic requirements of breathability, opacity, or
flexibility and protection, on the surface of a human
chest (Figure 3 bottom). Both SPS and HFP incor-
porate novel material-informed computation strate-
gies. In SPS virtual clocks track material extrusion of
drops in position and runtime in order to calculate es-
timated final curing times. The agents in the system
are computed to obtain this data avoiding the depo-
sition of new material drops on top of the uncured
Figure 5 ones so that structural stability is guaranteed (Figure
Manufacturing- 4 bottom). In HFP, the levels of hydration of the de-
driven Hierarchical posited polymers are controlled by convection sys-
Fabrication tems that target different areas of the structure. Such
Platform (HFP) differential convection allows for shrinkage control of
analyzed in terms of the polymers as they dry, so that final shaping can be
multi- induced in certain areas (Figure 5 bottom).
dimensionality,
trans-disciplinary CONCLUSION
data integration Fabrication Information Modeling (FIM) as a Novel
and Framework and Methodology for Materially Het-
media-informed erogeneous and Geometrically Complex DesignThe
computation. challenges associated with the projects described
and analyzed in this paper can be grouped into types
of limitations associated with virtual design environ-
ments. The first set of limitations arises when at-
tempting to integrate design variables from a wide
array of disciplines such as material science, mechan-
ical engineering, biology or structural design (e.g.
in FCA, SPS, STP and HFP models); the second set
of limitations arises from challenges associated with

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 305

 adapting shape-based parameters to digital fabrica-
tion and computer aided machining constraints (e.g.
in FCA, SPS and HFP models); the third set of limi-
tations arises when aiming to intervene at different
scales of time, resolution and representation (e.g. in
SPS and STP models). The challenges in achieving
design synthesis across media, scales and disciplines
are many and, typically, they are the result of follow-
ing computer-aided design traditions that should be
adapted to, or replaced by, novel ways to understand
and implement physical feedback workflows. We
propose Fabrication Information Modeling (FIM) as a
methodology and framework to combine form gen-
eration, digital fabrication, and material computation
in seamless processes. Initial results from our related
work demonstrate functional integration, multi scale
performance and novel aesthetic qualities. We antic-
ipate that additional research in this area will point
towards advancing the capabilities of computational
design and digital fabrication workflows with real-
time multi-scale trans-disciplinary data.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ideas, concepts and methods reported herein have
been developed to support ongoing projects at the
MIT Mediated Matter Group. Partial support comes
from the US Army through the MIT Institute for
Soldier Nanotechnologies (Contract No. W911NF-
13-D-0001), the Institute for Collaborative Biotech-
nologies (Grant No. W911NF-09-0001 from the US
Army Research Office), the National Security Science
and Engineering Faculty Fellowship Program (Grant
No. N00244-09-1-0064), and the TBA-21 Academy
(Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary). We would
like to thank our graduate and undergraduate col-
leagues at the Mediated Matter Group, specifically
Markus Kayser, Jared Laucks, and Daniel Lizardo. We
wish to thank our collaborators Prof. Christine Ortiz
(MIT DEMS), Prof. Mary C. Boyce (Columbia Engineer-
ing), Dr. James Weaver (Harvard Wyss Institute), Dr.
Javier G. Fernandez (Harvard Wyss Institute), and Dr.
Fiorenzo Omedetto (Tufts University).
306 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
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Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 307
Robotic Design-Fabrication
Exploring Robotic Fabrication as a Dynamic Design Process

Renate Weissenböck1
1
Graz University of Technology
1
http://iam.tugraz.at
1
weissenboeck@tugraz.at

This research explores the relationship between digital design and digital
fabrication, investigating robotic fabrication as a dynamic design process. It
examines the potential of utilizing production tools as the key part of the design
process, where the final geometry is neither simulated nor pre-defined in the
digital realm before materialization. This "design-fabrication" or
"design-by-fabrication" workflow fosters a new way of thinking about
architectural design and practice, as well as unlocking creativity and discovering
new geometries and aesthetics. To illustrate this, the paper presents a series of
directed design experiments developed by students in two seminars at Graz
University of Technology. A unique fabrication technique is investigated,
combining laser cutting and robotic thermoforming, which was developed by the
author in the course of her PhD-research. Utilizing this robotically aided design
process, sheets of acrylic glass are laser cut and thermoformed by a robot into 3-
dimensional spatial objects, each element with individual geometries, textures,
transparencies and apertures.

Keywords: Digital fabrication, Robotic fabrication, Laser cutting,

Thermoforming, Material manipulation

INTRODUCTION tecture can be individualized und customized with

Due to the development of new software interfaces,
programmable machines are more easily accessible
to architects and designers. Custom plug-ins like
KUKA|prc [1] or HAL [2] for Grasshopper allow archi-
tects with little or no scripting background to pro-
gram machines like industrial robots. Within sec-
onds, digital parametric set-ups and, therefore, robot
codes can be changed. Processes are rapidly acceler-
ating, and design as well as materialization of archi-
little time and effort. This development in digital
fabrication significantly changes the relationship be-
tween architects and digitally driven machines, and
opens up a new perspective on the connection be-
tween digital and physical. Architects gain more con-
trol over materiality and are able to extend the digi-
tal design process into the production process. The
role of the architect changes, and an experimental
approach to materializing architecture is facilitated.

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 309

 This fosters a new way of thinking about architectural
design, its workflow, practice and aesthetics.
This research aims to use industrial robots for
architectural design in a creative and effective way,
utilizing their full potential to enrich, inspire and
transform architectural design processes. It suggests
an alternative use of digital fabrication tools as de-
sign tools, complementing the design process on the
computer with robotic technology. The goal is to
not only integrate digital production in the design
process, but to use it as an integral part of the de-
sign process, where the final geometry is not simu-
lated or pre-determined in the digital realm before
materialization. This paper investigates architectural
workflows as process-based, flexible and not pre-
defined, exploring "robotic design-fabrication" as key
to a dynamic design process.
Furthermore, the paper describes a novel
design-fabrication process, combining robotic ther-
moforming with laser cutting, developed in the
frame of the author's PhD thesis (Weissenböck, 2014).
The paper reports on recent case studies experiment-
ing with this process that are created at the intersec-
tion of research and teaching at Graz University of
Technology. In two "digital fabrication" seminars
devised by the author, participating students de-
velop several customized prototypes with individual
shaped surfaces, textures, transparencies and aper-
tures (Figure 1). Sheets of acrylic glass are laser cut,
slotted or perforated, and shaped into 3- dimensional
objects using robotic thermoforming. Using a dig-
ital parametric set-up, variations in the process can
be made within seconds, enabling the creation of a
myriad of forms and qualities. For production, a 6-
axis industrial robotic arm - an ABB IRB 140 - and an
Epilog laser cutter, combined with hot and cold air,
are used.
DIGITAL DESIGN - DIGITAL FABRICATION
Nowadays, machines have interfaces that are more
easily accessible to architects and designers, which
allows us to gain a different view of digital-physical
relations. As Menges describes it, "A novel conver-
310 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
gence of computation and materialisation is about to
emerge, bringing the virtual process of design and
the physical realisation of architecture much closer
together, more so than ever before" (2012). Current
investigations in digital architecture aim for an inte-
gration of fabrication issues in the design process, es-
pecially benefitting from the exploration of material
qualities and enabling an interplay between the dig-
ital and physical realm. "Digital and material orders
enter into a dialogue, in the course of which each is
enriched by the other" (Gramazio and Kohler, 2008).
In architectural design processes, materiality and
physical models have always played a crucial role.
Traditionally, hand-made models are used as design
models or sketch models on the one hand, and as
clean presentation models for clients on the other
hand. In the beginnings of digital modeling, CAD
software was merely used for precision and repre-
sentation issues. In the late 1990s, the use of digital
tools transitioned crucially. 3d-modelling or anima-
tion software is used for design, instead of represen-
tation. In his book "Animate Form", Greg Lynn writes
about the changing role of the computer as form-
generating tool, using a dynamic process for form
finding (1999).
As before in digital design, in digital fabrication
the mode shifts too, from using it as a representation
or materialization tool of pre-given designs, to us-
ing it as design tool, implementing material qualities.
Gramazio and Kohler define the term "digital mate-
riality" in 2008: "Digital materiality evolves through
the interplay between digital and material processes
in design and construction" (2008).
Investigating this field further, this study aims to
find new synergies between hand crafting, digital de-
sign processes, fabrication processes, and material-
ity. Largely, prototyping and digital fabrication are
used to check the physical result of a finished digital
design and to materialize complex digital designs re-
spectively. In these explorations, digital fabrication is
not investigated as a production process for already
designed geometries, but as a "design by produc-
tion" process, and "design-fabrication" is not defined
Figure 1
Photographs of
fabricated
prototypes created
by the author and
students at Graz
University of
Technology

as a technique to fabricate complex designs, but to
"create" complex designs.
ROBOTIC DESIGN-FABRICATION
Currently, architects and designers are passionately
exploring the application of industrial robots in archi-
tecture. It was pioneered by Gramazio and Kohler in
2006 at the ETH, investigating the robotic assembly
of bricks, and by Epps of Robofold in 2008, explor-
ing robotic folding of metal panels. In 2010, Brell-
Cockcan and Braumann founded the Association of
Robots in Architecture, with the goal to "make in-
dustrial robots accessible to the creative industry". In
2012, they organized the first RobIArch-conference,
on robotic fabrication in art, architecture and design,
investigating the field of "...re-using industrial robots
as a well-established basis and adapting them for ar-
chitectural purposes by developing custom software

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 311

 interfaces and end-effectors" (Brell-Cokcan and Brau-
mann, 2012).
Compared to other digital fabrication machines,
the use of robotic fabrication in the architectural de-
sign process offers some main advantages and po-
tentials. One of the main benefits of robots is their
possible application for a huge variety of tasks, offer-
ing the option to work with custom end-effectors. "...
it has not been optimized for one single task but is
suitable for a wide spectrum of applications. Rather
than being forced to operate within the predefined
parameters of a specialized machine, we are able to
design the actual 'manual skills' of the generic robot
ourselves" (Gramazio & Kohler, 2008).
The robot is also very flexible in terms of size
and scale. In contrast to a robot's spatial flexibility,
other fabrication machines like 3d-printers or milling
machines have pre-defined maximum work volumes,
which precisely limit the maximum dimensions of a
thereby fabricated piece. A robot can provide a much
larger field of operation, as it can move around or
along the fabrication object.
Robotic fabrication is not just another way of dig-
ital fabrication, but has the potential to change pro-
cesses in architectural design and build practice into
a dynamic design-to-build-process. "Designers have
taken the flexible nature of industrial robotic technol-
ogy as more than just an enabler of computationally
derived formal complexity; instead they have lever-
aged it as an opportunity to reconsider the entire
design-to-production chain." (McGee, Ponce de Leon,
2014)
A NEW DESIGN-FABRICATION PROCESS:
EXTENDED ROBOTIC THERMOFORMING
Recently, the potential of thermoforming utilizing
robotic technology has been explored, i.e. at Univer-
sity of Innsbruck's RexLab [3], as well as by the As-
sociation of Robots in Architecture [4], creating free-
formed surfaces by forming acrylic glass panels. In
the research initiative "IsoPrototyping", Fereos and
Tsiliakos investigate thermoforming using a trans-
formable dry mold, "capable of manufacturing any
312 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
given double curved surface" (2014). Thermoforming
has a huge potential for implementing digital materi-
ality, benefitting from special properties of materials
that become malleable when exposed to high tem-
perature. They allow for process-based deformations
to create 3-dimensional shapes from flat surfaces.
As mentioned before, this study explores a new
design-fabrication workflow, extending robotic ther-
moforming processes by combining them with laser
cutting, and creating prototypes by forming flat
acrylic glass panels into individual shaped objects
(Weissenböck, 2014). In this chapter, the key-points
of this workflow are described.
Combining laser cutting and robotic ther-
moforming
Cut-and-form processes have been widely explored
using handcrafting techniques. In her publication
"Soft Shells: Porous and Deployable Architectural
Screens", Sophia Vyzoviti illustrates form generat-
ing experiments, using a "cut-stretch" process to
thermoform pre-cut elements, stretching them by
hand (2011). Another variation explored by Heimo
Schimek involves a cut-and-form process using heat
and gravity for shaping - a slotted plane is put onto
a rigid mold and heated in an oven, where a bowl is
formed by letting the material fall into its final shape
by gravity [5].
In this study, a new technique is developed by
combining cut-and-form processes with industrial
robots. By means of this combination, it is possible to
achieve customized elements of different shapes and
variable apertures, as well as transparencies and sur-
face treatments. Furthermore, this process uses the
advantages of robotics over handcraft, implement-
ing efficiency, precision, strength, scalability and re-
producibility - yet still engaging materiality.
The application of cuts and scores to a surface
influences the way it deforms. If more cuts or per-
forations are applied, possible deformations get big-
ger, because the material malleability increases. In
addition, the size, depth and position of laser pat-
terns influence the resulting geometry, i.e. special
 cuts or scores can be applied to create intentional
kinks, edges or breaks on certain positions.
Design and fabrication processes are pro-
grammed parametrically using the full potential of
digital technology. Rhinoceros 3D software is used
together with Grasshopper, its integrated graphi-
cal algorithm editor. The robotic procedures and
the RAPID code are programmed with HAL [2], a
Grasshopper plug-in for industrial robots program-
ming. Therefore, each panel can be deformed at any
number and positions of target points. Depending
on the point, depth and angle of deformation in rela-
tion to the laser-cut pattern, different geometries and
apertures of different sizes and shapes are created.
The laser-cut operations are applied to the ma-
terial before thermoforming. Different operations
are applied to the acrylic glass panels, to produce
individual elements with different qualities. To cre-
ate different textures, scoring is applied by the laser
cutter. Scoring, rasterizing and perforating is used
to achieve different transparencies. Perforations
and/or cuts are applied to create apertures. The
most challenging operation to create openings is
the "cut+form"-technique, where the apertures are
Figure 2
Matrix of exemplary
qualities and
shapes, created by
different laser-cut
operations
only produced during the robotic forming process by
opening up the pre-cut slots of the flat surface (Fig-
ure 2).
Robotic forming as a dynamic mold
The question of fabricating complex curved geome-
tries without utilizing single-use molds still prevails in
architecture. In this study, a special kind of "dynamic
mold" is developed to form flat sheets which are
heated and robotically pushed against a form-giving
counterpart: the "deformer tool". This means that the
robot's movement together with a deformer tool acts
as a dynamic mold, capable of implementing com-
plex movements like push, twist and tilt. The pro-
duced geometrical outcome is defined by the robot's
path in conjunction with the shape of the deforming
counterpart, which is overlaid with the laser cut pat-
tern and the material properties.
After laser cutting, the panels are placed into a
custom-made frame that is attached to the robot's
flange. The panels are robotically shaped by mov-
ing them along a pre-defined path with different sta-
tions. First they are placed above the heat gun, then
they are formed by pushing them against a deformer-
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 313
 tool, and finally they are cooled down by a cold air fan
(Figure 3). Variable shapes and sizes of deformers can
be used to create panels with different geometries.
To create a wide spectrum of different shapes,
custom-made deformer tools are developed that
shape the surfaces by pushing them. In addition
to spheres and sticks, geometries like semi-spheres,
pyramids, cones or cuboids, as well as combined
shapes like a 3-pin are used. In coordination with the
laser pattern and the robot movement, individual de-
former tools are designed to form unique prototypes.
Designing processes
In this study, design to production workflows are in-
vestigated as process-oriented. We design processes
rather than shapes or forms. The goal is not to use
robotic fabrication to materialize a geometry, which
has already been designed on the computer, but to
314 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
use robotic fabrication to design geometries. Since
the robot is such a flexible tool, the predefinition of
the fabricated geometry is not necessary and - in this
study - not desirable prior to production. A differ-
ent relationship between man and machine is estab-
lished where the machine evolves from a tool to a
partner (Hirschberg, 2014).
In the experimental case studies described in
the next chapter, the final shape of the prototypes
is not defined on the computer - rather digital pro-
cesses are designed that are directly executed by the
robot. These processes are designed based on ma-
terial experimentation, architectural knowledge and
intuition. The final design emerges during produc-
tion - the execution of the code - especially taking
account of material properties. The result is antici-
pated or even expected, but not always fulfilled. Sur-
prises, discoveries and accidents happen, building up
Figure 3
Fabrication
workflow
 a foundation for iterative optimization, as well as fos-
tering creativity. As mentioned before, parametric
tools enable adjustments in the process within sec-
onds, enabling the creation of a myriad of forms and
qualities, responding to different conditions. Varia-
tions of prototypes are created and optimized, ex-
ploring multiple solutions within minimal time and
effort, which are precise, scalable, and repeatable.
EXPERIMENTAL CASE STUDIES
This chapter reports on selected students' work that
was the outcome of two "digital fabrication" semi-
nars, recently taught by the author at Graz Univer-
sity of technology. In these seminars, robotic fab-
rication is explored as an experimental design tool.
The robotic design-fabrication process described in
the previous chapter, is used to create individual case
studies of modular elements. Prototypes are made
from square sheets of acrylic glass in different trans-
parencies, in a module size of 30 by 30 cm, and 3mm
thickness.
In the seminars, the students combine manual
production with digital production (Figure 4). In the
first session, hand-deforming of panels is explored to
introduce the participants to the material behavior
of acrylic glass when exposed to different tempera-
tures. By hand-testing, the students investigate pos-
sible shapes and design outcomes. These manual ex-
periments are crucial to building up a design intu-
ition and design intent that informs the digital pro-
cess. As Bechthold and King describe it, "...physical
and digital experiments produce many ideas in rapid
Figure 4
Students exploring
laser cutting, hand
forming and
robotics
sequence. Rough prototypes, even those produced
manually, provide early feedback on opportunities,
but also help failures to emerge quickly. The evalu-
ation criteria derived through the analysis are used
to filter out ideas for further development..." (2014).
After producing first test models manually and digi-
tally, students are able to select the most successful
experiments and continue in a more focused way. In
this seminar, each participant has to define the de-
sired qualities of their project, the laser-cut pattern,
the robot path and the deformer tool. After explor-
ing test panels by means of manual and robotic form-
ing, students have to develop four final prototypes in
variation of a module.
Prior to the seminar start, a parametric code
definition is set-up in the software combination of
Rhinoceros, Grasshopper and HAL (Figure 5). This en-
ables students without a programming background
to program the robot easily, and adjust processes
simply by moving sliders. The students appreciated
the advantages of digital and robotic technology to
fine-tune processes parametrically and to precisely
repeat successful prototypes. Prior to robotic pro-
duction, the simulation of the robot path is simulated
in HAL and double-checked in ABB RobotStudio. The
used fabrication machines are an Epilog laser cutter
and an ABB IRB 140 robotic arm, combined with mul-
tiple heat guns.
The main constraints in this seminar are defined
by the range and payload of the available robot, as
well as by the limited availability of time and ma-
terial. Besides materiality, the main influence fac-
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 315

tors in this design-fabrication process are the laser-
cut pattern, the geometry of the deformer tool and
the robot path performing movement operations like
push, tilt or twist. Further important parameters are
the heating time of the panel, the robot speed during
deformation and the cooling time at the maximal de-
formation point, to keep the deformed shape of the
prototype.
Case study 1: Slices
In this project, the student designs an intricate facade
for the ground floor of an urban building situation,
providing a new identity and a more spatial quality.
Sheets of transparent acrylic glass are laser-slotted
along parallel lines for the prototypes. In addition,
different transparencies and textures are created by
laser-scoring. The individual slices are deformed by a
tool consisting of three pins, which deforms three of
the slices at once, thus creating openings. Different
shades of transparency and reflection become visi-
ble, depending on light conditions, view-angle and
316 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
Figure 5
Parametric set-up
and simulation in
Rhinoceros/-
Grasshopper/HAL
Figure 6
Case study 1:
"Slices"
apertures. These prototypes can be interpreted on
different scales - either as a building element, or as a
scale-model of a larger shaped surface. The effect of
the laser-scored surface works very well as texturing
and light filtering (Figure 6).
• Laser pattern: score, slot
• Deformer tool: 3-pin
• Robot movement: push
Case study 2: The Cube
The design intention of this student was to create in-
dividual facade perforations and apertures, for the
four differently oriented sides of a house. The se-
lected cut and form pattern depends on different de-
mands of light filtering and views to the outside. The
project combines triangular perforations with linear,
pushed-out openings in different depths and angles.
Opaque acrylic glass is used, and the final prototype
consists of four panels combined to a cube. Surpris-
ing in this case study is the greatly achieved effect
Figure 7
Case study 2: "The
Cube"

of different transparencies, apertures and reflections. Case study 4: Slit-Deformed

The geometry created by the deformation depends
on the contact point of the push-tilt-movement in re-
lation to the length of the slot. Therefore, the open-
ings acquire intriguing irregular shapes (Figure 7).
• Laser pattern: perforate, slot
• Deformer tool: half-sphere
• Robot movement: push, tilt
Case study 3: Floral Explosion
The design intent of this project was to create an
organic (floral) appearance from rigid base geome-
tries. Scoring and cutting is combined in a sophisti-
cated way: diagonal cross-shapes are slotted to cre-
ate openings through deformation, and square pat-
terns are scored on the "underside" of the panel.
These special scores are designed to influence sur-
face deformation when pushed against a pyramid
shape, to achieve a planned square edge-condition
between the different deformation fields (Figure 8).
• Laser pattern: score, slot
• Deformer tool: pyramid
• Robot movement: push, tilt
In this project, the student experimented with laser-
cut slits to create different geometries of deforma-
tions and apertures, merely depending on the robot's
movement. A regular grid of a cross-shaped pat-
tern is cut, and deformed by a truncated pyramid,
comparing the geometric outcome of push-, tilt- and
twist-operations. This study gives a lot of insight
into the forming behavior of the surface, creating
geometric variations depending on cut- and form-
parameters (Figure 9).
• Laser pattern: slot
• Deformer tool: truncated pyramid
• Robot movement: push, tilt, twist
CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
This paper locates its research in the field of dig-
ital design, digital fabrication, and robotic tech-
nology, implementing material properties. It in-
vestigates robotic fabrication as a dynamic design
process. A specially developed robotic design-
fabrication workflow is described and explored in an
experimental way, illustrated by four experimental

Figure 8
Case study 3: "Floral
Explosion"

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 317


case studies. The created prototypes are appreciated
as design and study objects. Reflecting on them, con-
clusions can be drawn on the potential of the pre-
sented workflow for similar design-fabrication pro-
cesses, implementing other malleable materials in
a cut-and-form process. Furthermore, a big poten-
tial for specific applications in architecture is conceiv-
able, like additive building skins or systems of pri-
mary skin structures.
The next steps in this line of research will be
the exploration of more complex robotic deforma-
tion movements for form-creation, as well as the es-
tablishment of a design catalogue created by the de-
veloped design-fabrication process.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is supported by the Institute of Archi-
tecture and Media, the Institute of Structural De-
sign and the ABB Roboter Labor at Graz University of
Technology. Special thanks to Urs Hirschberg, Paul
Frick, Felix Amtsberg and Richard Dank for their sup-
port, as well as to all participating students in the
"digital fabrication" seminars: Timo Hopp, Maykal
Borislav Mateev, Matthias Prosekar, João Petersen,
Rene Starmutz, Werner Thiemann; Marlene Gratzer,
Martin Paul Handley, Gerrit Hoppe, Julian Jauk, Ste-
fan Milenkovic, Ryan Oliason, Adrian Paul, Benjamin
Schmid, Christoph Thambauer.
REFERENCES
Bechthold, M and King, M 2013, 'Design Robotics - To-
wards strategic design experiments', in Brell-Cokcan,
S and Braumann, J (eds) 2013, Rob | Arch 2012 Robotic
Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design, Springer-
318 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
Figure 9
Case study 4:
"Slit-Deformed"
Verlag Wien, pp. 118-129
Brell-Cokcan, S and Braumann, J (eds) 2013, Rob | Arch
2012 Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and De-
sign, Springer-Verlag/Wien
Fereos, P and Tsiliakos, M 2014 'Isoprototyping - Rapid
Robotic Aided Fabrication for Double Curvature Sur-
faces', Fusion - Proceedings of the 32nd eCAADe Con-
ference - Volume 1, Newcastle upon Tyne, England,
pp. 433-443
Gramazio, F and Kohler, M 2008, Digital Materiality in Ar-
chitecture, Lars Müller Publishers
Hirschberg, U 2014, 'Editorial', in Fakultät für Architektur,
Technische Universität Graz, - (eds) 2014, GAM 10: In-
tuition &the Machine, Ambra Verlag, p. 5
Lynn, G 1999, Animate Form, Princeton Architectural
Press, New York
McGee, W and Ponce de Leon, M (eds) 2014, Robotic Fab-
rication in Architecture, Art and Design 2014, Springer
International Publishing
Menges, A 2012, Material Computation, AD John Wi-
ley&Sons Ltd., London
Vyzoviti, S 2011, Soft Shells: Porous and Deployable Archi-
tectural Screens, BIS Publishers
Weissenböck, R 2014, 'D-FORM. Exploring the Combina-
tion of Laser Cutting and Robotic Thermoforming as
a Technique for Architectural Envelopes', in McGee,
W and Ponce de Leon, M (eds) 2014, Robotic Fabri-
cation in Architecture, Art and Design 2014, Springer
International Publishing, pp. 249-260
[1] http://www.robotsinarchitecture.org/kuka-prc
[2] http://hal.thibaultschwartz.com/
[3] http://vimeo.com/64710189
[4] http://vimeo.com/68575276
[5] http://www.schimek-architektur.at/?page_id=253
The Use of Digital Fabrication as a Sketching Tool in the
Architectural Design Process
A Case Study

Asli Agirbas1
1
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University, Is-
tanbul, Turkey
1
www.asliagirbas.com
1
aagirbas@pratt.edu

Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technologies including computer

numerically controlled (CNC) milling, laser cutting and 3D printing are becoming
cheaper and globally more accessible. Accordingly, many design professionals,
academics and students have been able to experience the benefits and challenges
of using digital fabrication in their designs. The use of digital fabrication in the
education of architecture students has become normal in many schools of
architecture, and there is a growing demand for computer-aided manufacturing
(CAM) logic and fabrication knowledge in student learning. Clearly, architecture
students are acquiring material base-thinking, time management, production
methods and various software skills through this digital fabrication. However, it
appears to be the case that architecture students use digital fabrication mainly in
the final stage of their design or in their finishing work. In this study,
computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technologies have been used as a sketch
tool rather than simply for fabricating a final product in the architectural design
process and the advantages of this educational practice are demonstrated.

Keywords: Digital fabrication, Teaching methodology, Sketching

INTRODUCTION them to shape their thoughts and accordingly to pro-

Designers' sketches can be traditional concept draw-
ings on paper, traditional handmade models, con-
cept drawings in modelling software or CAM prod-
ucts. All of these media can be thought as sketching
methods because they have common features that
prompt designers to visualise the drawings and rein-
terpret them, so to produce new ideas, which helps
duce new designs.
Since CAD/CAM technologies became
widespread, digital sketches and new technologies
began to replace those freehand sketches and tradi-
tional handmade models which had formerly proved
essential for developing new design ideas. During
the process of drawing sketches and interpreting

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 319

 them, designers become aware of new relations and
characteristics which suggest ways to refine and re-
vise their ideas (Schon, 1983; Schon and Wiggins,
1992; Garner, 1992; Goel, 1995). According to Suwa
and Tversky (1996), "seeing different types of infor-
mation in sketches" is the driving force in revising
design ideas, and sketches make apparent to design-
ers not only perceptual features but also inherently
non-visual functional relations.
Today, sketching process started to be done by
digital 3D modelling tools which are preferred over
the traditional sketching methods. CAM technology
can actually be a supporting sketching model tool for
designers as indicated by Cheng and Hegre (2009)
who state that: "we can use digital fabrication as a
catalyst for design instead of just a means of produc-
tion". Hence, digital fabrication techniques can pro-
vide a creative design process (Hemsath, 2012), and
the use of CAM technologies as a sketching tool leads
designers to explore forms in real-time models which
play an important role in architectural design. How-
ever, it is mainly in the manufacture of final products
that these techniques are presently being used.
As a legacy of the Euclidean geometry building
tradition, architects had used straight lines and cir-
cles for a long time. During the industrial revolu-
tion, the effects of standardization gave rise to fast,
easy and economic constructions which influenced
improvements in the design and manufacture of ma-
chines. Kolarevic (2003) has said that: "knowing
the production capabilities and availability of partic-
ular digitally-driven fabrication equipment enables
architects to design specifically for the capabilities
of those machines". In the modern, digital age, in-
tegrating CAD with CAM redefines the relationship
between designing and producing. Therefore, non-
standard forms become easier to fabricate, which
eliminates traditional drawing and production meth-
ods (Mitchell and McCullough, 1995). To include new
CAM technologies in the sketching phase of designs
would lead architects to learn how to use the ma-
chine and to reshape their designs according to its
technological capabilities. In addition, actual prod-
320 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
ucts (objects) which could encourage architects to
become aware of new relations and features, would
allow them to make serendipitous discoveries. There
are, accordingly, a number of advantages in incorpo-
rating the new CAM technologies as a sketching tool
within the overall architectural design process.
The CAM technologies should also be used as
a sketching tool in the educational process, so that
students of architecture can gain familiarity with the
machines and learn how to reshape their designs ac-
cordingly. This point is highlighted in the present pa-
per, which discusses the use of digital fabrication in
the architectural design process as a sketching tool,
in reference to an architecture course that sought
to educate students in CAD/CAM technologies, para-
metric modelling and digital fabrication, in architec-
tural design, by creating waffle models which are
mostly based on non-Euclidean architectural forms
produced through laser cutting methods.
TEACHING METHODOLOGY OF THE
COURSE
Since undergraduate courses with large class sizes
have students who do not have adequate knowledge
about CAD/CAM, and major transitions are difficult
for traditional institutions, most of the courses that
include contemporary and experimental techniques
in architecture are given within graduate programs
with small groups of students who already have some
knowledge of digital architecture. However, it is nec-
essary to include such courses in bachelor of archi-
tecture curricula since it has been noted that: "early
adoption of digital fabrication exposes students to
the process- and material-based thinking of contem-
porary architecture at a time when they form lasting
attitudes to designing" (Roudavski and Walsh, 2011).
We included new courses related to CAD/CAM in
the fall semester of the 2014 undergraduate program
at the departments of architecture, Mimar Sinan Fine
Arts University and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif Univer-
sity, Istanbul. Although the courses were electives for
bachelor of architecture students, the teaching was
done as architectural design studio studies, and sup-
 ported by lectures on modelling and scripting. The process". Moreover, such properties of the material as
students were required to submit small-scale design color, texture and smell led the students to make ad-
projects which helped them to practice 3D modelling ditional unintended discoveries, and hence we may
skills, which was one of the course objectives. The infer that they were already in the sketching process.
students were free to work either as individuals or in
Figure 1 a group.
Work of Ogulcan The courses began by teaching the fundamen-
Unesi, MSFAU tals of 3D modelling in Rhino where students had to
design a model with a waffle technique, and then
continued with teaching parametric modelling, us-
ing Grasshopper. In this way, the students gained
some experience in creating non-standard forms and
had the opportunity to learn about digital fabrication
tools. They learned how to use a laser cutter for the
first time in their architectural education, and discov-
ered the potential for its use in architecture. It thus
became apparent to them that they should design
their model on a computer screen along with consid-
ering how it might be fabricated by means of laser
Figure 2 cutting, CNC milling or 3D printing processes.
Work of Aysegul The students had a free choice in their design
Yalman, Beyza object, while creating a waffle model, and were sup-
Bengul and Beyza posed to deform a plane surface along with rebuild-
Karakus, FSMVU ing it. They were then expected to contour the non-
Euclidean geometry that they had created. By then
extruding the contours and booleaning the surfaces
helped them in forming a model using a waffle tech-
nique. The objects chosen by most of the students to
create for their initial laser cutting included a chair,
a pavilion and a bridge. By using the waffle tech-
nique to model these forms, the students are able to
develop their designs and to improve their 3D mod-
elling computer skills. Their next task was to de-
cide upon the materials that they wanted to use for
laser cutting, which was the point at which they be-
gan to learn material base thinking. Having made
this choice, then they returned to their designs and
revised their models according to the properties of
the particular material. Such properties as thickness
and size affected the students' design models di-
rectly as was commented on by Oxman (2007), who
wrote that: "integration of material and techniques
together in earlier design phase causes fluent design

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 321

 DIGITAL FABRICATION PROCESS Figure 3
It became clear that the students were still thinking Work of Hamza
of ways to improve their designs after their first laser Turanli, FSMVU
cutting experience. Since some students were still
considering making changes to some of the parts of
their models, it was obvious that they were still in the
design phase.
After the digital fabrication, some of the students
said that they realized that the ribs (contours) in their
models were very sparsely distributed, but this was
not obvious from the model on the computer screen
(Figures 1, 2). Since some of the students had used 3D
modelling software for the first time, it is possible that
they might not have controlled all the different views
fully via the computer, and thus the model would ap-
Figure 4
pear different from the actual fabricated object. One
Work of Omer
student said that he was imagining the model from
Unlusoy and Enes
the perspective of the ground level while modelling
Duzli, FSMVU
on the computer screen; however, after production
of the actual object, he attempted to change his
model by partially removing it from the ground level
and saw that the design can still remain physically
stable (Figure 3). He then created multiple versions of
the model and fabricated some of them again, and, at
this stage, realized that he didn't achieve a balance of
the surface deformation with the number of the con-
tours. In contrast, some of the students were able to
control their designs on the computer screen more
carefully (Figures 4 - 7).
Some of the students neglected to give numbers
to waffle ribs in Rhino or AutoCAD before proceeding Figure 5
with the laser cutting, but then realized that the num- Work of Esra Oktay,
bering process was critical in arranging the ordering MSFAU
of the ribs following fabrication, because of the simi-
larity in their appearance, such that it was difficult to
order them correctly without numbering. They also
discovered that rearranging the ribs carefully in 2D
before final fabrication meant that less material was
wasted, thus increasing the cost-effectiveness of the
process.

322 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2

Figure 6 Some of the students were disappointed by the
Work of Ceylan Akis, materials that they chose for laser cutting, in par-
Huda Sarac, FSMVU ticular those which melted during the laser cutting,
or which took a long time to cut by the laser (Fig-
ure 8). Nonetheless, it is clear that to gain experi-
ence in the use of materials and their properties is
very effective in the learning process for teaching stu-
dents about architectural design. While some of the
students found problems in fitting parts of the waf-
fle ribs together, after their fabrication, because they
had not determined the voids according to the ma-
terial thickness, others made a very careful determi-
nation of them, and concluded that the fit would be
better fit if fractionally more space was left between
Figure 7 two crossing ribs to minimize the frictional force be-
Work of Caglar tween them (Figures 9, 10).
Karahan, Betul Eres
and Behiyye Yilmaz, CONCLUSION
FSMVU The teaching method described can be applied
throughout the course, thus enabling its students
to: develop both their designs and computer skills,
search for new materials, manage their time, learn
material base thinking and how to use the laser cut-
ter. Then, after producing physical models (objects)
by laser cutting, the students can reexamine the first
stage of their designs for further development. At
this stage, they are actually engaged in the design
process, and begin to reevaluate their ideas in terms
of the possibilities and advantages of the digital fab-
rication that they have themselves created. As a re-
sult of using real materials, seeing actual color and
modelling in precise dimensions, students learn to
develop their designs. Thus, digital fabrication may
be regarded as an integral part of the design process
and can be defined as a kind of sketching method
with applications for developing ideas and concepts
in architectural design.

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 323

 REFERENCES Figure 8
Cheng, NY and Hegre, E 2009 'Serendipity and Discov- Work of Hilal
ery in a Machine Age: Craft and a CNC Router', in Cumhur, MSFAU
Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the As-
sociation for Computer Aided Design in Architecture,
Chicago, Illinois
Garner, S 1992, 'The Undervalued Role of Drawing in De-
sign', in Thistlewood, D (eds) 1992, Drawing Research
and Development, Longman, London, pp. 98-109
Goel, V 1995, Sketches of Thought, The MIT Press, Cam-
bridge
Hemsath, TL 2012, 'Using Prototyping to Teach digital
fabrication techniques', Journal of Information Tech-
nology in Construction, Vol. 17, Special Issue CAAD
and innovation, pp. 300-307
Kolarevic, B (eds) 2003, Architecture in the Digital Age : De-
sign and Manufacturing, Spon Press, New York
Figure 9
Mitchell, WJ and McCullough, M 1995, Digital Design Me-
dia, John Wiley & Sons, New York Work of Loran
Oxman, N 2007 'Digital Craft: Fabrication Based De- Ozdemir, MSFAU
sign in the Age of Digital Production', in Workshop
Proceedings for Ubicomp 2007: International Confer-
ence on Ubiquitous Computing, Innsbruck, Austria,
pp. 534-538
Roudavski, S and Walsh, AM 2011 'The Headspace
Project: Computer-Assisted Fabrication as an In-
troduction to Digital Architectural Design', in Pro-
ceedings of the 16th International Conference on
Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in
Asia, pp. 579-588
Schon, DA 1983, The Reflective Practitioner: How Profes-
sionals Think in Action, Basic Books Figure 10
Schon, DA and Wiggins, G 1992, 'Kinds of Seeing and Work of Huseyin
Their Functions in Designing', Design Studies, Vol.13 Sogukpinar, Yusuf
No.2, pp. 135-156 Yucesoy, Busra
Suwa, M and Tversky, B 1996 'What Architects See in Tasyuz and Adnan
Their Sketches: Implications for Design Tools', in Pro- Gunes, FSMVU
ceedings of CHI’96, pp. 191-192

324 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2

Gradient Transparency: Marine Animals as a Source of
Inspiration
Exploring Material Bio-Mimicry through the Latest 3D Printing Technology
in Architectural surfaces

Simos Vamvakidis1
1
National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) School of Architecture
1
www.svstudio.gr
1
yerasimo@gmail.com

Digital fabrication technologies are changing rapidly the way we design, as any
other tool would affect the way we produce space. Multi layered 3D printing is
already allowing architects, designers and engineers to experiment with new
design processes and new ways of production. At the same time, little research
has being done in the way gradient transparency (through multiple layered
surfaces) can affect the design process through computation; a field that deserves
further investigation. The focus of this paper is to explore bio-inspired material
finding design processes while combining biology, architecture and material
science. We explore performance driven design possibilities through a study of
marine animals -and specifically cephalopods- where opacity between skin layers
is controlled through color pigments - while black pigments are called
melanophores - which is often used as a type of camouflage. We propose a
computation model that follows the logic of gradient transparency through
pigments to fit complex "host surfaces". We define a "host" surface as a basic
geometry on which the pigments are computed. This study provides the
methodology for the design of biomimetic surfaces with gradient transparency,
using controlled and computated sub geometries analogous to the melanophores
pigments. We finally propose Pigment Skin, a computational design model as an
example to materialize this study.

Keywords: Gradient transparency, Multilayering, Marine animals, Biomimicry,

3D printing

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 325

 Introduction mal). These rules were then incorporated in a com-
Gradient transparency in nature is evident in a putation model where pigments can be applied to
range of animals including amphibians, reptiles, complicated surfaces. As an applied example, we in-
fish and cephalopods like squid. This is achieved troduced Pigment Skin, a synthetic computation sys-
through the translocation of color pigments called tem where we can tune performance of pigments,
melanophores, which are responsible for generat- through aggregation, scale and pattern. The sec-
ing skin and eye color for many cold blooded ani- ond phase we will test the fundamental exchange be-
mals. Historic documentation and analysis of such tween the mathematical realm -in the form of digi-
biological functions is already evident from the an- tal modeling of gradient transparency (multilayered)
cient times, when Aristotle wrote about adaptive col- surfaces- and the material realm - in the form of mate-
oration in the way the octopus can tune its color. Bi- rial prototype fabrication and manufacturing. Multi
ologically inspired engineering extends from Chem- opacity 3d printing of Pigment Skin will also be ex-
istry and Physics to Genetics and Mechanical / Elec- amined. This paper focuses on the first phase.
trical engineering. It is an effort to design new, man-
made systems, based on biological models. These Figure 1
innovative systems often use the same principles to Imaginary Beings
solve different scale functions and constraints. Adap- (Neri Oxman) (top)
tive coloration and selective concealment are now and 3d printed
part of an emerging field of research in science, with chair (Zaha Hadid
both theoretical and technological challenges, with architects) (bottom)
a number of diverse examples. At the same time,
3d printing is also an emerging field where design-
ers and engineers experiment with new design pro-
cesses and new ways of production. Already exam-
ples from the MIT Mediated matter group such as the
"Imaginary Beings" or the 3d printed experiments at
the ACADIA 2014 conference demonstrate examples
where objects with multi layered materials are digi-
tally designed and fabricated (see figure 1) .
At the same time, little research has being done
in the way gradient transparency (through multi-
ple layered surfaces) can affect the design process
through computation; a field that deserves further
investigation. This paper is part of a practice based
PhD research in computational design and CAM for
small scale architectural installations. Gradient Trans- Figure 2
parency is a work in process project that is split in two Low magnification
phases; the first phase explores biomimicry of ma- and close-up
rine animals and computation. During this phase, we photographs of a
explored the design rules that define the functional hatchling
frame of melanophores, from local scales (within a blue-ringed
single cell) to global scales (the emerging patterns octopus
and zones within the whole body of a marine ani- (Hapalochlaena
lunulata), (Roy
Caldwell)

326 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2

Figure 3
Melanophores with
dispersed or
aggregated
melanosomes
(Chiswick Chap)
(top) and
Melanophores
responding to
Adrenaline
(Zephyris)
Method
Microscopic examination. Marine animals can
change their skin color to approximately mimic the
hue of their immediate environment, but also as a
response to temperature, mood, stress levels and
social cues. Cephalopoda such as squid use chem-
ical cells and light reflecting cells to sense the en-
vironment they are in and change their skin color.
This is achieved though colored pigments transloca-
tion in light reflecting cells called chromatophores.
This process, known as physiological color change, is
most widely studied in melanophores, since melanin
is the darkest and most visible pigment. In most
species with a relatively thin dermis, the dermal
melanophores tend to be flat and cover a large sur-
face area (see figure 2).
Flat dermal melanophores often overlay other
chromatophores, so when the pigment is dispersed
throughout the cell the skin appears dark. When the
pigment is aggregated toward the centre of the cell,
the pigments in other chromatophores are exposed
to light and the skin takes on their hue. On the disper-
sion of melanin, the light is no longer scattered and
the skin appears dark (see figure 3).
Morphological / emerging pattern analysis. Ge-
ometric analysis based on scale and shape served
as the basis for the computational model; emerging
patterns and zones appear on marine animals across
their body and shape.
Computational modeling. Using the Rhino 3D soft-
ware and plugins such as Grasshopper and Lunch-
box, the melanophore cells - pigment logic is trans-
lated into clusters of pixels in different zones in the
computational model.
Result
Biological epidermis design rules. The geometric
design rules in Cephalopods melanophore skin are
analyzed along three levels of detail: local, regional
and global. These different scales are in correla-
tion with each other, allowing for full body coverage
through a surface along the Cephalopod body. We
chose to examine the epidermis through three differ-
ent scales in order to be able to clarify and translate
the design rules into a computational model.
Local. The local level of organization relates to sin-
gle melanophore cell, its anatomy and its geome-
try. All melanophore cells are similar in Cephalopods
such as the Bigfeen rif squid (Sepioteuthis lessoni-
ana). Cephalopod melanophores all function simi-
larly, compacting from as small as a tenth of a mil-
limetre to 2 mm in diameter (20 : 1 expansion fac-
tor). The time that it takes to go from fully retracted
to fully expanded varies and is based on the organ-
ism, but recent work has reported it to be typically
around 300 ms. Melanophore cells contain black or
brown pigments.
Regional. The regional level of organization de-
scribes the interconnection of chromatofores on the
Cephalopod skin and the correlation between lo-
cal shape variation and regional functionality of the
system. As mentioned before, melanophores can
change, due to physiological and/or environmental
conditions, creating different categories of clusters
(see figure 4).
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 327

These clusters vary from punctate to punctate- stel-
late to stellate to stellate- reticulate to reticulate
(branched) and vice versa.
Global. The global level of organization relates to the
long-range distribution of the pigments across the
body of the Cephalopod. Emerging darker areas ap-
pear on its body depending on the external stimuli
and environment, creating radial, linear and full cover
patterns. (see figure 5).
Pigment skin: gradient transparency computa-
tion model. The gradient transparency computa-
tional model incorporates the organism-specific de-
sign principles to a host surface with new functional
specifications. Pigment Skin allows for neighbor-
hood relationships between large numbers of para-
metrically and digitally controlled surfaces and poly-
surfaces (which we will call "pigments") that are ap-
plied on a digitally designed surface. The pigments
328 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
are manipulated in a way to meet specific topological Figure 4
requirements. In order to implement an understand- Regional level
able (and in phase two, a 3d printable) example, we organization
applied the pigments on a digital surface that would between
act as a helmet, providing both privacy and shade for Melanophores
the user.
Pigment skin is designed to meet privacy and
shading requirements at three organizational levels
following the geometric rules on the three different
Figure 5
scales already examined: (i) local definition of a stan-
Bigfin reef squid
dard unit (pigment) and design of different unit ge-
(Rokus Groenfeld)
ometries according to their neighbors (ii) regional /
zone application of patterns that follow specific paths
and promote gradient transparency of the hosting
surface through their change of size, and (iii) global
manipulation of the host polysurface that affect local Figure 6
adaptation of pigment geometries. Host surface and
Local. The local level of organization treats the stan- diamond shaped
dard scale unit (the pigment) as a building block pigments
by taking into account the geometry and size of its
neighbors, which can also be smaller or larger, in or-
der to reveal or conceal areas behind the host surface
(see figure 6).
The simple version of the Grasshopper plugin for
Rhino definition allows using different grids with the
Lunchbox plugin. The definition allows setting one
or more attractor polylines and setting the minimum
and maximum values for the pigment sizes. All pig-
ments are scaled depending on their distance from
the polyline (see figure 7).
In the second (fabrication) phase the pigments
will be 3d printed, so there is no need to limit the
number of different pigment sizes. The largest pig-
ment is 6mm X 6mm and has a height of 2mm. The
parametric model we designed allows implement-
ing different grids on the host surface. In this spe-
cific study, we used a diamond shaped grid, due to
its reference to structure and possible future use in
structural surfaces. In order to create gradient trans-
parency based on pigments sizes, they are locally
scaled through the Grasshopper definition with the
use of an attractor polyline as already explained.
 Regional and Global. The regional and global level the geometric components (here the pigments) are
of organization orients pigments along specific paths populated and manipulated through main attractor
/ zones on the host surface are defined by attractor curves in order to create more or less transparent
polylines in the parametric model. In this specific zones (see figure 10).
case, the polylines around the eyes and ears were
Figure 7 used as attractors in the parametric model. The main
The initial orientation path follows the lower side of the helmet
Grasshopper with a direction from front to back (see figure 8). Ap-
definition parently, one can define even further zones on the
helmet using multiple attractor polylines. The host
surface can also have openings of any size and shape,
such as the one on top on the helmet.
The attractor polylines cause aggregations of
scaled pigments on their periphery. The eyes area
and ears areas are treated in analogy with the Punc-
Figure 8 tate Melanophore clusters (area with high pigment
Attractor curves in aggregation) and the ears area is analogous to the
the eyes and ears Reticulate (Branching) Melanophore clusters that are
areas already mentioned (see previous figure 5).
Applying the diamond pigments on the host sur-
face and scaling them according to their distance
to the attractor curves creates the gradient trans-
parency effect. Manipulating the parametric model
allows for different transparencies as well as different
Figure 9 percentages of pigments or grid .
Computer In the computer renderings shown, two different
renderings of approaches were implemented, one with high pig-
different grades of ment aggregation around the eyes area and one with
transparency high pigment aggregation around the ears area (see
figure 9).

Discussion and further development

The Gradient Transparency study is a generative com-
Figure 10 putational design project based on the design prin-
PCP for Gradient ciples found in the biological skins of marine ani-
pigment mals and specifically Cephalopods. It aims to address
transparency a digital design problem that has barely any refer-
ences in current architectural design through the use
of Parametric Component Population.
PCP has become a common method to adapt dis-
creet geometrical components to complex surfaces
and shapes. The host surface is modeled as a NURBS
surface subdivided into u and v directions, on which

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 329


The possible applications are apparent, from custom
designed and multi jet 3d printed architectural sur-
faces with gradient transparency, to design objects,
garments and accessories. The ability to incorporate
different grids (in our case the diamond grid) also
creates the potential for secondary, structural layers
within the host surface. Future development will fo-
cus on the multi layered 3d printing of the Pigment
Skin surface and the possibilities and limitations of
such a proof of concept physical model. We will use
the latest multi-jet modeling technologies of the Pro-
jet 5000 by 3DSystems for fabricating the host sur-
face and pigments. We chose to use Projet 5000 due
to its ability to mix plastic materials such as the clear
Visijet M5-MX with high stiffness and Visijet M5-black
with high flexibility in different percentages in order
to achieve final objects with varying transparencies.
Visijet is a composite plastic made of Urethane acry-
late oligomers, Ethoxylate Bisphenol and Tripropy-
leneglycol diacrylates that can achieve different me-
chanical behaviors (from stiff to elastic) and trans-
parencies depending on their percentage within the
final mix.
The proof of concept physical model of the sec-
ond phase allows for different transparencies of the
pigments themselves, in analogy to Melanophore
cells in Cephalopods (see figure 11).
Study models will be 3d printed of PLA clear plas-
tic (host surface) which will embed PLA black plas-
tic (pigments). The originality of this study lies in
its combination of experimental analytical methods
such as microscopic examination and advanced com-
330 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
putational geometry techniques. The outcome, a Figure 11
functional bio-inspired system is based on interdis- Gradient
ciplinary research between biology, materials tech- transparency of
nology and architecture. As already mentioned, after both host surface
fabricating the proof of concept 3d printed model, and pigments
further development could include secondary sys-
tems within the host surface through micro tubes
and micro wiring. A more ambitious scheme like
this would demand collaborating with electrical and
mechanical engineers in order to produce a compu-
tation and physical model with real time controlled
transparency in specific zones, a step further from ex-
isting materials such as Smartglass.
Acknowledgements
This PhD research is funded by the "IKY Fellowships
of Excellence for Postgraduate Studies in Greece -
Siemens Programme".
REFERENCES
Borrelli, L., Gherardi, F. and Fiorito, G. 2006, A catalogue of
body patterning in Cephalopoda, Firenze University
Press, Florence
Deleuze, G. 1994, Difference and repetition, Columbia
University Press, New York
Lipson, H. and Melba, K. 2013, Fabricated: the new world
of 3D printing, Wiley, Indianapolis
Nixon, M. 2003, The brains and lifes of Cephalopods, OUP,
Oxford
Oxman, N. 2011, 'Variable property rapid prototyping', in
Da Silva, P.J. and Chua, C.K. (eds) 2011, Virtual and
Physical Prototyping, Taylor & Francis, London, pp. 3-
31
Pawlyn, M, 2011, Biomimicry in Architecture, RIBA, Lon-
don
Payne, A. 2013, 'Firefly', Architectural Design (AD), Compu-
tation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought,
pp. 42-46
Qiming, W., Gossweiler, G., Craig, S. and Zhao, X. 2014,
'Cephalopod-inspired design of electro-mechano-
chemically responsive elastomers for on-demand
fluorescent patterning', Nature communications 5,
4899
Design Methods for Large Scale Printing
Manuel Jimenez Garcia1 , Gilles Retsin2
1,2
UCL - The Bartlett
1
manuel.j@madmdesign.com 2 gilles.retsin@gmail.com

With an exponential increase in the possibilities of computation and

computer-controlled fabrication, high density information is becoming a reality in
digital design and architecture. However, construction methods and industrial
fabrication processes have not yet been reshaped to accommodate the recent
changes in those disciplines. Although it is possible to build up complex
simulations with millions of particles, the simulation is often disconnected from
the actual fabrication process. Our research proposes a bridge between both
stages, where one drives the other, producing a smooth transition from design to
production. The research showcased in this paper investigates tectonic systems
associated with large scale 3D printing and additive manufacturing methods,
inheriting both material properties and fabrication constraints at all stages from
design to production. Computational models and custom design software
packages are designed and developed as strategies to organise material in space
in response to specific structural and logistical input. Filamentrics, the first of
two projects described, intends to develop free-form space frames with robotic
plastic extrusion. Through the use of custom made extruders a vast range of
prototypes were developed, evolving the design process towards the fabrication of
precise structures that can be materialised using additive manufacturing without
the use of a layered printing method. Instead, material limitations were studied
and embedded in custom algorithms that allow depositing material in the air for
internal connectivity. While Filamentrics is reshaping the way we could design
and build light-weight structures, the second project Microstrata aims to establish
new construction methods for compression based materials. A layering 3D
printing method combines both the deposition of the binder and the distribution of
an interconnected network of capillaries. These capillaries are organised
following structural principles, configuring a series of channels which are left
empty within the mass. In a second stage aluminium is cast in this hollow space
to build a continuous tension reinforcement.

Keywords: 3D printing, Robotics, Algorithm, Fabrication, Digital prototyping

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 331

 INTRO
Increased Computational Power
The exponential increase of processing power and
wide accessibility of advanced fabrication equip-
ment such as industrial robotics and 3D printers has
generated a new challenge for architecture: can
we increase the resolution of how buildings are de-
signed and fabricated? Can we shift the resolution of
design from bricks to particles? This paper, based on
research done at the Bartlett GAD Research Cluster 4,
proposes a design method to develop full architec-
tural systems which attempts to make effective use
of the increased computational power and fabrica-
tion possibilities. The research presented in this pa-
per suggests a shift in the use of computation in ar-
chitecture, from representation to a generative logic
based on fabrication constraints. The design method
in this paper outlines a possible approach to explore
the full potential of the current state of computing
and fabrication. The research agenda of RC4 investi-
gates tectonic systems associated with large scale 3D
printing and additive manufacturing methods, inher-
iting both material properties and fabrication con-
straints at all stages from design to production. Com-
putational models and custom design software pack-
ages are designed and developed as strategies to or-
ganise material in space. SpaceWires and PixelStone
use computational power to generate and simulate
robotic toolpaths, which take into account structural
and material constrain. (Figure 1)
332 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
The attempt to operate immediately on the compu-
tation of fabrication, bypasses the idea of representa-
tion. The code, the design, is effectively the instruc-
tion of construction. There is a direct connection be-
tween machine instruction, fabrication constraints,
materiality, structure and the design. The rules which
are driving the computational process are rules in-
herent to the design constraints, and are not refer-
ring to predefined modes of representation. Com-
putational research in architecture often used algo-
rithms inspired by natural processes to develop an
architectural project. These processes were very of-
ten adopted as found objects, and imposed or pro-
jected onto the architectural project. Through devel-
oping rules which directly relate to fabrication, ma-
terial and structure, SpaceWires and PixelStone de-
velop computational methods which are inherent to
architecture, and are not referential to any natural,
pre-existing systems. The gap between simulation
and fabrication is effectively closed.
RESEARCH CONTEXT
3D printing precedents - towards robots
The first developments of 3D printing on a large scale
are associated with the research of Behrokh Khosh-
nevis at USC. Khosnevis developed Contour Crafting,
a process which is able to organize layers of con-
crete on an architectural scale, effectively a large 3D
printer. Another precedent is Enrico Dini's D-Shape
printer, based on a process of solidifying stone dust.
Both Khosnevis' and Dini's main argument is based
Figure 1
on the idea of printing an entire building on site.
Robotic Fabrication
A Chinese firm based in Shanghai, WinSun, com-
- The Bartlett
mercialised a Contour-Crafting like printing process,
GAD/RC4 // Team
which is able to print building elements from recy-
Filamentrics: Nan
cled construction waste. WinSun printed an entire, 2-
Jiang, Yiwei Wang,
story villa in Shanghai in 2015. Whereas these prece-
Zheeshan Ahmed,
dents innovated with the development of a machine,
Yichao Chen
it was not their mission to develop a design method-
ology or speculate on the impact of their technology
on architecture - the buildings WinSun produced are
for example very similar to existing buildings.
On the other hand, some designers developed
architectural pieces and software for existing 3D
printing machines. Michael Hansmeyer and Ben-
jamin Dillenburger developed a design software
which is able to generate highly detailed architec-
tural spaces through a process of fractal subdivision.
The 3D-printed Grotto (2013), is a large-scale struc-
ture, which was designed with their software and
then build in pieces on a VoxelJet machine, a Ger-
man company mainly working with the car indus-
try. Similarly, SoftKill Design developed a custom
design method and software which was able to in-
tegrate structure optimisation and material distribu-
tion. The design method was tested on a prototype
for a 3D printed house, which was printed as a scale-
model by Materialise. Just as Hansmeyer and Dillen-
burger, SoftKill Design proposed to print off-site, in a
factory-like environment and then ship the pieces to
a site. Another precedent, Emerging Objects, a prac-
tice based in California, uses existing Zcorp printers
to print panel-like pieces which are then assembled
into large structures. Emerging Objects research is
mainly focused on new printing materials, but not on
the design method or the actual printer.
In recent years, with the increased presence of
robots in academic environments, a number of peo-
ple have translated FDM-like printing processes to
robots. IAAC research led by Marta-Male Alemany
focuses on robotic processes for clay extrusion on a
large scale. Robots offer the vast advantage of in-
creased scale, which gives architects the possibility
to bypass the development of a custom, expensive
machine, and immediately investigate design meth-
ods for large-scale printing. Other important prece-
dents here are Dirk Van Der Kooijs Endless Chair,
which makes use of recycled plastic extrusion, and
Gramazio and Kohler's research into plastic extrusion
for the use as reinforcement of concrete. As this brief
overview explains, most of the efforts in large-scale
architectural printing have a specific emphasis; either
the machine itself, the material itself or the design it-
self. A more holistic setup which tackles both design
logic, machine-logic and material logic has not been
investigated. RC4 attempts to setup more holistic
design projects engaging with large-scale printing,
through using existing robot as printers. The end-
goal of the large-scale printing agenda ultimately is
a fabrication framework where it is quick,cheap and
less energy-consuming to produce unique, highly
differentiated and detailed architectural spaces.
Design Methodology: Data to Matter
The research agenda of Bartlett RC4 aims to develop
integrated, holistic design methods for large-scale 3d
printing, operating both at the scale of architecture,
and at the level of material organisation.The design
methods are tested on a 3m big physical, printed
prototypes. The design methods build a generative
model around logistical and fabrication constraints.
The size and radius of the robot for example, con-
strains the maximum build-size of a printed element.
Time is another important constraint, as there is only
a limited availability of the robots, and they can not
be moved from their position. The projects which will
later be described operate with this constraints: they
are printed in pieces which can be moved in and out
the robot lab..Further constraints come from the ma-
terial itself; initial experiments focus on how to dis-
tribute the material, and which type of nozzle is func-
tional. The resolution of printing is defined by the
nozzle and material. Other design constraints which
play an important role are structural criteria - the re-
search starts with looking at existing structural sys-
tems, such as a space-frame or dome, to then subse-
quently question how these systems would operate
with 3D printing.
A typical 3D printing process is characterised by
a layered and linear approach. This generates a num-
ber of constraints, such as for example overhangs, ex-
trusion thickness, self-intersections, stability of mate-
rial etc. Computational models aim to assign a gener-
ative agency to these constraints. The tool path not
only self-organises according to the constraints but
also reacts to structural analysis data. For example,
the tool path attempts to distribute more material in
zones with higher stress values, while at the same
time also deciding locally whether it has enough
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 333
 support to previous layers, whether it overlaps suf-
ficiently, or if there are no self-intersections. Recent
developments work on constraints of efficiency as-
sociated with the tool path such as continuity. The
less interruptions in the tool path, the quicker some-
thing can print. Optimisation techniques such as Eu-
ler Graphs and GA are used to generate efficient ways
how to optimise a tool path.
The fundamental shift in this methodology, is
that the loop between simulation and fabrication is
closed, stripped of a degree of representation. Ear-
lier research was often a two-stage process, where
a specific form or shape was generated, which was
then afterwards sliced into layers for fabrication. In
this two-step process, there is no relation between
the simulation and the actual fabrication or material
organisation. What is computed is a representation
of the object, not the physical thing itself. The re-
search presented in this paper shifts the computa-
tional effort to computing the actual fabrication pro-
cess itself. The tool path becomes a self-organizing
and adaptive system, where the negotiation of differ-
ent constraints generates the design.
Design Softwares: Applets
The computational process of structure optimisation,
material distribution and tool path generation is syn-
thesised in a small applet, programmed in Process-
ing. The applet has a graphic user interface for peo-
ple to interact with the complex set of constraints re-
lated to the fabrication process. The app fuses all the
code necessary to generate the tool-path into one
process, which is visualised as a design environment.
The app allows designers to quickly generate possi-
ble versions of their work, in a more playful way, with-
out being overly constrained by fabrication.
Tectonics
As mentioned before, the research assumes a setup
where a robotic unit is positioned in a factory-like
environment off-site, printing large-scale, discrete el-
ements which are defined and constrained by the
maximum bounding box of the robot. This is a delib-
erate choice, as the research to print on-site is more
334 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
feasible if executed not with industrial robots but
with distributed smaller robots. The assumption of
a large-scale discrete piece generates an interesting
design problem, as well as another set of logistical
constraints. What is the status of this piece within a
larger whole, and how can this piece be assembled
into a larger whole? Computational models take this
problem into account from the beginning - making it
intrinsic to the research rather than as a form of post-
rationalisation. The piece becomes an intrinsic part
of the design, for example the gap or seam between
two parts can be over-articulated or reinforced, cre-
ating both more hierarchy and more rigidity or stiff-
ness in the boundaries of an element. These discrete,
robotically printed pieces resist categorisation as a
specific architectural type - it's neither wall, nor col-
umn or floor, but could act as any of these. The as-
sembly of these proto-architectural elements gener-
ates a new type of tectonics, with a specific set of con-
cerns which will be discussed in more detail through
the case study projects in this paper.
PROJECT SHOWCASE
Filamentrics
The research project Filamentrics (Zeeshan Ahmed,
Justin Yichao Chen and Nan Jiang,Yiwei Wang) looks
at the possibility of 3D printing space-frame like
structures to achieve a higher level of differentiation
and resolution. The project makes use of robotic
plastic extrusion to build space-frame like structures
which are highly optimised and lightweight but at
the same time ornamental and heterogeneous. (Fig-
ure 2)
The space-frame is originally developed by
Alexander Graham Bell around 1900 and further
explored by Konrad Wachsmann and Buckminster
Fuller in the 1950s. These lightweight structures
are composed of interlocking struts in a geometri-
cal pattern which facilitates the transmission of ten-
sion and compression loads along the length of each
element. The space frame counted for a long time
as one of the examples of mass-produced, standard-
ised architecture. The repetition of standardised dis-
 crete elements makes it difficult to achieve formal
freedom. In recent years, a large number of more cus-
tomised space-frame structures have been built, but
the structure is often hidden under a cladding. For
example the Heydar Aliyev centre in Baku, by Zaha
Hadid Architects, get its organic and fluid appear-
ance from a space-frame structure.
Figure 2
Rendering - Digital
output from
Custom Software -
The Bartlett
GAD/RC4 // Team
Filamentrics: Nan
Jiang, Yiwei Wang,
Zheeshan Ahmed,
Yichao Chen
Plastic extrusion or FDM (Fused deposition mod-
elling) is type of 3d printing where ABS or PLA plastic
in the form of a thin filament gets pushed through a
printhead which melts it just enough so that it sticks
to a previously deposited layer. FDM printers are the
most common types of desktop 3D-printers, such as
MakerBot and Ultimaker. To break the typically lay-
ered character of FDM prints, designers have been
experimenting with these type of printing process
through modifying the g-code or machine instruc-
tions for the printer. As ABS plastic cools down rel-
atively quickly, it is possible to let material harden in
the air. The Mesh-Mould project by Gramazio Kohler
Research from the ETH Zurich is one of the first exam-
ples where a FDM-like printhead is fixed to a robotic
arm, and material is extruded diagonally in the air to
form a mesh which can be used as a reinforcement for
concrete. Filamentrics focuses on a similar process of
vectorial plastic extrusion with a robotic arm, further
exploring the design possibilities of spatial extrusion.
The main focus of this project is the computational
and algorithmic organisation of material, in response
to structural constraints and specific for robotic print-
ing. Plastic is in this case only assumed as an abstract
material, which could be replaced by another mate-
rial in future research. A custom build plastic extru-
sion head was built to overcome the thickness limi-
tations of conventional FDM 3D printers. After a se-
ries of nozzle prototypes, a final extrusion thickness
of 6mm was achieved. To faster cool down the plastic,
2 adjustable tubes on the nozzle blow cold air over
the extruded plastic.
Filamentrics aimed to 3D print a small pavil-
ion using a lattice-like structure where all material
is arranged according to principal lines of force, re-
sponding to different levels of tension or compres-
sion within a structure (Figure 3). According to
Wolf's Law, in natural structures such as bone, ma-
terial grows around principal directions of stress. A
well-known precedent of this in architecture is Pier
Luigi Nervi's project for the Gatti Wool Factory (Rome,
1953), which introduces a concrete slab where the
beams are arranged on principal directions of stress
between columns supporting the slab. The efficiency
obtained by the optimisation of the structure was
however compensated by the complex formwork re-
quired to achieve the high degree of differentiation.
A computational procedure was developed
where agents are used to distribute robotic tool
paths in response to structural data. A vector field
of stress directions and levels of stress is read by
an agent, which is only able to manoeuvre the field
within a specific set of constraints relating to the
robotic tool path. There are two types of agents ac-
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 335
 tive in the structure: one which distributes roughly
parallel lines in relation to stress direction, and an-
other one which builds connections in between
these lines. The lattice-like structure in between
lines is constrained by a specific angle under which
the nozzle would intersect with the deposited ma-
terial. Other constraints involves the size of a the
extrusion, after some point the lattice would be too
small to be printed, so then it is omitted. Experiments
were tested where, just as in a gothic structure, ele-
ments bundle where higher compression values are
reached, and branch out to become thinner when
the stress level is lower. Each agent recognises a dif-
ferent level of hierarchy, modifying its behaviour to
recursively generate denser zones until the structure
accomplishes a sufficient level of stability.
The concept of large, discrete pieces which was
introduced in the design process from the very be-
ginning. After calculating an overall stress and load
distribution for a specific space, a first generation of
336 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
agents is launched, which distribute the main hier-
archies of the structure. These first traces or direc-
tions are used to make decisions on how to split the
structure into several parts, which are then one by
one resolved into a space frame-like structure. The
parts are scaled to fit within the reach of the robot
used for the printing process; in this case an ABB 160.
This process of generating the overall shape of the
project and subsequently splitting it in parts which
are subdivided into self-organizing toolpaths was de-
veloped as an application with a graphic user inter-
face, which allowed to quickly generate toolpaths for
a larger-scale project.
After a series of different experiments, a large
scale pavilion-like structure of 3 x 2.5 x 2.5m was
printed. This pavilion was generated piece by piece
in the Filamentrics-application, in total 26 pieces
were printed within one week, using one ABB 160.
The pieces were assembled together by locally melt-
ing the plastic. The main constraints in this project
Figure 3
3D Printed Pavilion
- The Bartlett BPro
Show 2014 -
GAD/RC4 // Team
Filamentrics: Nan
Jiang, Yiwei Wang,
Zheeshan Ahmed,
Yichao Chen
 prove to be the speed of extrusion and the hard-
ening of the plastic. A better cooling system and
high-torque motor could speed up the printing pro-
cess. The toolpath generation worked well in gen-
eral, but still required a long-time of double checking
in Rhino to prevent collisions and singularities with
the robot itself. The constraints embedded in the
code provide a basic check for intersections of the
nozzle with previously printed material, but it does
not incorporate a kinematics solver which can feed-
back the robotic constraints. A further development
of this process would need to embed more of the the
robotic constraints in the algorithmic process. As an
architectural approach, the project did however sat-
isfy the initial brief of the research, to develop a self-
organizing toolpath which is embedded with a form
of architectural agency or intend.
Microstrata
Microstrata (Maho Akita, Fame Ornruja Boonyasit,
Syazwan Rusdi and Wonil Son) focuses on a compres-
sion based material to investigate a design method-
ology which directly bridges between simulation and
additive manufacturing. The project aimed to work
with powder,sand-like material which could be rein-
forced with a tension material at a later stage. Al-
though the material in this case is again assumed as
rather abstract placeholder - sand instead of concrete
- the project aims to develop knowledge about the
impact of 3D printing on reinforced concrete con-
struction. In a later stage, with more research, the
Figure 4 sand material could be replaced by actual cement
Custom Software powder, but the design methodology would remain
Screenshot - The valid.
Bartlett GAD/RC4 // Since the first iron reinforced concrete structure
Team Microstrata: was built by François Coignet in 1853, this composite
Wonil Son, FaFame material has been in constant evolution. Today we
Boonyasit, Maho can find a plethora of fairly different usages of rein-
Akita & Syazwan forced concrete from post-tensioned concrete to tex-
Rusdi tile reinforced concrete. Despite the introduction of
prefabricated reinforcement or advanced digital pro-
cesses which guarantee the optimum placement of
steel members, the bottleneck for streamlining the
construction process is the labour-intensive place-
ment of rebar and formwork. Microstrata looks at
large scale additive manufacture of reinforced con-
crete in powder-form, with tension material cast in
printed cavities rather than using rebar. A computa-
tional process is developed which is able to organize
a continuous network of channels on directions of
principal stress, inside a concrete mass acting in com-
pression. Previously mentioned precedents of print-
ing concrete, such as Khosnevis and WinSun, are con-
strained by the use of rebar, which has to be added
afterwards.
The fabrication process developed by Micros-
trata is inspired by Powder-bed 3D printing, which
can be found in machines such as Z-Corp powder
printers or SLS printers. First developed by Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993, this pro-
cess has been widely used in the last decade. The
powder in the bed is used as a supporting material for
the next layers of printing, which makes the process
significantly easier than FDM-based printing, which
inevitably encounters problems with overhangs and
cantilevers. The largest scale powder printers are the
ones developed by VoxelJet and ExOne, which are
mainly used to print sand-cast moulds for the car in-
dustry. Nonetheless, scale limitations have not al-
lowed architecture to adopt this process more inten-
sively. The use of sand based material reduces dra-
matically the price of large scale objects, allowing it
to be used at an architectural scale.
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 337

Microstrata created a custom powder bed 3D printer
using a small ABB 120 robot, and a custom build noz-
zle. The nozzle consists of a needle with a valve to
drop precise amounts of binder, as well as a roller to
flatten the sand surface before binding. One drop
of binder can be understood as a voxel of matter,
a 3-dimensional pixel. Microstrata's computational
workflow therefore focuses on voxels rather than the
more linear approach from Filamentrics. Every voxel,
or drop of binder becomes a unit of computation.
An application was developed which evolves
through a number of stages. In the first stage, a
model of stress distribution is imported as a vector
field. An agent-based system is launched which or-
ganises a network of tension on the stress map. The
trajectories are connected to each other with bracing
lines. To allow for casting, a second agent organised
air channels from the tension network. Compression
material is translated as continuous lines around the
principal compression stress line (Figure 4).
Subsequently, in a second stage, this network is
translated to a voxel-based setup which corresponds
to the fabrication method. To build a channel with
minimum thickness of one voxel, a total of 8 voxels
is required to be bound together. Cellular-automata
rules were developed to translate the abstract net-
work into voxels, preventing for example intersec-
tions of channels. The compression network is de-
veloped in response to the amount of stress, which
translates some trajectories as thin, fibrous strands
and others as thick, solid zones of multiple layers of
voxels. From this process emerges a porous block of
338 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
material with a continuous network of capillary chan- Figure 5
nels for tension material. Robotic Fabrication
The ABB robot follows a uniform, preset trajec- - GAD/RC4 // Team
tory for every layer, with the nozzle valve just open- Microstrata: Wonil
ing or closing if a voxel needs to be materialised or Son, FaFame
not. Given the basic and low-tech nozzle, the print- Boonyasit, Maho
ing resolution of this system is remarkably accurate, Akita & Syazwan
with voxels measuring 4mm (Figure 5). The main Rusdi
challenges for this printing process turned out to be
the optimisation for the channels to work with the
demanding constraints of an actual casting process
such as of aluminium. Some experiments were done
at a local foundry to cast aluminium inside of the
channels - but this prove to be very difficult. Some
channels blocked quickly, and the resulting structure
was not as continuous as it should be (Figure 7). In
further stages of research, it would be interesting to
use hydrated cement instead of sand powder, which
would improve the strength of the structure. Unlike
Filamentrics, Microstrata did have problems connect-
ing multiple elements together, the connection was
not considered enough in advance and made precise
connections difficult.
Figure 6
3D Printed
Sandstone physical
prototype - The
Bartlett BPro Show
2014 - GAD/RC4 //
Team Microstrata:
Wonil Son, FaFame
Boonyasit, Maho
Akita & Syazwan
Rusdi
Figure 7
The Bartlett BPro
Show 2014 -
GAD/RC4
CONCLUSION:
Filamentrics and MicroStrata illustrate the impor-
tance of integrating algorithmic processes of mate-
rial organisation in the research on large-scale 3D
printing. The projects manage to narrow the gap be-
tween simulation and fabrication through incorpo-
rating constraints as generative elements in the de-
sign process. In both projects, there is a tight rela-
tionship between fabrication constraints, materiality,
computation and the final design outcome. The gap
between design and fabrication can be narrowed
through the use of computation which operates as
a system to organise material in response to specific
concerns of structure, fabrication and design.
Different material principles result necessarily in
different structural systems, which in turn require
their own machinic processes and algorithmic logic.
The specific material constraints of a compression-
based project like Microstrata requires a computa-
tional process which is more concerned with the pre-
cise organisation of pixels of matter. Filamentrics,
focusing on a space frame-like structure, requires a
computation and fabrication method which articu-
lates the direction of stress.
In order to successfully scale up 3D printing
processes, an approach is required which can work
across scales, from the large-scale of the building, to
the scale of the material and tool path. The interac-
tion between these different scales enables the full
potential of 3D printing large-scale architectural el-
ements to be realised, and gives rise to new types of
spaces with a previously unseen level of detail, which
can be created faster and cheaper than with tradi-
tional building construction methods.
CREDITS
• Bartlett GAD-RC4 Studio Masters: Manuel
Jimenez Garcia & Gilles Retsin
• Technical Support: Vicente Soler & Thibault
Schwartz
• Team Filamentrics: Nan Jiang, Yiwei Wang,
Zeeshan Ahmed & Yichao Chen
• Team Microstrata: Wonil Son, Fame Boonyasit,
Maho Akita & Syazwan Rusdi
• Bartlett GAD Director: Alisa Andrasek
• The Bartlett B-Pro Director: Professor Frédéric
Migayrou, B-Pro Director
• Main Softwares and Libraries used: Process-
ing by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, Toxiclibs li-
brary by Karsten Schmidt, McNeel Rhinoceros
+ Grasshopper, HAL by Thibault Schwartz, Au-
todesk Maya, Autodesk 3Ds Max, Pixologic
ZBrush
REFERENCES
Bandel, H 2001, Structure Systems/Tragsysteme, Hatje
Cantz
Bryant, LR 2011, The Democracy of Objects, MPublishing,
University of Michigan Library
Kohler, M 2014, The Robotic Touch, Park Books
Nervi, PL 1965, Aesthetics and Technology in Building, Har-
vard University Press
Spuybroek, L 2011, The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and
the Ecology of Design, V2_Publishing
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 339
Expanding the Material Possibilities of Lightweight
Prefabrication in Concrete Through Robotic Hot-Wire
Cutting
Form, Texture and Composition

Pedro Filipe Martins1 , Paulo Fonseca de Campos2 , Sandra Nunes3 ,

Jose Pedro Sousa4
1,4
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto + DFL/CEAU/FAUP 2 Faculty of
Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo 3 Faculty of Engineering, Uni-
versity of Porto
1,4
{pcarvalho|jsousa}@arq.up.pt 2 pfonseca@usp.br
3
snunes@fe.up.pt

In recent years, digital fabrication technologies have enabled renewed

explorations into traditional materials, with innovative results. This paper
focuses on concrete and on the potentials of a specific technology: robotic
hot-wire cutting for the production of expanded polystyrene (EPS) formwork.
Academia and industry have explored this process recently but the number of
works built with this technology is reduced and the general concrete
prefabrication industry has been slow to adopt it. In this context, this paper
analyzes the use of EPS in the production of concrete formwork by reviewing its
application in contemporary examples. In order to develop a clear assessment of
the possibilities of expanding prefabrication in concrete using robotic hot-wire
cutting, this paper also documents a set of practical experiments developed in the
laboratory, addressing three material challenges: form; texture and composition.
This research involved the design, formwork production and casting of concrete
elements to explore the limits and characterize the process of robotic hot-wire
fabrication in the context of concrete prefabrication. By recognizing the different
approaches present in contemporary examples and in the explored practical
experiments, we point out the advantages and limitations of using hot-wire
cutting, and develop the reasons behind its limited application in practice.

Keywords: Digital Fabrication, Concrete, Hot-wire cutting, Prefabrication,

Formwork

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 341

 INTRODUCTION
A case for concrete digital prefabrication
Concrete is largely regarded as the most consumed,
man-made material today. Its availability, mechani-
cal properties and ability to take on any shape desired
has enabled its use for almost any kind of structure.
For this reason, in 2013, 4 billion tons of cement were
produced for an estimated consumption of over 33
billion tons of concrete, worldwide [1].
Concrete construction technologies are tradi-
tionally based on the repetitive, undifferentiated and
labor-intensive fabrication of formwork elements,
which correspond to a large part of the construction
costs related to this material (Johnston 2008). This
not only contributes to the general waste production
and natural resource consumption of the concrete in-
dustry, but has also been a relevant limiting factor to
the realization of complex shaped elements in con-
crete architecture.
The development of pre-fabrication in concrete,
in the early 20th century, addressed the problem of
formwork costs by applying the industrial principle
of standardization to the production of concrete ele-
ments. By placing the fabrication in a controlled envi-
ronment where variation is reduced and reusability is
assured, it became possible to reduce costs and pro-
duction times with the effect of further limiting for-
mal possibilities. During this time, the austere aes-
thetic and rational logic of the modern movement
found traction with the formal restraints and effi-
ciency of prefabrication and by extension, standard-
ized formwork. For this reason, although the plastic
character of concrete was one of its main features,
this was not apparent in most of the architectural
practice for a large part of the last century.
In this background, the contemporary emer-
gence of digital design and fabrication processes and
its introduction in concrete construction represents
one of the biggest prospects for renovation of our
built environment. These processes present a par-
ticular opportunity to reconsider the sustainability of
our construction technologies and their impact on
the development of architectural aesthetics.
342 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
While there have been several successful results
of the use of digital fabrication technologies for the
production of cast in-situ concrete structures, the
concept of mass customization that characterizes the
emerging digital condition, suggests the prefabrica-
tion in concrete can be an exciting alternative. Fur-
thermore, mass customization, driven by digital fab-
rication technologies, can be a solution to the prob-
lem of repetition inherent to pre-fabrication, while
simultaneously maintaining all other aspects that
make this technique desirable in concrete construc-
tion.
In the foreword of the 2011 Design Modelling
Symposium Proceedings, the editors name one of
the introductory chapters "Digital Fabrication means
prefabrication" (Gengnagel et al. 2011), citing the
cost, size and fragility of the necessary equipment.
In the case of concrete construction almost all exam-
ples using digital fabrication hold this statement true
to some extent. The usual products of digital fabri-
cation for concrete (moulds) are prefabricated, but
more often than not, used for on site monolithic cast-
ing of concrete. As such, the interesting notion of
precisely fabricated and accurately assembled com-
ponents that can be equated with the use of digital
fabrication technologies in architecture is lost in the
translation from process, to construction and archi-
tectural expression.
It is our understanding that there is a specific re-
lation of complementarity between the digital de-
sign and fabrication technologies, and the prefabri-
cation of concrete that should be further explored re-
garding its feasibility and architectural potential.
The present paper follows a previous research
into the overall impact of digital fabrication technolo-
gies in concrete (Martins P. and Sousa JP 2014) and
focuses on exploring robotic hot-wire cutting as an
architecturally expressive solution to the production
of formwork for concrete prefabrication.
BACKGROUND
Traditional approaches for complex con-
crete constructions
In order to develop a clear view of the problem of
materializing complex shapes in concrete, it is rele-
vant to consider the historical exceptions to the ra-
tionalized use of concrete described earlier. Relevant
examples can thus be found in the design and con-
struction of thin shells structures, pioneered through
the works of architects and engineers such as Ed-
uardo Torroja, Felix Candela, Pier Luigi Nervi and
Heinz Isler. What makes theses constructions rele-
vant in the scope of this research is their structural
dependence on complex curved geometries, the ma-
terial behavior of concrete and the construction tech-
niques developed, which allowed for the creation of
very large spans with very light concrete structures.
Traditional construction techniques employed in
the production of such complex surfaces in concrete
commonly used wood formworks produced from
straight beams, fitted with bent wood boards, either
interpolating or rationalizing a general curved sur-
face or describing the actual surface in case of ruled
surfaces. After metal reinforcement was placed, a
high viscosity mix of concrete was poured and trow-
eled into place, defining the finished concrete sur-
face. Such was the case for the Palmira Chapel, de-
signed by Felix Candela, and built in 1959, featuring
a hyperbolic paraboloid shell with 4 centimeters of
overall thickness (Basterra et al. 2001).
A substantial different technique was developed
by Nervi, which used lightweight, prefabricated fer-
rocement components as lost formwork for concrete
casting. The components were prefabricated on-site
and assembled to define the casting surface, becom-
ing embedded and part of the finished structure after
a final layer of concrete was poured.
The method of prefabrication and assembly of
components used by Nervi and defined by Iori
and Poretti (2005) as "structural prefabrication" de-
pended on the subdivision of the surface and over-
all structures into manageable components, which
could be built simultaneously and assembled on-site.
Because of time, economical and fabrication restric-
tions at the time, these components were limited in
variability and complexity (Iori and Poretti 2005).
While both methods can be regarded as labour
intensive, it is clear that in the case of the works of
Nervi, lightweight prefabrication enabled a consider-
able reduction in material consumption, waste pro-
duction and construction time, with the clear draw-
back of geometrical repetition, limiting the possible
design space.
The traditional techniques described in the case
of the Palmira chapel are still much in use today and
in some cases, have been integrated with digital fab-
rication technologies. Examples can be found in the
construction of the Mercedes Benz Museum and the
Rolex Learning Center [2]. Nevertheless, the lessons
of Nervi, in time and material economy, as well as
in the use of lightweight prefabricated components
in large, complex assemblies are still relevant today,
more so, with the emergent possibilities of digital
fabrication and their applicability for greater diversity
of form, precision and efficiency.
EPS moulds for prefabricated and in-situ
concrete in current practice.
One of the first cases for the integration of digital fab-
rication technologies in concrete construction can be
found in the pioneering works of Frank Gehry. The
Neue Zollhof building, in Dusseldorf, Germany, was
built in 1999 and featured an innovative solution for
the problem of formwork production for freeform
concrete surfaces, through the use of CNC milled
moulds for concrete casting. Although it was also
used for in-situ casting, of particular interest was the
development of this process for the production of
large prefabricated wall segments with ruled geom-
etry.
At the time, a significant time reduction of the
milling processes was needed to achieve the eco-
nomical viability necessary for construction indus-
try. This was accomplished through the high speed,
rough milling (5cm tool bit) of expanded polystyrene
(EPS) blocks (Shelden 2002). The wall components
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 343
 were cast off-site into open, one-sided moulds, with
standard steel reinforcement. One face was cast
against the mould and the other troweled into shape,
causing the transference of large tool marks from the
milled formwork to the exterior concrete surface.
This process resulted in an overall low quality of
the surface of the concrete that was subsequently
finished with other materials. However, it is possi-
ble to imagine the difficulties of using other tradi-
tional formwork systems for the construction of the
desired geometry, despite of being, predominantly
composed of ruled surfaces.
CNC milled EPS formwork was similarly used for
the in the construction of the Spencer Dock Bridge,
by Amanda Levete Architects, built in Dublin, in 2008,
although in this case, the majority of the concrete
was cast in-situ, creating a monolithic structure.
For the design of the formwork, the double
curved surface of the underside of the bridge was
subdivided into a rectangular grid, taking into con-
sideration standard sizes of EPS blocks. The form-
work material was milled with a 5-Axis router in con-
secutive passes with increasing resolution, resulting
in a smooth finish of the surfaces as compared with
the previous example.
In order to ensure a correct demoulding and an
acceptable finish for the apparent concrete surfaces,
further work was necessary on the formwork with
the addition of multiple sprayed impermeabilization
coatings and sanding. The EPS moulds were then as-
sembled on a plywood and steel falsework, their con-
nection joints were sealed and false rebates created
with a desired geometry
At the same time, the more complex lateral el-
ements (double curved, with non-parallel opposing
faces and connection joints) were precast off-site,
using EPS milled moulds with epoxy and fiberglass
coatings for reusability. (Dempsey 2008).
The case of the Spencer Dock Bridge demon-
strates the feasibility of building large-scale struc-
tures with this formwork system but also the difficulty
in obtaining high quality finishes, without incurring
in substantial labour and production time increases.
344 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
In the time span between both examples, CNC
milling and EPS formwork systems have been incor-
porated into the construction industry through form-
work specialized companies which offer it as part of
integrated systems for in-situ concrete formwork (e.g.
PERI)[3] and other specialized large scale CAM (com-
puter assisted manufacturing) industries [4].
Nonetheless, milling time in the production of
EPS formwork for smooth, apparent finishes is cur-
rently measured in hours for each piece of formwork,
corresponding to months for full structures. There-
fore, fabrication time is a large factor in the CNC
milling of EPS formwork, greatly increasing costs and
relegating the use of complex freeform in concrete to
exceptional buildings.
It is therefore relevant to find other, more eco-
nomically viable processes that can democratize the
use of complex forms in concrete. We believe that
although it is an inherently limited process, Robotic
Hot-wire Cutting (RHWC) can bridge this gap to be-
come not only a viable technology, but also capable
of enabling future explorations into the architectural
potentials of concrete.
MATERIAL EXPERIMENTS
Precast MSE Panels
In order to assess the technical and architectural po-
tential of RHWC, we developed a set of practical ex-
periments, addressing specific material challenges
for prefabricated concrete elements.
This work builds upon previous experiments
with RHWC such as the RDM Vault (Matthias Ripp-
mann and Silvan Oesterle), the Automated Foam
Dome (Thibault Schwartz), the Light-Vault (Yuan et
al. 2014), or the Opticut prototype (Feringa and Søn-
dergaard 2014) by shifting focus from design to the
particular material implications of concrete cast with
hot-wire cut EPS formwork.
For these experiments, three material challenges
were identified, taking into consideration their rel-
evance to concrete and RHWC and each was ad-
dressed through the production of one or more pre-
fabricated components:
Figure 1 1. Double-curved components (form);
MSE wall 2. Textured components (texture);
construction with 3. Variable materiality components (composi-
precast concrete tion).
panels. Specific
panel geometry The first challenge addressed the overall problem of
differs by complex curved geometries, which in the case of
manufacturer, RHWC, are limited to ruled surfaces, with the objec-
situation and tive of determining the geometric constraints and
design. limits of the technology in the production of form-
work for concrete.
The second is focused in revisiting past examples
of textured concrete and exploring the specific ar-
chitectural possibilities for textural effects emerging
from the hot-wire cutting process.
The third challenge is aligned with current in-
terests in non-homogenous materials. It addresses
the concept of a variable materiality in concrete el- The geometry of the 3 panels was modeled in
ements, by which different zones of a single ele- Rhinoceros and achieved by vertically projecting the
ment can have different material performances, ei- standard panel design onto two (or three, in the case
ther functional or aesthetic, by using different con- of the third panel) parallel double curved, ruled sur-
crete mixes with sequential castings. faces. In order to further stress the geometric con-
The exploration into three different problems al- straints for the fabrication, we ensured that the edges
lowed us to stress different aspects of the fabrica- of the panels were not parallel to the surface ruling
tion technology to ascertain its overall relevance in lines, creating 4 curved edges in each panel.
diverse prefabrication scenarios. The bounding box dimensions for the
three fabricated panels were 308x385x385mm,
Component design and robotic simulation 308x385x445mm, 220x555x390mm and the over-
The overall design concept used for the experiments
all panel thickness was 40mm, defined in accordance
was based on the geometry of precast panels for
with the available EPS blocks (1000x500x350mm)
mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) (Figure 1). MSE
and also taking into consideration a necessary sur-
is a technology used for the construction of retain-
rounding margin of 50mm to withstand the pressure
ing walls capable of sustaining heavy loads, gener-
of the concrete pour. The components were orien-
ally used in highways or bridges. A distinctive char-
tated in the stock material regarding these needs and
acteristic of this construction technique is the use
the objective of reducing material waste.
of prefabricated modular concrete panels as exterior
The robotic simulation and toolpath generation
facing for the system. These are commonly quadri-
for the hot wire cutting of the EPS moulds was done
lateral or hexagonal, with or without interlocking
in the Grasshopper plugin for Rhinoceros, using the
joints,forming continuous, planar surfaces.
KUKAprc software, developed by the Association for
As it was not the objective to devise a new panel
Robots in Architecture.
system for MSE, we used the geometric and modular
As stated before, the possible geometrical space
concept of these panels, without taking into consid-
of this technology is limited to ruled surfaces. These
eration their specific technical function.
are determined by the movement of the hot-wire,

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 345

 akin to the concept of a line (generatrix or ruling)
moving through space, along a curve (directrix). Us-
ing similar methods to those mentioned in previous
works in RHWC, the movement of the hot-wire was
programmed in the KUKAprc software by extracting
two points from each ruling of the surface, plus a
third outside point to respectively position the hot-
wire line correctly in space and define the angle of
the hot-wire bow in relation to the cut, throughout
the entire sweep. The geometric design of the tex-
tured surfaces of panel 3 was obtained directly in the
Grasshopper and KUKAprc definition, by alternately
shifting in the y-axis, the reference points along one
of the directrix curves that describe the original ruled
surfaces.
Formwork design and Fabrication Process
Because of the proposed geometric complexity, we
decided to use closed moulds for all of the castings.
The moulds for panels 1 and 2 were designed with
three separate parts: one for each front and back
facing and one internal piece defining the negative
space for the concrete casting. The third panel was
designed with an intermediate subdivision that en-
abled the two castings required.
The RHWC setup at the DFL laboratory consists
of a stationary Kuka KR 120 R2700 industrial robot,
mounted with a 100 cm wide and 0,25mm thick hot-
wire end-effector (Figure 2).
346 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
Using this setup, the cutting routines consisted of 4
cuts for panels 1 and 2 and 5 cuts for panel 3. The first
cuts carved the front and back general ruled surfaces
from the EPS stock block (sweep 1 and 2), followed by
the cutting of the central void in the remaining piece
(sweep 3). The entrance and exit trajectory for this
cut became the concrete pouring channel. After re-
assembling the previously cut parts, a final horizontal
cut (sweep 4) trimmed and separated all the parts of
the mould. (Figure 3)
The fabrication process was successful, with a
few practical problems, related to the hot-wire cali-
bration. With this technology, one of the most criti-
cal parameters is the relation between cutting speed
and temperature. A base line for this relation was es-
tablished through trial and error after initial runs. In
order to increase the accuracy of the cutting process,
a relatively low overall speed (10cm/s) and tempera-
ture setting was used. Furthermore, because the wire
temperature was not included in the KUKAprc defini-
tion, it was closely monitored in the final cuts, aiming
at achieving a constant cut, despite of the diversity of
cutting situations and their respective speeds.
Concrete Mix and Casting process
Regarding the materialization of complex geome-
tries in concrete, one critical aspect of making these
processes viable, which is not frequently mentioned,
is the design of the concrete mix. The same reasons
concerning geometric complexity that frequently
justify the use of digital fabrication technologies for Figure 2
concrete production, often require custom concrete Robotic hot-wire
compositions to become viable. In the case of this setup and
experiment, the difficult accessibility of the moulds fabrication process
and the problems that would arise from using tradi- (panel 2, beggining
tional metal reinforcement were taken into consider- of sweep 3)
ation to define a mix of self-compacting white con-
crete, reinforced with polypropylene fibres. For the
third panel, a similar mix was used, with grey port-
land cement and fly ashes.
Although the material variability in this exercise
was purely aesthetic, other performative changes
could be explored in the same manner. For example,
Figure 3
Robotic cutting
routine (panel 1).
changes in weight, mechanical resistance, thermal or
acoustical behaviour could be achieved with the in-
troduction of different material elements in the con-
crete matrix. (Table 1)
Table 1
Concrete
composition for mix
1 and 2
For the casting process, the moulds were treated with
a demoulding agent and a lateral bracing was ap-
plied to ensure no buckling would occur. A con-
scious decision was made to avoid the use of time-
consuming coating applications, as was observed in
earlier examples. It was our understanding that it
would defeat the purpose of developing a time ef-
ficient process for formwork creation. Furthermore,
it was an opportunity to study the textural quality of
concrete, emerging from this process.
Panels 1 and 2 were cast and set for 60 hours, be-
fore demoulding. In the case of panel 3, we followed
an iterative process for the cast of the two layers of
concrete. An initial cast of the first layer, followed
by a partial demoulding after 24 hours, opening of
the second interior void and re bracing the mould.
The casting of the second layer with the different mix
of concrete followed and the final demoulding was
done after 72 hours (Figure 4).
The casting phase revealed that the precision of
the RHWC process as well as the fact that all parts
of the moulds were cut from a single block (which
would not be the case for milling) had a large impact
on the accuracy, correct fit and ease of assembly of
the moulds (Figure 5).
DISCUSSION
During the execution of the described experiments,
several constraints and characteristics of the pro-
cess of Robotic hot-wire fabrication became appar-
ent that should be taken into consideration for future
research.
Geometrical constraints. One major geometrical
constraint of this technology in surface description,
especially when compared with the established free-
dom of other subtractive processes, is its restriction
to the creation of ruled surfaces in the movement of
the hot-wire through space. This unavoidable fact is
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 347

the clearest limitation of RHWC. On the other hand,
ruled surfaces encompass a great diversity of forms,
which have a clear historical relation with architec-
ture as discussed in the previous examples. Further-
more, the increasing tendency for freeform buildings
in concrete has prompted developments into ratio-
nalization strategies for double curved surfaces, us-
ing strips of ruled surfaces, with a very high accuracy,
greatly increasing the relevance for these geometries
(Flory and Pottmann 2010).
Size restrictions. Taking into consideration that the
size of uncut EPS blocks does not prevent the scaling
of this technology to construction-scale elements,
the major size constraint is clearly in the available
length of the hot-wire. Nevertheless, a design prob-
lem was detected that further constrained the size of
components. Because the borders of the proposed
348 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
Figure 4
Finished concrete
panels: Standard
panel (left),
textured panel
(center) and
variable materiality
panel (right)
Figure 5
Fabricated EPS
formwork
assemblies before
closing and bracing
(panels 1, 2 and 3)
elements were not parallel with the ruling lines, the
hot-wire described a diagonal movement through
the blocks. This meant that the seemingly large
length of the 100 centimetre wire was used in all its
extension for the production of the otherwise rela-
tively small components.
Precision. The gap left in the hot-wire cutting path
that results from the melting of the EPS foam, is a
function of the cutting speed and the wire temper-
ature. For a set speed, an increase in temperature
represents an increase in the cut width and for a set
temperature, a decrease in cutting speed also repre-
sents an increase in cutting width. For this reason,
a ruled geometry that implies a stationary point in
space within the movement of the ruling line (ex. the
vertex of a conic surface) results in an unwanted in-
creased cutting gap representing a local loss of pre-
 cision. These situations were mitigated by reducing
the temperature below what would be overall neces-
sary for the surface, resulting in an increased cutting
time.
A similar problem was encountered when cut-
ting surfaces at sharp angles with other cut surfaces.
Because of the low thickness of the foam in these
sections, it melted much easier, resulting in uneven
edges, which were also compensated with low cut-
ting temperatures and speeds.
Figure 6 Optimization. A usual solution to the problem of
Surface quality for optimizing material usage when producing multiple
standard EPS components from large stock material, such as EPS
formwork with blocks, is packing the desired elements using nesting
demoulding agent. techniques. In the case of the production of form-
work components for concrete casting, depending
on the selected casting process, we found that a bal-
ance must be struck with regard to the relevance of
determining horizontal sections for concrete pour-
ing. Although the concept of closed moulds was suc-
cessful in reproducing the desired panel geometry,
we concluded that the casting process would have
been more efficient, with no loss of precision, if the
moulds had featured one open side for the concrete
pour.
Speed. Considering the conservative cutting speed
used in the experiments (10cm/s), the four cuts nec-
essary for each complete formwork took on average
approximately 7 minutes. According to our early ex-
periments in CNC milling and in line with other litera-
ture (Feringa and Søndergaard 2014), this represents
a 25 fold decrease in production time directly related
to the robotic fabrication process. During produc-
tion, no significant practical aspects were found that
reduced this difference.
Surface Quality. One of the most relevant issues re-
garding the acceptance of these techniques in the
concrete industry is the perceived poor surface qual-
ity of the finished elements. In the case of this ex-
periment, we found an obvious loss of smoothness
in the finished surface when compared to concrete
set with traditional steel and plywood formwork, that
can be traced to the porosity of the untreated EPS
foam. Nevertheless, most notably in the case of pan-
els 1 and 3, we found that the resulting surface had
not only an acceptable quality (Figure 6), when com-
pared with wood board formwork, but also revealed
a similarly interesting textural pattern of the hot-wire
rulings that was further emphasized in the design of
panel 2. We concluded that the process of RHWC, al-
though optimized for speed of production can also
yield positive results, worth of architectural explo-
ration.
CONCLUSIONS
In light of the practical experiments conducted for
this research, the advantages of the robotic hot-wire
cutting process are clear. The drastic decrease in fab-
rication times and the material economy in compar-
ison to CNC milling make this technology a viable
solution for the production of concrete formwork.
While its geometrical constraint is a significant issue,
we believe that the use of ruled surfaces is still rele-
vant today as architectural expression and as a ratio-
nalization solution for general double curvature sur-
faces.
From our comparison of production technolo-
gies and formwork systems, we conclude that the
reasons for the slow adoption of robotic hot-wire cut-
ting as a solution for the production of concrete archi-
tecture are two-fold: the reality of the construction
industry and the interest of designers. When com-
paring CNC milling and RHWC, although the latter is
Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 349

in most cases much more geometrically constrained,
we believe that this is not reason enough for its inad-
equacy.
One possible cause can be found in the fact
that CNC milling processes have been used for a
longer time in manufacturing industries before being
adopted by architecture and the construction indus-
try. As such, tools, software and the knowledge of
their application is much more widespread and its in-
tegration and understanding in the architectural en-
vironment more profound.
From the perspective of the designer, facing the
current alternative methods of formwork produc-
tion, the eventual design rationalization of a general
curved surface to ruled surfaces poses a minor prob-
lem when compared to the issue of smooth surface
quality, which seems to be the standard goal in the
architectural practice today. When considering the
general use of EPS and digital fabrication technolo-
gies for formwork production, the limiting factors are
clearly the material conditions of EPS and not the
technology employed. As such, other paths should
be explored in the future, that assume these limita-
tions and explore different textural qualities for con-
crete, while maintaining the advantages of the digital
fabrication workflow.
350 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Design - Volume 2
Figure 7
Prefabricated panel
assembly (panels 1
and 3)
Finally, when considering the relation between
technology, materials and architectural expression,
we found that in the explored case of concrete there
was an interesting emergent architectural vocabu-
lary that linked the prefabricated and assembled
components to the fabrication technology. This vi-
sual and conceptual link created a specific tectonic
quality (figure 7) that we intend to further explore in
future experiments with prefabrication in concrete.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank all the Digital Fab-
rication Lab (DFL) team and the FEUP/CONSTRUCT
team for the overall support to this experiment. This
work was developed in the scope of the Research
Project with the reference PTDC/ATP-AQI/5124/2012,
funded by FEDER funds through the Operational
Competitiveness Programme - COMPETE, and by na-
tional funds through the FCT - Foundation for the Sci-
ence and Technology. It is also part of the PhD re-
search with the reference SFRH / BD / 79227 / 2011,
supported by the FCT - Foundation for the Science
and Technology.
REFERENCES
Basterra, A, Chamizo, A and Gutiérrez, E 2001, 'Félix Can-
dela y el borde libre, el caso de la capilla de Palmira
en Cuernavaca', Bitácora Arquitectura, 5, pp. 38-47
Dempsey, A 2008 'From parameter to production', Ad-
vances in Architectural Geometry 2008, Vienna
Feringa, J and Søndergaard, A 2014 'Fabricating architec-
tural volume: Stereotomic investigations in robotic
craft', Fabricate: negotiating design & making, pp. 76-
83
Flory, S and Pottmann, H 2010 'Ruled surfaces for
rationalization and design in architecture', LIFE
in:formation. Proceedings of ACADIA 2010, pp. 103-
109
Gengnagel, Christoph Gengnagel, Axel Kilian, Norbert
Palz, and Fabian Scheurer, Kilian, A, Palz, N and
Scheurer, F (eds) 2011, Computational Design Mod-
elling. Proceedings of the Design Modelling Sympo-
sium Berlin 2011, Springer
Iori, T and Poretti, S 2005 'Pier Luigi Nervi’s Works for the
1960 Rome Olympics', Actas del Cuarto Congreso Na-
cional de Historia de la Construcción, Cádiz, pp. 605-
613
Johnston, DW 2008, 'Design and Construction of Con-
crete Formwork', in Nawy, EG (eds) 2008, Concrete
construction engineering handbook, CRC Press
Martins, PF and Sousa, JP 2014 'Digital Fabrication Tech-
nology in Concrete Architecture', Fusion, Proceed-
ings of the 32nd International Conference on Educa-
tion and research in Computer Aided Architectural De-
sign in Europe, pp. 475-484
Shelden, DR 2002, Digital Surface Representation and the
Constructibility of Gehry’s Architecture, Ph.D. Thesis,
MIT
Yuan, PF, Meng, H and Devadass, P 2014 'Performa-
tive Tectonics. Robotic Fabrication Methodology To-
wards Complexity', Robotic Fabrication in Architec-
ture, Art and Design 2014, pp. 181-195
[1] http://www.cembureau.be/sites/default/files/Wor
ld%20cement%20production_2.pdf
[2] www.designtoproduction.ch
[3] http://www.peri.com
[4] www.nedcam.com

Fabrication - Design - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 351

Fabrication - Applied
Making Machines that Make Buildings
Constructing a Mobile 3D Printer for Concrete Elements

Bassam Daoud1 , Johan Voordouw2

1
3DBuilder 2 Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University
1
bassdaoud@gmail.com 2 johan.voordouw@carleton.ca

This paper is both a fundamental and applied study of the multi-faceted design
and fabrication issues related to the construction of a mobile 3D printer. The
paper signifies the halfway point in a project initiated at the Azrieli School of
Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University starting in 2013. The printer,
entitled 3DB, intends to print concrete elements for the Architecture, Engineering
and Construction industry. The printer frame was designed to fit within the bed of
a typical half-ton pick up truck or contract trailer. The paper describes the
design, simulation and construction of the steel frame, gantry and extruder and
makes speculation on future research including improved design of the extruder
and nozzle mechanism.

Keywords: Digital Fabrication, 3D Printing, Concrete Architecture, Additive

Manufacturing, Mobile Building Technology

INTRODUCTION pated completion date in 2016.

This project conveys the design and construction
of a mobile concrete 3D printing platform. Enti-
tled the 3DBuilder (3DB) this paper expresses the
halfway point towards an operational prototype. The
project's intent is to build a printer capable of fabri-
cating concrete elements with a maximum volume of
1800 x 1200 x 1000 mm. The 3D printing frame is con-
structed to fit the bed of a standard half-ton truck or
equivalent contracting trailer. Bassam Daoud, while
an M.Arch student, initiated the 3D printing project
in January 2013 as an independent research study.
The project ran in parallel with the completion of his
M.Arch thesis. Johan Voordouw supervised the inde-
pendent research project until Daoud's graduation.
This project is ongoing as a post-M.Arch research ini-
tiative. A fully operational prototype has an antici-
SIGNIFICANCE
3D printing is currently topical. There have been a
number of developments in relation to the Architec-
ture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry.
While a number of prototypes have been developed
the technology remains an emerging field. The crit-
ical aspects regarding the success of this prototype
are: 1) the desire for a seamless concrete finish and 2)
mobility and operability on-site.
The context within the emerging fabrication
field is quickly evolving. At this time, there are
two overarching trajectories among researchers: 1)
the large-scale contour crafting research by individ-
uals such as Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, Director
of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 355

 the University of Southern California (USC), recent
partnerships including Skanska, Foster + Partners
and Loughborough University with the work of Dr.
Richard Buswell and Professor Simon Austin and the
second trajectory of development, 2) the increasingly
refined large-scale building elements such as the
Digital Grotesque by Michael Hansmeyer, the work of
Rael San Fratello with the 3D printed house studies
and DUS with the 3D Print Canal House. These explo-
rations not only scale up existing technologies but
are at the forefront of a new tectonic design culture.
The research team for the 3DB project aims for
two possible outputs: 1) that the 3D printer would
work in the field in connection to 3D scanning tech-
nology to resolve site specific printing requirements
and 2) the ability to print bespoke, digitally designed
components. This makes the mobile concrete 3D
printer a versatile construction technology for both
conservation and new build projects.
leveling feet capable of handling +- 3,500 kg each.
The results of the simulations helped determine the
quantity, layout, and thicknesses of the steel mem-
bers and optimize the overall strength-to-weight ra-
tio. This allowed the frame to have a reduced num-
ber of members with minimal wall thicknesses with-
out compromising the required strength. The result-
ing tubular steel frame is relatively lightweight and
has fully welded connections for maximum structural
stability and durability (Figs. 1-4).
Figure 1
Cutting the steel
elements prior to
welding

STEEL FRAME
The 3DB machine was designed in Autodesk Inventor
Professional. The frame has a rigid all steel construc-
Figure 2
tion. The undercarriage was inset to account for the
Welding the steel
wheel wells of half-ton pickup trucks and contracting
frame in the Azrieli
trailers. The platform is placed on heavy duty, indus-
School of
trial casters for ease of mobility. It is equipped with
Architecture and
retractable and adjustable feet for the purpose of lev-
Urbanism shop
eling and stability.
facilities
The project used Autodesk Simulation and In-
ventor's structural simulation capabilities, eliminat-
ing a number of design uncertainties. Inventor's
frame generating capabilities were critical in design-
ing the structural layout and mechanical connec-
tions of the frame. Structural and collapse sim-
Figure 3
ulations were conducted to determine deflections,
Simulation of the
strengthen the weak points, and prevent joint fail-
steel frame under
ures when the 3DB is printing an object and the max-
stress
imum volume of 2.16 cubic meters is reached (1800 x
1200 x 1000mm effective printing bed volume).
The frame is designed to handle the maximum
compressive weight in concrete of +- 4,600 kg dis-
tributed downwards at six points and supported by four

356 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 4 nism were designed in Autodesk Inventor to account
The completed for the deposition of heavy printing material. The Z-
steel frame axis was modified with a re-designed Z-slide to sup-
port the extended length of one meter. New brack-
ets were added to connect a custom ordered retract-
ing mechanism manufactured to specifications. The
Y-slider was adjusted to accommodate the new Z-axis
components and the X and Y-axis members were re-
sized to fit the frame. To eliminate possible obstruc-
tions while the machine is operational or when the
Z-axis is fully retracted within the opening of the Y-
slider, further adjustments were made to clear the
path of the extruder, fittings, and the nozzle mecha-
nism along the XYZ axis of travel. The Z-slide assem-
bly was further modified by pushing its seating posi-
tion backwards and by extending its stroke to allow
for a full retraction, thus maximizing the overall effec-
tive height of built objects.
The following section describes work that is cur-
rently ongoing and will continue until the comple-
tion of Phase 2 in 2016.

Figure 5
The gantry
GANTRY
The 3-axis gantry mechanism (Fig. 5) was remodeled
from an open-source woodworking (Mechmate) CNC
machine. A series of modifications to the mecha-
EXTRUDER DESIGN
The cement extruder is fed by a digitally controlled
progressive cavity pump. The extruder is capable
of depositing bituminous mixtures of various densi-
ties. This offers versatility in constructing concrete
elements of various structural and aesthetic charac-
teristics. This ongoing research was initiated in 2014.
The research team has contacted a number of indus-
try sources including individuals at the Carleton Uni-
versity Science & Technology Center to advise on the
design of the extruder and concrete mixtures.
The extrusion mechanism in composed of three
main assemblies:
1) A progressive cavity (PC) pump housed be-
neath the printing bed used to feed the pre-mixed
concrete through the plumbing lines. The concrete
would be mixed and fed to the pump via a standard
open hopper or an integrated auger hopper.
2) The material chamber attached to the Z-
axis used to regulate the flow of the concrete by
the means of air compression with solenoid valves

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 357

 and/or flow metering systems. This allows the out-
put from the extruder to be controlled electronically
with great accuracy.
3) The nozzle release system has a digitally con-
trolled directional output. It would be fitted with a
trowelling mechanism used to shape the flow of the
cement mixture. The mechanized nozzle would form
the extrusion as required eliminating the need for
post processing and conventional concrete surfacing
methods.
ASSEMBLY AND TESTING
After preliminary research, a progressive cavity wet
pumping system was selected. A PC metering pump
from a leading manufacturer (Seepex Inc.) is cur-
rently under consideration to be fitted and wired
to the control enclosure.The first iteration of the
compression chamber and mechanical nozzle sys-
tem were designed in Inventor and will be fitted to
the Z-axis of the 3DB in late 2015. The design of
the mechanism utilized readily available mechanical
and electronic automation components such as ac-
tuators, linear motion systems, drive mechanisms,
and electric motors and drivers. A number of the
extruder's parts will be CNC milled and/or water-jet
cut in aluminum such as the brackets and connec-
tors, housings and mechanical joints. The anticipated
challenges facing our initial test runs revolve around
the synchronization of the digital controllers of me-
chanical movements with the material output of the
cement mixtures along the printing bed. The con-
trol software for the initial trials of the machine would
be ArtSoft's Mach3, along with a number of open
source applications used for the processing of three-
dimensional models into G-Code. The later stages of
the project would involve the development of more
specific codes and applications - such as direct oper-
ability using grasshopper - to resolve more complex
operations of the 3DB printer. A dedicated control
application would be developed in the event where
additional axis of travel are added to the material de-
position apparatus. The nozzle release mechanism
on the Z-axis could be refitted with additional mo-
358 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
tors/axis for swivel and rotation to numerically guide
the nozzle towards the desired position and angle.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The three-axis mechanism of the printer was se-
lected for its solid welded sheet metal construction
and highly accurate drive mechanism intended to be
transported and operated on-site. There is however
room for improvement to the gantry system in fu-
ture stages of the project to enhance the printing
speed. Unlike conventional numerically controlled
drive mechanism, 3D printers require a fast acceler-
ation to travel and deposit material efficiently along
the X and Y-axis. The gantry and drive mechanisms
used may as a result be further enhanced or replaced
with a faster and more efficient alternative suitable
for rapid additive manufacturing requirements.
The nozzle mechanism can be improved by ex-
tending the angular reach of the nozzle's tip and
trowels. This requires the addition of two or more axis
of travel, placing the nozzle in any programmable po-
sition and angle relative to the work surface. The ad-
ditional axis would provide a near limitless degree of
freedom for the deposition mechanism and allow the
printer to extrude complex free form shapes with op-
timal accuracy and finish quality.
Further improvements could be made to the
nozzle's tip itself. A simplified tip design that could
change its physical characteristics using elastic mem-
branes is being investigated. This could result in
a wide variety of material extrusion configurations
without resorting to complicated mechanized trow-
eling systems.An alternative 360o swivel head with
rotary joints is currently being designed. Once com-
plete a series of mechanical and Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) simulations will be performed to test
the functionality of the unit and the material flow
within it as well as the printed output. The digital pro-
totyping of the nozzle mechanism will help manage
uncertainties leading up to the fabrication and test-
ing of the unit. The 360 degree swivel nozzle appara-
tus could be coupled with the existing design for the
extruder and used for the printing of highly complex
 geometric forms. that involves the creation of the machine prototype
(3D printer) the second to make building prototypes
Figure 6 (concrete elements).
The finished 3DB
frame prior to
electrical
installation

CONCLUSION
Digital fabrication undoubtedly offers enormous po-
tential for the AEC industry. The 3DB project at-
tempts to examine the implications of these devel-
opments. It is both a fundamental and applied study
in understanding the technology that defines this
emerging field. As the use of 3D printers becomes in-
creasingly normative in academia and practice it has
become apparent to the research team that a founda-
tional understanding is necessary. This project was
initially undertaken out of a curiosity for emerging
construction technology. It has now morphed into a
larger study of the purpose of 3D printing for archi-
tectural fabrication, its judicious necessity and cur-
rent limitations. As the project progresses and the
3DB becomes fully operational these ideas will con-
textualize continuously and the limitations and op-
portunities of such technology will continually be
tested.
The 3DB printing platform was successfully con-
structed (Fig. 6) and has currently reached the it-
erative stages of design and development common
with research projects of its nature. Many of the deci-
sions presently examined will transform and progress
as the implications of such decisions transcend to af-
fect the output of the machine in terms of fabricated
concrete objects. In this sense, the implications of
the project must be understood as two phases; one

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 359

Between Manual and Robotic Approaches to Brick
Construction in Architecture
Expanding the Craft of Manual Bricklaying with the Help of Video Projection
Techniques

Jose Pedro Sousa1 , Pedro Azambuja Varela2 , Pedro Filipe Martins3

1,2,3
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto + DFL/CEAU/FAUP
1,2,3
{jsousa|pvarela|pcarvalho}@arq.up.pt

Brick construction has a long and rich structural and aesthetic traditions in
architecture, which can be traced back to the origins of our civilization. However,
despite the remarkable works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Eladio Dieste
or Alvar Aalto in the 20th century, the application of this construction process to
address more irregular geometries is very difficult to be achieved by conventional
manual means. In this context, the last decade assisted to emergence of robotic
applications in architecture. While Gramazio & Kohler looked for solving
non-standard brick structures, others, like the S.A.M. robot initiative, are
interested in improving the productivity in the fabrication of regular brick
structures. By surveying the recent advances on bricklaying automation, this
paper is interested in reflecting on the actual role of manual brickwork. In doing
so, the authors present the Brick Tower experiment developed at the
DFL/CEAU/FAUP, where two different fabrications processes are critically
compared: a robotic and a manual one, which is aided by a video projection
technique. By describing and illustrating this experiment, the authors argue that
it is possible to expand the traditional craft of bricklaying by devising simple
strategies to increase the human capacity to understand and materialize more
elaborated geometries. This research avenue can be relevant if one considers that
manual work should remain the most common form of brickwork practice in the
next decades.

Keywords: Brick Construction, Digital Fabrication, Robotics, Video-Projection,

Non-Standard Structures

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 361

 INTRODUCTION
Brick construction counts with a long and rich tradi-
tion in architecture, which can be traced back to the
origins of our civilization. As noticed by Campbell
(2005: 13), its evolution overtime has been grounded
in two major areas: brickmaking technologies and
brickwork techniques. While the first one sets the
physical properties of the material (i.e. weight, di-
mensions, resistance, appearance...), the second one
defines the space for design creativity and efficiency
of masonry constructions.
The developments in brickwork techniques tend
to be driven by structural and aesthetic goals, sup-
porting the materialization of magnificent brick
walls, arches or vaults, and also ornamental surface
effects. However, with the industrialization in the
XIX century, the dominance of standard bricks over
the variability of the manually produced ones, intro-
duced some design constraints in their application in
architecture. As a result, those interested in achiev-
ing customized structures and aesthetic effects had
progressively to rely more and more in exploring
bricklaying strategies of identical units rather than in
designing and producing variable ones.
BRICK CONSTRUCTION
The Manual Approach
In the last century, many renowned architects ded-
icated a special attention to brickwork in many of
their built works. The horizontal effects in Frank
Lloyd Wright's prairie houses or the beautiful arches
in Louis Kahn's buildings for Dacca are clear exam-
ples of such interest. But looking into the attempt
of solving more difficult geometries, the work of Ela-
dio Dieste must be highlighted. His Church of Christ
the Worker in Atlântida (1958-60) is a masterpiece of
brick construction where, as highlighted by Ander-
son (2004: 42), the structural and the aesthetic con-
cerns are seamlessly fused. For instance, Dieste im-
proved the structural stability of the lateral facades
by designing a ruled surface geometry, which, at the
same time, creates a dynamic appearance enhanced
by the light and shadows effects cast on their sur-
362 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
faces. On a more aesthetic level, the Muuratsalo ex-
perimental house (1953), designed by Alvar Aalto, is
exemplar in the way different bricks and brickwork
patterns are explored to achieve different surface ef-
fects (Jetsonen and Jetsonen 2008: 80). In both
cases, besides their design principles, building such
curved and ornamental constructions required the
architect's carefully guidance of the on-site construc-
tion process and, as well, the talented skills of the
manual labor.
Despite the success of such interventions, the
exploration of more irregular geometries is hard to
be imagined, represented and built. For instance,
in Frank Gehry's MARTa Herford museum (2005), the
curved brick facade was laid by following and cov-
ering a previously built undulated concrete struc-
ture (Brinkmann 2005). In SHoP architects' Mulberry
House in New York (2013), the faceted effect of the
brick facade is actually made out of a set of stan-
dard prefabricated concrete panels containing an in-
tegrated set of bricks [1].
The Robotic Approach
Looking for overcoming the geometric constrains im-
posed by standardization, Gramazio and Kohler in-
troduced in 2006 the use of robotic technologies to
bridge design and construction in architecture (Gra-
mazio and Kohler 2007). In their pioneering work,
bricks were one of the first materials to test this tech-
nology. In the "Programmed Wall" experiment, they
used an industrial robot to construct variable wall
parts out of identical bricks. The overall geometry
of the design was difficult to be conceived, repre-
sented and materialized without the help of digital
technologies. Indeed, when attempting to build an
irregular brick structure, it is very difficult for man to
understand and translate it from 2D drawings and 3D
models into a precise physical construction. On the
contrary, the robot can naturally read all the differ-
ent spatial coordinates describing each brick's posi-
tion and orientation and, then, pick and place them
correctly in space. This robotic approach to masonry
construction was translated into real applications,
like in the facade of the Gantenbein Winery (2006) or
the recent Manchester City's Stadium wall, both de-
veloped with the support of R-O-B Technologies, the
spin-off company from the ETHZ.
However, aside with this non-standard architec-
ture trend, robotic technologies have started to make
an impact at different level. Since brick construc-
tion is based on the repetitive assembly of numer-
ous small and identical physical units, it presents a
strong potential to be automated. Therefore, some
companies have started to use robots in the produc-
tion of regular and flat brick walls in a faster way than
humans do. The robotic bricklayer S.A.M. (i.e. Semi-
Automated Mason) has been developed and tested
by Construction Robotics since 2011, in both pre-
fabrication and on-site applications (Peters 2014).
Critical Overview
Regarding craftsman work, the advantages of au-
tomation are clear and related with increasing the
speed and precision of manufacturing, while sustain-
ing longer working periods without compromising
human safety. However, the Gramazio & Kohler's ap-
proach also revealed the limitations of human capa-
bilities to deal with geometric complexity. Thus, with
the advancements in robotic fabrication, both repet-
itive and differentiated brickwork strategies can be
now potentially automated.
Despite these possibilities, robotic laying pro-
cesses also present some limitations. On the one
hand, in on-site construction, the setup and manip-
ulation of robots is a difficult task. For instance, the
execution of non-vertical walls or spatial structures
(e.g., arches or vaults) is difficult to be achieved by the
limited range of action of industrial robots. There-
fore, the advantages of automation are clearer in the
context of prefabrication scenarios. On the other
hand, robots are still an expensive and uncommon
technology in building construction, which, further-
more, require several other automation devices to as-
sure a flexible and autonomous functioning (e.g., a
system for feeding the bricks to the robot, a tool for
laying the mortar or glue on the bricks, or sensors to
monitor the correct geometric evolution of the built
structure).
Facing the emergence of robotic automation,
with its productive advantages but also jobs threat,
it is important to reflect about the actual role of man-
ual brickwork. The historical and worldwide dissem-
ination of this craft, the higher flexibility to work in
on-site conditions, and the easier capacity to accom-
modate changes during the construction process, are
some of the positive qualities of craftsman. In this
context, the Digital Fabrication Lab (DFL / CEAU) of
the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto
(FAUP), has developed a research line dedicated to re-
think the pros and cons of robotic and manual ap-
proaches in brick construction, and investigate the
interest and possibility to envision alternative strate-
gies that may point towards the cooperation be-
tween the two. In this paper, the authors present
a first practical experiment -The Brick Tower-, which
tries to combine some of the advantages of both
worlds.
THE BRICK TOWER EXPERIMENT
The Brick Tower experiment intends to investigate
the potentials of manual and robotic approaches in
brick construction. With this goal, the team designed
a brick structure model with a geometry that chal-
lenged the conventional modes of representation
and construction. This model served as the common
source to test the potential for materializing non-
standard structures through:
• A robotic assembly process;
• A manual assembly process aided by a video-
projection technique.
The geometry of this model was also conceived to
create the form of a Brick Tower by overlapping two
copies of the model, with one of them turned up
side down. Since the experiment produces 2 physical
constructions, it seemed interesting to create a single
final installation -The Brick Tower- instead of getting
two isolated pieces in the end (Figure 1).
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 363

The Design Description
The design geometry is based on a truncated cone
with an opening, and it was modeled in Rhinoceros
((C)McNeel). With the parametric design plugin
Grasshopper ((C)David Rutten/McNeel), its surface
was converted into a series of stacked EPS bricks with
250x100x50mm, which is one of the standard dimen-
sions of commercial bricks. In total, the model com-
prises 414 bricks distributed along 36 levels.
The algorithm for the distribution of the bricks
in the surface was one of the main design chal-
lenges. The parametric exploration of variable spac-
ing and number of units to describe each level of
bricks resulted in confused brickwork patterns, fre-
quently lacking supports in some points of the struc-
ture. To avoid this, a different strategy was devel-
oped. By considering the same number of bricks in
all levels, the final algorithm assigned a specific rota-
tional value for each brick in order to fit all of them
on each level. The resulting aesthetic effect is more
364 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 1
Diagram explaining
the Brick Tower
experiment and the
design of the
structure.
logic, displaying incremental variation effects, and,
from the structural point of view, the masonry solu-
tion is much more stable.
To support the design development, a series of
3D models were printed along the process using a
MAKERBOT Replicator 2x printer, based on FDM tech-
nology. Without this additive fabrication process, it
would have been very difficult to evaluate and re-
fine the variable geometry of the brick structure (Fig-
ure 2). Thus, it became clear the critical interest of
the geometry to conduct the experiment. With this
design model description, the two fabrication tests
could take place.
The Robotic Fabrication Test
The robotic fabrication of the brick structure was
done with the industrial robot at the DFL, a KUKA
KR120 R2700, equipped with a vacuum gripper from
Schmalz. The setup for running the test included
the working table in front of the robot (i.e. with
Figure 2
The two identical
3D printed models
of the brick
structure and the
confirmation of the
possibility to
assemble them to
create the brick
tower geometry.

Figure 3 2400x2400mm area) and a wooden ramp next to it

On the top, the to work as the bricks dispenser. The robot was pro-
scheme of the grammed with the software KUKA|Prc ((C)Association
fabrication setup: for Robots in Architecture). With this Grasshopper
(a) the robot; (b) the plugin, the complete cycle of fabrication instructions
working table); (c) was sequenced: starting the vacuum, picking the
the brick dispenser; brick from the dispenser, placing it in the right posi-
(d) the glue basin, tion over the table and, finally, stopping the vacuum
which was before moving again to pick another brick. To pre-
discarded later. In vent falling down some bricks in cantilever located
the bottom, testing in the edges of the structure, a set of extra support-
the automation of ing bricks was modeled underneath to support them
the gluing process. during construction. Although the robot would au-
tomatically position these new bricks, they would be
manually removed from the structure in the end. The robotic fabrication process occurred with no sur-
Due to the height of the brick structure (i.e., prises. Overtime, the pick and place PTP movements
160cm), the design model has to be divided in two were tuned to around 70% - 80% of the maximum
parts to fit the robot's maximum range of motion. In a speed, without compromising the great precision of
first trial, the team installed a small basin with contact the whole process (Figure 4). As an average, each
glue to dip the bricks before being laid in the struc- level of bricks took around 4 minutes to be com-
ture. This idea aimed at setting up a fully brick lay- pletely laid, including 1 minute for putting the glue.
ing automated process, but the system turned out to At this point, the robotic motion definitely surpassed
be very slow while it consumed and wasted a lot of the speed that could be attainable by manual brick
glue. Without having the means and time to setup layering. In the end, the two fabricated parts were
a more advanced system, the experiment move for- glued together to form the first half of the Brick
ward comprising the manual deposition of glue after Tower.
the robotic assembly of each layer of bricks. (Fig. 3)

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 365

 The Manual Fabrication Test (aided by Figure 4
video-projection techniques) Sequence of the
Given the human trouble in dealing with the irreg- robotic fabrication
ular geometry of the brick structure, an alternative process of the brick
method was devised to expand the possibilities of structure.
manual assembly. The idea was based on using a
video projection technique to orient the construction
of the structure by hand. The setup of this test simply
required to mount, over the working table, a video
projector connected to a laptop. In the computer, the
3D model of the structure was sectioned every 5cm
in height, to generate the plan drawings of each one
of the 36 layers of bricks. These 2D representations
would be then projected over the table, level by level,
to guide the manual positioning of the bricks.
The crucial part of this strategy is focused in fix-
ing the geometry of the projected image according
to two factors. The first one is concerned with the
fact that the projection axis is not perpendicular to
the video projector, which deforms the projected im-
age into a trapezoid. This problem is even clearer, if
the position of the video projector is not aligned with
the vertical of the table center. To solve this, the 2D
drawings of the brick plans have to be carefully dis-
torted in the computer screen to guarantee the pro-
jection of non-distorted rectangular images over the
working table. The second factor consists in control-
ing the scale of the projection for each layer of bricks.
While the first layer is projected over the table, the
other ones are projected over the top surface of the
bricks underneath. As one moves vertically, the im-
ages become smaller due to the perspective cone of
the video projection. Therefore, besides the distor-
tion, the 2D drawings of each layer of bricks have to
be conveniently scaled up in the computer to com-
pensate this immediate reduction. The twofold cali-
bration was achieved with Grasshopper, by making a
parametric system to generate the 2D drawings (Fig-
ure 5).
If the projector was mounted in the robot, it
would have been possible to make this calibration by
controlling and synchronizing its movement. How-
ever, the limited motion range in height of the in-

366 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 5
The digital
parametric process
to generate and
adjust the
perspective
deformation of the
2D drawing images
to be project.
dustrial robot at the DFL wouldn't create a projection
large enough to allow building big parts. For the cur-
rent test, the video projection was mounted on the
top of a taller ladder. Given the narrow lens of the
projector, the design model had to be divided in 5
parts, which were assembled separately.
To confirm the effective calibration of the system,
a few projection tests were carried out in the begin-
ning, by using objects with different heights and ori-
entations in space. With everything set, the experi-
ment started with two persons picking and placing
the bricks, following the projected images of 2D plan
drawings. Like in the robotic experiment, the glue
was manually introduced after laying each level of
bricks. To improve the control and precision of the
assembly, the projected image consists in two over-
lapped crossed rectangles. While the dark one rep-
resents the bottom surface of the brick (i.e., the ref-
erence for its placement), the brighter one describes
the contour of its upper surface. Due to the conic pro-
jection, both rectangles are not aligned in the same
plane. So, if the system is calibrated, once the brick
is placed on its real position, the bright rectangle has
to coincide with its top surface. The worker thus gets
two complementary information: to know where to
place the brick and to confirm its right positioning.
Furthermore, by overlapping the image projection of
the next level over the bricks laid in the table, the in-
tersection space indicates where to put the glue. In
average, the positioning and bonding of each layer of
bricks took around 5 minutes to be completed. In the
end, the fabricated parts were assembled together to
form the second half of the Brick Tower (Figure 6).
The Result
The end of the experiment resulted in the production
of 2 brick structures by employing 2 different fabrica-
tion processes, which departed from the same digital
information (Figure 7). In resume, the comparative
analysis of both experiences reveals that:
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 367
 Figure 6
In the top row: (left)
the dark crossed
rectangle indicating
the position to laid
the brick; (center)
the bright crossed
rectangle matching
the upper surface of
bricks confirms that
they were laid right;
(right) the portion
of the dark crossed
rectangle (the
position of the
upper brick) over
the laid brick
indicates the area to
put the glue. In the
bottom: a sequence
of the manual
process of assembly
the structure with
the aid of the video
projection
technique.

368 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

 • The robotic construction was around 20%
faster than the manual one. If one automates
the gluing process this difference will have a
tendency to increase.
• The gluing process was more optimized in the
manual approach, since the video projection
system provided a visual reference about the
area to place the glue;
• The robotically fabricated structured is very
precise. Some of the deviations verified in
a 3D scanning comparison with the digital
model were caused by a minor structural de-
flection due to the material weight. The man-
ually assembled structure present a little de-
viation regarding the digital model, due to
some small brick slippage occurring with the
manual gluing process, but also, due to the
tiny structural deflection over the construc-
tion, which necessarily affects the precision of
the projected image.
Figure 7
The two fabricated
brick structures. On
the left, the
robotically
assembled one. On
the right, the
manually
assembled one.
Despite these differences, when the structures are
put side by side, it is difficult to visually detect their
differences. And when the two are assembled to-
gether to create the Brick Tower, the geometric con-
tinuity between them can be perceived (Figure 8).
The imperfection of the manually assembled part
is somehow distributed in a coherent way over the
whole form. Although this is acceptable for the de-
sign effect of this experiment, this could be more
problematic in other building circumstances, for in-
stance, when the fabricated part has to match an-
other one. To overcome such problem, the manual
assembly process had to be slower to improve the
precision level of the process.
CONCLUSION
The Brick Tower experiment was an opportunity to
reflect about the impact of robotic automation in
brick construction, and on the resilience of crafts-
man masonry practice. Without analyzing the jobs
threat questions, which is beyond the scope the
present paper, this investigation made clear the po-
tential of robotic technologies to overcome several
human limitations in construction, especially in pre-
fabrication scenarios. Indeed, the robotic fabrica-
tion test demonstrated the great flexibility, precision
and speed of such automated process. Nevertheless,
it is not expectable to witness, in a short time pe-
riod, these new technologies taking over the brick
masonry industry at the global scale. In the next
decades, manual brickwork should still prevail in con-
ventional building construction scenarios, especially
in those countries with less economic and technolog-
ical capacities. The low cost and the connection with
local traditions are still important factors in favor of
this manual work.
In this context, the video-projection test may be-
come significative. By requiring very simple means
(i.e., a computer and a video projector) it aims at
providing the means for more flexibility and preci-
sion in the manual approach to brick construction.
With this first experience, the present paper intends
to contribute to expand the manual brickwork possi-
bilities to materialize structural and aesthetic design
ideas within a feasible timeframe and without requir-
ing cutting-edge technologies. It should be high-
lighted that despite the emergence of other building
construction methods (e.g., concrete structures), ma-
sonry construction is a relevant additive construction
process to address the contemporary challenges re-
lated with sustainability.
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 369

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the support
to this experiment provided by the DFL team, the re-
search partnership with INESC TEC on robotic fab-
rication technologies, and the industrial support of
Cerâmica Vale da Gândara company in the study of
brick construction.
This work was developed in the scope of
the Research Project with the reference PTDC/ATP-
AQI/5124/2012, funded by FEDER funds through
the Operational Competitiveness Programme - COM-
PETE, and by national funds through the FCT - Foun-
dation for the Science and Technology.
370 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 8
The Brick Tower
structure made out
of the 2 fabricated
parts. On the right,
detailed views from
the interior (top)
and the exterior
(bottom).
REFERENCES
Anderson, S. 2004, Eladio Dieste: Innovation in Structural
Art, Princeton Architectural Press
Bock, T. 2008, 'Construction Automation and Robotics', in
Balaguer, C. and Abderrahim, M. (eds) 2008, Robotics
and Automation in Construction, In Tech, pp. 21-42
Brinkmann, U. 2005, Frank O. Gehry - MARTa Herford,
Brikhauser, Baden
Campbell, J.W.P. 2005, História Universal do Tijolo, Calei-
doscópio, Portugal
Gramazio, F. and Kohler, M. 2007, Digital Materiality in Ar-
chitecture, Lars Muller Publishers
Jetsonen, J. and Jetsonen, S. 2008, Finish Summer Houses,
Princeton Architectural Press
Petters, S. and Belden, R. 2014, 'SAM, the Robotic Brick-
layer', SMART / Dynamics of Masonry, 1 (4), pp. 10-14
[1] http://www.archdaily.com/?p=9028
Digital Design for Disassembly
Shannon Hosey1 , Christopher Beorkrem2 , Ashley Damiano3 ,
Rafael Lopez4 , Marlena McCall5
1,2,3,4,5
UNC Charlotte- School of Architecture
1,2,3,4,5
{shosey|cbeorkrem|adamian1|rlopez8|mmccal33}@uncc.edu
The construction and building sector is now widely known to be one of the biggest
energy consumers, carbon emitters, and creators of waste. Some architectural
agendas for sustainability focus on energy efficiency of buildings that minimize
their energy intake during their lifetime - through the use of more efficient
mechanical systems or more insulative wall systems. One issue with these
sustainability models is that they often ignore the hierarchy of energy within
architectural design. The focus on the efficiency is but one aspect or system of the
building assembly, when compared to the effectiveness of the whole, which often
leads to ad-hoc ecology and results in the all too familiar "law of unintended
consequences" (Merton, 1936). As soon as adhesive is used to connect two
materials, a piece of trash is created. If designers treat material as energy, and
want to use energy responsibly, they can prolong the lifetime of building material
by designing for disassembly. By changing the nature of the physical relationship
between materials, buildings can be reconfigured and repurposed all the while
keeping materials out of a landfill. The use of smart joinery to create building
assemblies which can be disassembled, has a milieu of new possibilities created
through the use of digital manufacturing equipment. These tools afford designers
and manufacturers the ability to create individual joints of a variety of types,
which perform as well or better than conventional systems. The concept of design
for disassembly is a recognizable goal of industrial design and manufacturing,
but for Architecture it remains a novel approach. A classic example is Kieran
Timberlake's Loblolly House, which employed material assemblies "that are
detailed for on-site assembly as well as future disassembly and redeployment"
(Flat, Inc, 2008). This paper will survey alternative energy strategies made
available through joinery using digital manufacturing and design methods, and
will evaluate these strategies in their ability to create diassemblable materials
which therefore use less energy - or minimize the entropy of energy over the
life-cycle of the material.

Keywords: Digital Manufacturing, Efficiency, Smart Jointery, Recycling

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 371

 INTRODUCTION - THE ENERGY PROBLEM
It is widely known that the building and construc-
tion industries account for a large portion of global
energy use. According to a publication by the Inter-
national Energy Agency in 2013, "buildings are the
largest energy-consuming sector in the world, and
account for over one-third of total final energy con-
sumption and an equally important source of car-
bon dioxide (CO2) emissions" (International Energy
Agency, 2013). More specifically, the United States
Green Building Council reported that the building
sector accounts for 38% of all CO2 emissions in the
United States, as well as 73% of electricity consump-
tion in the United States (U.S. Green Building Coun-
cil, 2015). Further, they report that buildings use
40% of raw materials globally (three billion tons an-
nually) (U.S. Green Building Council, 2015). This ex-
treme energy use and environmental impact of the
building sector are problematic in a world of limited
resources. The issue necessitates a look at the current
design, construction and operating methods that are
prevalent in the building industry in order to evaluate
the distribution of energy use, to speculate on new
approaches and methodologies, and to mitigate the
negative environmental impacts within the sector. In
2012, the American Institute of Architects Code of
Ethics was amended to include an obligation to the
environment, which calls for environmental respon-
sibility and advocating of sustainable practices (AIA
Office of the General Counsel, 2012). In extension,
designers have a responsibility to understand the en-
vironmental impacts of the profession, as well as the
potential impact of their own work.
Energy use in the built environment has been ex-
tensively researched in a variety of disciplines, includ-
ing, but not limited to, architecture, engineering, ur-
ban planning, environmental science and infrastruc-
ture. The variety of approaches serves as evidence to
the complexity and vacillation of the issue. The differ-
ent research approaches vary in terms of the scales of
analysis, mainly focusing on the urban scale and the
building scale (Anderson, 2015). Assessment of en-
ergy use within the building scale can be summarized
372 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
into several research areas: architectural design, con-
struction, materials, operational systems and struc-
tural systems (Anderson, 2015).
So how is energy used in the building sector?
Over the life of a building, the majority (over 95%)
of the energy use is attributed to the embodied en-
ergy and the operational energy of the building. Em-
bodied energy, or emergy, is the total energy needed
to procure, manufacture, transport and install ma-
terials through the construction of a building. Op-
erational energy includes all energy needed to use
a building over its life span - heating, cooling, elec-
tricity, water, etc. The most commonly accepted sci-
entific methodology for analyzing the environmental
performance of buildings is the life-cycle assessment
method (LCA) (Anderson, 2015). The LCA method is
often used to assess both the embodied energy use
and operational energy use in buildings.
One example of this type of assessment is a
study by the National Trust of Historic Preservation,
which aimed to understand the environmental im-
pacts of new construction versus retrofitting build-
ings. The life-cycle assessment compared new con-
struction projects and retrofit projects in a number of
ways; computing the life-cycle impacts of buildings,
determining which stages of a building's life con-
tributes most significantly to its energy use, and as-
sessing influences of building typology, geography,
performance, and life span. They claimed that "build-
ing reuse almost always yields fewer environmen-
tal impacts than new construction when comparing
buildings of similar size and functionality" (Preser-
vation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, 2011). A key finding in the research
shows that new, energy efficient buildings can take
decades to overcome the negative impact of carbon
emitted during the construction process. Many as-
sumptions were made in this study, but it is impor-
tant to note that no retrofit is the same. There are
a wide number of variables and circumstances that
might make a building upgrade more or less exten-
sive. Retrofitting existing buildings often involves de-
molition of existing materials, as well as increased
embodied energy use through modification and con-
struction of the building, in return for improved op-
erational energy performance (if it is the goal of the
retrofit). In order to compare the retrofit to new
construction, the building would have comparable
dimensions, life-span (75 years), shape, orientation,
and construction to the older, existing building. The
study, while said to "provide the most comprehen-
sive analysis to date of the potential environmental
impact reductions associated with building reuse,"
failed to address, in a comprehensive manner, the re-
search areas associated with the building scale (archi-
tectural design, materials, construction, operational
systems and structural systems) (Preservation Green
Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
2011).
In order to combat the energy issues in a way that
recognizes the different areas of research, we must
define a new approach that decreases the need for
renovation (and new construction) by prolonging the
life-cycle of buildings. Computational methods and
digital fabrication techniques are changing the way
that buildings are conceived, materials are used, and
assemblies are constructed... Emerging technologies
allow buildings to anticipate a future adaptation or
disassembly. "Approximately 61% of all construc-
tion projects are retrofit projects" (U.S. Green Build-
ing Council, 2015). By making buildings more ad-
justable and easy to maintain or dismantle, buildings
can serve multiple uses over their lifetime and sub-
stantially decrease energy use attributed to demoli-
tion and renovation. "One billion square feet of build-
ings are demolished and replaced with new construc-
tion each year" (Preservation Green Lab of the Na-
tional Trust for Historic Preservation, 2011). Once two
materials are glued or adhered together, the mate-
rial energy becomes bound, dissipated, and the like-
lihood of energy feedback is null. Designing for disas-
sembly would decrease the amount of material waste
sent to landfills, and would increase the number of
recyclable and reusable material assemblies.
AN ENERGY DISCOURSE IN ARCHITEC-
TURE
Energy Hierarchy
Over time, many architects and authors have theo-
rized about energy strategies in the built environ-
ment. Kiel Moe, registered Architect and professor at
Harvard's GSD, discusses his methodology for evalu-
ating energy use in his book, Convergence: An Ar-
chitectural Agenda for Energy. He believes archi-
tecture relies on the understanding that all matter
is captured energy. His ideas on convergence are
based on "the thermodynamic premise that archi-
tecture should maximize its ecological and architec-
tural power." Rather than focusing on making build-
ings "less bad" by singularly focusing on the perfor-
mance or efficiency of specific materials, he calls on
designers to think of the building as an ecosystem
within an energy hierarchy. Thermodynamic princi-
ples state that within a system, energy is neither cre-
ated nor destroyed, but it changes from one form into
another. A designer's goal should be to better under-
stand the energy hierarchy, how systems within ar-
chitecture fall into this hierarchy, and how different
forms of energy can be used as inputs and outputs of
these assemblies (Moe, 2013).
Moe goes on to talk about emergy, entropy, and
exergy, from a material perspective. The embod-
ied energy within a material, combined with its cap-
tured bio-geophysical factors, is its emergy, or energy
memory. For Moe, a building with high emergy con-
tent is not bad thing, as the building has a greater ca-
pacity for energy feedback. Quality of the feedback
is a key design concern, in order to maximize the ca-
pacity for energy to do work, or its exergy. In any sys-
tem, some energy will become bound dissipated en-
ergy, or entropy. A successful ecological architecture
would have high emergy, high-quality exergy, and
low entropy. This maximum power design decreases
overall energy use through a series of nested hierar-
chies that "maximize the intake, use and feedback of
useful energy." This methodology anticipates, rather
than reacts, to the energy issue in architecture (Moe,
2013).
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 373
 Extending on Moe's energy approach, design for
disassembly is anticipatory, while retrofits are reac-
tive, in nature. Disassembly increases the capacity
for feedback within the architecture, and therefore
increases its exergy. Similarly, assemblages can be
taken apart and reused, lowering the entropy of the
building. Combining this technique with best prac-
tices of reducing material waste, using local and re-
cycled materials, and increasing the lifetime of mate-
rials, architects can design buildings that anticipate
the way that energy will be used. Further, this ap-
proach can address all research areas (materials, con-
struction, design, operation and structure) as ecolo-
gies within the building that can feed into each other.
Material Logic
Writer and philosopher, Manuel de Landa has writ-
ten extensively on topics which provide insight to ar-
chitects on methods of scientific discourse. His theo-
ries on materials and energy can be discussed in the
same vein as those of Moe. He warns against a sin-
gular method of thinking when approaching a mate-
rial philosophy. "To a materialist, a typology can be-
come an obstacle to think about the processes that
produced the items it classifies and it can hide the
sources of variation that give the world its expres-
sivity" (Curti, 2010). In his essay in Verb; Philoso-
phies of Design- The Case of Modeling Software, he
distinguishes between two theories of design. One
design strategy begins with a concept for the form,
which is imposed onto materials. The other design
philosophy treats the materials as active participants
in the genesis of form. De Landa favors the latter
methodology, one that is more in tune with a holistic
energy-conscious design strategy. He classifies ma-
terials based on their behavior and the characteriza-
tion of their phase transitions. In the creation of a
logic or family tree of material behavior, one can bet-
ter understand the intricate properties of that ma-
terial, and how those materials might work within a
larger infrastructure or hierarchy of energy. To de
Landa, buildings are assemblies of heterogeneous
materials, which can be critiqued in relation to their
374 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
particular or general characteristics (De Landa, 2002).
With increased computational technologies, de
Landa believes this family tree logic can use genetic
algorithms to iterate different combinations (evolu-
tions) of materials into assemblies. A relational or
topological understanding of the different materi-
als is key to the combining of materials into larger
ecosystems. This "breeding" of material assemblies
begins with the designer specifying the evaluation
criteria for an assembly (or building). Then the com-
puter simulates different combinations until it finds
the best design option (De Landa, 2002).
These digital tools can be scaled up to address
the operational and embodied energy distribution
for whole buildings. The interrogation of the rela-
tionship between the building and the material com-
ponents is important to any energy-conscious design
strategy. Digital design for disassembly is a method-
ology that acknowledges the energy hierarchies that
Moe and de Landa discuss: at the scale of the mate-
rial, the assembly, and the building.
As more highly performative materials become
available, design for disassembly could permit the
replacement of individual elements in an assembly,
and further decrease operational energy use in a
building. Elements which can function with multiple
uses (i.e. wall and roof ), or with multiple criteria (i.e.
structure and skin) have the promise of further mini-
mizing operational energy use.
Ecological Functionalism
Juhani Pallasmaa, established architect and theorist,
writes in his article, From metaphorical to eco-logical
Functionalism, that architecture needs to re-evaluate
Functionalism through the lens of ecological aware-
ness (Pallasmaa, 1993). He calls for an eco-logical ar-
chitecture which implies conceptualizing the build-
ing more as a process (topological) than a final prod-
uct (typological). Pallasmaa's ideas about architec-
ture are returning to the heroic ideas of Functional-
ism from Modernism, but pushing these ideas for-
ward as real, operative Functionalism that focusing
on adapting to "systems of nature in terms of both
matter and energy" (De Landa, 2002). His call for
an Eco-logical Functionalism are relevant in the dis-
course on the energy agenda for architecture, par-
ticularly as computation allows for the experimenta-
tion of techniques for new concepts of living. Pallas-
maa notes the continual appropriation in art and ar-
chitecture, implying that buildings needs to be ap-
proached from a different view. This aligns with de
Landa's warning of the obstacle of typology.
"Do more with less"
Pallasmaa speaks of the paradoxical task of architec-
ture is to "become more primitive and more refined at
the same time" (Pallasmaa, 1993). One can apply this
idea to design for disassembly, in that the physical
connections and joinery of the building assemblies
need to be able to connect in simple or "primitive"
ways - and this is made possible through the preci-
sion and mobility of digital fabrication. The process
becomes more refined in terms of using the compu-
tation to adapt and respond to systems of nature by
focusing on the energy hierarchies of the building.
Pallasmaa references Buckminster Fuller in his writ-
ings as being ahead of his time. Fuller's Dymaxion
House pushed this idea to "do more with less" and we
can continue to adapt this model and push the idea
further (Buckminster Fuller Institute, 2015). While the
Dymaxion House aimed to create low-cost housing
through developing manufacturing methods, design
for disassembly takes these ideas and uses the digi-
tal realm to confront the energy issue in architecture.
Instead of focusing on low monetary cost, computa-
tion allows us to focus on low resource and energy
costs. Fuller looked beyond the generic housing ty-
pologies to display the function and efficiency of the
house, and likewise, we should look beyond the typ-
ical building construction method (The Museum of
Modern Art, 2015).
Interactive Machine
Another architect whose ideas were ahead of his time
was Cedric Price. His ideas were supported by Fuller,
but many of Price's projects were unrealized. One
project in particular stands out with relationship to
design for disassembly. The project focused on ma-
nipulation of the architecture and an interaction be-
tween the user and the building. The Fun Palace, as it
was called, was to be a "socially interactive machine"
in collaboration with avant-garde theater producer
Joan Littlewood. The theater project was meant to
engage the passive subjects of the audiences in the
1960s in England. The design comprised of a grid
and "structural matrix with overhead cranes to allow
assembly of prefabricated modules... Pivoting esca-
lators and moveable wall panels would permit end-
less variation and flexibility". Price realized the value
in variation from the perspective of the performance
and social interaction with the user, but unfortu-
nately, the project was never realized. The kinetic and
interactive goals of Price's architecture can combine
with our social and environmental goals of design for
disassembly to make this type of project become a re-
ality with the digital tools at hand (Matthews, 2005).
CASE STUDIES
The concept of design for disassembly is a familiar
goal of industrial design, but for Architecture it re-
mains largely unexplored. In other disciplines, the
idea has developed for a number of reasons, includ-
ing the ease of replacement of parts in complex as-
semblies or the ability to flat-pack products for ship-
ping, etc. Digital fabrication allows us to expound
upon these ideas in order to confront energy issues in
the built environment. The following case studies will
survey projects of various scales, collecting strategies
for digital design and manufacturing methods for ar-
chitecture. The evaluation of these case studies will
include a critique on the choice of materials, the de-
sign of construction, and the design of the joinery.
The choice of materials and their assembly meth-
ods are crucial to the critique of their ability to change
or perform over time. Does the project use recy-
cled materials? Are hazardous materials used? Can
the material be reused? The design of the construc-
tion or assembly method is an element which is often
left unaddressed. Does the construction use modu-
lar components? Is the construction simple or com-
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 375
 plicated? Is serviceability a concern? Is the assem- Figure 1
bly stable during construction or disassembly? Fi- Loblolly House by
nally, the design of the joinery or connections is key Kieran Timberlake
to designing for disassembly. Are adhesives used to (Kieran Timberlake,
join materials? How easily can the parts be sepa- 2015)
rated? Is the joinery easy to locate, access, and dis-
mantle? How many joints are there, and what tools
are needed to disassemble the system? This evalua-
tion will allow us to anticipate the ability to use digital
methods to create diassemblable constructions that Figure 2
will minimize entropy over the life-cycle of the build- LYF Shoes
ing. components by
DesignBox (Lyf
Loblolly House | Kieran Timberlake | 2006 Shoes, 2015)
Kieran Timberlake's Loblolly House (figure 1) employs
material assemblies "that are detailed for on-site as-
sembly as well as future disassembly and redeploy-
ment" (Flat, Inc, 2008). This 2,200 square foot pri- Figure 3
vate residence was assembled on-site in Taylors Is- Disassembled PEG
land, Maryland in only six weeks. This project framed Chair by Paul
much of the work that Kieran Timberlake has contin- Loebach and
ued to do as they have grown. More recently they Makers Anonymous
have released a software plugin for Autodesk Revit (Loebach, PEG
called Tally, which creates a scoring rubric for the Chair, 2015)
material choices of a design specified in the model
(Kieran Timberlake, 2015).
Materials: Many of the materials of the house
were off-the-shelf components and easily assembled
materials. This includes anodized aluminum, cedar
rain-screen components, oriented strand board and Figure 4
laminated veneer lumber. These materials were easy HouMinn's final
to acquire, as they are all mass-produced and ex- installation of the
tremely common. The fact that there were no spe- "VarVac Wall"
cialty or lavish materials used in the project, and that (Architect
materials could be locally acquired, lends to a lower Magazine, 2015)
embodied energy use.

376 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Construction: Building information modeling al-
lowed the building to be designed and assembled
virtually, making the coordination of construction
seamless. The Loblolly House was made up of a se-
ries of prefabricated components which Kieran Tim-
berlake called Elements; the scaffold, the cartridge,
the block and the equipment. The use of parametric
modeling afforded the designer to make precise de-
cisions, which made the prefabrication possible. Dig-
ital coordination with the different consultants made
the process more efficient, from design to fabrication
to assembly. The model also assisted in the façade
patterning, and helped the designers keep in mind
multiple constraints for the elements, such as how
each element was going to be shipped or erected on
site.
Joinery: Kieran Timberlake facilitated the as-
sembly of these elements by including electrical
and plumbing conduits within the cartridges, which
make up the floors and ceilings. Each cartridge is
made up of plywood sheathing, electric receptacles,
radiant heating coils, engineered lumber ribs, and
microduct air supplies. The scaffolding, in which
the cartridges are inserted, are made of anodized
aluminum structural components for easy assembly;
each of the components are drilled and cut to size
to make a linear procedure of assembly. The blocks
and fixtures, since prefabricated, only need to be con-
nected to the utilities once put in place. The num-
ber of joints is minimal, and the joints are easily ac-
cessible, once the building needs to be disassembled
(Kieran Timberlake, 2015).
LYF Shoes | DesignBox | 2014
LYF shoes (figure 2), created by Aly Khalifa of Design-
Box, were envisioned with the design for disassem-
bly methodology in mind. Shoes like buildings, have
long required permanent adhesives in their construc-
tion. LYF shoes were designed first to remove these
adhesives from the design, under the premise that
these adhesives are not only unhealthy for workers
putting them together, but also that they prevent
shoes from ever being recycled. By combining digital
manufacturing processes with an understanding of
how components can be assembled, they have cre-
ated a shoe design which never has to end up in the
landfill. The company is also attempting to engage
with its customers through social awareness. Each
shoe has a small chip embedded in the heel which
creates a profile of the user's walking habits. This in-
formation will add to a large database of the shoe's
durability and improve the design based on the way
in which they are used. This chip is only accessed
when a shoe is brought back to the store, increasing
the likelihood that they would be returned to be re-
cycled (Khalifa, 2014).
Materials: The materials in LYF shoes are 100% re-
cyclable. The sole, heel lock, and performance plate
of the shoe is certified compostable material, while
the insole material is made from recycled wine bottle
corks. The upper fabric portion of the shoe is made
from locally sourced natural fibers.
Construction: The shoes are a modular assembly
of components that are made separately. The sole,
heel lock, and performance plate components are
manufactured per each customer's size and specifica-
tions. The graphics on the upper portion of the shoe
can be designed by the user, or they can choose from
shared graphics from other designers. The fabric por-
tion is digitally printed and laser cut per the size spec-
ifications. Manufacturing can be done locally, in the
store, and on demand using textile printing, 3D print-
ers, and laser cutters. By moving the manufacturing
process to the customer, this dramatically decreases
the embodied energy put into the shipping and stor-
age of the product (LYF Story, 2015).
Joinery: Once all of the components are made,
the shoe can be assembled in 90 seconds (Khalifa,
2014). Each of the components of the shoe snap into
place to hold the assembly together without adhe-
sives. Each shoe can then be disassembled into its
various components to replace worn elements or to
change styles. The information gathered by the mi-
crochip can help inform new shapes of the replace-
ment components so that some parts (materials, en-
ergy) can feedback and be easily reused (LYF Story,
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 377
 2015).
PEG Chair | Paul Loebach & Makers Anony-
mous | 2014
This chair assembly was formulated around the
acronym PEG meaning, "Parts Excluding Glue" (figure
3). The prototype was shown at NYC Design Week
2014, and was designed to deal with the challenge of
shipping furniture compactly - allowing more chairs
to be shipped at a time, which saves on the embod-
ied energy use (Loebach, 2015).
Material: The PEG Chair is made completely of
solid blocks of birch wood. Birch wood is common
and exhibits good machining properties. It sands to
a smooth surface and is easy to work with. It is also
one of the cheaper woods on the market, making it
extremely accessible.
Construction: The chair is made up of eight dif-
ferent components, including the legs, seat, cross
bracing, and chair back. The chair was digitally de-
signed in 3D modeling software. This allowed the use
of a CNC (computer numerically-controlled) router
machine to do most of the work while fabricating
the components. Loebach's process also focused on
ensuring that the integration of technology did not
mean that one has to sacrifice craft. However, the
CNC router did have a negative effect on the effi-
ciency of the wood regarding the waste of the blocks.
Because of the nesting of the objects and the dimen-
sional limitations of the CNC router, it seems as if
roughly 50% of the birch wood went to waste. De-
signing a way to reuse the scraps would eliminate the
entropy of the materials needed for construction (De-
signboom, 2014).
Joinery: The joints of the PEG chair are a series
of pegs. The chair does not rely on fasteners such
as screws or glue. The piece of furniture relies solely
on friction connections. Each component slides into
each other and once in place, the constant expan-
sion and contraction of the wood helps stabilize and
make the chair rigid. The joints of the PEG chair were
roughly cut by the CNC router but later on finished
by hand. The simple joinery allows the complex ge-
378 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
ometry to be assembled and disassembled with ease
(Designboom, 2014).
Breaking the Mold - Variable Vacuum Form-
ing | HouMinn Practice | 2014
A slightly less intuitive way of focusing on reducing
material waste and increasing energy feedback is to
focus on the minimizing of material used in the pro-
duction of building components. Often the largest
monetary and material cost for creating shaped pan-
els is the formwork or panel molds. HouMinn Practice
has created installations that focus on reusable form-
work. In order to create a large number of panels that
have a large variety of shapes, HouMinn was able to
create adjustable formwork, which achieved the for-
mal variety of this acoustic wall without tremendous
material waste (Core77, 2015).
Material: The wall is comprised of polystyrene
sheets that are heated and vacuum-formed to cre-
ate different surface variations (figure 4). Polystyrene
is mass-produced and, like most thermoplastics, can
be recycled. The wall framing elements are plywood
strips, which connect the panels to the acoustic fabric
material. The formwork for the creation of the panels
is comprised of a plywood frame with metal cables
pulled across the opening.
Construction: The variation in the shapes of
the panels was designed using Grasshopper and
Rhinoceros (3D scripting and modeling software) in
order to map the areas that required more or less
sound absorption. Once the entire wall was mapped,
the pattern was broken up into panels. The process
only required one plywood formwork frame. Cables
were drawn across the frame at different angles ac-
cording to the pattern. The polystyrene sheets were
heated and vacuum-formed over the cables to cre-
ate the undulating variations. Where the panel depth
exceeded six inches, the polystyrene was sliced with
a rotary blade on a CNC router. This created further
variation by introducing openings in the panels. The
panels are thin and lightweight, so assembling rows
that tilt up and anchor to the wall was simple.
Joinery: The construction of the wall was
 straightforward, by assembling the lightweight pan- Joinery: The different toys are then welded together
els in a vertical row with metal strips and screws, then by a tool used to repair car fenders. The different
tilting the row to the wall and using plywood strips elements have been fused together to create one
and screws to anchor the assembly to the acoustical form. One disadvantage to this method is the choice
fabric and wall. The use of common tools to mechan- to weld, because the assembly becomes permanent
ically fasten the panels to the framing, and the acces- and cannot be disassembled for a future re-use. In-
sibility of those joints make it simple to disassemble. stead the plastic will most likely be melted down and
Though it may be difficult to find another use for the recycled in a different fashion (arcspace, 2015).
Figure 5 panels, they could be recycled after use. The joinery
"Fountain" by Greg of the formwork is also interesting: a series of fas-
Lynn Form (Greg teners were spaced along each side of the plywood
Lynn Form, 2015) form opening, and cables could be adjusted to create
different diagonals across the opening, to be pulled
tight, or to slump loose. The reuse of the same ma-
terials to create multiple panels created a continual
feedback loop (Core77, 2015).

Fountain | Greg Lynn | 2008

Greg Lynn's Fountain (figure 5) is part of a series of
pieces in his Toy Furniture project that reuses plas-
tic toys. The toys are laser-scanned and arranged
digitally, then physically manipulated using robotics
to make functional and sculptural forms (Greg Lynn
Form, 2015).
Material: Lynn chose to recycle objects for their
positive value. According to Lynn, at one point plas-
Figure 6 tics were the way of the future. They are lightweight
Wikado Playground and high-performing as well as great substitutes for
by 2012Architecten metals and fired masonry. Plastics are also very low-
(Inhabitat, 2015) energy to produce and easy to transport. Children
grow out of toys quickly, making them an unneces-
sary addition to landfills.
Construction: The pieces of furniture relied heav-
ily on the scanning technology available. Before as-
sembly, each toy was 3D scanned and digitized into
a computer-modeling program. After moving the
components around to achieve the desired forms, ev-
ery single intersection was defined as a cutting path,
using Boolean operations. A robotic arm with a spin-
Wikado Playground | 2012Architecten (now
dle blade uses the precision of the scan and model to
make surgical slices to the different toys. Every step SuperUse Studio) | 2007
of the project was made possible with the use of the SuperUse Studio seems to be founded on the idea
digital tools. that is central to the Wikado Playground project (fig-
ure 6). The group finds materials that have extremely

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 379

 specific uses and finds a way to reuse those materi-
als. As wind turbines have a limited life-span and are
very expensive to manufacture, it was important to
keep these elements out of a landfill, and give them
a secondary purpose (Superuse Studio, 2015).
Material: The Wikado Playground is made up of
existing components from a series of retired wind tur-
bines. Each of the rotor blades are made of glass fiber
or carbon fiber reinforced plastic (GRP, CFRP), coated
in paint. This durable material allows for the play-
ground to have an extended life span. The reuse of
the rotors also allows for this playground to have high
emergy and low entropy, since there is no need to
manufacture these custom pieces.
Construction: The design used the rotors to cre-
ate a maze-like play area with slides, towers, and
other interactive components. Each of the rotors
were placed and secured to a large concrete base,
which was later covered by dirt and mulch to make
soft ground. Similar to Lynn's Toy Furniture pieces, a
series of punctures were cut into the rotors that al-
lowed the architects to attach slides or let light en-
ter some of the habitable spaces. Additional rotor
components were also made into other elements in
the park, including a series of towers, tunnels, and
benches.
Joinery: For the most part, the different rotor el-
ements were placed as separate pieces and bolted
to the concrete base. However, there were fasteners
used to attach the slides and nets. There is not an em-
phasis on minimizing the number of joints, but they
are placed in easily accessible areas to unbolt and re-
place components when necessary (Inhabitat, 2015).
Tent Pile Pavilion | Formlessfinder | 2013
This structure, the entry pavilion for Design Miami
2013 (figure 7), uses a sand pile to support a custom-
milled aluminum cantilevered roof. The sand pile
acts as a thermal cooling mass, making the pavilion a
comfortable refuge for over 50,000 visitors each year
(Caula, 2013).
Material: The project was located in Miami where
sand is sometimes problematic for building - sand be-
380 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
neath buildings often needs to be removed for con-
struction. The loose sand is used to an advantage
as a structural element while also being a zero-waste
material. The pavilion is essentially made of three el-
ements: the aluminum roof, the wooden retaining
wall, and lastly the pile of sand.
Construction: The aluminum roof is lightweight
and connected with rivets using common tools. The
roof element sets on top of the retaining wall, which
slices the pavilion in half to keep the sand to one side
and provide an entrance to the fair. The four cor-
ners of the roof element are temporarily supported as
the sand is put into place. The pile of sand is placed
with heavy construction equipment, creating a 500-
ton pyramid.
Joinery: Because of the use of sand, the pavilion
for Design Miami becomes almost a joint-less struc-
ture. Once the retaining and roof elements are as-
sembled and set into place, the weight of the loose
sand is used to stabilize the structure and no further
joinery is required. The pavilion does require heavy
machinery to move the sand, but there is no need
for excavation. So the zero-waste material becomes
countered by the amount of energy it takes to trans-
port the 500 tons into place (Medina, 2014).
Figure 7
Formlessfinder's
Tent Pile Pavilion at
Design Miami/ 2013
(Medina, 2014)
LOOKING FORWARD
These various case studies help to articulate an un-
derstanding of the goals for design for disassem-
bly and represent methodologies that can be imple-
mented going forward. At the scale of the building,
this design idea needs to be implemented in a way
that takes into account the energy hierarchies and
energy needs of architecture throughout its life and
death.
Using recycled and locally-sourced materials is a
starting point for how to approach material choices
in design, but computational tools can allow for
higher emergy content and provide feedback to the
user throughout the life-cycle of the design. The key
is to try and simultaneously design assemblies that
have low embodied energy, but are durable and flex-
ible in their use and reuse. Whether that is through
a novel use of materials that are not generally used
in construction, like in Formlessfinder's Tent Pile, or
in the seemingly infinite variation of a mold, like in
HouMinn's VarVac Wall forms, architecture can use
this methodology to create nested hierarchies of en-
ergy and prolong the life-cycle of building materials.
The design of the construction is very important
in the implementation of design for disassembly. The
way that the assemblies are put together and taken
apart is vital in the realization of this idea. Com-
putational tools, complex and parametric modeling
software and digital fabrication techniques, are al-
lowing designers to physically manifest geometries
that humans could not conventionally make by hand.
Robotics, like in the creation of Greg Lynn's Toy Fur-
niture, can assist in the making of the individual el-
ements and assemblies in less time, and with fewer
errors, etc. Modeling softwares will continue to de-
velop, while they assist in the visualization of the el-
ements and assemblies - like in Paul Loebach's PEG
chair - and allow for iteration and evolution of de-
sign ideas before they are created in the physical
realm - saving time, material, and resources. The
amount of information that can be shared, sourced,
and scanned is changing the way that the construc-
tion industry operates, and allows for procurement
and discipline coordination to save time and energy.
Understanding the entire construction process be-
fore a single element is built - this can completely
change the way a building is created.
The success of design for disassembly also re-
lies on the ability for the elements of the design to
come apart simply and quickly. The joinery should
be designed in advance in order to anticipate future
use or future mobility. The joinery needs to be easily
accessible and should not require complex tools or
equipment to disassemble. Using off-the-shelf com-
ponents is one way to approach the issue of joinery,
like in HouMinn's VarVac Wall, where the adjustable
formwork used simple fasteners, and the construc-
tion used plywood strips and bolts. Likewise, the
Wikado Playground has simple clamps and screws
that allow for quick replacement of playground ac-
cessories. Often designing in this way makes for sim-
ple physical connections between material compo-
nents, and generally saves time, money and energy
in the construction as well. For example, Kieran Tim-
berlake's Loblolly House was constructed in 6 weeks
once all the elements were prefabricated. Similarly,
the design of LYF Shoes by Designbox let the as-
sembly snap together in less than 90 seconds. This
methodology can confront the energy issue by focus-
ing more on the process - process of design, of con-
struction, and of assembly - than focusing on just the
product.
With the aid of computational tools, we can in-
crease the number of ways to reuse and prolong the
life-cycle of materials. Greg Lynn's Fountain Toy Fur-
niture project relies heavily on the digital to repur-
pose old toys into sculptural forms. Similarly, the
Wikado Playground was created from wind turbine
blades that were cut with robot precision. The in-
creased computational technologies provide us with
more ways to adapt the use of existing materials.
These computational strategies can also be used to
calculate novel structural systems such as Formless-
finder's Tent Pile, or to visualize an assembly or pro-
cess before anything has been physically created,
such as in Kieran Timberlake's Loblolly House.
Each of these projects begins to formulate a
methodology of material selection and assembly
principles that could be employed moving forward as
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 381
 we move beyond the short-sighted design method-
ologies of the past. As we gain more control and ac-
curacy over our manufacturing methods we can cre-
ate products for the built environment which con-
sider both the environmental impact and quality of
the space for today and tomorrow.
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International Energy Agency, IEA 2013 'Directorate of
Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology. Tran-
sitionto Sustainable Buildings: Strategies and Op-
portunities to 2050', Energy Technology Perspectives.,
Paris,
ArcSpace, AS 2015 'Greg Lynn Fountain of Toys',
http://www.arcspace.com/exhibitions/unsorted/greg-
lynn-fountain-of-toys.
Caula, R 2013 'Tent Pile Pavilion Cantilevers Over Sand
Pit for Design Miami', http://www.designboom.com/
architecture/tent-pile-pavilion-cantilevers-over-sand-
pit-for-design-miami-12-13-2013
Core77, C77 2015 'Interiors & Exhibitions Professional
Runner Up.', http://www.core77designawards.com/
2014/recipients/breaking-mold-varvac-wall/
U.S. Green Building Council., USGBC 2015 'Green Build-
ing Facts', http://www.usgbc.org/articles/green-
building-fact.
Office of the General Counsel, AIA 2012 '2012
Code of Ethics \& Professional Conduct',
http://www.aia.org/about/ethicsandbylaws/#P4_417
Curti, C 2010 'Material(ism) for Architects:
A Conversation with Manuel De Landa',
http://www.cluster.eu/2010/10/08/materialism-for-
architects-a-conversation-with-manuel-delanda/
John E, GW and Anderson, WL 2015, 'Energy Analysis of
the Built Environment—A Review and Outlook', Re-
newable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 44, pp. 149-
158
Buckminster Fuller, R. 2015 'R. Buckminster Fuller.
Dymaxion House, Project, Plan (c. 1927).',
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_-
id=805
Inc, Flat, 2008 'Unbolt, Detach, Reassem-
ble: Loblolly House Wins EPA Challenge',
http://www.kierantimberlake.com/posts/view/145/
Inhabitat, I 2015 'Wikado Playground is Built from
Recycled Wind Turbine Blades in theNether-
lands', http://inhabitat.com/wikado-playground-
is-built-from-recycled-wind-turbine-blades-in-the-
netherlands
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Buckminster Fuller Insitute, BFI 2015 'About Fuller',
http://bfi.org/about-fuller
Khalifa, A 2014 'Lyf Shoes at Sustainable Brands San
Diego', ttp://lyfshoes.com/2014/07/28/lyf-shoes-
sb2014sd/
Landa, MD 2002, 'Philosophies of Design: the Case of
Modelling Software', Verb: Architecture Bookazine, 1,
p. 1
Loebach, P 2014 'Paul Loebach', http://www.designboom.
com/design/paul-loebach-peg-chair-without-glue-
06-26-2014/
Loebach, P 2015 'PEG Chair', http://paulloebach.com/
Lynn, G 2015 'Greg Lynn Form', http://www.glform.com
Architect Magazine, AM 2015 'Award Breaking the
Mold', http://www.architectmagazine.com/awards/r-
d-awards/award-breaking-the-mold_o
Matthews, S 2005, 'The Fun Palace: Cedric Price', Tech-
noetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 3.2 , pp.
73-91
Medina, S 2014 'Cantilevers on Sand, Ducks in a Bag
\& Other Adventures: A Conversationwith Formless-
Finder', http://www.archdaily.com/tag/formlessfinder/
Merton, RK 1936, 'The Unanticipated Consequences of
Purposive Social Action', American Sociological Re-
view, 1.6 , p. 894
Moe, K 2013, Convergence: An Architectural Agenda for
Energy, Routledge, N.p.,
Pallasmaa, J 1993, 'From Metaphorical to Eco-logical
Functionalism.', Architectural Review, 193.1156 , pp.
74-79
Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preserva-
tion, NTHP 2011 'The Greenest Building: Quanti-
fying the Environmental Value of BuildingReuse',
http://www.preservationnation.org/information-
center/sustainable-communities/green-lab/lca/The_-
Greenest_Building_lowres.pdf
Lyf Shoes, LYF 2015 'LYF Story', http://lyfshoes.com/lyf-
story/
LYF Shoes, LYF 2015 'Your Fit', http://lyfshoes.com/your-
fit/
Superuse Studio, SS 2015 'Superuse Studio',
http://www.superuse-studios.com/
Kieran TImberlake, KT 2015 'Loblolly House',
http://www.kierantimberlake.com/pages/view/20/loblolly-
house/parent
Kieran TImberlake, KT 2015 'Kieran Timberlake',
http://www.kierantimberlake.com/
Kieran TImberlake, KT 2015 'Choose Tally',
http://choosetally.com/
Decorative Robotic Plastering
A Case Study of Real-Time Human Machine-Collaboration in High-Skill
Domains

Joshua D. Bard1 , David Blackwood2 , Nidhi Sekhar3 , Brian Smith4

1,2,3,4
Carnegie Mellon University
1
jdbard@cmu.edu 2 dablackwood@cmu.edu
3,4
{nsekhar|briansmi}@andrew.cmu.edu

This paper explores hybrid digital / physical workflows in the building trades, a
high-skill domain where human dexterity and craft can be augmented by the
precision and repeatability of digital design and fabrication tools. In particular
the paper highlights a project where historic techniques of decorative plastering
are extended through live motion capture of a drawing implement, information
rich visualization projected in the space of fabrication, and custom robotic
tooling to generate free-form running moulds. This workflow allows designers
and craftspeople to quickly explore patterns through free-hand sketch, test ideas
with shaded previews, and seamlessly produce physical parts using robotic
collaborators.

Keywords: Motion Capture, Robotic Fabrication, Haptic Interface, Hybrid Skill,

Human-Machine Collaboration

MOTIVATION of design creativity forced to flow through an archi-

The human body fosters a wealth of tacit knowledge tectural intern's mouse finger or the mind-numbing
vital to cultural, political, and economic dimensions repetitiveness of supervising most industrial manu-
of human life. Think of the learned dexterity of a sur- facturing equipment.
geon's fingers, the buoyancy of a dancer poised to
leap, or the deftness of experienced hands guiding a HUMAN ROBOT COLLABORATION IN
chisel through natural wood. Despite the body's cen-
HIGH-SKILL DOMAINS
trality to many important modes of human endeavor,
Despite the prolonged history of displaced human
technology has often replaced bodily skill with mech-
skill in relation to industrial production, this need
anized production. In the architectural arena, in-
not remain the case. Contemporary developments in
dustrial design and manufacturing tools have sig-
robotic fabrication and real time sensing are disturb-
nificantly altered the relationship of human craft to
ing the equilibrium of the design and industrial man-
the design and production of the built environment.
ufacture of architectural building components. This
The expressive skill of the craftsperson and designer
paper outlines the development of digital tool-sets
are at risk when we consider the innumerable hours

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 383

 to enable collaboration between humans and robots
in the high-skill domains of the building trades. An
intuitive interface using live motion tracking (MO-
CAP), digital projection, and gesture recognition was
created to move designers and craftspeople away
from offline programming at a dedicated computer
to using gestures and sensor-embedded smart tools
to interact with robot collaborators. This entailed
connecting the disparate worlds of constraint-based
motion planning-which excels at open-ended, inde-
terminate tasks, and real-time decision making-and
CAD-generated offline programming, favored by de-
signers and known for robust geometric construction
and visual feedback during the design process.
RUNNING MOULDS, A CASE STUDY IN AR-
CHITECTURAL PLASTER
This section describes the traditional craft of plaster
running moulds and the relevant constraints consid-
ered in robotically augmenting the process in con-
temporary design practice. The running mould is an
ancient plastering technique used to construct or-
namental architectural elements in interior and ex-
terior applications (e.g., cornice moulding) (Van Den
Branden and Hartsell 1985). The technique involves
cutting a decorative profile into a piece of sheet
metal and running the profile repeatedly over mul-
tiple guages of plaster as it cures from liquid to solid.
Although running moulds are often visually com-
bined with other plastering elements, the fabrica-
tion process is distinct from plastering techniques
that require casting into dedicated molds (e.g., den-
til moulding). Running moulds can be prefabricated
in a tradesperson's shop or run in-situ on a construc-
tion site. The technique requires an experienced set
of hands for appropriate setup and execution dur-
ing plaster's rapid curing process. The key constraint
is to run the profile across the curing plaster with
as close to identical passes as possible. Because re-
peatability is essential to a smooth finish, the metal
profile is mounted to a sled, which is typically guided
by a set of rails or a fixed pivot. Human dexter-
ity is required to smoothly move the profile across
384 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
the curing plaster, but the overall path of the profile
and the pressure shaping the plaster finish are con-
trolled by the guides. Being constrained by physi-
cal guides when running profiles by hand, dictates a
fairly limited set of possible running mould geome-
tries (e.g., straight lines, circles, and ellipses). Devia-
tion from these shapes requires costly and time con-
suming setup of custom guides.
Figure 1
Morphfaux,
decorative robotic
plastering on free
form surfaces
Custom profiling tools were developed for a six axis
industrial robot to test new possibilities for the run-
ning mould technique (Bard et al. 2013). Because
all offline robot motion planning is reliably repeat-
able, and six axis robots have a high degree of kine-
matic freedom in space, physical guides became un-
ecissary. This entailed the ability to explore free-form
moulding in complex three dimensional configura-
tions, producing decorative profiles that would be
difficult, if not impossible to construct by hand (fig-
ure 1). The workflow outlined in this paper responds
to the possibilities afforded by contemporary tech-
nology to augment traditional building trades. If the
logical layout technique for traditional moulding de-
sign required ruled drawing, using straightedge and
compass, then the kinematic freedom afforded by
robotic technology suggests a more direct connec-
tion to freehand sketching. The following sections
illustrate how bodily skill can remain central to de-
signers and tradespeople when exploring the aug-
mented space of robotic construction through seam-
less tangible interface in fabrication settings.
AUGMENTED FABRICATION CONTEXTS
As computation becomes more ubiquitous and em-
bedded in our physical environments, many high-
skill domains have become hybrid in nature, lever-
aging the precision and repeatability of computa-
tional tools along with the dexterity and expressiv-
ity of human skill. Whether competing at Chess or
conducting surgery in the operating room, hybrid
workflows are often more effective than tasks per-
formed by humans or computers acting on their own
(Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). The building in-
dustry has been late adopters of robotic technolo-
gies. Although, the building industry has borrowed
heavily from the manufacturing sector encouraging
many industrialized building materials and construc-
tion methods, the primarily autonomous robotic as-
sembly approaches found in many factories are of-
ten ill-suited to the challenges of on-site construction
and the degree of customization in architectural pro-
duction (Lee et al. 2014). The factory favors automa-
tion, which requires the reduction of complex tasks
to their lowest common and repeatable denomina-
tor. The shop and construction site, however, favor
the efficient and varied application of dexterous skill
to open ended tasks. The logistics and efficiencies of
the factory floor cannot simply be re-created in the
shop or on the construction site.
Advances in contemporary technology suggest
promising possibilities for human-machine collabo-
ration in the building trades. Three types of technol-
ogy central to these advances in fabrication settings
will be demonstrated in the case study of decorative
robotic plastering.
1. Real-Time Sensing: Human machine collabo-
ration in fabrication settings relies on the ex-
change of information based on actions in
the physical world. Capturing human gesture
for skill-transfer, tracking tools precisely in 3D
space, and sensing material behavior in re-
sponse to CNC tooling are all made possible
through real time sensing.
2. Information Rich Projection Mapped to Phys-
ical Context: The typical shop is littered with
devices used to bring a sense of measure to
the physical context of fabrication. Tape mea-
sures, fixtures, jigs, clamps, and templates
allow material and tools to be used with
intention. Information has been tradition-
ally passed from paper drawing sets through
these physical mechanisms to produce reli-
able results. The advent of projection map-
ping allows for a seamless transfer of infor-
mation from digital models into the physical
space of fabrication. Measuring grids, custom
layouts, part labeling, and assembly informa-
tion can all be project onto the three dimen-
sional surfaces of the shop in real-time.
3. Seamless Incorporation of custom Robotic
Tools: Industrial robots encourage custom
tools and workflows for shaping a wide variety
of materials. Unlike dedicated machine tools,
robots offer more flexibility when adapting to
the diverse demands often placed on archi-
tectural fabricators and construction crews by
the custom requirements of specific projects.
Robots become part of a flexible infrastruc-
ture that can support customization and in-
vention.
WORKCELL SETUP
The following section describes the physical work-
cell developed around a plastering table for produc-
ing running moulds and the software developed to
combine real-time sensing, projection mapping, and
robot motion control in a hybrid fabrication setting
(figure 2).
A six camera motion capture array is mounted
above a 1.2m x 2.4m work table. Real time tracking of
a stylus allows users to explore the constraint space of
decorative plaster moulding patterns through free-
hand sketching on the table top. A custom streaming
component in grasshopper, developed by a collabo-
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 385
 rative team for a workshop at the 2014 Robotics in Ar-
chitecture conference, brings hand sketching infor-
mation directly into the CAD environment (Schwartz
et al. 2014). A custom calibration script automati-
cally aligns all tracking with the lab robot's base co-
ordinate system. Once calibrated other tools or work
objects can be tracked relative to the robot's coordi-
nate system (figure 3).
386 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Visual feedback is projected onto the work surface
using a ceiling mounted, wide-throw projector. Pro-
jection mapping is calibrated with a custom Python
script in grasshopper using hand-placed MOCAP
markers. From the CAD environment design and as-
sembly information can be projected onto the work-
table including, shaded previews of potential pro-
files, start and end-point locations of neighboring
pieces in a pattern, and underlying grids for measure.
An interactive dashboard is also projected onto the Figure 2
tabletop and allows users to explore different pro- Physical work cell
file curves and negotiate the part to whole relation- with MOCAP
ship of individual tiles in the overall pattern (figure cameras, ceiling
4). The user can move fluidly between design itera- mounted projector,
tion with the stylus and parametric pattern genera- and industrial
tion displayed through the projector. robot.
As the pattern develops through iteration, the
user can generate drive curves for robotic plaster-
ing on the work surface directly from the stylus seed
input. Users can choose to smooth the raw input
to remove or amplify noise from the hand-drawn
mark. Robot motion control is also handled within
Grasshopper using the HAL plugin (Schwartz 2015).
Custom Grasshopper scripts help with motion plan-
ning in order to avoid joint errors from the input of
hand-drawn guide curves. A custom end of arm tool
allows for plaster profiles to be quickly interchanged
(figure 5).
DEMONSTRATION
A sample pattern was tested to demonstrate the po-
tential of augmented fabrication workflows in archi-
tectural plaster. The authors developed a parametric Figure 3
patterning script that generated radial arrays around Real time tracking
a group of asymmetric obstacles commonly found of stylus with
in a contemporary ceiling plane (e.g., light fixtures, projection of drawn
columns, HVAC, fire suppression). Historically plas- curves on work
ter rosettes were installed around chandeliers in care- surface.
fully symmetric patterns. Users seed the algorith-
mic pattern generation with two curves, sketched
using the tracked stylus. An inner and outer draw-
ing boundary and a measuring grid are projected at
one to one scale on the work table to aid in hand-
Figure 4
From right to left:
projection of
dashboard on work
surface, projection
of fabrication
information prior to
drawing, projection sketching. Once the two seed curves are generated In this example workflow the virtual status of rep-
of shaded preview, users can see a shaded display of the full plaster pro- resentation, which typically precedes construction
final plaster sample file projected around the ceiling obstacle. Users can and is constrained to screen or paper space, perme-
from drawing. explore the parameters of the pattern, changing the ates the physical space of construction. The collapse
density and spacing of each input curve. Users can between contexts for representation and contexts for
also iterate the input curves with further sketching, making allows for haptic exploration of design con-
getting visual feedback in real time (figure 6). straints that are both materially pragmatic and algo-
rithmically extensive (figure 7). Rather than replacing
Figure 5 human skill through automation, human gesture ex-
Custom end of arm presses itself at the intersection of physical and digi-
plastering tool with tal design processes, augmenting what is possible in
interchangeable the high-skill domains of the building trades.
profiles.
CONCLUSION
There are many areas where hybrid fabrication envi-
ronments can augment the building trades. Future
developments of this case study will include devel-
oping a Kinect based gesture interface to seamlessly
navigate dashboard settings while carrying out fab-
rication tasks in a shop environment. We would also
like to develop a robot mounted projector where in-
formation can be mapped to any surface within the
robot's work cell. Posing the robot for specific pro-
jections would allow for a larger and more flexibility
projection environment. Lastly, the team would like
to develop an automated material delivery mecha-
nism, integrated with the end of arm plastering tool.
Currently plaster is distributed by hand, based on vi-
sual prompts from the projector. Automated deliv-
ery could be more efficient and require less material
waste in the initial passes.

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 387

 Figure 6
Pattern generation
and exploration
using hand
sketching and
parametric design.

Schwartz, T, Bard, J, Gannon, M, Jacobson-Weaver, Z, Jef- Figure 7

fers, M and Tursky, R 2014 'All Bent Out...', Robotic Sample pattern
Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design, Ann Ar- plastered from
bor, pp. 305-317 hand drawn input.
[1] http://hal.thibaultschwartz.com/

Emerging technologies in robotic fabrication and

real-time sensing enable small-scale production, af-
ford a higher degree of customization and allow de-
signers greater access to the means of building pro-
duction. The difficult relationship between the hu-
man body and industrial machines can be reformu-
lated in this new context. Ultimately a collaborative
relationship can emerge where the salient charac-
teristics of human skill and machine precision work
in tandem toward augmented paradigms of fabrica-
tion. Working toward robot-human collaboration in
high-skill domains entails defending the sustained,
often pleasurable, mind- and body-work required for
architectural design and production.

REFERENCES
Bard, J, Mankouche, S and Schulte, M 2013 'Morphfaux',
Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design, Vi-
enna, pp. 139-142
Van Den Branden, F and Hartsell, F 1984, Plastering Skills,
American Technical Pub., Alsip, Ill
Brynjolfsson, E and McAfee, A 2014, The Second Machine
Age, Norton, New York
Lee, S, Lee, K, Kim, J and Han, C 2006, 'Human-robot co-
operation control for installing heavy construction
materials.', Autonomous Robot, 22(3), pp. 305-319

388 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Robotic Fabrication of Tensile Mesh Structures and Real
Time Response
The Development and Simulation of a Custom-Made End Effector Tool

Odysseas Kontovourkis1 , George Tryfonos2

1,2
Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus
1,2
{kontovourkis.odysseas|at07tg2}@ucy.ac.cy

This paper presents an ongoing research, aiming to introduce a fabrication

procedure for the development of tensile mesh systems. The purpose of this
methodology is to be implemented in real time, based on a feedback loop logic
cyclically iterated between robotic machine control and elastic material
behaviour. Our purpose is to extend the capacity of robotically driven
mechanisms to the fabrication of complex tensile structures and at the same time,
reduce the defects that might occur due to the deformation of the elastic material.
In this paper, emphasis is given to the development of a custom-made end effector
tool, which is responsible to add elastic threads and create connections in the
form of nodes. Based on additive fabrication logic, this process suggests the real
time development of physical prototypes through the increasing smoothness of
mesh structures.

Keywords: Robotic fabrication, Tensile mesh structures, Real time response, End
effector tool

INTRODUCTION ious materials during the construction of complex

The continued development of digital fabrication
strategies used in the construction of complex mor-
phologies and the need for accuracy and precision in
regard to the physical results obtained, open new di-
rections in this area that go beyond the simple lin-
ear workflow from design to construction. Hence, the
need for the effective control of physical prototypes
during construction through computational mecha-
nisms, which allow continuous evaluation of results
according to physical changes within a feedback loop
process, is currently coming to the fore.
In addition, the experimentation and use of var-
forms is possible, thanks to the computational in-
vestigation of morphologies and the parallel simu-
lation or implementation of the construction pro-
cess, as well as the use of external data acquisi-
tion devises, i.e. vision systems and control devices,
i.e. Arduino microcontrollers (Braumann and Brell-
Cokcan, 2012a). This new logic requires the combi-
nation of different manufacturing methods like cut-
ting, welding, forming and milling (Iwamoto, 2009).
Currently, the development of robotically driven fab-
rication methods, which are able to handle complex
morphologies and materials, requires the use of more

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 389

 sophisticated applications than simple industrial end
effector tools, such as hot wire and gripper (Brau-
mann and Brell-Cokcan, 2012b).
Related works in this direction can be found, for
instance, in the project 'Aggregate Structure', where
a continuous control system between robotic ma-
chine and physical information processing is devel-
oped that uses a magazine emitter-head for pour-
ing spiny plants (Dierichs et al, 2012). In parallel, the
need for material control during the prototype devel-
opment process leads to the design of custom-made
end effector tools. In this direction, the example of
'Magnetic Architecture' demonstrates an end effec-
tor that is able to control the force and distance of
magnetic field creating structures of iron filings (Du-
bor and Diaz, 2012). The capacity of robotic arms
to allow the adjustment of different end effectors
at their end, as well as the efficient control of their
behaviour, enables the introduction of new fabrica-
tion approaches and materials for the development
of complex systems in different scales.
METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE
END EFFECTOR TOOL DEVELOPMENT
This ongoing work follows previous investigation
done by authors in regard to a suggested holistic
fabrication process implemented in real time (Kon-
tovourkis and Tryfonos, 2014). Using an offline sim-
ulation process (Biggs and MacDonald, 2003), the
aim was to develop a fabrication methodology us-
ing feedback loop logic for the construction of tensile
390 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
structures, that combined robotic machine control
and elastic material deformation (Kontovourkis and
Tryfonos, 2014). Specifically, the suggested proce-
dure involved the gradual addition of elastic threads
used as the proposed material, creating an overall
mesh geometry consisting of nodes and lines. This
resulted in the deformation and alternation of the
overall structural system in real time and hence in the
repositioning of the nodes within the system. The
proposed scenario involved capturing the nodes po-
sition using camera devices and transferring the in-
put information into the digital environment. Then,
the next movement step of the robotic arm was cal-
culated, controlling the additive behaviour of the ma-
chine. This was also influenced by the number of
repetitions undertaken during material addition, in-
fluencing the overall shape or the smoothness level
that was specified and controlled by the architect-
user. Through the suggested real time manufactur-
ing process, the possibility for developing complex
morphologies that were adapted according to the
decisions taken by architects was examined, in order
to optimize the respective construction outcomes
[Figure1].
In order to achieve the suggested fabrication
process, a number of necessary steps are taken into
consideration: a. Investigation towards the correla-
tion of material behaviour in physical and in digital
level as well as the simulation of the overall structural
deformation, b. Research on the adaptive control of
robotic arm behaviour and generation of fabrication
Figure 1
Simulation steps of
robotic handling
during tensile mesh
structure
development
Figure 2 tool paths, and c. Development and simulation of the
Simulation of the end effector tool.
proposed In this paper, attention is given to the third part
robotically driven of research that is the development and simulation
additive fabrication of the end effector tool, which is considered to be a
process using the fundamental element of the overall fabrication pro-
custom-made end cess since it is responsible for the elastic material han-
effector tool dling and hence the results of construction. Specif-
ically, through the continuous addition of elastic
threads, the welding and finally the nodes creation,
the construction of tensile mesh and the geometrical
smoothness of structure can be achieved.
Figure 3 Within this framework, an initial investigation
Detail of the end into the production of physical prototypes using con-
effector tool ventional methods of fabrication is introduced. The
process of adding elastic threads based on specific
geometric rules results in the formation of mesh sys-
tems consisting of edges and nodes. As part of
the welding procedure, the bonding of threads is
achieved by the use of a hot-melt adhesive. Based
on the observations derived from the experiments
and the elastic threads control requirements, a mul-
tipurpose end effector that involves three operations
is proposed [Figure 2]:

1. Length control and elastic tread feed

2. Supply and hot-melt adhesive
3. Holding and creation of nodes
DESIGN AND CONTROL OF THE END EF-
FECTOR
The proposed end effector tool consists of three actu-
ators that control its mechanical and movable parts.
Each of them is responsible for an operational pro-
cedure that has been mentioned in the previous
section. Through synchronization and calibration
of operational steps the overall handling process is
achieved. The design of the end effector tool is influ-
enced by the size of actuators, the scale of material
handling, the welding of silicone elastic threads, the
base of mounting on the robotic arm (axis J6), the size
occupied by the movable parts and finally, the scale
of the overall mesh structure [Figure 3].
Length control and elastic tread feed
The purpose of the process of length control and
elastic thread feed is the accurate control of the
thread's movement from the bobbin part until the
welding spot. The length control of elastic thread
is an important part in the development of physical
model since it defines the extension that causes the
local thread deformation.
Thus, for this operation, a bipolar stepper motor
(1.8 degrees steps) is introduced. At the end of mo-
tor a 3D printed pulley 15T is placed, in which its ro-
tation is transferred to a similar type of pulley that
is connected with the PLA roller. The full circumfer-
ence (360 degrees) of the stepper motor is equal to
the complete rotation of rollers. Their rotation cor-
responds to the length of thread necessary to be fed
depending on different cases. The material bobbin is
mounted to the back and upper part of the end ef-
fector for easy access by the architect-user. Thus, the

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 391


rollers pull and unwind the elastic thread from the
bobbin and feed the PLA cylindrical tube, which in
turn transfer the thread to the welding spot [Figure
4].
Supply and hot-melt adhesive
For the welding of threads and the creation of ex-
pected nodes, the hot-melt silicone adhesive tech-
nology is applied. Due to the same type of silicone
material used, both for elastic threads and for hot-
melt glue stick, this technology is considered ideal
for the creation of nodes/connections. The expected
future development of the research as regards the
recording of nodes via a vision system requires the
use of hot-melt adhesive tube in black color. In a fu-
ture stage, through image processing, the physical
nodes will be tracked and transferred to a digital en-
vironment in the form of information points.
The supply of hot-melt glue stick (11mm) is
achieved via the use of a continuous rotation motor
(360 degrees servo motor). The rotation of servo mo-
tor and its connections with the 3D printed pulley
T15 causes the transfer of motion via belt to the 3D
printed pulley T30. The increase of pulley's size al-
392 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 4
Length control and
elastic tread feed
detail
lows the reduction of rollers' rotation relative to the
rotation of the servo as well as the increase of the
rotational torque generated by the rollers. For the
better control of the supply of hot-melt glue stick,
the rollers are connected to an additional pulley that
transfers the rotational movement via the 3D printed
pulley T15 in rollers (this appears on the back side of
the end effector). In order to maintain the correct
direction of movement for the hot-melt glue stick,
a PLA tube is designed that allows the material to
move into and feed the melting apparatus. In this
way, the rotation of four rollers pushes the material
into the machine for melting purposes. This converts
the solid material into liquid, which is poured in the
hemisphere in the hot end of the end effector tool for
welding the elastic thread material and for creating
nodes [Figure 5].
Holding and creation of nodes
An important feature in the process of creating nodes
and controlling the threads' length is the technique
for approximation positioning and holding. The re-
tention of elastic thread is found to be necessary in
order to reduce failures caused by the pretention of
Figure 5
Supply and
hot-melt adhesive
detail
the filament as well as the elevated temperature due
to the hot-melt adhesive process.
To control the holding procedure and cut the
elastic thread, a linear actuator is used. The design
and printing of a 3D prefabricated gripper in front of
the end effector tool manages to control the approx-
imation of thread in the predetermined level and to
hold the material. In order to achieve this, the gripper
tool includes a hemispherical shape as well as a blade
for threads cutting. When closing the linear actua-
tor, the projection moves linearly in the vertical plane
of the melter device, in which it holds the thread, for
nodes creation. In parallel, the linear actuator is able
to bring additional strength causing the cutting of
thread. With the opening of linear actuator, the node
is released, activating the elastic behaviour of thread.
Finally, the end effector tool is withdrawn from the
welding spot [Figure 6].
FABRICATION OF THE END EFFECTOR
For physical development purposes, the mechanical
parts that make up the end effector are fabricated
on a 1:1 scale and their motion is optimized through
trial-and-error testing [Figure 7], aiming at the final-
ization of the overall physical prototype. In particular,
the end effector is divided into three discrete parts:
• Electronics and material case
• Mechanical and actuators case
• Melding and adhesive component
The fabrication of the prototype is achieved through
rapid prototyping and specifically through a 3D
printer using ABS and PLA materials. Within this
framework, the cases for all electronics and mechan-
ical parts are designed and printed, then assem-
bled together and finally connected to the actuators.
For material feed, a prefabricated PLA roller is intro-
duced. The rotation of rollers is achieved in combina-
tion with the timing belts, which convey the motion
from the actuators to the rollers.
The electronics and material part are fixed at the
end of the robotic machine. This section includes
all the electronic components of the end effector in-
cluding connecting cables for actuators, power sup-
ply and Arduino board. Also, in this section the place-
ment of materials (silicon elastic thread and glue
stick) and their feeding control through the actuation
of kinematic mechanisms can be found. For better
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 393

self-weight distribution of the end effector, the step-
per motor that is responsible for the length control
and material feed process is placed close to the end
of the robotic machine. Then, the mechanical and ac-
tuator case is adapted and screwed into the bottom
of the electronics and material case. At this part of
the end effector, rotary actuators and mechanical de-
tails (pulleys, belts and rollers) that are responsible for
the supply and hot-melt adhesive operations, can be
found. Also, this section incorporates the linear ac-
tuator that is responsible for the holding and nodes
creation process. Finally, the melding and adhesive
components are added and screwed in front of the
mechanical and actuators case. This component con-
sists of two parts. The first part represents the case for
the melter that is used for supply and hot-melt adhe-
sive process. In the front area, the cooperation with
the linear actuator achieves the accomplishment of
the holding and nodes creation process. The sec-
ond part is connected to the first part and it bears all
mechanical details, i.e. pulleys, rollers and PLA tube
for the length control and elastic thread feed process
[Figure 8].
394 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 6
Holding and
creation of nodes
detail
Figure 7
Physical prototype
of the end effector
tool
The three main parts are connected together, so
as to control and synchronize the whole procedure.
In addition, the separation of parts enables to re-
design the parts in order to optimize the motion be-
haviour and improve the mechanical details.
PROGRAMMING AND CONTROL
To program the mechanical parts, the Arduino board
that is linked to Grasshopper (plug-in for Rhino) via
Firefly (plug-in for Grasshopper) (Payne and Johnson,
2013) is used. Three programming tasks responsible
for the control of the end effector are distinguished:
Figure 8
End effector parts:
A.Melding and
adhesive
component, B.
Mechanical and
actuators case,
C.Electronics and
material case
a. Creation of the start node, b. Length control of
elastic thread, and c. Creation of the end node. The
three tasks are responsible to control the informa-
tion from the digital model activating the respective
movement of actuators. Initially, to develop the con-
trol algorithms the actuators are connected to the Ar-
duino board. Because the stepper motor needs to re-
ceive data in pulses, an Easy stepper driver board that
is connected to the Arduino board is used. The step-
per driver is responsible to control the data from the
Grasshopper to the stepper motor, controlling in par-
allel, the direction and angle of rotations. The con-
trol of linear actuator and servo motor is achieved by
the use of a simple 3pin wiring. With the use of nu-
merical values 0-180 degrees, which are designated
in Grasshopper and transferred to the Firefly writer,
the lengthening of the linear actuator, as well as the
speed and direction of rotation of the servo motor are
defined [Figure 9].
Initially, actuators are calibrated in relation to the
rollers of operations. For the length control and elas-
tic thread feeding procedure, a full rotation (360 de-
grees) of stepper motor equal to the perimeter of
roller (55,2mm) is introduced, that achieves respec-
tive thread feed. The supply and hot-melt adhesive
procedure is calibrated by the time of rotation of
servo motor. Specifically, a time interval of 5sec is
required for pushing the expected glue stick and for
creating the node. To activate the servo motor and
stabilize its speed, a numerical value 80 is defined in
Firefly, while to deactivate the motor, the numerical
value 89 is used. Finally, to control the linear actua-
tor in the holding and creation of nodes procedure, a
numerical value of 40 and to open and release nodes,
a value of 55 is defined.
For the robotic control, the HAL (plug-in for
Grasshopper) (Schwartz, 2012) is introduced. Specifi-
cally, the actuation of the end effector tool is synchro-
nized to the control of robotic arm movement. By
using feedback loop logic between robotic machine
and the HAL software, the algorithm is responsible
to control and determine the order of elastic threads'
addition. Each thread is added by using the three
tasks described above.
The task programming occurs by calculating the
time duration depending on the position of the
robotic machine. Initially, the algorithm for control-
ling the start node creation activates the opening
of the linear actuator. Subsequently, the activation
of the stepper motor manages to feed the welding
spot with 20mm length of thread. Then, the linear
actuator slightly closes in order to hold the threads.
Parallel to the complete closure of the linear actu-
ator, the servo motor is activated to feed the hot-
melt glue stick. This is liquefied using the melter and
the threads are adhesive for node creation. Finally,
by opening the linear actuator, the robotic machine
withdraws and continues its movement.
Parallel to the relocation of the robotic arm from
the start node, the task for controlling the length
of thread is activated. This procedure aims to sup-
ply, in each case, the required length of elastic sili-
con thread. The suggested algorithm checks the re-
sult of tensile structure simulation and sets the re-
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 395

quired length of thread in order to achieve the desir-
able pretension and deformation of the mesh struc-
ture. The defined length is translated into an angle
used for stepper motor rotation that causes the re-
lease of expected material. The time of rotation is
calculated and compared to the time needed by the
robotic arm to move from the start node to the end
node. If the time needed for length thread wrapping
is longer than the time needed for the robotic arm
movement, the robot waits to execute the task for a
respective time and then continues the end node cre-
ation procedure.
396 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 9
Diagrams
describing the
functions of the
three tasks
Finally, when the robotic machine reaches the
point, the end node creation task is activated. The lin-
ear actuator closes and holds the thread. At the same
time, it cuts the thread from the bobbin and simul-
taneously the servo motor for the hot-melt glue stick
procedure is activated producing the node. Then, the
control algorithm specifies new coordinates in which
the silicon elastic thread addition procedure will oc-
cur.
DISCUSSION ON THE END EFFECTOR PO-
TENTIALITIES
The use of mechanical parts and actuators as well as
their programming control enables the development
of a custom-made end effector tool with specific fab-
rication abilities defined according to the construc-
tion task under investigation. Also, the recent ad-
vancement in the area of real time control and sim-
ulation (Braumann and Brell-Cokcan, 2012c) enables
the robotic machine and elastic structure behaviour
simulation, as well as the activation of the end effec-
tor tool. At the same time, the architect-user is able
to make decisions in regard to the final construction
result, thus defining the smoothness level of tensile
mesh structure.
The end effector tool is an important part of the
suggested robotic manufacturing process. In this au-
tomated procedure, three operational steps are ap-
plied, which can be evaluated according to the qual-
ity of the result achieved due to the required highly
accurate process of threads installation and nodes
creation. Therefore, the results of construction di-
rectly relate to the decisions taken at the digital de-
sign level as well as at the level of programming and
control. The future use of vision-based systems is ex-
pected to achieve the proper calibration of the de-
sign and construction results, in which the accurate
placement of the filaments during the physical con-
struction will inform the digital model and vice versa.
By synchronizing the physical with the digital
prototype, this research aims at handling complex sil-
icon elastic mesh structures. The possibility for the di-
rect relation between the architect-user and the dig-
ital environment is extended to allow a simultaneous
relation with the manufacturing process, whose re-
sults are affected by design decisions.
CONCLUSIONS
In this ongoing research, the design and develop-
ment of an end effector tool is presented, which is
able to add material of elastic threads on a mesh sys-
tem, aiming at the gradual smoothness and the over-
all construction of tensile structures. This becomes
necessary when the objectives involve the construc-
tion of complex morphologies and the introduction
of materials with elastic behaviour.
Further research will concentrate on the physi-
cal performance of the proposed end effector mecha-
nism. This will be achieved by testing the tool in a se-
ries of experiments on a one-to-one scale. The results
of actual scale testing will direct the next steps of this
ongoing research work, aiming at a comprehensive
development of a real time manufacturing process.
Additional directions of investigation will include
the transfer of structures' physical behaviour to the
digital environment in order to compute the robotic
movement in a continuous iterative process. Such
feedback loop mechanisms will enable accuracy dur-
ing the manufacturing process and at the same time,
they will open new directions of research in the area
of digital fabrication.
REFERENCES
Biggs, G and MacDonald, B 2003 'A survey of robot pro-
gramming systems', Proceedings of the Australasian
conference on robotics and automation, pp. 1-3
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2012a 'Digital and Phys-
ical Computing for Industrial Robots in Architec-
ture: Interfacing Arduino with industrial robots', Be-
yond Codes and Pixels: Proceedings of the 17th Inter-
national Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural
Design Research in Asia, pp. 317-326
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2012b, 'Digital and
Physical Tools for Industrial Robots in Architec-
ture: Robotic Interaction and Interfaces', Interna-
tional Journal of Architectural Computing, 10(4), pp.
541-554
Braumann, J and Brell-Cokcan, S 2012c 'Real-Time Robot
Simulation and Control for Architectural Design',
Digital Physicality - Proceedings of the 30th eCAADe
Conference, pp. 479-486
Dierichs, K, Schwinn, T and Menges, A 2012, 'Robotic
Pouring of Aggregate Structures', in Brell-Cokcan,
S and Braumann, J (eds) 2012, Robotic Fabrication
in Architecture, Art and Design, Springer Wien New
York, Austria, pp. 196-205
Dubor, A and Diaz, G.B 2012, 'Magnetic Architecture:
Generative desigh through sensoric robots', in Brell-
Cokcan, S and Braumann, J (eds) 2012, Robotic Fabri-
cation in Architecture, Art and Design, Springer Wien
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 397
 New York, Austria, pp. 206-213
Iwamoto, L 2009, Digital Fabrications: Architectural and
Material Techniques, Princeton Architectural Press,
New York
Kontovourkis, O and Tryfonos, G 2014 'Physical input-
driven offline robotic simulation through a feedback
loop process', Fusion, Proceedings of the 32nd Interna-
tional Conference on Education and research in Com-
puter Aided Architectural Design in Europe; Fusion,
Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on
Education and research in Computer Aided Architec-
tural Design in Europe, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Payne, A.O and Johnson, J.K 2013, 'Firefly: Interactive
Prototypes for Architectural Design', Architectural
Design, 83(2), pp. 144-147
Schwartz, T 2012, 'HAL', in Brell-Cokcan, S and Braumann,
J (eds) 2012, Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art
and Design, Springer Wien New York, Austria, pp. 92-
101

398 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Graded Light in Aggregate Structures
Modulating the Daylight in Designed Granular Systems Using Online
Controlled Robotic Processes

Desislava Angelova1 , Karola Dierichs2 , Achim Menges3

1,2,3
Institute for Computational Design, University of Stuttgart
1
angelova.des@gmail.com
2,3
{karola.dierichs|achim.menges}@icd.uni-stuttgart.de

The research project proposes an online-controlled robotic process that allows

for grading light in aggregate structures using photometric analysis. It
investigates the potential of designing specific daylight qualities through the
behaviour-based robotic fabrication of the aggregate system. Two key methods
are developed: the digital fabrication of the structure and a photometric analysis
technique which is used as a sensor input for the robotic sensory interface. In its
first part, the paper presents a series of photometric experiments on aggregate
wall- and dome-structures. In its second part, the focus is laid on robotic
manufacturing of these aggregate structures and the interactive fabrication of
specific light conditions. To conclude further areas of research into emergent
design processes with aggregates are outlined.

Keywords: Online-controlled robotics, Designed granulates, Light analysis

INTRODUCTION with the material behaviour and creating differenti-

Aggregates are vast numbers of elements in loose
frictional contact, which gather to form a whole
structure. They are distinct from other material sys-
tems as they can go through solid and liquid states
(Jäger, Nagel and Behringer 1996; Cambou, 1998;
Duran 2000). Although normally used as an add-in
in construction materials, designed aggregates espe-
cially can be seen as a self-sufficient construction ma-
terial (Hensel and Menges 2006a and b; Dierichs and
Menges 2012).
The research project presented in this paper is fo-
cused on interactive robotic construction cycles for
functionally graded aggregate structures. It inves-
tigates the potential of a robotic system interacting
ated light qualities.
The graded light filtration in aggregates is rele-
vant both with regards to its architectural function-
ality and quality. However - as opposed to assem-
bly systems where local and global geometry are de-
fined - the modulation of aggregates and their lumi-
nance is behaviour-based. Online-controlled robotic
processes offer the opportunity to approximate a lu-
minance target-performance by integrating the ma-
terial behaviour of the aggregate into the control of
the system as a whole (Dierichs, Schwinn and Menges
2012) (Figure 1).

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 399


STATE OF THE ART
In the past years several research projects on Ag-
gregates Structures using designed granulates have
been conducted (Hensel and Menges, 2006 a and
b; Dierichs and Menges, 2012; Gravish et al., 2012;
Jäger, 2014). Both, the design of the individual aggre-
gate and of the overall aggregation, have been devel-
oped as well as the full-scale construction and offline
robotic pouring of these processes. However online-
controlled robotic processes have not been deployed
extensively in conjunction with designed aggregates
(Dierichs, Schwinn, Menges 2012)
Recent developments in online digital fabrica-
tion and robotic control are creating novel manu-
facturing possibilities for architects and designers.
Robots now can be programmed for adaptive and re-
sponsive construction methods. The user thus has
the opportunity to create behaviour-based fabrica-
tion processes (Rist, Rust and, Doerfler, 2012; Johns,
2014). In this context the aim of the research was the
robotic sensing of light as a design driver.
400 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 1
Filtered light
through Aggregate
dome structure: (a)
physical
experiment,
Copyright Boris
Miklautsch,
University of
Stuttgart; (b)
photometric
analysis
METHODS
Two relevant methods were developed in the course
of this research. On the one hand a photometric
analysis technique for luminance values was imple-
mented. On the other hand the structures were dig-
itally fabricated by using online-controlled robotic
processes based on the photometric analysis.
Photometric analysis
In order to use light, more specifically luminance as
a driving force for the digital manufacturing of the
structures it had to be numerically quantified. This
was done by a digital camera and a photometric soft-
ware transferring pixel values from the images into
numeric data sets. The method applied here was first
developed by Hiscocks [1] and uses a digital camera
to measure luminance. A script is reading the digital
number of every pixel on the photograph, therefrom
calculating the luminance values of these pixels.
Online control
The online-control robotic process consists of an op-
tical sensor - a web camera - which was used to
capture the light in aggregate structures and detect
Figure 2
Daylight patterns:
catalog of changing
luminance values in
the course of a day

changes in the luminance. The photometric analysis
software is calculating the luminance values, which
were then used in an algorithm to determine the
robot's next move in the construction of the compo-
sition. The program is then outputting a KRL script
directly to the robot, making it interact with the struc-
ture towards a target light condition. This is making
a light controlled robot manufacturing possible.
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
Initial light observations
The initial experiments were aiming to observe and
record how changing daylight conditions are affect-
ing the luminance of the structure in order to use this
information as driving parameter for the later online
control. A series of small aggregate structures were
build and photographed every 30 min in the course
of a day. The structures had a constant orientation,
thus making them exposed to direct sunlight only for
a few hours, when the significant luminance changes
were happening. As the rest of the day the aggre-
gates are filtering only a reflection light from the sky,
the luminance values were barely changing (Figure
2).
Another important aspect of the initial experi-
ments was the thickness of the structures. Observa-
tions were made with different layer thicknesses in
order to investigate how much layer thickness affects
light penetrations. By starting with layer of 50 cm and
then reducing specific areas to 25 cm, the luminance
on these areas would increase with 50%.
Dome structures
A subsequent sets of experiments was conducted
with dome structures in order to test three-
dimensional luminance effects. The domes were il-
luminated from the outside and photographed from
underneath (Figure 3). Different luminance condi-
tions were analyzed and modification techniques

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 401


were developed in order to adjust the current lumi-
nance of the structures.
To make a modification with a digital manufac-
turing process possible a system for creating target
models was prepared. First a digital representation
of the structure was made and a grid of points was
mapped on it. Every point would act a pixel, holding
luminance information for its location. On that base
different luminance patterns were applied. Lines and
points, representing the linear or punctual subtrac-
tion, were used as identifiers for the greatest mod-
ification. The points on the grid closer to these lo-
cations receive higher luminance values. The further
away from the bright zones the points are, the lower
luminance values they get, creating gradient target
luminance models (Figure 4).
402 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 3
Dome structures:
experiment setup
Figure 4
Target models with
different luminance
patterns
Gripper development
In order to prepare the robot for the work with de-
signed aggregates, an end-effector, able to pick up
and drop the particles, was needed. A pneumatic ra-
dial gripper was provided however the fingers had
to be designed specifically for the geometry of the
aggregates. Different finger geometries were tested
and compared in different parameters. The most im-
portant characteristic was the ability to grab as many
particles as possible and the precision with which
each grabbing was conducted (Figure 6).
Figure 5
Online-controlled
digital
manufacturing:
information flow

Figure 6 togrammetric luminance data which are obtained

Pneumatic radial from a physical aggregate structure. The loop works
gripper equipped in seven subsequent steps: (i) The aggregate struc-
with different ture is illuminated from one side and photographed
fingers for from the other one. (ii) The picture is sent to a
constructing parametric modeling environment, performing the
aggregate photometric analysis and calculating the luminance
structures value for every pixel. (iii) These values are projected
on a digital model of the physical structure, where
pixels are assigned to a grid of points, containing the
data for both the luminance and the coordinates of
the pixels on the physical model. (iv) Then the cur-
rent luminance values are compared to a previously
defined target luminance model. (v) After the maxi-
mum difference is found, the robot receives a com-
Online-controlled digital manufacturing mand with the location of the point, holding this
The next step of the research was the digital man- maximum difference and (vi) subtracts aggregates
ufacturing of aggregate structures with different lu- from this area, using the gripper. (vii) By thinning
minance conditions. For that purpose the robot was the layer, the robot is able to approximate the target
equipped with the pneumatic gripper. value. This process is repeated in a loop until the tar-
The mechanisms of the online feedback model get model is reached as closely as possible (Figure 5).
are essentially based on the evaluation of pho-

Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 403

 Figure 7
Final prototype:
offline construction
process

Figure 8
Final prototype:
online modification
process: (a) Current
image; (b) Current
luminance; (c)
Target luminance;
(d) Kinematics
simulation; (e)
Real-time
implementation.

404 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 9
Picture sequence of
the modification
steps
DESIGN PROPOSAL
The final prototype of the research was a curved wall
structure, entirely built with the online-controlled
robotic construction system developed. The wall is
initially formed offline by the robot picking up aggre-
gates from boxes and placing them within the con-
struction area to form a doubly-curved wall with even
thickness. The dropping points are created according
to the predefined geometry and divided in layer. In
order to build the whole wall the robot moved ca. 12
000 particles and the process took around 10 hours
(Figure 7).
Consequently the structure is modified in order
to modulate the translucency of the wall and to cre-
ate a previously defined graded light quality. The
current light conditions from the photometric sur-
vey (step ii) are compared to goal model leading to a
current maximum difference and modification point,
where the robot is adjusting the thickness of the
wall. The process is repeated until the physical aggre-
gate structure's luminance reaches the target value
within a previously defined threshold of 15-20 units
difference between target luminance and actual lu-
minance. In the prototype presented here, the target
luminance distribution was approximated in about
100 steps, lasting eight hours. A simulation of the
robot's kinematics runs in parallel to the real-time im-
plementation (Figure 8).
The interaction between light and shadows on
the final prototype is heterogeneous in itself as a re-
sult of the material's diversity and the complexity of
the design. In addition, the system developed during
this research was able to amplify the effect of graded
light in a predefined and controlled way (Figure 9).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Aggregate structures filtering daylight like the ones
developed during this research can be used to create
specific light modulations in an architectural struc-
ture. The whole system can be functionally graded
according to the different design requirements.
The method could be further optimized for faster
process and more precise results by attaching sen-
sors to the effector. Distance and touch sensors could
detect real time the behaviour of the material and
ensure that the current movement is not disrupting
the stability of the structure. Optical sensors on the
gripper itself could replace the camera and observe
even the smallest changes in the luminance more ac-
curately.
Further research will focus on modifying the
process during construction itself and on working
with continuous behavior-based rather than goal-
oriented design models. In case of constantly chang-
ing light and environmental conditions the robot
could be programmed to react on these variations
and to continuously adapt its reactions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Tobias Schwinn and
Julian Höll, Institute for Computational Design, Uni-
versity of Stuttgart for their expert support with in-
teractive robot programming as well as Boris Mik-
lautsch, Werkstatt für Architekturfotografie, Univer-
sity of Stuttgart for his advice on photometric tech-
niques.
Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 405
 REFERENCES
Cambou, B. (eds) 1998, Behaviour of granular materials,
CISM Courses and Lectures 385, Springer, Udine
Dierichs, K. and Menges, A. 2012, 'Aggregate Struc-
tures: Material and Machine Computation of De-
signed Granular Substances', AD Material Computa-
tion – Higher Integration in Morphogenetic Design,
March/April(216), pp. 74-81
Dierichs, K., Schwinn, T. and Menges, A. 2012 'Robotic
Pouring of Aggregate Structures - Responsive Mo-
tion Planning Strategies for Online Robot Control of
Granular Pouring Processes with Synthetic Macro-
Scale Particles', Proceedings of the Robots in Architec-
ture Conference 2012, Vienna, pp. 196-205
Doerfler, K., Rist, F. and Rust, R. 2012 'Interlacing - An
Experimental Approach to Integrating Digital and
Physical Design Methods', Proceedings of the Robots
in Architecture Conference 2012, Vienna, pp. 82-91
Duran, J. 2000, Sands, Powders, and Grains: An Introduc-
tion to the Physics of Granular Materials, Springer,
New York
Gravish, N., Franklin, S., Hu, D. and Goldman, D. 2012,
'Entangled Granular Media', Physical Review Letters,
108(208001), pp. 1-4
Hensel, M. and Menges, A. 2006a, 'Eiichi Mat-
suda—Aggregates 01 2003–2004', in Hensel, M. and
Menges, A. (eds) 2006a, Morpho-ecologies, AA Pub-
lications, London, p. 262–71
Hensel, M. and Menges, A. 2006b, 'Anne Hawkins and
Catie Newell—Aggregates 02 2004', in Hensel, M.
and Menges, A. (eds) 2006b, Morpho-ecologies, AA
Publications, London, p. 274–283
Jaeger, H. 2014, 'Toward Jamming by Design', Soft Matter,
11, pp. 12-27
Jaeger, H., Nagel, S. and Behringer, R. 1996, 'Granu-
lar Solids, Liquids, and Gases', Reviews of Modern
Physics, Vol. 68(4), p. 1
Johns, R. L. 2014, 'Augmented Materiality: Modelling
with Material Indeterminancy', in Gramazio, F.,
Kohler, M. and Langenberg, S. (eds) 2014, Fabri-
cate: Negotiating Designing and Making, gta Verlag,
Zuerich, pp. 216-223
[1] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/˜phiscock/astronomy/li
ght-pollution/luminance-case-history.pdf

406 | eCAADe 33 - Fabrication - Applied - Volume 2

Material Studies
Soft Robotics and Emergent Materials in Architecture
Martina Decker1
1
New Jersey Institute of Technology, School of Architecture
1
decker@njit.edu

This paper investigates the potential of soft robotics that are enabled by emergent
materials in architecture. Distributed, adaptive soft robotics holds the promise to
address many issues in architectural environments such as energy efficiency as
well as user comfort and safety.Two examples out of a series of experiments
conducted in the Material Dynamics Lab at the New Jersey Institute of
Technology are being introduced and serve as a vehicle to explore distributed soft
robotics in architectural environments. The design process and project
development methods of the soft robotic systems integrated the fabrication of
working proof of concept prototypes as well as their testing.

Keywords: Soft robotics, Nanotechnology, Smart materials, Flexible electronics,

Adaptive environments

INTRODUCTION - ROBOTICS IN ARCHITEC-
TURE
Robots, that have the ability to perform a multitude
of unique tasks, have enjoyed great attention in art
and design communities in recent decades (Figure
1). In architecture in particular they have been cel-
ebrated for their advanced fabrication capabilities
and they are widely regarded as the ultimate flex-
ible manufacturing tool. KUKA (Keller und Knap-
pich Augsburg) robotics were used in car manufac-
turing when they established Europe's first welding
transfer line, built for Daimler-Benz in the early sev-
enties [4]. Now a technology transfer from indus-
tries such as the automotive industry is being stud-
ied to revolutionize architectural construction pro-
cesses. Solutions for Building construction and main-
tenance are being contemplated from the robotics
standpoint, especially in architecture schools and in-
novative offices like Snøhetta (Paoletti at al., 2013;
Bach et al.,1995; Pigram et al., 2011).
But besides the newly developed architectural
processes that include robotics in the design phase
as well as the creation of architectural elements,
scholars have also been looking at performative, dis-
tributed robotics in the constructed environment.
Early examples of kinetic, responsive and interactive
architectural interventions such as hyposurface [3]
have initiated a conversation that is contributing to
this important research area. Furthermore the rise of
a new prototyping environment that is enabled by
Arduino microcontrollers has accelerated the study
of robotics in architecture greatly.
The seamless integration of robotic systems into
our buildings holds the promise to improve active
and reactive environments that will assist with en-
ergy efficiency of our buildings and improve user
comfort drastically. Distributed adaptive robotic sys-
tems in architecture can support an environment
that can continually negotiate conditions with the
users and their surroundings with a very high spa-
tial resolution. The benefits of such a system lie in
the fact that the robotics could perform without the

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 409


intervention of a programmer or a specialist to me-
diate between all the individual constituencies. The
robotic system will autonomously adapt without re-
lying on preconceived notions of occupant desires or
energy efficiency.
The design for an Adaptive Solar Envelope (ASE)
is such an example that was developed at the Depart-
ment of Architecture at the ETH Zu�rich and it is look-
ing at buildings as dynamic systems that are able to
adapt to changing conditions while taking user satis-
faction into account (Rossi et al., 2012). This research
integrates aspects from robotics, machine learning,
ubiquitous computing, and sustainability in architec-
ture to optimize on site energy production through
a careful positioning of photovoltaic elements. Fur-
thermore it explores the potential to assist conven-
tional HVAC (heating ventilation and air condition-
ing) systems and electric lighting in buildings for en-
ergy conservation. The project takes into account the
user's desire and comfort at the same time.
DISTRIBUTED SOFT ROBOTICS AND EMER-
GENT MATERIALS
Concerns of safety have always been a priority when
it comes to robots operating in the close vicinity of
humans. The caged industrial robotic work cells of-
ten ensure the wellbeing of workers through spatial
separation, while a continued improvement of the in-
teraction protocols paired with ample sensory infor-
mation is making a close encounter between robots
and humans continuously safer (Albu-Schäffer et al.,
2008). By integrating a robotic system in the archi-
410 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
Figure 1
Photos of the
three-minute
performance
entitled "Huang Yi &
KUKA" at
Tabakfabrik. Credit:
Florian Voggeneder
tectural context special attention has to be given to
this topic. One of the approaches to a more risk free
human robot interaction can be found through the
careful selection of materials - in particular materials
that reflect the soft nature of our own bodies.
The subfield of soft robotics represents a pen-
chant for a material centric approach in robotics.
Common robotic systems comprise of hard, stiff and
rigid components that cannot change their shape or
physical properties at the material level. Soft robotics
on the other hand are making use of progress that
has been generated in material sciences and many
other disciplines for the creation of a new generation
of robotics. Aside from the potential of soft robotics
benefitting a secure human robot interaction, soft
and compliant material systems can benefit architec-
ture by utilizing their unique properties to control for
instance the thermal or acoustic environment.
The application of unconventional material sys-
tems lies at the heart of the nascent stages of the very
young field (Iida et al., 2011). Nanotechnology, which
has accelerated the development of new materials
with novel properties, is a key driver in the continuing
evolution of soft robotic elements. Sensors as well as
actuators have to be non-rigid, soft, flexible, elastic,
compliant, deformable, or reconfigurable.
Smart materials (Addington et al., 2005) that
have the ability to respond to an external stimulus
with a material response are a class of materials that
will be instrumental in the creation of soft robotics
due to their unique material behaviors. They can be
for example polymorphic, luminescent, or chromic in
response to electric currents, chemical inputs, pho-
Figure 2
Thermochromic
Leuco Dye at 38°C,
32°C, 20°C, 31°C,
30°C, and 35°C | the
pigments transition
to a clear state at tons of light, or temperature changes. The material properties do not allow us to think of robots as a se-
warm temperatures responses can vary from a change in shape or vol- ries of rigid links with rotational or sliding joints any-
and appear white ume, the emission of light, the production of an elec- more that can be easily described in the language of
due to a polymeric tric current or a change in color. These materials are classic mechanics. Hence experimentation and pro-
encapsulation | sensors and actuators at the same time and can often totyping is and essential tool for the development of
Credit: MDL display their astonishing behaviors without the re- soft robotic systems since the elastic materials used,
liance on conventional energy production, since they can be highly unintuitive and resist conventional sim-
can take advantage of ambient energies in their envi- ulation tools (Rossi et al.,2014).
ronment. Thermochromic substances can react to a
change in ambient temperature with a color change. SOFT ROBOTIC DESIGN PROCESS AND
Leuco dyes (Figure 2) for instance can be engineered
TESTING
at the materials level to display a color such as red
In a studio conducted at the Material Dynamics Lab
or blue for instance at cold temperature and appear
at the New Jersey Institute of Technology the poten-
clear in cold conditions. These pigments that are usu-
tial of soft robotic systems for architectural applica-
ally encapsulated in a polymeric shell can be easily
tions was explored in the spring of 2015. A design
integrated in a material composite and support the
process that integrated prototyping and testing sup-
operations of the soft robotic systems. The performa-
ported the development efforts.
tive characteristics of smart materials behold a great
One of the resulting designs featured a soft
potential to compliment robotic systems, by infusing
robotic system that strives to manipulate sound
the robotic performance with the material's behavior.
propagation in indoor environments (Figure 3). This
The nature of the soft and compliant material

Figure 3
Soft Acoustic Tile |
Credit: MDL, Ryan
Berg, Paulo
Guerreiro, and Jesus
Vasquez

Figure 4
Soft acoustic tile
fabrication steps |
Credit: MDL, Berg,
Guerreiro, and
Vasquez

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 411

 Figure 5
Soft Acoustic Tile |
Arduino Set Up |
Credit: MDL, Berg,
Guerreiro, and
Vasquez

pneumatic, silicone based soft robotic acoustic tile
uses air not only as the actuating mechanism but also
as the material that changes the acoustic properties
of the system. The prototyping efforts were aided by
the soft robotic toolkit [2] that was developed from
research conducted at Harvard University and Trinity
College Dublin for hands-on design courses (Figure
4).
The pneumatic actuators that the acoustic tiles
are comprised of in this project are made of silicone
(Ecoflex® 00-50). The actuators are cast in two parts
and later adhered to each other. The main part is
cast including voids for air chambers that will expand
in the assembly once the pneumatic system is ac-
tivated (Figure 4). The expansion of the individual
components can be controlled through variations in
the thickness of the silicone components or the use
of different types of silicone (Ecoflex® 00-30, Ecoflex®
00-10, Dragon Skin® 30) that have varying degrees of
elasticity. This controls the overall deformation of the
actuator.
The individual actuators change their shape and
volume from entirely flat to slightly convex with a
surface morphology that displays a multitude of pro-
truding air pockets. This particular shape change al-
lows the system to influence the absorption, diffu-
sion and reflection of sound. A hand air pump was
used for the inflation of the system during the ini-
tial actuator testing, while at a later stage the activa-
tion of the design was accomplished through several

Figure 6
Soft Acoustic Tile |
Test Environment:
Deactivated and
Activated System |
Credit: MDL, Ryan
Berg, Paulo
Guerreiro, and Jesus
Vasquez

412 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

Figure 7
Soft Acoustic Tile |
Spectrogram Red:
Deactivated
System, Blue:
Activated System |
Credit: MDL, Ryan
Berg, Paulo
Guerreiro, and Jesus
Vasquez

Figure 8
Soft Frit | Credit:
MDL, Jorge Cruz,
Lauren McLellan,
Anthony Morello,
and Anthony
Samaha

electric pumps controlled by an Arduino microcon-
troller setup (Figure 5).
While the small proof of concept prototype
and test environment (Figure 6) successfully demon-
strated that the sound propagation was manipu-
lated (Figure 7), further research would have to be
conducted to fully explore the potential of the soft
robotic system to influence its environment in real
time.
Another experiment that was conducted at the
Material Dynamics Lab resulted in the design for a
soft frit that was inspired by Hoberman's adaptive
fritting projects [1]. The pneumatic soft robotic ele-
ments (Figure 8) that are envisioned on building fa-
cades strive to control solar heat gain through build-
ing skins. They expand to block sunlight when the in-
terior environment is getting too warm or contract to
allow the sun to penetrate through the glass façade
when the interior room temperatures drop (Figure 9).
The intervention is configured to assist HVAC systems
in buildings to reduce the overall energy consump-
tion that would otherwise be expended to maintain
interior conditions with mechanical means.
Furthermore the actuator design featured a ma-
terial composite that integrates a photoluminescent
material (Figure 10) into the silicone mixture. The

Figure 9
Soft Frit Testing |
Credit: MDL, Jorge
Cruz, Lauren
McLellan, Anthony
Morello, and
Anthony Samaha

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 413

 Figure 10
Repeated
Photoluminescent
Performance of
Phosphorescent
Zinc Sulphide |
Credit: MDL

robotic system can absorb sunlight during the day
and emit photons of light during the nighttime
hours. The use of this smart material can compliment
electric lighting systems.
In the final design the soft robotic system is envi-
sioned to comprise of a multitude of distributed, indi-
vidually activated elements that can operate without
the reliance of conventional energy production. Each
element features a small solar cell that will operate a
low power micro blower, which can inflate or deflate
the individual element.
A third project developed in the studio is called
Soft Barrier (Figure 11). With a series of soft actuators
the robotic system can manipulate thermal transfer
through a soft and compliant skin. Air pockets in the
design can modulate the thermal transfer through
the envisioned architectural application. The pneu-
matic actuators can be controlled individually to in-
flate or deflate. Furthermore the integration of leuco
dyes (such as seen in Figure 2) can change the mem-
branes color to either absorb the energy of the sun or
to reflect it back into the environment. This change
of the material's albedo solely depends on ambient
temperatures.
CONCLUSION
The projects conducted at the Material Dynamics Lab
explored the potential of soft robotics in architecture
through the lens of emergent materials. The final
distributed robotic designs demonstrated the poten-
tial to address many problems such as energy con-
servation or noise reduction in the constructed envi-
Figure 11
Soft Barrier by Dan
Beltran, Michelle
Ghanime, Salma
Mahmood

414 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

 ronment. The fabrication of proof of concept proto-
types was an essential part in the design process and
greatly influenced the final projects. Soft, compliant
and stretchable materials are challenging to plan for,
since their performance does not always allow for in-
tuitive decision-making and resists conventional sim-
ulation software.
Figure 12
Soft Barrier by Dan
Beltran, Michelle
Ghanime, Salma
Mahmood
Furthermore the studies showed that the soft na-
ture of the various designs allows for installations of
distributed robotics in architectural settings in close
proximity to occupants. Soft to the touch and mal-
leable, the material enabled designs do not compro-
mise safety (Figure 11).
The durability and robustness of the materials
over time yet has to be explored in real world archi-
tectural environments. To further the development
of soft robotics in architecture truly interdisciplinary
partnerships that include architects, designers and
representatives from the STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) fields will be essen-
tial. The conducted studio aspired to initiate impor-
tant discussions on the topic and strived to enable a
new generation of architects to be prepared for such
collaborations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my colleague Andrzej Zarzycki
for his support. I would also like to thank the fol-
lowing students for their dedication in the prototyp-
ing and testing efforts: Chris Bartel, Dan Beltran Bel-
tran, Ryan Berg, Jorge Cruz, Michelle Ghanime, Paulo
Guerreiro, Na'Shawn Jordan, Jay Lin, Salma Mah-
mood, Lauren McLellan, Lisa Merz, Anthony Morrello,
Anthony Samaha, Kwadjo Sasu, and Jesus Vasquez.
REFERENCES
Addington, M and Schodek, D 2005, Smart Materials and
Technologies for the Architecture and Design Profes-
sions, Architectural Press, Amsterdam, Boston
Bach, F, Rachkov, M, Seevers, J and Hahn, M 1995, 'High
tractive power wall-climbing robot', Automation In
Construction, 4, pp. 213-224
Iida, F and Laschi, C 2011, 'Soft Robotics: Challenges and
Perspectives', Procedia Computer Science, 7, pp. 99-
102
Paoletti, I and Naboni, RS 2013, Robotics In The Construc-
tion Industry: Mass Customization Or Digital Craft-
ing?, Springer New York LLC, New York
Pigram, D and McGee, W 2011 'Formation embedded de-
sign: A methodology for the integration of fabrica-
tion constraints into architectural design', Proceed-
ings of ACADIA 2011
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 415
 Rossi, D, Nagy, Z and Schlueter, A 2012, 'Adaptive dis-
tributed robotics for environmental performance,
occupant comfort and architectural expression', In-
ternational Journal Of Architectural Computing, 10,
pp. 341-360
Rossi, D, Nagy, Z and Schlueter, A 2014, 'Soft Robotics
for Architects: Integrating Soft Robotics Education
in an Architectural Context', Soft Robotics, 1(2), pp.
147-153
Albu Schäffer, A, Eiberger, O, Grebenstein, M, Haddadin,
S, Ott, C, Wimbock, T, Wolf, S and Hirzinger, G
2008, 'Soft Robotics', Robotics & Automation Maga-
zine, 15(3), pp. 20-30
[1] http://www.hoberman.com
[2] http://softroboticstoolkit.com
[3] http://www.hyposurface.org
[4] http://www.kuka-ag.de/de/

416 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

What and When Is the Textile? Extending the Reach of
Computation through Textile Expression
Felecia Davis1 , Delia Dumitrescu2
1
Pennsylvania State University - School of Architecture - Stuckeman Center for
Design and Computation 2 The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Boras
1
fadav@psu.edu 2 Delia.Dumitrescu@hb.se

The authors of this article argue for 'making time appear' in computational
materials and objects so that it can be used to help people become aware of their
relation to their environments. [Hallnäs & Redström 2001] As more
computational and responsive materials come into play when designing
architectural spaces designers might consider opening up the dimension of time
to 'make time appear' rather than disappear. [Hallnäs & Redström 2001]
Computational materials are materials which transform expression and respond
to inputs read by computer programs. Making time appear can have many uses
particularly in applications where people can be helped by the awareness of
unfolding of time, where the temporality is linked to transformative body
experience rather than project efficiency or collapsing distance. If architects,
designers, engineers and others could begin to consider and use time as a way to
promote reflection then it would be possible to design materials which could
expand human thinking through the material itself.

Keywords: Computational materials, Computational textiles, Aesthetics, Human

computer interaction, Ubiquitous computing

INTRODUCTION temporal and temporary as the weather [Picard 2000]

In the historic development of computational tools
and the internet of things, computational objects
have tended to disappear into our clothing, vehicles,
homes, places of work etc. If designers can figure
out ways of making time appear in many computa-
tional objects then reach of the computation can be
expanded to include other complexities which crit-
ically relate humans to environments. These com-
plexities include human emotion which is the way
in which humans relate and communicate with en-
vironments, other people and animals. Emotion is as
and an important part of human intelligence, health
and well-being. In this paper the authors present one
project which is a group of four large scale respon-
sive knitted tension textile structures. The authors
frame a method of considering time in two intercon-
nected ways. The first is to understand 'what' a com-
putational material is, or in this case 'what' computa-
tional textiles are. The second is to understand 'when'
a computational material is or in this case 'when' a
computational textile is. These two issues open up
a discussion which considers the temporality of ma-

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 417

 terial while designing the material and human affect
elicited by time coded within the material itself.
BACKGROUND OR FRAMING TIME
To argue for making people aware of time or mak-
ing time appear is to engage the problem of peo-
ple's attention. With the proliferation of technolog-
ical devices which demand people's immediate at-
tention calm computing looks at ways in which us-
ing technology can produce calm and comfort as a
human affect.[Weiser and Brown 1996 , Ishii 2008 ]
For and Weiser and Brown this means managing hu-
man attention in the design of computational arti-
facts. They argue calmness can be promoted in com-
putational objects by using people's ability to move
events or things between the foreground and periph-
ery of their attention. Expanding a design's ability to
operate on the periphery of people's attention can
augment a person's ability to be aware of informa-
tion but also heighten calmness. People can choose
to bring that event into the foreground of their at-
tention or not. Weiser and Brown build on Gibson's
concept affordances which they see as typically de-
scribing only the surface of a design. However, if one
looks at Gibson's writing affordance is really to be un-
derstood in relationship to all the senses a human
possesses including, touch, smell, hearing, sight, mo-
tor capabilities and so on which goes beyond an idea
of surface. [Gibson 1966] Ishii's ambient media and
ambient low attention devices were designed to use
the periphery of human attention. This low attention
was garnered by using subtle engagements with the
human senses to impart information. Sound, light,
air flow, water movement made slow environmen-
tal transformations which could make people aware
of important information by using a different level
of sensing to make use of peripheral attention.[Ishii
2008]
Hallnäs and Redström in their work specifically
use sound or hearing as one example of a basic sense
to construct what they call a philosophy of slow tech-
nology in the field of human and computer interac-
tion. Their emphasis for designing technological ob-
418 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
jects is on the "expression of functionality as such
rather than its objectives " [Hallnäs and Redström
2001] They propose three ways to think about de-
signing expressions for slow technology. These are
reflective technology; time technology; and lastly
amplified environments. In designing expression for
reflective technology their philosophy is not so much
about allocating a person's attention to the fore-
ground or periphery, rather their idea stems from a
plan to accommodate reflection on an experience
which happens over time. An exemplary artifact of
this thinking is a doorbell which plays different parts
of a tune each time one rings it so that only by hear-
ing it over many times does one get the entire tune
by putting the tune together in one's mind. A second
critical framework about slow technology expres-
sion is time technologies or technologies that make
time appear where "use reveals a slow expression of
present time." [Hallnäs and Redström 2001] They give
the example of a musical instrument where the mu-
sic produced makes time and it appears through the
expression of the music. The last framework for think-
ing about slow technology expression resides in am-
plified environments which are expanded environ-
ments that amplify reality using computers and other
technologies. [Falk, Redström and Bjork1999]. Here
Hallnäs and Redström give the example of a musi-
cal amplifier which makes it possible to share music
in ways that are not possible without amplification.
For them "The basic challenge is to design settings
that amplify the expressions of a given environment
in such a way that it in practice is enlarged in space
or time." [Hallnäs and Redström 2001]
Löwgren and Stolterman describe digital tech-
nology as a medium which defines temporal and spa-
tial structures in artifacts and enables a way of in-
teracting with them; subsequently, time becomes a
quintessential part when designing an artifact's ex-
periential qualities. [Löwgren and Stolterman 2004].
For Löwgren and Stolterman working with digital
technology, time is material. The way things are per-
ceived relate time and space through different ex-
pressions that emerge according to how time pres-
 ence is considered and exhibited by the changes in
the materials used. Further, Lundren and Hultberg
develop a framework illustrating different temporal
themes to be used in the design process of interac-
tive artifacts. Accordingly, two major placeholders
appear here: one which refers to the closeness to the
character of the real time-relating to the reality of use,
and the other one which refers to the character of the
defined time by the designer-relating to the level of
control of the author [Lundgren and Hultberg 2009].
An important aspect to be discussed here is how the
design of the temporal structure of the artifact is af-
fected by the material choices. Let us get specific
Figure 1
about a computational material or a computational
The Material
textile for example to develop a framework of mate-
rial in time.
'WHAT' IS A COMPUTATIONAL TEXTILE ?
In Figure 1 'the material' of the computational tex-
tile is shown. For the purposes of exploration, let us
say that 'the material' is a person, a heart monitor,
a cell phone, the cloud to send and receive data, a
laptop, an electronic power system to drive a knit-
ted texture changing textile making up 'the mate-
rial' of the textile and the surrounding environment.
The material can vary, having different combinations
of these elements depending upon a desired end
result. Some elements may appear and disappear
as the material develops and changes. The defini-
tion of the laptop, cell phone, heart monitor and the
cloud as 'material' is a very similar exploration to Pa-
pert's and Vallgårda's & Redström's who see com-
puters as materials. These materials are an 'object
to think with', to use the language of Papert's Mind-
storms, "one that can build a sense of science as in-
quiry, exploration, and investigation rather than as
answers."[Papert 1980, Vallgårda & Redström 2007]
In fact working with textiles as materials proposes a
different method of work in HCI because with tex-
tiles the designer does not necessarily have a pre-
determined use for the material. Design ideas can
come from play with the material, the material is
an interface for thought and connection rather than
serving as a means to an end. [Ingold 2010, Jung
et. al. 2010, Wiberg 2014] Computational textiles as
technological materials can offer a similar expansion
of the space of design opportunities and invention.
[Redstrom 2005] Keeping the relationships open be-
tween all the parts in a technological material can
help create new ideas for use or ways of using that
material. [Redstrom 2005] If technological materi-
als are developed like the material-in-flow formation
model Ingold describes then play with technological
material is critical to understanding what it may be
used for and invention of new uses.
If computational materials themselves can be things
to think with through play then the act of making the
computational material is tied to its expression. The
making of computational materials or textiles is criti-
cal to understanding 'what' is a computational mate-
rial or textile. The invention and free speculation in
computational textiles is found through play across
different domains of craft and abstract knowledge
calling for compositing as a model of making. [Vall-
gårda and Redström 2007] If one looks at the differ-
ent models or ways in which people make computa-
tional textiles it runs from individual exploration to
large teams. Smaller less complicated computational
textiles can be made by one person, however this
person then must possess the skills to author work
in several different domains, knitting or sewing, elec-
tronics and programming for example to develop the
material. A more common situation whether or not
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 419
 the textile itself is handmade requires several minds
at work with the material, so that any discussion of
making is about collaborative making necessitating
communication between the people who are work-
ing on different elements of the material such as knit-
ting and programming the phone, heart monitor or
organizing an power system for the material. Ulti-
mately this collaborative act of making is part of the
expression of the material.
'WHEN' IS A COMPUTATIONAL TEXTILE ?
One of the most important issues to figure out as a
designer of computational materials is when a mate-
rial takes on a particular state. [Kennedy 2011] What
initiates a state change and how long does that hap-
pen? If a designer is thinking about time with re-
spect to material transformation intended to com-
municate some affect to people then the material is a
real time nexus connecting the environment to peo-
ple. There is a difference between the time we think
about when using transforming material expression
to communicate affect and change a person's emo-
tion through vision and touch for example compared
with a temporality one might use in a textile to shut
out light when the sun is too bright to make our
spaces more energy efficient. One technology the
authors will call fast technology and the other slow
technology. [Hallnäs & Redström 2001] "What is im-
portant to note here is that the distinction between
fast and slow technology is not a distinction in terms
of time perception; it is a metaphorical distinction
that has to do with time presence. When we use a
thing as an efficient tool, time disappears, i.e. we get
things done. Accepting an invitation for reflection in-
herent in the design means on the other hand that
time will appear, i.e. we open up for time presence."
[Hallnäs & Redström 2001] 'When is a textile' relates
to states of the material in specific circumstances that
allow time to appear.
Bergström et. al. call this potentiality of ma-
terial becoming material which is a material in con-
stant and continuous negotiation with its environ-
ment. [Bergström et. al. 2010] This becoming is
420 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
also a characteristic of humans relating their bodies
to the environment. Moment to moment each per-
son's body changes to adjust and respond to events
in place, indeed an elemental definition of emotions
is the adjustment of the body to its environment or
change in bodily expression which is necessary to
survival. [Damasio 2000, Darwin 1872/1998, Gibson
1966, Picard 2000] When people see, feel or touch
a material they are already interconnected with that
material, it is communicating to them through their
senses and their senses give a feedback about that
experience. Bergström's term becoming may be seen
as human becoming, for perception and material-
ity are connected together. Textility as described by
Ingold weaves the forces of material formation and
shaping with the senses of the body to make ma-
terial expression. [Ingold 2010] Textility is an inter-
weaving of bodily and material transformation which
reads and creates expression. Emotion felt or com-
municated through interaction with material is a tex-
tility of emotion which reads and creates emotions.
[Davis 2015] Creating the 'when' for reflection, affect
or emotion requires understanding this reading and
creation of expression though people.
When making computational materials which
use skills found in multiple disciplines designers of-
ten use the idea of a script to understand the pos-
sibilities of transforming materials in advance of de-
ployment. [Bergström et. al. 2010] The script is an
informal written or rough sketches on paper by a per-
son or lead group who has an idea. The script in
one way could be considered as an abstract imposi-
tion of form onto material, however it is difficult to
even make a script without having had some feed-
back from the material about how it could behave
and affect people before making the script. Finding
out when the textile will respond is dependent upon
lots of experimentation, play and reflection. 'What'
and 'when' is a textile frames computational textile
expression as a linked human/material transforma-
tion in time.
Figure 2
Patterning with
Heat Exhibition :
opening and closed
yarns make up
knitted tension
structures. 1. Tube
in Tube_Pemotex
and silver coated
copper 2. Radiant
Daisy_Pemotex and
Stainless Steel 3.
Stainless Steel FOUR TEXTILE TENSION STRUCTURES collecting foreground and background through the
Tube_ Grilon VLT As an example of these two concepts about material qualities of the material. The second material has
and Stainless Streel in time for reflection the author presents 4 knitted been designed with yarn that shrinks or closes into
4. Pixelated tension tubes which respond to presence. As exam- solid lines in the fabric when it receives current. The
Reveal_ Grilon VLT ples the knitted textile tension tubes operate as artis- shrinking reveals a more opaque patterning in the
and Polyester tic exploration of material expression which can be textile closing parts of that textile off, transforming
Monofilament, used for making time appear.The materials in this pa- the material and the quality of space framed by that
Silver Coated per were developed as an experiment to understand material. Figure 3 shows the opening yarn on the left
Copper what transforming material expression could do . The and shrinking yarn on the right.
4 tubes were done as a collaboration between the
Figure 3 two authors at the Swedish School of Textiles in Bo-
Opening or ras, Sweden and presented in an exhibition tilted Pat-
breaking yarn left. terning with Heat at MIT Keller Gallery. [Davis and Du-
Shrinking or closing mitrescu 2013] Photographs of the exhibition can be
yarn right. seen in Figure 2. Three core design areas set up the
field of potential for how the textile tubes functioned
and how time perception was controlled. These areas
included the material/chemical composition of the
yarns and the structural design of the knit, the elec-
tronic design controlling current through the yarns
and lastly the programming which controls timing.
Each of the 4 tubular structures showed one of two
material responses which were activated by an elec-
trical current. This current irreversibly changed the
Both breaking and shrinking yarns were knitted into
pattern and surface appearance of the material.
four different architectural tension structures for the
The first typology of material developed was pix-
exhibition. These tubes were The Pixelated Reveal
elated, designed with yarn that melts at high temper-
Tube, The Radiant Daisy Tube, The Stainless Steel Tube
ature; accordingly, the fabric opens or breaks when it
and Tube in Tube. Two of the tension tubes in the ex-
receives current. The opening allows designers flex-
hibition, The Pixelated Reveal and The Radiant Daisy
ibility to experiment with see through effects on the
structures were designed and wired to register peo-
fabric, or to 'write' upon the fabric making apertures,
ple's presence in space using proximity sensors. A

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 421

 signal sent by the sensor to the fabric then triggered ing yarn to create what we called 'pixels' which
an opening or closing response on these two tubes. opened when heated by current. The fabric was de-
Two tubes, The Pixelated Reveal and The Radiant Daisy signed so that many different designers could make
will be discussed in detail in this paper. The remain- their own patterns with these pixels. In addition, the
ing two tubes were left unwired and were to show material was designed so that if all the pixels were
the different types of material that could be made open there was still knitted material between the pix-
responsive employing the opening or closing yarn els to hold the structure in tension. Please see Figures
technique. These remaining tubes will not be dis- 4 and 5.
cussed in detail in this paper.
Figure 4
The material for the tension tubes in the exhibit
Pixelated Reveal
was designed on two different industrial knitting ma-
Knit Fabric
chines at the Swedish School for Textiles, Univer-
sity of Boras, in Boras Sweden. The authors had the
skilled help of two technicians to test our yarn selec-
tions and knit structures on these machines. The first
machine used was a circular knitting machine that
could produce tubular shapes that had the same di-
ameter along its length. This machine was capable
of knitting with quite stiff stainless steel and metal
yarns to make our tubes conductive. The second
machine used was a double needle bed flat knitting
machine that could make tubes by knitting the two Figure 5
sides together. This machine was developed for knit- Close up of
ting socks, gloves and pants therefore it was able to Pixelated Reveal
vary the diameter of the tube along its length. This fabric pixels open
machine was also capable of making closed knitted left, pixels closed
shapes, in addition to being capable of knitting with right.
metallic yarns.
During the fabric manufacture the authors
tested two yarns in combination with conductive
yarns to develop materials that either opened up the
fabric or closed and became opaque. These yarns
were Grillon VLT which when heated to 60C breaks,
and Pemotex ®, which shrunk 40% when heated to
90C. Patterns were made in materials that included This geometric structure is made up of conductive
these two yarns by sending current in conductive yarn and melting yarn using a tubular Jersey struc-
yarns to specific areas along the knitted structure ture. The pattern is formed of 4 courses of textur-
that activated these two yarns. ized polyester yarn, monofilament, 1 course of melt-
ing yarn or GRILLON VLT ® and 1 of conductive yarn.
Pixelated Reveal Textile The two courses made by the conductive yarn and
The Pixelated Reveal tension structure was made on melting yarn are knitted every 4 stitches which leaves
the circular knitting machine with the opening yarn. floats on the textile reverse side. Thus, when the
The material was designed with small stripes of melt- melting yarn is heated it disappears from the area

422 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

 where it is stitched in the textile structure. This struc- nected to a proximity sensor in the exhibition, but the
ture may be seen in Figure 6. authors discovered it was very difficult to control the
response with many people in the room in an exhi-
Figure 6 bition situation and could only get a small sample to
Close up of operate.
Pixelated Reveal The programming for Pixelated Reveal was de-
fabric pixels open signed to receive a signal from the proximity sensor
left, pixels closed and then send current to open up one 10cm area of
right. pixels. Each time a person was sensed near the tube
the next line of 10cm pixels would open until the en-
Figure 7 tire pattern was revealed. Once a person was sensed
Choreograhphic 10cm of pixels opened up over 8 seconds. Figure 8
drawing for the shows the set up for the Pixelated Reveal Tube in the
Pixelated Reveal gallery space.
tension structure
Time in the Pixelated Reveal
The intention in The Pixelated Reveal tube design is to
make time appear via both rapid and slow changes
in the texture. The rapid change in the fabric ap-
pears dramatically because 5 pixels are activated at
Figure 8 once in an interval of 10 seconds. Figure 7. shows
Set up of the the author's choreographic drawing which helped
Pixelated Reveal them as designers understand the different possibili-
Fabric ties of expression in time with this material, however
this drawing could only be done after playing with
or testing smaller material samples which had differ-
ent numbers of knitting stitches for conductive and
melting yarn. Supporting this rapid change are yarns
which react instantly to heat transformation the ge-
ometry of which the authors experimented with. The
two sensors placed on the top of the piece activate
every 5 pixels of the helix at every movement. The
sensors are activated by a person standing at approx-
imately 30cm or fairly close to the tube. Figure 8
shows this set up. The changes in expression are de-
The Pixelated Reveal structure was wired to open a
pendent upon real-time movement in space by a per-
small 10 cm area of pixels at a time in a spiraling fash-
son around the textile tube. In The Pixelated Reveal
ion up the tube. Each 10 cm line of pixels was given
tube the pixels can open in a faster rhythm due to the
current through a microcontroller via a positive or
fact that they can be activated by two or more per-
negative cable at either end. The conductive yarn
sons moving simultaneously. The changes in the tex-
was continuous and circular in the tube and had to
tile pattern accumulate in time due to the irreversible
be cut at each end of the reactive area to ensure that
character of the yarns. Over time the intention of the
the current only went to that area. Figure 7 shows
reveal, was a registration of presence of people which
the fabric of the tube unrolled. The material was con-

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 423

 would result in a lengthening of the tube in height,
and reduction of the opacity of the tube as the pix-
els opened stitches. It is this slower accumulation of
smaller rapid changes that makes time appear in the
textile.
Radiant Daisy Textile
The Radiant Daisy tension structure was knitted on
the circular knitting machine with Pemotex or the
shrinking yarn which made patterns by making fab-
ric areas opaque. This material starts out as a trans-
parent volume which when activated by heat closes
the cells defined along horizontal bands in the struc-
ture. The textile when patterned can be used to cre-
ate closed areas in a surface. The structure is formed
by 5 courses of Pemotex yarn using a tuck pattern and
a stainless steel yarn knitted as single jersey every 6th
course. The Pemotex ® shrinks 40% at 90C, which is
the maximum heat put onto it. Figures 9 and 10 show
424 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
the fabric of the Radiant Daisy tube.
The pattern we selected to show was a large
daisy on the tension tube. The conductive stainless
steel yarn, which was continuous in the knit cylinder,
was cut to make the daisy pattern. Current was run
to activate these cut areas using positive and nega-
tive cables attached to a microcontroller. The micro-
controller received signals from a proximity sensor.
When a person was near by the tube, the sensor sent Figure 9
a signal to the material via the microcontroller and Radiant Daisy Tube
heated up one petal of the daisy. Figure 11 shows the Fabric
choreographic drawing for the Radiant Daisy pattern.
Figure 10
Close Up of the
Radiant Daisy Fabric
This specific textile structure had much higher resis-
tance compared to the Pixelated Reveal material. The
pattern was constructed with a parallel circuit, be-
cause it was a higher resistance material. The ends
conductive line defining the daisy petal had to be
sewn to its neighbor by hand with conductive thread,
taking much more preparation time than The Pixe-
 lated Reveal.
After tension was applied to the material the re-
sistance went up and we were not able to activate the
tube hanging in the exhibition space. Smaller sam-
ples laid upon a table were able to respond, however
it is possible that this particular knit and structure has
a maximum tension limit to perform.
Figure 11
Radiant Daisy
Choreography
drawing
The programming for The Radiant Daisy was written
so that the microcontroller received a signal from the
proximity sensor and then sent current to make one
petal of the daisy opaque. Each time a person was
sensed near the tube the next petal would become
opaque until the entire daisy pattern was revealed
through opacity. Figure 12 shows the set up for the
Radiant Daisy tube in the space.
Figure 12
Set up of the
Radiant Daisy Fabric
Time in the Radiant Daisy
The Radiant Daisy is designed with time as expression
of reflection, once the sensor on the wall senses peo-
ple's presence close to the textile piece; the pattern
starts to grow by slowly activating each line within 12
seconds. Figure 12 shows a choreographic drawing
which helped the author's design the temporal inter-
actions for this material. The programming is done
so each line activates in 12 seconds and then stops
until another movement occurs to activate the next
line. The change in the textile is discrete so one needs
to stop to visualize the change. The dynamic of the
textile expression depends upon the real-time spa-
tial interactions which occur in a natural order. The
changes in the textile pattern accumulate in time due
to the irreversible character of the yarns.
CONTRIBUTIONS
The contributions made by the authors of this pa-
per are a framework for considering the temporality
related to designing computational materials which
make time appear. The authors have identified 2 in-
terrelated concepts about time 'what' and 'when' is
a textile frame computational textile expression as a
linked human/material transformation in time. The
authors have presented work from an exhibition ti-
tled Patterning by Heat: Four Responsive Tension Struc-
tures as an example of these 2 temporal concepts.
More specifically they have presented the process
of making and designing these computational tex-
tiles to show how material selection, the structural
design of the knit, electronic design and program-
ming, present different gradations of time which can
be used to make time appear in human interaction
with the computational textile.
The authors would like to thank Mika Satomi for
her assistance with programming the textiles and
master knitters, Tommy Martinsson and Christian
Rodby at the Swedish School of Textiles in Boras Swe-
den.
REFERENCES
Bergström, J., Clark, B., Frigo, A., Mazé, R., Redström, J.
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 425
 and Vallgårda, A. 2010, 'Becoming materials: mate- Weiser, M. and Brown, J.S. 1996, 'Designing calm technol-
rial forms and forms of practice', Digital Creativity, ogy', PowerGrid Journal, 1(1), pp. 75-85
21(3), pp. 155-172 Wiberg, M. 2014, 'Methodology for materiality: Interac-
Damasio, A. R. 2000, The Feeling of What Happens: Body, tion design research through a material lens.', Per-
Emotion and the Making of Consciousness, Random sonal and Ubiquitous Computing, 18(3), pp. 625-636
House, New York
Darwin, C. 1872/1988, The Expression of the Emotions in
Man and Animals, Oxford University Press, New York
Davis, F. 2015 'Textility of emotion: a study relating
computational textile textual expression to emo-
tion', Creativity and Cognition, Glasgow, U.K.
Davis, F. and Dumitrescu, D. 2013, Patterning by Heat: Re-
sponsive Textile Structures Cattalogue, MIT School of
Architecture and Planning Press, Cambridge, MA
Falk, J., Redström, J. and Bjork, S. 1999, 'Amplifying Real-
ity', in Gellerson, H.W. (eds) 1999, Handheld and ubiq-
uitous computing. Lecture notes in computer science
No. 1707, Springer, Heidelberg, pp. 274-280
Franz, G. and Papert, S. 1988, 'Computer as material:
Messing about with time', Teachers College Record,
89(3), pp. 408-417
Gibson, J.J. 1966, The senses considered as perceptual sys-
tems, Houghton Mifflin, Oxford
Hallnäs, L. and Redström, J. 2001, 'Slow technol-
ogy–designing for reflection', Personal and ubiqui-
tous computing, 5(3), pp. 201-212
Ishii, H. 2008 'Tangible Bits: Beyond Pixels', Proceedings of
the Second International Conference on Tangible and
Embedded Interaction (TEI'08), Bonn, Germany, pp.
xv-xxv
Jung, H., Altieri, Y.L. and Bardzell, J. 2010 'SKIN: Design-
ing aesthetic interactive surfaces', Tangible, Embed-
ded, Embodied Interaction TEI], pp. 85-92
Kennedy, S. 2011, 'Responsive materials', in Schröpfer, T.
(eds) 2011, Material design: informing architecture by
materiality, Birkhauser and Walter de Gruyter
Lundgren, S. and Hultberg, T. 2009, 'Time, temporality
and interaction', Interactions, July & August , pp. 34-
27
Löwgren, J. and Stolterman, E. 2004, Thoughtful Inter-
action Design. A Design Perspective on Information
Technology, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA
Papert, S. 1980, Mindstorms: Children, computers, and
powerful ideas, Basic Books Inc., New York
Picard, R. 2000, Affective computing, MIT Press, Cam-
bridge, MA
Redström,, J. 2005, 'On technology as material in design',
Design Philosophy Papers, 3(2), pp. 39-54
Vallgårda, A. and Redström, J. 2007 'Computational com-
posites', Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on hu-
man factors in computing systems, pp. 513-522

426 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

Extending the Perception of Wood
Research in Large Scale Surface Structures in Wood

Jessica Hunter1 , Alexandra Cheng2 , Thomas Tannert3 ,

Oliver Neumann4 , AnnaLisa Meyboom5
1,2,3,4,5
The University of British Columbia
3
www.civil.ubc.ca/faculty/thomas-tannert 4,5 www.sala.ubc.ca
1,2
{ja.hunter13|aahcheng}@gmail.com
3
thomas.tannert@ubc.ca 4,5 {oneumann|ameyboom}@sala.ubc.ca

Architects have a renewed interest in surface structures and the renewable

resource of wood, along with advanced digital design, analysis and machining
techniques, offers a way of manifesting these forms. Wood is easily machined and
has bending properties that lead to the ability to form curves. This paper looks at
the properties of wood, informing design through its material characteristics. The
research presented here contributes to this discourse through the development of
large scale timber shell structures. We propose hyper efficient structures made
out of laminated wood products to provide a new solution to long span
construction while satisfying the demand for agency in form generation.

Keywords: Parametrics, Surface structures, Wood design, Form finding

INTRODUCTION ments in engineered wood products, timber has the

The architect's fascination with surface structures
dates back to time immemorial, though the domes
and vaults of the Gothic and Renaissance periods
are some of the most admired examples. These sys-
tems combine aesthetic desire and utilitarian neces-
sity by concurrently performing structural, expres-
sive, and material operations. As scientific knowl-
edge and modeling methods have advanced over
the last century, domes, vaults, and variations on
these systems have become simultaneously more re-
fined and increasingly complex. This progression is
illustrated by the extension of techniques and tech-
nologies utilized in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, Saari-
nen's TWA Terminal, and finally Toyo Ito's Funeral
Hall. Given emerging technologies and advance-
potential to be manipulated into systems that facil-
itate curved and irregular forms, allowing wood to
provide an alternative to its steel and concrete pre-
decessors.
The research presented herein combines the ge-
ometric logic of surface structures with the sustain-
able benefits of wood construction to establish a new
strategy for creating free-form, long span construc-
tions. This project straddles the worlds of the digital
and physical, the architect and the engineer, using
each to inform the other through a co-rationalized
approach (Maher). The research addresses a vocab-
ulary of structural typologies through an interdis-
ciplinary study of global geometries, and then the
implicated local conditions of the building compo-

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 427

 nents through detailed drawings, integrated para-
metric models, and physical timber prototypes. The
work presented is used to identify productive areas of
future research and to establish strategies for indus-
try use of timber surface structures.
MEANS AND METHODS
Establishing Material Parameters
The freedom and degree of power afforded to archi-
tects by new digital tools facilitates an understand-
ing of materials in greater detail. With this knowledge
the material parameters, machining limitations, and
natural behaviours provide information for generat-
ing new designs, an approach to design termed 'Ma-
terial Computation' by Achim Menges. Our investiga-
tions take this logic and apply it to planar and nonpla-
nar applications of mass timber products.
At the initial stage of research it was established
that all investigations would utilize laminated engi-
neered wood products: glulam, cross-laminated tim-
ber (CLT), laminated veneer lumber (LVL), and ply-
wood are all examples of this. CLT and plywood pan-
els are characterized by alternating laminations of
wood which provide high bi-axial in-plane strength
and shear resistance. As such, these panels are anal-
ogous to a precast concrete slab and have similar de-
sign potential. Nevertheless, while orthotropic mate-
rials like timber have complex behaviour, CLT is even
more so, due to its alternating laminations. As the
material properties modeled are specific to the struc-
tural typology being applied, because each typology
forces the panels to respond differently to loading
conditions, the applicable material parameters will
be discussed in following sections.
Establishing Structural Typologies
Following a survey of contemporary long span sur-
face structures, we have focused on the following
two typologies: folded plate structures (built from
planar components) and continuous shell structures
(built from components with a double curvature).
These typologies, largely explored in concrete and/or
steel construction previously, are explored as global
428 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
geometries and as full scale building components.
The global investigations, derived from structural
analysis and material research, consider aesthetic,
spatial, and structural implications of the timber pro-
posal. The full scale building components are tested
through detailed drawings and physical prototypes
to determine the feasibility of the proposals as it re-
lates to current industry standards and expectations.
(Fig. 1)
Figure 1
Two surface
structure typologies
are identified for
timber
investigations
Evaluating Geometries: A Co-Rationalized
Approach
Once the role of the classical architect was divided
into two distinct bodies - the architect as aestheti-
cian and the engineer as technician - disconnect be-
tween the sibling professions ensued to the detri-
ment of each. Structure is essential to architecture,
but relegated to a reactionary role, the structure
must accommodate geometry which has been pre-
rationalized without it. This disconnect makes the
development of surface structures difficult; surface
structures require a constant feedback loop between
design intent, structural ramifications, and design de-
velopment. Computational tools now enable both
disciplines to perform at levels that were previously
impossible, but a complete and iterative integration
between the two fields has been slow to develop. Ar-
chitectural and structural model integration would
not only accelerate the design process but enable in-
formed innovation. It has been the objective of this
research to integrate these processes through a co-
rationalized approach, in which the roles of the archi-
tect and the engineer blur, in order to evaluate the
global geometries of the structural typologies pre-
sented here.
Rhinoceros (commonly referred to as Rhino) is
a 3D modeling software that generates lines and
surfaces using NURBS algorithms. These algorithms
originated in the aerospace and automotive indus-
tries as a means of conveying curved geometries to
numerically-controlled fabrication machines which
could be easily adjusted by changing algorithm co-
efficients and parameters. In contrast, the CAD soft-
ware developed for building design were vector-
based and intended only to simulate hand drafting:
the numerical process by which lines were generated
were kept hidden from the user.
Grasshopper, a Rhino plug-in, provides a visual
programming language in which these NURBS algo-
rithms and parameters are displayed as components
and 'wired' together into generative networks, by-
passing the drafting user interface altogether and
permitting direct manipulation of these algorithms
according to the designer's prerogative. Propri-
etary Grasshopper plug-ins provide additional com-
ponents which model a wide variety of phenomena,
such as moving populations, energy usage, climate,
fluid flows, or physical forces. These plugins can also
integrate the model with other software. For the pur-
poses of this project global geometries were eval-
uated through an automated iterative process be-
tween Grasshopper in Rhino and the Finite Element
Modelling (FEM) software Robot Structural Analysis
via the proprietary Grasshopper plugin Geometry
Gym. This valuable plugin establishes a live feed-
back loop between architectural geometry and struc-
tural performance, not only providing rapid evalua-
tion but also vividly illustrating those structural cri-
terion which limit, and those which can be exploited
further.
FOLDED PLATES: TIMBER SURFACE STRUC-
TURES FROM PLANAR COMPONENTS
The stunning spaces rendered with the use of folds
as seen in projects such as FOA's Yokohama Pier
Port Terminal (2002) or the United States Air Force
Academy Cadet Chapel by Skidmore, Owings and
Merril (1962) are in fact only simulacrums of surface
structures approximated with trusses. In our research
folded plate surface structures provide the stiffness
of a truss without an artificial skin, but require close
collaboration between architects and engineers to
manifest, hence their candidacy for a co-rationalized
design approach.
There are two major barriers between the imple-
mentation of folded plate structures and the build-
ing design industry. The primary issue is one of man-
aging geometries; even with the advent of computer
modeling, folded plate geometries are complex and
difficult to modify. These geometries pose prob-
lems both to the architect - who needs to be able to
quickly manipulate and iterate through geometries
as constraints and programmatic requirements sur-
face - and to the engineer, who needs to evaluate
these geometries analytically. Difficulties related to
sharing models between disciplines further compli-
cated the matter. The second issue is one of construc-
tion; there is an expectation that these complex ge-
ometries are onerous to fabricate, that difficult join
designs are necessary, or that construction is exceed-
ingly troublesome. In our evaluation of folded plate
geometries we address these concerns using a com-
bination of digital modeling and physical prototyp-
ing.
Investigations of Global Geometries
The initial step of this exploration was to establish
a digital workflow for managing folded plate struc-
tures that facilitates a co-rationalized approach. This
problem is two-fold: the workflow must allow for
easy management and manipulation of plate geom-
etry while also simultaneously implicating the struc-
tural ramifications of design changes. In early stud-
ies geometric explorations were perused in Rhino via
Grasshopper that gradually increased in complexity.
The parametric nature of these explorations begin
to build a platform for design management that has
previously been lacking.
The initial explorations were organized into two
typologies: parallel and diagonal folds. Within each
of these categories, flat walled and folded wall op-
tions were explored. In our next exploration the
Grasshopper models were expanded to apply the
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 429
 fold logic to a single surface (the intended global ge-
ometry), in which the number of pleats generated
in both the x and y direction can be reduced or in-
creased per the design teams intent. This model was
then linked with an FEM software so that the system
could automatically increase or decrease the depth
of the pleat fold based on the structural necessities
of the global geometry. (Fig. 2)
430 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
Once the fold was linked to the global geometry
and to the resulting structural depth, a series of open-
ings and fenestrations were applied. The algorithms
used in this process take into account the structural
analysis of the global geometry and generate a pat-
tern of openings based on local conditions. In the
studies shown, openings were incorporated in the
centres or corners of the panels. (Fig. 3, Fig. 4)
Through these preliminary studies, an integra-
tion of Rhino, Grasshopper, and FEM software was Figure 2
accomplished and a co-rationalised design approach Folded plate logic
established that would facilitate the management distributed across a
and manipulation of geometry. This provides a pos- global geometry
sible platform for future design teams, consisting of
designers and engineers alike, to design with and
evaluate folded plate structures.
Material Specifics
If an orthotropic material like timber is akin to a bun-
dle of straws, then CLT is like a woven mat, and is of-
ten modeled in engineering literature as small struc- Figure 3
ture in itself. It is not enough to assume generic tim- Folded plate
ber qualities for a whole panel: cut at angles, the structure with
panel will sag slightly, like a textile. Unfortunately en- material removal in
gineering design guides provide no guidance for ex- the center of the
traordinary geometries, nor is there widely available panel according to
experimental data on the same for reference. stress distribution
Hence, to establish the theoretical structural be- in the structure
haviour of a folded CLT plate, material equations de-
scribing properties of individual laths (Hankinson),
lath layers and the panel as a whole (Gagnon) (Fell-
moser) were combined and then written into a cus- Figure 4
tom Grasshopper using the coding language Python. Folded plate
This component, along with additional structural de- structure with
sign criteria (CSA O86-09,2010), were integrated with material removal at
a Grasshopper script which morphed the geometry the panel corners
of an individual panel into different shapes and orien- according to stress
tations, effectively creating a simulated testing space. distribution in the
The link with Robot provided structural responses structure
for a band of angles and shapes, thereby identifying
the worst case loading angle condition: about 75° to
the exterior layers, rather than 90° as stated in most
guidelines. It is this value which was used as the ma-
terial property for all subsequent folded plate itera-
tions.
This was a conservative assumption, yet pre-
liminary simulated test panels with the geometry
of the folded panel elements satisfied performance
criteria for deflection. Additionally, the integrated
Grasshopper model was used to study the structural
response to geometric morphologies and mutations.
In this manner we developed guidelines for permis-
sible bands of lamination orientations, panel dimen-
sions, fold angles, and spans.
Testing the Local Condition
The benefit of the folded plate typology when con-
sidering the use of mass timber is that the local com-
ponents are inherently planar; this reduces the mod-
ifications necessary to standard products available to
the industry today. However, an investigation into
the limitations of this system at the local scale is piv-
otal to the discussion of folded plates as a feasible ty-
pology. This investigation considers primarily fabri-
cation issues, as well as the implications of structural
connection detailing.
In addition to playing a central role in aesthetics
and assembly, joint design is critical to both local and
global structural behaviour. Structural joint design
imposes geometric limitations, varying with connec-
tion type and design code, a process which has sig-
nificant ramifications for the generation of complex
architectural forms; that is, in the case of folded wall
assemblies, minimum member dimensions and an-
gles are limited by connection spacing requirements.
Different systems also provide different degrees of
load and moment transfer, ease of installation and
disassembly, and versatility. Several connection sys-
tems were considered, including glued-in plates and
interlocking clips, but their application was restricted
by the additional manufacturing requirements of the
former and the geometric limitations of the latter.
Self-tapping wood screws are not only easy to insert
but also to procure, provide a high-capacity connec-
tion, and hence were the fastener of choice in this de-
sign.
A Grasshopper model integrated with Robot
was also used to develop the connection schedule
for self-tapping screws. An algorithm was scripted
which dissected meeting edges according to spacing
requirements for self-tapping screws (ETA-11/0190)
and then isolated different connection points accord-
ing to a variable frequency. As each pair of crossed
screw connections had a known unit capacity, the
frequency of connections along each seam could be
tuned to satisfy design loads. This tuning process
was done using Galapagos, a genetic solver optimiza-
tion component which automates iterative analysis
for any black-box function with a target value.
Fabrication of a Prototype
(Fig. 5)
Following our study of the material and joint de-
sign implications of a CLT folded plate system, a pro-
totype was constructed to test our hypothesis of ma-
chine and assembly constraints. Because our pri-
mary interest was to test the fabrication process, Rus-
sian Birch Plywood was used in substitution for CLT.
Though smaller, plywood has bi-directional proper-
ties akin to CLT and furthermore reduced the scale
to be within physical perception, a quality which in
a digital age should not be underappreciated. A se-
ries of rationalizations took place to account for the
standard panel size and thicknesses of Russian Birch
Plywood; the prototype would need to facilitate the
efficient use of 4'x8' panels.
A material thickness of 1 ½" was required to ac-
commodate the self-tapping screws without split-
ting the member. While butt joints, finger joints,
and mitered joints were all studied through detailed
drawings, a mitered joint allows for knife edge de-
tailing, emphasizing the thin seam of the fold, while
pairs of crossed screws can pass through the mitered
edge symmetrically, improving the structural rigidity
of the wall. The angle of the fold was further rational-
ized to accommodate the thickness of the material
while facilitating the constraints of machine space.
Based on the facilities available to our research, we
used a ¾" drill bit on a 5-axis CNC which limited the
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 431

depth of the cut to 3½". The angle of the fold also
had to consider the use of self-tapping screws; if the
angle had been more acute, the amount of mate-
rial available to support the screw heads would have
been insufficient to prevent the fasteners from tear-
ing out. Based on these constraints a 7'-0" tall wall
with a 63° partial Yoshimura (anti-prism) origami fold
(Buri) was proposed to be built from 1½" furniture
grade plywood with a mitered joint, connected by
self-tapping screws. Using the automated algorithm
described in the previous section, it was determined
only three cross-pairs of screws were necessary along
each seam.
Once the geometry of the prototype was estab-
lished, the process of machining and assembly could
be tested. First, two sheets of ¾" plywood were lam-
inated together to create the 1 ½" panel thickness
specified. Due to the edge condition of each triangu-
lar component, each piece needed to be machined
individually. To facilitate this, each panel was cut
in half while maintaining a calculated origin for the
432 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
Figure 5
Folded plate wall
prototype
second stage of machining. From there each piece
was machined on the 5-axis CNC and the fastener
locations were pre-drilled and countersunk to facil-
itate accurate assembly. Because each screw was
oriented perpendicular to the panel it was crossing
into, and not perpendicular to the facing panel, pre-
machining these angles was imperative. Addition-
ally, as there were only four component types to fab-
ricate (two sets of mirrored triangular pieces), circu-
lar markers were used to indicate if the panel was a
type I, II, III, or IV. Once machined each component
was quickly sanded with an orbital sander, with at-
tention to cleaning up any tearing along the mitered
edges.
Following the machining and finishing of the
components, the assembly was straight forward. The
components that established the base structure were
fabricated in pairs first as they could simply sit on
their flat edge and be easily fastened. The top pieces
were lifted and held individually and fastened to the
base pieces. Within a few hours the wall was built.
 The prototype established that with appropriate
tools to manage and manipulate the primary geome-
tries of folded plate structures, the machining and
fabrication process can be easily facilitated. Auto-
mated machining with a CNC allows the burden of
complex geometries to be machined with ease and
accuracy. Many of the limitations we ran into were
specific to our facilities and could be eliminated in fu-
ture studies. For example, the depth of the cut along
the seam was limited to 3½" based on our machine
constraints; however, with the use of a wider bit or a
saw function, a deeper cut could be facilitated (which
would be imperative to larger scale studies with true
CLT panels). Future prototypes would pursue test-
ing the implications of true CLT panels in a folded
plate application as well as facilitating irregular folds,
a spanning condition, and the application of a build-
ing envelope to the structural system.
CONTINUOUS SHELL STRUCTURES:
TIMBER SURFACE STRUCTURES FROM
DOUBLY-CURVED CLT
The second structural typology investigated in this
research is continuous timber shell structures. While
the folded plate system assumes the desire to use
wood as a planar material, a continuous shell struc-
ture tests the merit of that assumption by relying on
the bending capacity of wood to facilitate the fabrica-
tion of curved forms. As this typology utilizes a struc-
tural shell in its pure funicular form, the study of the
global geometry was not the challenge. Rather local
geometries and physical prototypes were the focus
of this investigation.
Material Specifics
The challenge of continuous shell structures is estab-
lishing a double curvature. Constructing a double
curvature from a planar material is impossible with-
out cutting, bending, and reconstructing the sheet;
for this reason the majority of precedent continuous
shell structures are constructed from cast-in-place
concrete, yet this does not necessarily mean tim-
ber cannot achieve such forms. Fabricating a dou-
ble curved CLT panel, as opposed to milling a curv-
ing surface from a larger planar panels, sidesteps the
waste and structural issues associated with attempt-
ing the latter.
Owing to their natural flexibility, timber lathes
may be forced into curves, so long as the elastic limit
of the wood is not exceeded; the thinner the lath the
tighter the curve which can be produced. A contin-
uous shell can be very thin: condensed into laths,
the depth required of the linear member to carry the
design loads would cause the lath to rupture before
achieving the desired curve. This issue has been over-
come in timber gridshell projects of note in both ar-
chitectural and structural discourses. First pioneered
by Frei Otto and Arup for the Mannheim Multihalle
(Happold), such research and design has been con-
tinued by Shigeru Ban and Edward Cullinan in con-
junction with Buro Happold (Naicu). These shells use
thin individual laths to permit more severe curva-
tures; once bent, multiple laths are bolted together
so that in composite they provide sufficient strength.
Consider now that curved glulams are fabricated
by clamping the laminations in place until the adhe-
sive has cured. In our own work we have taken the
double-layer composite lath strategy used for timber
gridshells and applied to the layered fabrication pro-
cess of an individual double curved CLT panel. By
constructing the panel out of a series of strips each
plank is only required to bend in one direction while
the double curvature is established by the slight facet
from strip to strip and the gaps produced between
the planks.
Attaining a Double Curvature: Investiga-
tions in Geometry
Single curvature CLT panels are available in Europe,
though rarely produced, while double curvature CLT
panels have no contemporary precedent for refer-
ence. Instead, historic precedents can be found,
not in architecture, but in late 19th and early 20th
century water main and sewer designs, which in
forested areas were built with large timber tubes
made from tightly jointed laths. These likely had lin-
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 433
 eage from the much older shipwright and cooper
(barrel-making) industries. Barrels making tech-
niques, which use tapered laths called staves to pro-
duce double-curvature, provided the baseline geo-
metric logic for double curved CLT panels. (Fig. 6, Fig.
7)
While cross lamination only necessitates that each
plank bend in one direction, straight pieces arrayed
about a curve would produces gaps between the
boards at the edges of the panel. These gaps would
exceed the 3mm limit prescribed by the European
Technical Approval for CLT (ETA-14/0349). In order to
account for this disparity the tapering techniques uti-
lized by traditional coopers were applied to the laths
of each layer. In our application the resulting staves,
widest in the middle and thinnest at each end, com-
pensate for the double curvature and minimize the
glue gap between the planks.
With the lath geometry defined, two types of
continuous shell structures were investigated for the
purposes of this research: a constant shell with a
434 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
singular radius in both directions (a sphere), and a
shell with variable radius (a toroid). In each case
the global geometry was panelized into rectangu-
lar components. From the rectangular surface es-
tablished by the global geometry a custom doubly-
curved cross laminated panel was created.
As with the folded CLT plate assembly, the global
geometry is directly related to the local condition. A Figure 6
series of drawings were produced to illustrate the re- Analysis of
lationship between the thickness of the wood laths, geometry of
the number of laminations, and the maximum cur- laminations in the
vature possible for the local and global geometries. double curved
While the thickness of individual laths was based wood shell
on glulam curvature limits for softwood (CSA O86- structure
2010), the number of laminations, and thus total
panel thickness, was rationalized to accommodate
potential connection systems. The interior layer of
laths were staggered to create slots for jointing with
other curved panels, via either complimentary finger
joints or interior splines fixed with self-tapping wood
screws. (Fig. 8)
Figure 7
Strategies used by
traditional coopers
was utilized to
facilitate the double
curvature
Figure 8
Analysis of radii of
global geometry of
the double curved
shell structure
 Fabrication Prototypes
(Fig. 9)
Following the production of digital models to
test the geometric exploration described above, two
prototypes were constructed as proof of concept. As
with the folded plate typology, it was necessary to
test the process of machining and assembly to see if
the geometric hypothesis could manifest in the phys-
ical world and to see what the implications of fabrica-
tion would be for such an unprecedented construc-
tion.
Douglas Fir was chosen as the material for the
panel as it allows for a direct comparison to regional
CLT manufacturing standards. In order to minimize
material waste and to optimize the fabrication pro-
cess for standard lumber dimensions, the prototype
was designed for 1"x4" planks. At this stage of re-
search, two prototypes have been constructed; the
first (Prototype I) with a singular radius in both direc-
tions and the second (Prototype II) with a variable ra-
dius.
The first step to developing the prototype was to
build a jig that could establish the position of the cur-
vature relative to the planks; the pieces would be as-
sembled on top of the formwork and the constructed
Figure 9
Curvature
established for the
prototype
panel would be removed following assembly. The 5-
axis CNC at our facility provides 11" of vertical ma-
chine space; this dimension was used to establish the
maximum curvature possible for a 4'-0" wide proto-
type (the width of the prototype was established by
available machine space in the horizontal axis and
by the standard width of MDF panels which would
be used in the construction of the formwork). Based
on machine constraints, the maximum curvature for
the singular radius prototype (Prototype 1) was 8'-
4". In order to test the maximum bending capacity
of the material while fulfilling the softwood curva-
ture guidelines, the planks were planed down to a
½" thickness. The jig was then finished with bumpers
along two facing edges. These bumpers allowed for
the bottom lamination to be temporarily fastened
into place so that the second and third laminations
could be glued on top of them. By making these
bumpers removable we could ensure the use of this
jig for as many prototypes as might be desired for fu-
ture investigations.
Each lamination consisted of two plank types;
the edge planks differed from the interior planks in
order to create the square prototype desired. This re-
sulted in six plank types per prototype: two types per
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 435
 lamination, with each lamination differing slightly in Figure 10
length and profile. The planks were then machined Prototypes of
on the CNC (a 3-axis CNC would be capable of this, double curved shell
though a 5-axis was used in our case), and set aside structures
for assembly. It should be noted that the planks for
the bottom lamination were designed with sacrificial
tabs for fixing the base lamination to the jig. (Fig. 10)
The panels were assembled in two stages. The
first two laminations could be assembled in the same
session; the first lamination is temporarily fastened to
the bumpers of the formwork and the second lam-
ination is adhered to the first lamination. In order Figure 11
to simulate the production of standard CLT panels, a Fabrication of the
PVA adhesive (commonly known as carpenter's glue) double curved
was used to laminate the planks together. The first wood shell with
plank was positioned based on the centerline of the different radii in the
formwork and each successive plank was fixed on ei- two directions
ther side in a symmetric fashion toward the edges of
the jig. The bending capacity of the plank allowed
the pieces to be pushed to the formwork by hand
and to be temporarily fastened (in the case of the
base layer) or temporarily clamped (for all successive
layers) while the adhesive set. After 24 hours the Figure 12
clamps of the second lamination were removed and Fabrication of the
the third lamination could be applied, following the double curved
same logic stated above. wood shell with
Prototype II tested the feasibility of a toroid form, different radii in the
this results in a variable radius panel. While the meth- two directions
ods of fabrication mimicked Prototype I, the geome-
try differed. The jig constructed for this exploration
used the same maximum curvature in the short di-
rection (an 8'-4" radius along a 4'-0" prototype) and
based on a 2:1 proportion utilized a 16'-8" radius
along an 8'-0" edge in the long dimension. The top Both Prototype I and Prototype II were successful
and bottom laminations would be oriented in the in confirming the feasibility of a doubly-curved CLT
long direction while the middle planks were oriented panel using the logic of traditional coopering. While
in the short direction to maximize panel stability. the process did require time for each glue lamination
(Fig. 11, Fig. 12) to set, the labor required was not excessive and an
automated processes could be established if the sys-
tem were to be implemented at a large scale. In ad-
dition to the cost of time (necessary for machining
the components and assembling the panel), a small
amount of "bounce back" was seen in both proto-

436 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

types. In future investigations this dynamic would
need to be measured and anticipated for future as-
semblies.
FUTURE RESEARCH FOR TIMBER SURFACE
STRUCTURES
The two structural typologies investigated here
demonstrate the feasibility of constructing long-
span timber surface structures. The work presented
is only a small step in the research required to realize
these systems at a full scale. Areas of future research
identified include both architectural and structural
topics. The design and manufacture of innovative
connections between panels, specifically furniture-
type interlocking clips and those combining adhe-
sive with traditional joinery techniques, warrant in-
vestigation to provide a means of easy installation
of rigid connections applicable to a variety of ge-
ometries and simple erection methods. Developing
more detailed integrated models which anticipate re-
bound deflections are needed to produce more pre-
dictable global geometries. A structural test regimen
on both angle-cut and curved CLT panels would also
provide much needed empirical data for future de-
signs.
CONCLUSION
This co-rationalized research expands the vocabulary
of wood architecture and challenges architects, en-
gineers, and researchers alike to experiment further
with this sustainable material and new design tools.
Developments in technology have outpaced our abil-
ity to realize these forms. The natural properties of
timber, combined with its machinability and ongo-
ing advances in computational design, make it an
ideal material for realizing the digitally facilitated ex-
perimental forms of current architecture.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was made possible by funding from For-
est Innovation Investment of British Columbia.The
fabrication was carried out at the Centre for Ad-
vanced Wood Processing at University of British
Columbia in collaboration with its director, Iain Mac-
donald.The research team consisted of the follow-
ing faculty: Thomas Tannert (Civil), Oliver Neu-
mann (Architecture) and AnnaLisa Meyboom (Archi-
tecture)The research team consisted of the follow-
ing students: Alexandra Chang (Civil), Jessica Hunter
(Architecture), Thomas Gaudin (Architecture), Roy
Cloutier (Architecture)
REFERENCES
Buri, H and Weinand, Y 2008 'ORIGAMI - Folded Plate
Structures, Architecture', 10th World Conference on
Timber Engineering, Miyazaki, Japan
Fellmoser, P and Blass, H 2004 'Influence of rolling
shear modulus on strength and stiffness of struc-
tural bonded timber elements', CIB-W18 (37-6-5), Ed-
inburgh, United Kingdom
Gagnon, S and Pirvu, C 2011, “Structural Design of CLT”
The Cross-Laminated Timber Handbook, Canadian
Ed., FPInnovations, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Hankninson, R.L. 1921 'Investigation of crushing
strength of spruce at varying angles of grain', Air
Force Information Circular No. 259, U. S. Air Service
Happold, E and Liddel, W 1975, 'Timber Lattice Roof
of the Mannheim Bundesgartenshau', The Structural
Engineer, 53(3), pp. 99-135
Maher, A and Burry, J 2006 'The Re-Engineering project',
G. Luhan, P. Anzalone, M. Cabrinha and C. Clarke
(ed.) Synthetic Landscapes Conference Proceedings,
The Association for Computer-Aided Design in Ar-
chitecture, Mansfield, USA.
Menges, A 2012, Material Computation: Higher Integra-
tion in Morphogenetic Design, Academy Press
Naicu, D, Harris, R and Williams, C 2014 'Timber Grid-
shells: Design methods and their application to a
temporary pavilion', World Conference on Timber En-
gineering (WCTE), Quebec City, QC, Canada
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 437
Osteotectonics
Trabecular Bone Structures and Their Adaptation for Customized Structural
Nodes Using Additive Manufacturing Techniques

Daniel Baerlecken1 , Sabri Gokmen2

1,2
Georgia Institute of Technology
1
Daniel.Baerlecken@coa.gatech.edu 2 sabrigokmen@gatech.edu

This paper discusses an approach to adapting trabecular bone structures for the
design of complex architectural components exemplified through structural
nodes. Based on the paradigm shift in additive fabrication, namely the ability to
print structural metals, this paper identifies new methods for architectural and
structural design that allow to create porous, intricate architectural components.
Those components are designed in analogy to bone structures. The paper
presents a metaball-based application, programmed in Processing, which allows
creating n-legged nodes using parametric gradient maps. The approach aims at
reduction of weight and waste, while exploring the novel aesthetic properties of
such bio-constructed networks.

Keywords: Nodes, 3D printing, Bone structures

1. INTRODUCTION: being integrated into various aspects of design fab-

3d printing technology has advanced to print struc-
tural steel and metal components and thereby ad-
vanced from rapid prototyping to actual fabrication:
companies like GE use it for jet engines and medical
devices, Lockheed Martin and Boeing for aerospace
and defense technologies, Aurora Flight Sciences for
aerial vehicles, Invisalign for dental devices, Google
for consumer electronics, and the company LUXeX-
cel for LEDs. Metal printing has been recently used
by Renishaw to produce a 3D printed titanium alloy
bike frame.
Following those advances in additive manufac-
turing technology and metal casting, complex archi-
tectural components can be imagined, designed and
fabricated. As an emerging and constantly devel-
oping field, additive manufacturing technologies are
rication such additive manufacturing using robotics
(Friedman et.al, 2014), formworks (Peters, 2014) as
well as printing structural metal nodes (Crolla, 2014).
While printing technology is anticipated to replace
the production of expensive, highly customized parts
in the near future, it also presents a new field of in-
vestigation that requires new digital modeling and
simulation tools that consider material properties as
well as 3d printing constraints. In this paper these
characteristics will be drawn from looking at trabec-
ular structures , as they can be observed in 3d scans
of bones. Micro-scans of bones show intricate struc-
tural networks and optimized material distribution
that could offer a viable alternative to reconsider the
modeling of architectural nodes.

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 439

 According to ESDEP there are five types of multi
inlet fitting nodes for the design of steel truss struc-
tures. These are plate nodes, folded plate nodes,
cast nodes, extruded aluminum and special work-
ing types, all of which are chosen based on the de-
sign, complexity and types of joints (Figure 1). These
nodes could be joined to other truss members using
either threading, welding or bolting that determine
how the node and member edges will be treated.
While these parameters help define the overall ge-
ometry of the node within a networking structural
system, there is not yet a defined standard for a "uni-
versal node" within the construction industry that
offer a flexible model for the design of structural
nodes.One of the key factors in defining the node ge-
ometry is the amount of parts to be assembled and
the ease of installation. Bolted joints are widely used
when there is ease of access in joinery, while welded
connections are preferred to reduce complexity and
installation time. As structural designs get more
complex, the lack of regularity for mass production
for node geometry requires customizable models,
non-standard fabrication techniques and performa-
tive material compositions. This has been previously
achieved by custom cast steel nodes that offer a solu-
tion to irregularities within steel truss structures that
provide ductile, light weight and weld able solutions
(Figure-1). Using computer technologies for the de-
sign, visualization and fabrication of nodes has been
a focus of wide interest, while customizing multi-inlet
fitting node geometries through 3d printing tech-
nologies has recently been defined as an upcoming
area of investigation (Corella, 2014).
2. TECTONICS OF BONE STRUCTURES
According to Julius Wolff (Wolff, 1892) and his law
of bone transformation (Das Gesetz der Transforma-
tion der Knochen) a bone adapts to loads and forces
that are applied to it: astronauts return with re-
duced bone density after floating in micro-g envi-
ronments and athletes show greater bone mass in
certain body parts that are essential to their perfor-
mance in specific disciplines of sports. This adapta-
440 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
tion is caused by mechanotransduction, which is a
mechanical feedback loop that maintains and opti-
mizes the trabecular architecture by re-modeling and
re-orienting trabeculae in the direction of the me-
chanical loads using biochemical signals. About 25%
of trabecular bone volume is renewed every year (R.
Huiskes et. al., 2000).
Figure 1
Node types
according to ESDEP
(right) and example
of a cast steel node
first exhibited at
OTC Houston, 1976
(left).
Figure 2
CT scan of
trabecular bone
structures showing
rod and plate
structure in
dependency of age
(images from Müller
In micro-tomographic examinations we can also see et al. and Bevill et
that the microstructure of bones changes with age al).
and performance requirements. The trabecular bone
structure of the lumbar vertebrae of a 23-year-old
(Figure.1 middle) and a 76-year-old (Figure.2 right) fe-
male show those changes through aging: The struc-
ture of younger bone shows a higher amount of net-
working and cross-bracing compared to the older
bone, while the smaller connections start to disap-
pear making the bone weaker (Müller et al., 1997). We
can also see that different bones have built specific
networks (Figure.2, left) that are tuned to their differ-
ent load cases (Bevill et al., 2009).
The model presented is based on idealized ge-
ometric models: According to G.L. Niebur and T.M.
Keaveny (2010) there are three different models that
are beam/rod components (Figure 3), image-based
beam and plate models (Figure 3) and CT scan based
models.
Figure 3
Idealized,
2d-Voronoi based
structure with
aging (lost
connections) [1], 3d
Voronoi beam
model with aging
[2], 3d Voronoi
beam and plate
model [3], 3d 2.1 Beam Models
Voronoi beam Beam models are often based on Voronoi algo-
model with aging, rithms (Silva, M.J., Gibson, L.J., 1995) or mesh-based
where beams form approaches using tetrahedral elements (Dagan, D.,
plates (G.H. van Be'ery, M., Gefen, A., 2004). Figure 3.1 shows a 2-
Lenthe et.Al. , 2006) dimensional version of a modified Voronoi structure,
[4] in which connections have been lost due to aging.
Figure 3.2. shows a 3-dimensional version that also
incorporates aging. Both model do not incorporate
the formation of plates, which can be observed in CT
scans.
2.2 Image-based Beam and Plate Models
This method is using individual rods and/or plate
structures with varying thickness. In Figure 3.3 we
can see thickened plates and rods, whereas the
method by G.H. van Lenthe et.Al. uses a series of rods
to create a plane.
2.2 Micro-FEA Modeling
Based on micro CT-scans, this model uses voxel ge-
ometry to develop finite element meshes. Two meth-
ods can be highlighted: a direct method that con-
verts each voxel into an eight-node hexahedral fi-
nite element or a more indirect method, which tri-
angulates the surface through a marching cubes al-
gorithm and fills it with tetrahedral elements (G.L.
Niebur et. Al. , 2010).
3.OSSIFICATION AND VOLUMETRIC DATA
While most of the research in bone structures relies
on micro-tomographic scans of acquired trabecular
structures, the organic tissue is represented via ab-
stract components such as beam models, plate mod-
els or volumetric data all of which capture different
aspects of the structural network, material distribu-
tion and geometrical properties (G.L. Niebur and T.M.
Keaveny, 2010). Yet, bone structures arise simply out
of solid-void relationships that capture continuous
surfaces that feature changing topological forms and
thicknesses. Since bone tissue is configured through
anastomosis and skeletal pneumaticity (air spaces),
it shows an organic complexity that could only be
fully captured via an isosurface representation. One
of the isosurface techniques to represent organic ge-
ometries is the meta-ball method that uses positive
and negative volumes to calculate the boundary of
an object (Blinn, 1982). Given a volumetric or pixel
space, meta-balls visualize a Gaussian potential field
that is filtered with a threshold value that divides any
given area into two sets - as solid and void spaces
(Figure-4). While bone tissue could be regarded as
positively charged particles that have a tendency to
join (Figure-4, 1), the air spaces between the parti-
cles repel the surface (Figure-3, B) thus pushing the
threshold value closer to the positive particles. When
both particles are combined, meta-balls yield to pre-
cise geometric representation of isosurfaces with os-
teotectonic qualities.
There are numerous advantages to using meta-
balls to visualize bone-like geometries. Firstly, meta-
balls could capture the anastomotic behavior of
bone tissue through threshold values that controls
the thickness of the isosurface. Secondly, meta-
balls offer a dynamic quantization and parametriza-
tion of any given volumetric space through the us-
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 441

age of positive and negative charged particles. Fi-
nally, meta-balls could generate isometric surfaces in
three-dimensions to facilitate watertight mesh mod-
els that are suitable for further 3d-printing, manufac-
turing and finite-element analysis.
The usage of meta-balls in our implementation
combines the positive particles (bone tissue) and
negative particles (air spaces) to produce a con-
nected three-dimensional volumetric representation
of a node with any given customizable configuration.
While the node is at first generated as a solid vol-
ume, the air spaces are sampled as particles around
and inside the node to reduce structure and create
changing networks and topological plates. This way
the meta-ball implementation is able to capture the
essence of both beam and plate models used in rep-
resentation of trabecular structures while offering dy-
namic control of parameters for the quantization of
solid and void material.
4. OSTEONODE GENERATION
The process of generating an Osteonode begins with
using the abstract connectivity information of a three
dimensional node (1) that contains the directions and
442 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
Figure 4
An example of
meta-ball
implementation in
2d using
Processing. Yellow
color marks the
threshold valued
pixels, the Gaussian
potential is
negative at white
and positive at
green areas). Left:
metaballs with only
positive charges
forming a boundary
(yellow), right:
metaballs with
positive and
thickness for each leg for a particular network point negative charges
(Figure-5). This way any n-legged node with differ- forming complex
ent thickness constraints could be used to compute boundary (yellow).
an overall volumetric boundary for the node (5) as
well as derive multiple curvature (2) and structural
evaluation parameters (3). For the input parameters
multiple options are possible -such as using prelim-
inary stress or structural analysis or direct paramet-
ric inputs- to sample particles on the surface of the
node as well as inside the volume to simulate the ossi-
fication process. While surface curvature informs the
distances between the particles (6), structural evalu-
ations or parametric data informs the meta-ball dis-
tance parameters of each particle to generate trabec-
ular structures. The combined information is used
to calculate the osteonode geometry by subtract-
ing the sampled particle influences as hollow spaces
from the node volume using meta-ball approach (8).
This process is implemented in Processing using Toxi-
clibs library that allows the generation, manipulation,
customization, analysis and exporting of any type of
nodal structure (Figure-6).
The aesthetics of the osteonode are derived
through the distribution of the particles over the
Figure 5
3d OsteoNode
production
sequence using
parametric data. 1.
Node configuration,
2. Node curvature
approximation, 3.
Node parametric
gradient, 4.
Curvature +
Gradient, 5. Node
Topology, 6.
Sampled particles,
7. Particle influence,
8. Osteonode

Figure 6
Osteonode
Processing Interface
with parametric
controls and 3d
modeling interface.
In the screenshot
the generated node
geometry is
analyzed with a
clipping plane.

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 443

 node through a recursive process. The particle sam- 1. Inside the node volume
pling combines the surface curvature and paramet- 2. Within the half plane of node joint plates
ric space data while randomly distributing, relaxing 3. Satisfy the metaball threshold using the for-
and updating the radius and influence values for each mula:
particle (Turk, 1991). This process is continued un-
til all the volume and surface of the node is tessel- ∑
n
M ET ABALLi(x, y, z) ≤ threshold (1)
lated with particles. While the radius of the particles i=0
is greater around the saddle locations to avoid exten-
The final volume of the osteonode is calculated by
sive reduction of material around joints, the influence
using the metaball formula f(x,y,z) = ri2 -(x-xi)2 + (y-
coefficient of each particle is directly mapped from
yi)2+ (z-zi)2 for each volume coordinate within the
the parametric data. Thus the surface curvature pro-
voxel space. During the traversal, the potential value
vides a given constraint for the packing of the parti-
for the coordinate is calculated and filtered according
cles while the parametric data allows for evaluation
to the threshold to decide whether a voxel is within
and customization of the node.
the node and distant enough from a particle sam-
Once the node is densely tessellated with par-
pling air space in the node. Since all the particle in-
ticles, the isosurface is calculated by traversing the
fluences are cumulatively added to derive each voxel
voxel space to define the voxels that are:
coordinate state, parametric values are used to ad-
just metaball threshold and particle influence values
to derive a watertight osteonode geometry.
Figure 7
The
parameterization of
meatball
implementation.
The percentage of
metaball threshold
informs the
reduction of
material from the
volumetric space.

444 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

 During the ossification of the node, the meta-ball
threshold values control the amount of solid node
material that would be generated. When the thresh-
old value is low the meta-ball influence reduces more
material from the node volume yielding to osteo-
porotic effects. In contrast, high threshold values
would reduce less material and produce less porous
and heavy structural nodes (Figure-7). The generated
samples show the flexibility and control of the inter-
face while any n-legged node could be exported as a
mesh model to facilitate further analysis and manu-
facture (Figure-8).

Figure 8
Generated
osteotectonic
nodes with 3
legged, 4 legged, 5
legged and 8
legged variations.

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 445

 5. DESIGNING FOR 3D PRINTED ASSEM-
BLIES
With the current advent of 3d printing technologies,
architects are presented with a new field of research
that can embed consideration of materials, inspira-
tion through materials and corporeal tectonics (Tal-
bott, 2006). Different types of materials often provide
different types of manufacturing processes, such as
additive or layered techniques. In the production
of building components, one of the most common
ways of utilizing 3d printing has been the use of
laser sintering that can produce complex metal ge-
ometry through additive manufacturing layer tech-
nology (Crolla, 2014). Although this technology can
produce refined geometric parts, the aggregated in-
ternal composition of the printed components often
produces unreliable structural behavior under dy-
namic stress conditions. As an alternative 3d metal
casting through the utility of wax 3d-printing could
be a viable solution to produce low-cost and perfor-
mative structural building components. While cast
metal has better structural efficiency it requires topo-
logical connectivity and continuity to produce seam-
less casts. For instance, ant colony castings that
showcase three dimensional sculptural forms are ac-
quired by pouring molten metal to empty ant trail
networks (Tschinkel, 2010). Since the underground
tunnels produced by the ant colony provide a contin-
uous cast, the poured metal becomes a direct imprint
of the networking trails. Similarly any continuous
three dimensional wax form could be used to repli-
cate the same process through sand casting. While
wax molds are extensively used during the fabrica-
tion of serially produced parts, with the advent of
3d wax printing there is an opportunity for the cus-
tomization and production of cast metal parts. This
technology would allow the designer to produce a
continuous form that will be 3d printed in wax which
is later used in sand casting for the production of
complex metal nodes.
446 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
6. LOW-COST AND LIGHTWEIGHT SYS-
TEMS
The casted metal nodes have various advantages that
can have a long-term impact on the design of ar-
chitectural systems. Since this system uses casting,
the produced metal nodes have better structural be-
havior and durability. Like standard space-frame sys-
tems, the customized nodes still provide ease of as-
sembly, yet with the reduction of excessive mate-
rials it produces lightweight systems that are more
efficient structurally (Figure-9). Furthermore, lighter
metal nodes can reduce the cost of transportation as
well as reduce the time of assembly through built in
joinery and detailing.
Future research could study columns, walls and
floors as well. Applying the logic of bone structures
to larger components would require a concept of rep-
etition and re-use of formwork to create aggregated
structures. Unitization, for example a wall would be
based on a series of complex brick units, would form
an additional layer of research.
7. CONCLUSION
Osteotectonics present both an exciting avenue of
further research and numerous challenges for the de-
tailing, optimization and fabrication of custom struc-
tural nodes. While the meta-ball approach is able
to generate bone-like structural networks and plates,
this technique is less responsive to precision de-
tailing due to Gaussian field values and Laplacian
smoothing. Since the interface works with watertight
meshes, the generated models are not suitable for
further modeling, yet joinery details could be embed-
ded during fabrication process by either extending
the mold or refining the node edges using machines.
One of the key challenges in working with tra-
becular structures is the optimization process. The
structural composition of bones depends on dy-
namic principles such as age, nutrition and growth
rate. Until osteoporosis, ossification redirects opti-
mal material distribution to maintain structural in-
tegrity of the bone that is captured through trabec-
ular scanning. In contrast osteotectonic nodes are
Figure 9
Space frame system
using 8-legged
osteotectonic
nodes.
generated through sampling of static data that has
advantages of parametric manipulation and distribu-
tion of material. Future research will attempt to ad-
dress how such data could be generated through a
preliminary structural analysis of the node configu-
ration that could drive the generation of optimal ma-
terial distribution.
As key components of structural networks,
nodes require precision and efficiency, and their cus-
tomization could bring various advantages within
the design, manufacture and construction of sys-
tems. While there is not a single BIM tool that can
simultaneously achieve the modeling, analysis and
optimization of complex network nodes, the current
implementation aims to benefit from preliminary
input to generate more integrated results. Further
automation and structural analysis / feedback is pos-
sible that could replace the gradient field maps used
for the nodes and provide emergent results. As a
result, trabecular aesthetics could be studied for di-
verse architectural applications through controllable
parametric fields.
REFERENCES
Blinn, JF 1982, 'A Generalization of Algebraic Surface
Drawing', ACM Transactions on Graphics, 1(3), p.
235–256
Crolla, K and Nicholas, N 2014 'Smart Nodes: A System
for Variable Structural Frames with 3D Metal-Printed
Nodes', ACADIA 14: Design Agency [Proceedings of the
34th Annual Conference of the Association for Com-
puter Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), Los An-
geles, pp. 311-316
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 Dagan, D, Be’ery, M and Gefen, A 2004, 'Single-trabecula Turk, G 1991, 'A Generalization of Algebraic Surface
building block for large-scale finite element models Drawing', Computer Graphics, Vol. 25(No. 4), pp.
of cancellous bone', Medical & Biological Engineering 289-298
& Computing, 42, p. 549–556 Wolff, J 1892, Das Gesetz der Transformation der Knochen,
Friedman, J, Kim, H and Mesa, O 2014 'Woven Clay', ACA- August Hirschwald, Berlin
DIA 14: Design Agency [Projects of the 34th Annual
Conference of the Association for Computer Aided De-
sign in Architecture (ACADIA), Los Angeles, pp. 223-
226
Huikes, R, Ruimerman, R and v. Lenthe, GH 2000, 'Effects
of mechanical forces on maintenance and adapta-
tion of form in trabecular bone', Nature, 405, pp. 704-
706
van Lenthe, GH, Stauber, M and Mueller, R 2006,
'Specimen-specific beam models for fast and accu-
rate prediction of human trabecular bone mechani-
cal properties', Bone, 39, p. 1182–1189
Müller, R and Rüegsegger, P 1997, 'Micro­tomographic
imaging for the nondestructive evaluation of tra-
becular bone architecture', in Lowet, G, Rüegsegger,
P, Weinans, H and Meunier, A (eds) 1997, Bone Re-
search in Biomechanics, IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp.
61­-79
Peng, J, Qing, L, Kuo, J and Zhou, M 2003 'Estimat-
ing Gaussian curvatures from 3D meshes', Electronic
Imaging 2003 International Society for Optics and
Photonics, pp. 270-280
Peter, B 2014 'Additive Formwork: 3D Printed Flexible
Formwork', ACADIA 14: Design Agency [Proceedings
of the 34th Annual Conference of the Association for
Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), Los
Angeles, pp. 367-378
Silva, MJ and Gibson, LJ 1995, 'The effects of non-
periodic microstructure on the elastic properties of
two-dimensional cellular solids', International Jour-
nal Mechanical Science, 37, p. 1161–1177
Silva, MJ and Gibson, LJ 1997, 'The effects of non-
periodic microstructure on the elastic properties of
two-dimensional cellular solids', International Jour-
nal Mechanical Science, 39, p. 549–563
Søndergaard, A, Amir, O and Knauss, M 2013 'Topol-
ogy optimization and digital assembly of advanced
space-frame structures', ACADIA 14: Design Agency
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the As-
sociation for Computer Aided Design in Architecture
(ACADIA), Cambridge, pp. 367-378
Talbott, K 2006, '3D Print as Corporeal Design Medium',
International Journal of Architectural Computing, vol.
4 (no. 4), pp. 137-152
Tschinkel, WR 2010, 'Methods for Casting Subterrenean
Ant Nests', Journal Insect Science, 10(88), p. 88

448 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

Thermal Activated Envelope
A Method and Model for Embedding Behaviour in a Responsive Envelope by
Bi-Materials

Isak Worre Foged1 , Anke Pasold2

1
Aalborg University and AREA 2 AREA
1
www.create.aau.dk 2 www.studio-area.net
1
iwfo@create.aau.dk 2 anke@studio-area.net

The research studies the making of a responsive architectural envelope based on

bi-materials. The bi-materials are organized according to a method that
combines different isotropic metals and plastic into an active composite structure
that reacts to temperature variations. Through an evolutionary search procedure,
the combination of materials and their bonding temperature is found in relation
to the envelope effect on a thermal environment inside a defined space. This
allows the designer to articulate dynamic composites with time-based thermal
functionality, related to the material dynamics, environmental dynamics and
occupancy dynamics. Lastly, a physical prototype is created, which illustrates the
physical expression of the bi-materials and the problems related to manufacturing
of these composite structures.

Keywords: Responsive Envelope, Environmental Simulation, Evolutionary

Algorithms

Introduction vironment, perceiving the rhythms of days, seasons

Architecture needs to address the climatic environ-
mental issues - among others, those raised by local
governments (Klimakommisionen 2010) and interna-
tional organisations (IEA 2009; IPCC 2014), emphasis-
ing that the negative impact of the building indus-
try on the natural environment must decrease. Stud-
ies examining new levels of sustainable standards
imposed by governments show that conventional,
'static' buildings cannot meet the energy demands
that are involved in reaching the benchmark energy
levels of the building fabric (Winther et al. 2009). Ad-
ditionally, studies demonstrating the relevance and
need for humans to be in contact with the natural en-
and years, have been well-documented (Ulrich 1984;
EPA 1991; Fich 2014). This suggests that humans
desire to 'read' the intervention of the environment
within the buildings they occupy. Besides the men-
tal and physical health of people in buildings, the
change of a building's appearance anchors the build-
ing to its context, supporting the localisation and
expression of an architecture and thereby increas-
ing the readability of architecture to the observer
(Frampton 1983; Mostafavi & Leatherbarrow 1993).
Such a perspective on architecture was posited by
Jonathan Hill, who stated that the development of an
architectural design arrives from the 'co-production'

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 449

 of construct and environment (Hill 2012). Similarly,
David Leatherbarrow asserted that a building is never
finished, as the material processes undergo continu-
ous change (Leatherbarrow 2009). This allows us to
suggest that there are at least three aspects at work -
the environment, the construct and the human in the
ongoing construction of architecture, which in a re-
ciprocal process affects humans, constructs and en-
vironments. In order to address the aspect of an in-
creased sensation of the environment, this study ex-
amines dynamic responsive methods.
Previous solutions for dynamic systems in ar-
chitecture are rich in terms of the range of solu-
tions presented, from automated conventional win-
dow blinds for industrial products to a multitude of
mechanical systems (Hoberman & Schwitter 2008),
semi-mechanical/material systems (Foged & Poulsen
2010; Foged et al. 2010) and fully material-based sys-
tems (Hensel & Menges 2006; Hensel 2010; Menges
& Reichert 2012). The latter examples, strongly em-
phasising the hygroscopic properties of wood, have
been heavily investigated by the listed authors and
many others, leading to similar studies and results of
a bending behaviour of thin layers of plywood ve-
neer, varying according to levels of humidity. While
studies based on wood structures are based on the
anisotropic material properties, other studies have
previously been presented based on physical mod-
els of combinations of isotropic materials forming
anisotropic composites (Pasold & Foged 2010; Foged
& Pasold 2013). This study focuses on the relation-
ships and responsiveness between different thermal
environments, and how these are articulated based
on evolutionary processes. Through this approach,
a potential arises for creating multi-material compo-
sitions that are powered by the weather and instan-
tiated by the relations between material properties
and the exergy situated in the local thermal environ-
ment. Acknowledging the need for responsive, dy-
namic systems in architecture that are constructed of
durable material assemblies allows the development
of long-lasting constructions, which in turn is consid-
ered an important component in buildings that will
450 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
be exposed to the wear and tear of the climate. This
approach is chosen over mechanical, motorised solu-
tions, which tend to require complex geometric parts
and mechanical systems with short life cycles. In ad-
dition, the often large quantities of moving parts cre-
ate friction, wear and tear, and increased risk of high
maintenance or early lack of functionality. This ap-
proach is also selected over the use of thin, wooden
veneer constructs, as these seem to be fragile when
exposed to the climate over longer periods of time.
They also appear less instrumental in configuration,
based on numerous studies, cited by the aforemen-
tioned authors, that show the same results of bend-
ing behaviour.
The background for potential solutions is thus
based on the previous studies by the authors in re-
lation to thermal assessment, evolutionary processes
and the combination of a selected range of met-
als and plastics, their bonding temperature, the re-
spective geometry of the bi-materials, and the con-
figuration of bi-material elements across the archi-
tectural envelope surface. In the present study,
the aforementioned variables related to bi-material
composites are investigated with the aim of under-
standing the interrelations of the material compos-
ite, the impact of thermal sensation experienced by
humans through the workings of the responsive bi-
materials, and the way these factors relate to a spe-
cific climatic environment. The intention of the in-
quiry is to move beyond an architectural research of
isolated material studies, into the interdisciplinary,
architectural-engineering scale of material mechan-
ics, environmental effects and human-related per-
ceptions of temporal responsive architectural con-
structions. In the present study, time as a factor is
explicitly integrated as the property and combined
effect of each factor; materials, environments and
humans are only understood over time (Hawkins &
Blakeslee 2004). Hence, this study focuses on the
interactions and relationships, which suggests an
instrumental approach to the integration of time-
active elements. The research objective is pursued
through the integration of a set of computationally
simulated processes: (1) simulation of bi-material be-
haviour, (2) simulation of thermal sensation based on
extended methods, with origins in Fanger's method
of thermal comfort, and a (3) simulation of an evo-
lutionary process that correlates environmental dy-
namics, material dynamics and human behavioural
and physiological dynamics. Through these studies,
the inquiry asks: How can behaviour be embedded
into architectural constructions that consider envi-
ronmental and human concerns? How are methods
and constructs prescribed to correlate between the
three interrelated agents of environment, construct
and human to articulate architectures within a local
context, while also improving the constructed ther-
mal environment for humans? How are evolution-
ary processes prescribing the correlation of dynamic
systems rather than finding steady-state, fixed opti-
mums for an average state?
Methods
The research uses three computational models com-
bined, including the simulations mentioned above.
In order to implement the dynamics of each as-
pect, custom-programmed modules of each simula-
tion have been created in C# for integration into the
Grasshopper software plug-in for the Rhino environ-
ment, developed by McNeel Software. Specifically,
modules have been created to simulate the bend-
ing behaviour of bi-material composites and the ther-
mal sensation of humans in a given space, based on
Fanger's equations (Fanger 1970), with updated as-
pects added to their original form. A standard ge-
netic algorithm (SGA) has also been applied. In ad-
dition, DIVA (developed by Solemma LLC), which is
based on the Radiance engine, has been used for ini-
tial design experiment studies to calculate irradiance
levels during the sensitivity analysis of bi-material
compositions.
Parametric Model. Three types of metals, Corten
steel, copper and aluminium, and one type of plastic,
polypropylene, have been selected as the basis for
creating composites. The metals have been chosen
based on the criteria of general availability in archi-
tecture, implementation and proved endurance as an
architectural material, and behaviour in response to
thermal changes. Polypropylene has been selected
for its general availability, low price, reflective surface
when applied as white, and high thermal expansion
behaviour. The calculations of bending behaviour
are described analytically by the equations (Kanthal
2008):
1 1
RT − R0 =
6(a2 − a1 )(1(+ m)2 ( )) ·
1
3(1 + m)2 + (1 + m · n) m2 + ·n
m
T − T0
s
(1)
( )2 ( )2
a a
RT + = RT + − A + L2 (2)
2 2
The equation includes the variables of the thermal
expansion coefficient, Young's modulus, an expres-
sion of elasticity, and geometric dimensions, deter-
mining the expansion of the singular materials and,
when created as a composite, forming the bending
behaviour due to the relative difference in elongation
between the materials. The bending geometries are
then arranged in an array, which creates a surface el-
ement that can be configured as an architectural en-
velope surface by arraying the elements enabled by
its 1:2 format.
Environmental Simulation Model. Towards an
understanding and integration of environmental-
human simulation in architecture, the research looks
beyond single-factor studies (Malkawi 2005), such as
isolated daylight factors, insolation levels and air ve-
locity levels. These are, instead, combined through
the integration of previously described comfort tem-
perature equations. Of particular interest to this work
is the radiant temperature factor, determined by the
mean radiant temperature, which in turn is deter-
mined by the insolation values. The latest research
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 451
 illustrates the increasing importance of this aspect
(La Gennusa et al. 2005; La Gennusa et al. 2007;
Khamporn & Chaiyapinunt 2013) in relation to the
thermal comfort of humans. This in turn promotes
the relevance of implementing dynamic constructs
in architecture in relation to human thermal sensa-
tions and efforts to meet future energy demands
set by legislation. The calculations of thermal com-
fort reach a level of detail that integrates the heat
exchange through the respiratory system and evap-
oration through the skin to the human's physical
position and posture in the room.
Evolutionary Model. To employ the approach of a
discernible design progression towards material and
environmental dynamics in architecture, the study
applies a search procedure based on a standard evo-
lutionary process via a genetic algorithm. This study
investigates, in relation to the evolutionary process,
the description of a fitness function for thermal sen-
sations in architecture, which searches time-variable
dynamics.
To determine the time-based search function for the
design experimentation below, an initial study of
an architecturally responsive construct based on bi-
materials is conducted. These studies have been con-
ducted with the intent to understand the sensitivity
of each variable in relation to the degree of compos-
ite deflection. Figure 1 illustrates the bending be-
haviour of bi-material composites with a length of
300 mm as a function of temperature change, vary-
ing from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius in 'binding' tempera-
ture, the temperature at the time of merging the ma-
terials into a composite structure. It is clear through
this initial sensitivity study that the largest impact on
452 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
bending behaviour is induced by temperature varia-
tion in accordance with the thermal expansion coef-
ficient of the individual elements. This results in rela-
tively large differences in deflection degree between
the composites used.
To study this further a computational model is
developed, with an unobstructed, south-facing sur-
face, located in Copenhagen, Denmark, with dimen-
sions of 600x1200mm and populated with 81 bi-
material 'strips', each with a length of 300mm and a
width of 30mm. The structure was situated in front
of a glass pane, which is situated in a closed box to
block diffused solar energy. Insolation is simulated
on the glass pane as a function of a temperature
range between -12 and 12 degrees Celsius. Interest-
ingly, there is very little difference in insolation val-
ues, despite the difference in deflection between the
composites. As the graph of the simulation results
illustrates in figure 2, the insolation is highest when
the temperature difference is 12 degrees Celsius, low-
est when 0 degrees Celsius, and relatively high at -
12 degrees Celsius. In addition, this illustrates that,
while the composite has the ability to bend in 'pos- Figure 1
itive' and 'negative' directions from its planar state, Sensitivity analysis
the insolation levels in relation to geometric posi- of bi-material
tions are not symmetric. composites as a
The sensitivity analysis showed (figure 2) that function of
only negligible differences could be observed be- temperature
tween different composites in relation to irradiance variation with the
and, therefore, only negligible effects on thermal objective of
sensation were seen. Contrary to this, the effect understanding
of temperature when binding or gluing the materi- geometric
als together in relation to a given thermal environ- modulation and
ment has a high impact, as the gluing temperature expressive
sets the 'zero' position in which the composite is pla- articulation, with
nar, thereby shutting the underlying space off from the geometry
the solar energy. From this, it can be deduced that viewed in section
the difference between the gluing temperature and
the temperature of the external environment pro-
duces the largest impact on a given bi-material de-
flection, resulting in a given irradiance value, again
resulting in the effect of thermal sensation. The cal-
culated operative temperature and calculated com-
Figure 2
Sensitivity analysis
of bi-material
composites as a
function of
temperature
variation, with the
objective of
understanding
insolation energy
transfer through
the dynamic
responsive bending
envelope.

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 453

 fort temperature based on the radiant contribution
are then creating two 'positions' in a solution space.
From this, an objective vector can be described, rep-
resenting the fitness of a given solution at a given
point in time, given that the vector is based on the
material and environmental conditions at a specific
point in time. This search formulation and environ-
mental simulation allow that the study has accessed
multiple relevant output values (operative tempera-
ture, comfort temperature and PPD) that can be de-
scribed as search objectives for the evolutionary pro-
cess, with only one input variable, the 'bonding' (glu-
ing) temperature. This reduces the decision space to
a minimum and consequently increases the solution-
finding speed. As an example, a scenario could be
described for a sports hall, setting the variable of the
metabolic rate to 2.1 and the clothing rate to 0.8. This
in turn specifies the conditions for a search procedure
determining a thermal condition at a specific time or
time period, such as minimising the predicted per-
centage dissatisfied across the day. In this study, ei-
ther a singular objective vector is used for a specific
steady-state time point, or a summation of vectors is
used, if a time period is integrated. This is done by
an 'preference-based-weighted-sum' fitness function
allowing a multi-objective (Deb 2009) search by clus-
tering the summation of objective vectors and search
solutions for each of them simultaneously. This is ap-
pealing, as it potentially enables the capacity to de-
vise a dynamic material construct not only in relation
to environmental and material dynamic properties,
but also in relation to dynamic human behavioural
properties. The application of this method is shown
in due course.
∑
f1 = n i=m vs = (3)
vm + vm+1 + . . . + vn−1 + vn
∑
f1 = n i=m vs =
[(v1m + v1m+1 + . . . + v1n−1 + v1n )+
(v2m + v2m+1 + . . . + v2n−1 + v2n )]
(4)
454 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2
Design Experimentation
Computational experiments on the thermal sensa-
tions in relation to environmental dynamics and ma-
terial dynamics are conducted based on a summer
day in Copenhagen, with a south-facing building sur-
face (see figure 3) allowing the irradiance and insola-
tion data to be obtained from the sensitivity analy-
sis above. The graph below (see figure 4) illustrates
the external temperature for each hour, with values
obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE,
2014). Relative humidity is set to 55 percent, air ve-
locity to 1 m/s, and ambient temperature to 21 de-
grees Celsius. These can be dynamically modified.
However, throughout the design experiments, the
same setup is maintained. Metabolic rate and cloth-
ing rate are modified in the experiments below, while
mean radiant temperature is calculated based on the
integration of insolation values by deflection of the
bi-material composites. From this, it is possible to
compute various data, including comfort tempera-
ture, operative temperature, predicted percentage
dissatisfied (PPD) and gluing temperature, as shown
in the output graphs of figure 4. This provides the
designer with immediate visual feedback on the dif-
ferent benchmarks related to thermal sensations per-
ceived.
Figure 3
Computational
model of the
responsive façade
by an array of
responsive
elements.
As a design experiment and an exemplification of
the method and model, two different spatial pro-
grammes are defined by being used during the
morning hours for sport activities and later for activ-
ities performed while sitting at a desk. This repre-
sents two human activities with very different con-
 sequences for the perception of thermal sensation. ulation (Leatherbarrow & Mostafavi 2005; Mostafavi
Seeking to accommodate one of the two spatial ac- & Leatherbarrow 1993).
tivities results in one binding temperature, while the
Figure 5 multi-objective search to 'satisfy' both activities re-
Full-scale prototype sults in another (see figure 4). The evolutionary
of Corten steel and search objectives and variables are defined by:
Polypropyene
composite and 

 maximise f2(glue,rot) = OPtemp
Aluminium and 


 0 ≤ glue ≤ 30
Polypropylene subject to
composite in the DesExp = 0 ≤ rot ≤ 1


dimension 
 mutation rate 0.2


600x1200mm as 
popul. size 50
elements that can
be directly (5)
mounted on glazed
facades. Conclusions
Results
For a dynamic, responsive system in buildings,
With the intention to study correlations between a
the matter organisation suggests an approach of
dynamic thermal environment, a dynamic material
isotropic and durable solid material composites.
construct and a dynamic human occupancy through
These properties have a tendency to conflict with
evolutionary search processes, the following findings
the sensitivity and material dynamism desired and
were derived: (1) The bonding temperature of the
needed for interaction between potentially influenc-
composite structure has the largest impact on be-
ing agents, such as the environment and humans.
havioural properties. This aspect enables a new in-
However, the bi-material constructs presented have
strumental matter variable in terms of embedding
a distinct and perceivable dynamic expression based
behavioural properties into responsive composites,
on material characteristics, proposing the capacity
besides the known factors included in the equations
to be modified and, conversely, modify environ-
describing bi-material bending behaviour. (2) The
ments for humans. The presented research illus-
developed method and model allow the search for
trates a method by which a designer can embed be-
temporal material behaviours, which are oriented
haviour into the solid material construct for archi-
towards a time-based integration of environmental
tectural purposes. The cause of the formation pro-
sensations. This aspect enables the design method
cess, is based on the integrated material and the
to correlate different spatial programmes and inte-
environmental and human factors that are present
grate, in turn, the ability to articulate thermal-based
throughout the evolutionary process, the organisa-
responsive envelopes in closer connection with the
tion of matter. Due to the model's responsive prop-
spatial programme of the building. The embedding
erties, constantly changing its visual and thermal im-
of specific behavioural characteristics thus points
pact, the cause of the final form, can be argued to
to the notion of 'programming' material behaviour
be an ongoing articulation. The close relation of the
without electronic microprocessors. (3) The method
formation and the final form is a way to perceive the
illustrates an approach to a continuous depiction of
three agents listed above when searching for thermal
the environmental impact on architecture and, from
sensations intended by a designer. What is shown
this, its impact on articulating thermal environments.
is that the architectural envelope is not necessarily a
This ability is considered a higher architectural artic-
fixed closure, but a vibrant and dynamic boundary,

Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 455

 Figure 4
Illustration of
simulated temporal
conditions during
the evolutionary
process, seeking the
optimum ‘bonding’
temperature
between materials
to accommodate
holistic and
time-specified
intentions of
thermal sensation
(top graph).
Illustration of a
multi-objective
evolutionary
process seeking the
optimum ‘bonding’
temperature
between the
materials to
accommodate
holistic and
time-specified
intentions of
thermal sensation
(bottom graph).

456 | eCAADe 33 - Material Studies - Volume 2

 as we know it from natural systems (Oke 1987). This
is suggested to move the proposed design method
into time-based, thermally caused sensations as an
architectural aesthetic. This, as stated by philosopher
Martin Heidegger, increases awareness of place and
human embodiment and being through architecture
(Heidegger 1971). The temporal thermal sensations
offered by such a method and model are proposed
here to increase the reciprocity between perceived
environmental, matter and human agencies in the
move towards an architecture that operates based on
local conditions, where the correlation between the
described agencies is created through the descrip-
tion of an evolutionary design methodology. Specif-
ically, behaviour is embedded into the envelope by
the proposed method and model. This allows the de-
signer to design thermal environments that are cli-
matically environment-specific and adjusted to hu-
man behavioural patterns.
Figure 6
Full-scale prototype
of Corten steel and
Polypropyene
composite and
Aluminium and
Polypropylene
composite in the
dimension
600x1200mm as
elements that can
be directly
mounted on glazed
facades. Discussion
With an increasing level of construction specificity in-
troduced through the ability to create dynamic con-
structs that correlate different agencies over time, a
decrease in the general application and thus the ro-
bustness of such constructions is apparent. The im-
mediate question is, of course, what if the climatic
environment or occupancy patterns change? This is
an important question and must be considered in the
application of the present approach. Some spatial
programmes are said to never change, such as ex-
plicitly dimensioned corridors and the like, but of-
ten, spaces are used for unexpected activities with
different thermal needs and desires. So, while the
presented method and physical probe (figure 5 and
6) allow a highly specified relationship to periodic
changes, search targets may need to be described
for more general conditions in most spaces, in or-
der to avoid a negative effect from unforeseen fu-
ture occupants due to an over-specified performance
outset. Responsiveness, then, is not a question of
specificity, but a measure of how well a model can
integrate and accommodate known and unknown
dynamics. The specificity of responsive behaviour
is thus to be evaluated from application to applica-
tion. This is, as shown, possible by the method de-
scribed above, the 'weighted' search mechanism. An-
other approach would be to apply highly adaptive
models, which would accept any changes to the dy-
namics of the climatic environment and the human
occupancy behaviour. Another aspect that could
be addressed in future studies is the difference be-
tween theoretical simulations and the physical be-
haviour of the probes, and the resulting thermal sen-
sations. This proposal is not intended to change
the statement of this study, but rather to calibrate
and improve the simulations that underlie the com-
putational work described. In this regard, it is im-
portant to note that research is currently being un-
dertaken in the engineering sciences (Gram-Hanssen
2010) to better understand the behavioural adap-
tation to thermal comfort. The findings from such
studies should be included in future environmental-
human-oriented architectural probes. Lastly, other
methods for manufacturing anisotropic composites
from isotropic materials could be investigated in fu-
ture studies, as the manufacturing process of bond-
ing (gluing) sheets of materials together has a series
of challenges not elaborated within this paper. Such
issues include the delamination of layers due to irreg-
ularities in the surface cover of the glue, lack of pre-
cision when merging the materials into a composite,
and problems controlling the bonding temperature,
which can hinder the manufacture of the composites
Material Studies - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 457
 according to the proposed design method. These
manufacturing issues are understood to have caused
the bending irregularities observed in the physical
prototypes (figure 5 and 6).
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ings
Generative Design - Concepts
Generative Masterplanning Inspired by Cellular Automata
with Context-specific Tessellation
Trevor Patt1
1
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
1
trpatt@gmail.com

Cellular automata offer a compelling model for complex generative design.

However, the abstraction of classical cellular automata models hinders their
application in the design process, particularly at small scales where regular grid
matrices do not provide an adequate approximation. This paper presents some
tests in appling these generative properties to a real site using irrregular
tesselation adapted to the terrain and an spreadsheet interface that translate
design concerns into set of neighborhood and state behaviors with the goal of
generating massing diagrams for an urban masterplan. The development of the
model over time is also presented as a visual reference that aids in comparing
different parameter sets and informing the design process.

Keywords: Generative design, Cellular automata, Urban design, Design studies

INTRODUCTION well served by a regular, arbitrary, or voronoi lattice

This paper presents recent work in computational ur-
ban design and masterplanning. The approach de-
scribed adapts the generative potential of cellular au-
tomata to negotiate complex typological solutions
using localized behaviors. The focus of this research
is in adapting and making accessible the mechanics
of of cellular automata to a design workflow rather
than simulation of natural urban growth patterns.
In contrast to classical cellular automata models,
which rely on regular, gridded cells as a base unit
of operation, this project extends the functionality
to arbitrarily shaped meshworks with highly irregu-
lar tessellations. The motivation for this approach is
to adopt the cellular automata methods to be more
relatable to the design process with ability to deform
the meshwork to reflect complex existing conditions
instead of a generic ground. Urban masterplans are
very contingent on features of their site and are not
(Navid and Ahghababa 2013). The example covered
in the paper will include adaptation to fit extreme to-
pographic conditions. Further, the implementation
of context-specific meshes allows the introduction of
additional localized information into the factors af-
fecting adjacency behaviors using relatively low level
relational abstractions.
This research has been undertaken in the aim
of producing a model that generates and visualizes
volumetric massing studies. Particular emphasis has
been placed on the ability of a designer to easily for-
mulate a series of cellular behaviors and test scenar-
ios in real-time, including the ability to interact with
the simulation and underlying geometry as it runs.
The formulation of these behaviors is formatted to re-
flect urban design concerns such as orientation, vis-
à-vis, density, slope, access, and others. This leads to
a larger list o interactions than most classical cellu-

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 461

 lar automata, resembling in some ways, a multi-agent
system of dynamic, but immobile agents.
In contrast to previous studies with irregular tes-
sellation that use Euclidean distance to define neigh-
boring cells (Flache and Hegselmann 2001), this
study uses shared edges or vertices to facilitate han-
dling of the various spatial relationships that might
be desired between neighboring cells or their con-
text. Adjacency behaviors can be input graphically
via a spreadsheet application further reducing the
complexity for the designer.
Experimental results of the design tool will be
presented with regard to the temporal patterns of the
model, the relationship between the designer's in-
tent and enacted results, and aspects which demon-
strate stability over perturbations of the initial param-
eters.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The general application of cellular automata to
studying questions of urban growth and morphol-
ogy is treated most throughly in (Batty 2005) These
methods are presented within the context of urban
design, though they often operate at a macroscopic
scale that limits their applicability to the shape and
diffusion of an urban metropolis, concerns beyond
the scope of much urban design practice. Coucle-
lis (1997) has detailed generalizations of cellular au-
tomata that allow these models to more closely ap-
proximate real-world applications and to reflect em-
pirical observations.
In particular these adaptations diverge from the
homogeneity of the initial grid to incorporate persis-
tent environmental features such limits such as bor-
ders, coasts, transportation corridors, etc. Integrat-
ing features from GIS models, based on vector shapes
rather than raster grids can be accommodated by
specifying zones to which the cells belong (White
1997) or by linking the GIS shape as a layer on top of
the cellular automata model.
A more direct coupling can be achieved by us-
ing irregular tessellations of the ground into cells.
Though this may raise structural questions about the
462 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
automata model, it can also bring benefits. For exam-
ple, Shi and Pang (2000) conclude that voronoi-based
tessellations offer a more natural and expressive ba-
sis for cellular automata models while others have
shown how variable grid cells may better model ac-
tion at a distance (van Vliet et al. 2009). When spatial
units such as cadastral plots or other GIS shapes exist
and constitute an extensive field, they may be used
as an irregular tessellation pattern that will more ef-
ficiently represent the geographic conditions (White
and Engelen 2000). This approach has been repeat-
edly tested with success on small urban areas by
Pinto and Antunes (2010) using census blocks as the
basis of cell definition.
PROJECT PRESENTATION
This project is primarily interested in how the gener-
ative potential of cellular automata models to inte-
grate discrete, localized actions in a bottom-up way
that produces emergent macro form can be used
in masterplanning design. This focus leads to three
unique concerns. First, the size of the site under
consideration is much smaller than the typical area
of cellular automata models, which calls for more
specificity with regard to the existing site conditions
and the cell geometry. Second, the definition of
neighborhood interactions has been made in terms
of design-language with little abstraction and may be
contingent on the cell state. Third, in order to pro-
duce a complex and flexible masterplan, simple, but
mulit-layered transition behaviors have been used.
The model has been written using Grasshopper and
GhPython to provide interaction within a 3d CAD
software commonly used by designers.
Site
The site of inquiry is adjacent to a rural village in peri-
urban Beijing and covers approximately 50 hectares
of steeply sloped hillside. The topography of the site
influenced the decision to use an irregular tessella-
tion such that the geometry of the cells would fol-
low the irregularities of the ground. A topographic
analysis was performed to produce the subdivision
 that also calculated and assigned data related to the
slope-its magnitude, orientation, rainwater runoff-to
each cell in a custom object class. See figure 1. This
data was included as factors in the initial state of
the cellular automata model and also participate in
the adjacency behaviors during operation. The site
is continuously covered by approximately 3200 cells
with a mean area of 106 sq.m.; 67% are quadrilater-
als with 19% triangular, 12% pentagonal, and a few
assorted other polygons.
Figure 1
The subdivision of
the hillside site into
a topographic
meshwork of cells.
Model Operation
Figure 2 Each cell has a series of fitness values (Katoshevski et
Reaction of cell al. 2008) that express its suitability for one of the five
fitness values to possible uses-three built uses: high-rsise, mid-rise,
various site and low-rise; and two open uses: garden courtyard
conditions can be and void. These fitness values are initially derived
input through this from site conditions, incrementally factored frame-
spreadsheet. by-frame. Until the fitness values reach a certain
threshold, the cell is in an 'off' state. This assures
that the initial conditions have time to be processed.
When a cell switches to the 'on' state, its greatest
fitness value defines its use. Because of the differ-
ing conditions each cell finds itself in, some cells will
reach the 'on' state much earlier, these cells consti-
tute the kernal of the cellular automata. The site con-
ditions that are measured are listed in a spreadsheet
through which the designer can adjust their incre-
mental impact on the various fitness values, see fig-
ure 2.
In a classical cellular automata, the neighbor-
hood behaviors are enacted based on the number
of adjacent cells in the 'on' state. Here, the adjacent
'on' cells impact the fitness value that corresponds to
their own current use value. In this case it is computa-
tionally more efficient to make this adjustment from
a cell that is 'on' extending outward rather than the
central cell gathering in (the entire series is summed
within each frame so there is no difference in the
outcome). Again, using a spreadsheet for input, the
neighborhood behaviors can be programmed to in-
corporate spatial aspects of their relation such as rel-
ative orientation, see figure 3. Here the active use
determines the appropriate column and each of the
rows displays the possible fitness value adjustments
based on the target face's relative location on the
compass rose. In this example, a garden cell ('GR')
makes a incentive (+2) to high-rise fitness to its north,
but a disincentive (-2) if the neighbor cell is to the
south. This interface is composed with the idea of en-
abling roughly typological relationships of volumet-
ric massing, here for instance, the behaviors suggest
a clustering of building volumes around a central gar-
den courtyard with lower volumes to the south and
higher volumes to the north.
Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 463

Behavior Layers
Wooldridge (2002, p.102) describes a decomposition
of functional behaviors into layers that are reactive,
proactive, and social. So far we have discussed two
of the behavior layers and their position in a sequen-
tial operation. The first layer is active when the cell is
in the 'off' state and the fitness is driven by site condi-
tions. The second layer occurs when the cell is in the
'on' state and neighborhood behaviors are effected
in coordination with the use state of the cell. Finally, a
third layer reacts to the existence of certain clustered
assemblages. When a cell maintains a persistent use
for a longer duration of time, this third pattern of be-
haviors can be triggered that reinforces the existing
patterns, nudging them toward convergence, or that
disrupts a state of equilibrium. Figure 4 shows a set
of variables that allow cells with the 'garden' state to
have greater impact on their neighbors in organizing
the typology described above. This behavior follows
(O'Sullivan 2002) in using the subgraph of cell states
as the basis for a new behavior.
464 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
MODEL RESULTS Figure 3
To test this model we have prepared three iterations Active
layering additional complexity into the model pa- neighborhood
rameters. The first is a straightforward application of behaviors can
the behaviors in figures 2 and 3 with no clustering be- incorporate spatial
haviors. The second uses a more gradated set of in- patterns and
puts for neighborhood behaviors as seen in Figure 5. suggest typological
Finally, the third iteration adds clustering behaviors organizations.
to the model, operating with the settings in Figures
2, 5, and 4.
In the resultant volumetric massing, see figure
6, the three iterations show a similar pattern of cov- Figure 4
erage, though it is clear that the first scenario does The third layer of
the least to activate the site. Because the 'on' state behaviors operates
of the cells depends on its neighbors, the second to form more
scenario, with more thorough neighborhood behav- coherent
iors, increases the number of active cells considerably assemblages using
while also better distributing the states and the links targeted
that indicate a typological match. adjustments
localized around
persistent cells.
Figure 5
Neighborhood
behaviors with the
parameters
assigned a
smoother gradation
between types.
Looking at the development of the model over time
is also revealing. In order to track the patterns of
the model as a whole we have produced histomaps
of each scenario, see figure 7. Here, each horizontal
line represents a tiimeline of an individual cell over
the course of the simulation. The color represents
the state value while the line thickness increases in
proportion to the state's persistence. The cells that
have persisted in their current state the longest are
sorted to the top of the graph, giving an image of the
overall trends of volatility or stability. It is interest-
Figure 6 ing to note that while the first scenario remains quite
Volumetric massing volatile with fewer long-lasting cell states, the pro-
results from the portional distribution of the states does not much dif-
three scenarios. fer between the three trials. The identification of fur-
ther properties that are robust in the face of parame-
ter changes is important for further mapping the in-
tention space (Zuelzke et al. 2012).

CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK

This project has attempted to use the framework of a
cellular automata model as the basis of a generative,
bottom-up masterplanning tool, leverging its facility
for computing local, relational data of an iterative se-
quence of frames. In comparison with conventional
uses of cellular automata, this project was less mo-
tivated by predictive ability or elegance of abstrac-
tion, but by the ability to provide behavior param-
eters that can easily be correlated to design inten-
tions. This raises questions about how to judge the
quality of the model's calibration. We have demon-
strated that the complexity of the model is scalable
through the modification and layer of behaviors and
illustrated how setting the rules has been simplified
through an interactive spreadsheet. The adherence
to design intent is more difficult to confirm, and while
we have offered some preliminary quantitative mea-
surements of the output, more scenarios should be
tested to identify guidelines for greater calibration
and more sophisticated metrics should be proposed
based on spatial formations. Similarly, it is clear that
the sub-division of the site has a substantial impact
on the product of the model, primarily during the
first layer relating to the initial fitness values. It would
be useful to compare different initial tesselations to
isolate how much impact this has in contrast to the
neighborhood behaviors that follow.

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466 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Architectural Bioinspired Design
Functional Assessment of Design Terminologies to Support a Biological
System Search

Sun-Joong Kim1 , Yuri Choi2 , Ji-Hyun Lee3

1,2,3
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
1,2,3
{iuvenalis|sundaybus|jihyunlee}@kaist.ac.kr

In this study, the semantic relationship of lexicons from the architectural design
domain and function words frequently used in the bioinspired design domain were
quantitatively extracted. Even though bioinspired design for the architecture
domain has a lot of possibility of use, it is not comparably accessible because the
design supportive systems were focused on engineering design domain.
Therefore, the semantic relatedness between function words from the engineering
domain and lexicons from the architectural domain were quantified in order to
develop a lexicon based biological system search tool. The lexicons were
extracted from the texts of the International Building Code and natural language
processing techniques supported the task. And the semantic relatedness between
the lexicons and function words were quantified by the semantic network analysis
using the WordNet system.

Keywords: Biological System Search, Functional Assessment, Functional

Analysis

INTRODUCTION design, and more can be found. Commonly, specific

As present-day design problems become more com-
plex, the ability of a designer to analyze a design
problem through various angles and to propose a
solution is gaining more importance. In this kind
of circumstances, bioinspired design receives more
attention to develop solutions to find qualitatively
and quantitatively better ideas that were not consid-
ered of (Dickinson, 1999; Bannasch, 2009). For exam-
ple, in the architectural domain, many successful de-
sign cases of bioinspired design approach used in the
structural aspect, generating ideas on sustainable
design, solution development on adaptive building
objects, organisms, or phenomena of nature - biolog-
ical system - goes through the process of analogical
adaptation and developed into a design solution (Fu
et al., 2014). However, although these cases seem to
support a high possibility of success, but there are
limitations on exploring biological systems (Vande-
venne, 2014). It is the fact that the analogical process
of bioinspired design becomes restricted to biologi-
cal knowledge of each designer (Dickinson, 1999). In
other words, bioinspired design can help to find so-
lutions to a difficult design problem through qualita-
tive and quantitative enrichment of idea space, but

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 467

 in reality, only a few prepared design teams are able
to successfully carry it out (Kim and Lee, 2012). The
motivation to creating a design support system to
support the decision making in an analogical process
comes from this kind of background (Vandevenne et
al., 2014).
The support systems that are being studied and
provided now are normally in a search system and
has regards towards the designer to carry out the
analogical process by using their database as an idea
pool (Cheong et al., 2011; Goel et al., 2012; Fu et al.,
2014; Vandevenne et al., 2014). Also, additional stud-
ies are being done for more effective solution devel-
opment based on this system (Goel et al., 2012; Fu
et al., 2014). In other words, ways to retrieving an
appropriate biological system to be used in the de-
sign problem from the database and ways on how
the adaptation should be done on the selected bi-
ological system is already being studied. However,
the biological database that is provided to design-
ers is suited for engineering design, and the key-
words that can be used are also from the function
words defined in the engineering design domain.
This becomes a barrier for most designers who are
not used to understanding objects and phenomenon
by functionally decomposing it. Also, the current
keyword search system can only support search pro-
cess with appropriate combination of function words
or biological keywords and does not support an intu-
itive search for a certain terminology (lexicon) from
a specific domain (Glier et al., 2014). As in AskNa-
ture (asknature.org), the problem could be solved
through intuitive exploring based on design strate-
gies, but without any automation method, all the arti-
cle (explaining considerable biological systems) must
go through a manual heuristic tagging task which
cannot be the ultimate solution. Therefore, in order
to create a design support tool that can be used for
wide use, a method for retrieving cases stored in the
already made repository using domain characteris-
tics must be developed.
Therefore, this study enables lexicons from ar-
chitectural domain to be used in biological system
468 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
(i.e. idea) search. Because the current database
uses function words to search for biological systems,
this study defines the relationship between lexicons
from the architectural domain and function words.
Specifically, functional attributes from each lexicon
are taken, and used to measure the semantic distance
between the function words used in engineering de-
sign domain. A table on lexicon list to each function
words group will be made.
To achieve this goal, advanced texts which in-
clude architectural design requirements that can be
used as search words in the architectural design will
be gathered. Especially in most bioinspired architec-
tural design, designers collect biological systems and
generate idea at the early stage of design process
(see Architectural Bioinspired Design). Thus, archi-
tectural lexicons are gathered from the architectural
design standard (advanced text): International Build-
ing Code (2015). Then the text is analyzed through the
process of tokenization, word tagging and word lem-
matizing. Through this process, lexicons used in ar-
chitecture domain are extracted. And the extracted
function words related to the lexicon are researched
based on the word semantic structure of WordNet.
Lastly, using network analysis, the distance between
terminologies and function words is measured. The
developed semantic network of lexicons and func-
tion words can be used as shown in the scenario.
RELATED WORKS
Architectural Bioinspired Design
The term 'biomimicry' which is often associated with
bioinspired design was coined in the 1970s but
gained public attention in 1997 when biologist Ja-
nine Benyus wrote a book on biomimicry and co-
founded the Biomimicry Guild a year after. The
Biomimicry Guild collaborated with several architec-
tural and design firms such as HOK, the largest U.S.
based architecture and engineering firm.
There are several examples of bioinspired archi-
tecture such as the successfully designed Eastgate
Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe. Mick Pearce, who was
in charge of the design, collaborated with Arup en-
 gineers and created a building that consumed less
energy without any conventional air-conditioning or
heating system by using methods inspired by African
termites and traditional Zimbabwean masonry (Fig
1).
The Qatar Cacti Building, made for the Qatar's
Minister of Municipal Affairs & Agriculture (MMAA)'s
new office building, takes the idea from the cactus to
make the building energy sufficient in the country of
Qatar where there is an average of 3.2 inches of rain-
fall a year and has a hot and dry temperature. Mim-
icking the cactus's act of performing transpiration in
night instead of daytime in order to retain water, the
building uses the sunshade panels on its windows to
open and close when there is too much sunlight (Fig
1).
Figure 1
Left: The Qatar
Cacti Building
(source: [1]), Right:
Eastgate Centre in
Harare (source: [2])
Bioinspired design also became the source for inspi-
ration for the Sahara Forest Project which is a green-
house which only used solar energy to operate with
zero waste system. The project used the Namibian
fog-basking beetle which yields its own fresh water in
a desert as a reference because the greenhouse also
needed to use seawater to cool the greenhouse. The
project needed a 'restorative' solution from the na-
ture, that surpassed the concept of 'sustainability'.
There is also "the Gherkin", the Swiss Re Insurance
Tower in London designed by Norman Foster which
takes it's form from the glass sea sponge which are
deep sea organisms. In order to reduce energy use,
the Swiss Re Tower falters around the inner core of
the building and heats and cools the building which
results in a 40% energy reduction. This form comes
from the glass sea sponge which uses the sponge
to filter water and segregates food by using their
strands to wrap and layer in seven different direc-
tions. They survive through absence of light using
the silicates (glass)'s multi-tiered structures.
Another compelling example of bioinspired de-
sign applied in architecture is the Esplanade - The-
atres on the Bay in Singapore, designed by DP Archi-
tects and Michael Wilford & Partners. The structures
feature responsive facades with photo reactors that
open and close depending upon the sun's rays, con-
trolling the amount of light that enters the building.
Their appearance is similar to leaves or scales, and the
building is affectionately called the "big durian" by lo-
cals.
There are many successful bioinspired designs
that not only uses the physical appearance of the na-
ture but uses the various, creative solutions that the
nature could provide. And biological system based
ideation process is mostly occurred at the very early
stage of design process in architectural design. As
problems become more complicated, many architec-
tural and design companies such as Arup, IDEO, Smart
Design are taking interest in bioinspired approach.
Taryn Mead, a Senior Biologist in the Biomimicry Guild
explains that when engaging the biomimicry in the
design process, it functions better when the biolo-
gists get involved in the process as early as possible.
Supportive Tools of Biological System
Search and Data Structure
The reason why bioinspired design is receiving at-
tention is because there have already been various
successful examples, as seen in Architectural Bio-
inspired Design, where bioinspired design have pro-
vided practical solutions where the designers could
not come up with on their own (Benyus, 1997; Dick-
ens, 1999). And statistically, there is more possibil-
ity of finding an optimal solution when using innu-
merable solutions found in nature as a primary idea
pool, than depending on an individual designer's lim-
ited solution space (Dickens, 1999). But when try-
ing to solve an actual problem using bioinspired de-
sign, it is interesting that the reason why designers
meet a dead end is due to an unexpectedly small
number of biological systems that can be used as an
Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 469
 idea pool. Thus, even when designers chose to use
bioinspired design, the idea sources to be applicable
become extremely limited without plenty biological
knowledge: probably that is why Taryn Mead recom-
mends a collaboration work with biologist. After all,
aside from the applicability of bioinspired design, the
problem on how to designate the appropriate bio-
logical system in the early stage of design must be
solved (Shu et al., 2011).
The design strategy repository - AskNature, Idea-
Inspire, DANE, BioTriz - provided on the web for not
only engineering designers but architects and indus-
trial designers, shows the market's need for support-
ive tool in a bioinspired design (Fu et al., 2014; Van-
devenne et al., 2014). Thus development and dis-
tribution of such supportive tools can help design-
ers with biological knowledge. Although this kind
of design approach itself can be used widely in not
only architecture, but industrial design, mechanical
engineering, medicine, bioengineering, chemical en-
gineering, and more, the data source (biological sys-
tem) has been structured to meet only the engineer-
ing designer's point-of-view (Stroble, 2009; Nagel et
al., 2010; Cheong et al., 2011; Cohen et al., 2014;
Glier et al., 2014; Nagel, 2014). To go in further,
the passages for the biological system written in the
biology domain is provided by structuring the pas-
sages into functional expressions used in the engi-
neering design domain (Stroble, 2009; Nagel et al.,
2010; Cheong et al., 2011; Cohen et al., 2014; Glier
et al., 2014; Nagel, 2014; Vandevenne, 2014). The
currently used platforms such as Idea-Inspire, DANE,
and BioTriz (and BEAST) provide search option that
can be searched through function words and biolog-
ical words (Fu et al., 2014; Vandevenne, 2014). Al-
though there are services like AskNature where de-
sign strategies are interpreted so the designers who
are not used to function words can use it with bet-
ter understanding, but because the design strategy
also uses the system of function words, it is difficult
for people from other field of studies to use it (Fu et
al., 2014).
Therefore, using biological system repository
470 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
based on function words, a database for wide use
must be newly developed and distributed (Cheong
et al., 2011). When function words and general words
are connected, the system can connect the general
words typed in the search engine with the closest
function words and provide easy access to the DB
for the non-engineering majors. Although, for this
to happen, the network of general words must be
constructed based on function words. Studies that
are related to finding the distance of connections of
function words and lexicons used in specific field in
a bioinspired domain, has often been done in order
to overcome the limitation of the existing repository
by increasing the amount of data of applicable bio-
logical systems (Stroble et al., 2009; Glier et al., 2014).
However, because it is focused on natural scientific
lexicons in biology and the terms are rarely used in an
actual design process, the results for this study can-
not be used.
METHODOLOGY
Gathering Lexicons from Domain
There are not many studies defining lexicons in the
architectural domain considering their importance,
and this is because the universal code that could be
used for the designers and constructors alike regard-
less to their agencies were established in the indus-
tries and not the academic world. Akin et al.(1998)'s
study can be referred to gather lexicons scientifically.
In order to develop modeling methods suited for the
design requirements, the consisting components of
design requirements were analyzed (Akin et al, 1998);
it is essential for the design requirements to be de-
fined by the designer in the early stage of design pro-
cess. As a result of this study, the adaptive frame was
developed for the system to respond flexibly to the
evolving nature of the architectural design field (Akin
et al, 1998). But in order to accurately analyze the
current field environment, standard models such as
'building specifications' can be used. In this study,
the 'Industry Standard', published to collect lexicons
used currently in the field, was used.
In this study, all the texts from the International
Building Code (2015 ver., 661 pages including the ap-
pendix) published by the International Code Council
were collected. It was appropriate to collect lexicons
from this publication because it had all the contents
on structures, safety facilities, regulations, and more.
In other studies that collect lexicons on a specific
field from textbooks and advanced text, a method
to analyze meaningful words that continuously ap-
pear in the text was used (Cheng et al., 2011). First,
the Regular-Expression Tokenizer is used to split the
string inside the text and disassemble it into tokens
that are word-level: RegexpTokenizer of NLTK (Bird et
al., 2009). Then, using the Word Tagging Algorithm
used in the natural language processing, the cate-
gories of tokenized terms were automatically tagged:
pos_tag of NLTK (Bird et al., 2009). In this study, lex-
icons that are connected with function words must
be sorted, therefore the verbs are extracted. In simi-
lar studies, in order to sort out verbs in the collected
tokens, methods such as chi-square distribution was
used to extract words that appear often and then
sort out the verbs (Cheong et al., 2011). But if the
algorithm explained earlier is used, verbs from the
sentences could be automatically sorted. However,
the accuracy of the algorithm may not be perfect, so
there had to be manual work to pick out words that
were not verbs in the selected word list. Afterwards,
word lemmatization was conducted to standardize
words into the base form of verbs: WordNet Lemma-
tizer was used. Out of the 413,294 words finally col-
lected, 33,487 were verbs and there were 1,022 kinds
of different verbs.
Gathering Function Words from Biological
System Repository
Technically, the semantic relations between the func-
tion words and the lexicons that architects frequently
use when they model design requirements. How-
ever, the function words must be connected with the
corresponding biological systems firstly, because the
'functional expression' used in this paper, in all re-
spects, targets the characteristics of the biological
systems.
As explained previously, there are several biolog-
ical system repositories that can be used by design-
ers who seek to use bioinspired design in their deci-
sion making process, such as AskNature, DANE, Idea-
Inspire, and more. Out of these services, AskNature
open source, where 2,686 design strategies are es-
tablished, was used to collect the characteristics of
biological systems. The reason for using data from
AskNature to collect characteristics of biological sys-
tem was because: first, it is an open source; second,
although searching through function words isn't pos-
sible, it is structured using design strategy based on
functional expressions, so it is easy to pair with func-
tion words; and third, because there are 2,686 design
strategies (design strategies that can be obtained
from biological systems) in the system which has the
largest amount of data compared to other existing
repositories.
The data structure has various design strategies
and passages that explain the strategies connected
to one specific biological system that the designer is
seeking for. The construction of the design strategy,
compared to the commonly used standardized con-
struction of a functional expression, combines 'non
functional' expressions that can be considered as a
'behavior' or a 'structure', so there are different lev-
els between the categories and the hierarchy of the
categories are indistinct. Therefore, later in order to
plan a system that supports semantic search on bi-
ological systems based on the hierarchical relation-
ship of function words, the relationship between the
biological systems must be defined using the func-
tional expressions used in the repository. There-
fore, the purpose of this study is not about defin-
ing the relationship between words and semantics
that construct the lexicons and passages from dif-
ferent domains (the supporting texts in related de-
sign strategies), but to define the semantic relation-
ship between a function word that represents a de-
sign strategy. Function word dictionary by Stone and
Wood was used as a reference when expressing de-
sign strategies into function words. This thesaurus
shows clear structure of categories and hierarchy of
Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 471
 function words and has the advantage of complet- and transform. The semantic similarity was calcu-
ing a standardized 'biological system - function word' lated between all corresponding function words and
pair. lexicons of architecture. The search engine may use
the calculated table when architect requests search
Semantic Analysis task by using lexicon of architecture. The table shows
The verbs (lexicons) collected in Gathering Lex- representative pairs of function word and lexicon
icons from Domain, and the semantic similarity (Table 1, Table 2).
of function words collected in Gathering Func-
tion Words from Biological System Repository
were calculated using the Semantic Word Network
System by WordNet. The semantic relatedness be-
tween the two words can be quantified using meth-
ods such as HSO(Hirst & St-Onge), LCH(Leacock &
Chodorow), LESK(Benerjee & Pedersen), WUP(Wu
& Palmer), RES(Resnik), JCN(Jiang & Conrath), and
LIN(Lin). They are all common in the sense that they
use WordNet's hierarchical system as their reference.
And out of these methods, the JCN method uses the
IC(information contents) as an indicator to calculate
the distance between two words, so the accuracy of
the semantic distance is guaranteed. Moreover, the
accuracy was certified when it showed the correla-
tion rate of 0.828 compared with the judgment of an
actual human being in an experiment tested with ex-
perts (Jiang and Conrath, 1997). In this study, the LIN
method which is a slightly modified version of the
JCN method is used: WS4J package (ws4j-1.0.1). LIN
method is a method that normalizes the range of the
result value that was printed using the JCN method
into [0, 1]. Because the maximum value of the result
value in the LIN method is set to 1, there is the ad-
vantage that the distance between the words can be
absolutely quantified.

RESULT
Originally the function words have semantic hierar-
chy by relatedness and the list of class is 'Branch',
'Channel', 'Connect', 'Control', 'Magnitude', 'Convert',
'Provision', and 'Signal'. Each class word has its cor-
responding words. For example, the following words
are correspondents of the 'Convert' class: condense,
create, decode, differentiate, digitize, encode, evap-
orate, generate, integrate, liquefy, process, solidify,

472 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Table 1
Related lexicons for
function words of
functional
expression

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 473

 SCENARIO Table 2
When designers use a search tool in order to apply Continuation of
bioinspired design in an actual architectural design Table 1
problem, more search results can be obtained when
using data structure that is classified into function
words, than using lexicons like they currently do.
For example, when designing a factory or a res-
idential building in a flood hazard area, a designer
may choose bioinspired approach to design it. A
flood hazard problem has been a problem which
mankind, along with many other organisms in the na-
ture, has sought to solve. Therefore, many solutions
that could be applied directly and indirectly to solve
this problem exists in the nature.
The structure and design requirements are orga-
nized in the architectural design standard. Essential
standards such as substantial improvement or dam-
age restoration, and more to deal with flood hazards
or flood loads are explained in this publication. To
specify, lexicons such as 'base', 'elevate', 'flood', 'pre-
vent', 'restore', 'inhibit' and more appear in the 'flood'
related chapters. But the lexicons that appear here
can be searched more by the designer when it is con-
verted into related function words than to be used
in its current form. When these are connected to its
function words, the result is as follows: 'base - re-
lease', 'base - shield', 'elevate - transfer', 'flood - reg-
ulate', 'flood - shift', 'prevent - prevent', 'restore - form',
and 'inhibit - inhibit' (Fig 2). As scenario shows (Fig
2) many biological systems can be printed out by us-
ing the semantic relationship extracted in this study.
When designer queries for adaptable biological sys-
tems without using semantic relationship, the BS1
(see Fig 2) is only searched from the repository.
The search results that come up from keyword
search is the outcome of the data manager (e.g coor-
dinator of AskNature)'s intention which tagged each
biological system with the meaningful keywords.
Even if the current system provides a satisfying level
of search results, when the data pool grows bigger,
the data manager cannot use this kind of manual tag-
ging method and a semantic search system must be
developed.

474 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Figure 2
‘Designing a factory
or a residential
building in a flood
hazard area’
example

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 475

 CONCLUSIONS
This study eventually contributes in making bioin-
spired design broadly used in the architectural do-
main. Up until now, the biological idea search system
which supports bioinspired design only provided a
low level keyword search through function words
and biological keywords. Thus, there were many lim-
itations for wide range of use. Therefore, this pa-
per provides solution to this problem by bridging
the meaningful keywords and corresponding func-
tion words. Specifically the relationship between
architectural lexicons and function words in the ar-
chitectural domain has quantitatively assessed. In
real scenario, the keywords that designers intuitively
puts in will be automatically converted into function
words for the system to understand better and pro-
pose more accurate and useful results. From this de-
velopment, through the iterative architectural design
process, designers will be able to use biological idea
search system more intuitively without difficult func-
tional decomposition or understanding.
As a future work we need to verify the availabil-
ity of this system with problems of the field. And a
research to elaborate the current search system and
biological system repository is prepared.
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[1] http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/cac
tusbuilding-ed01.jpg. 17 July 2015
[2] http://bioclimaticx.com/wp-content/uploads/2009
/10/eastgate-zimbabwe-apartment-building.jpg.
17 July 2015
Theories and Models of Parametric Design Thinking
Rivka Oxman1 , Ning Gu2
1
Technion Israel Institute of Technology 2 The University of Newcastle
1
rivkao@gmail.com 2 ning.gu@newcastle.edu.au

Due to significant recent design-related technological developments, design

theories and processes are undergoing re-formulation and an epistemological
shift. The tools and practices of parametric design are beginning to impact new
forms of Parametric Design Thinking (PDT). The present work is motivated by
the need to explore and formulate the body of theoretical concepts of parametric
design. It is built around the intersection of three areas of knowledge: cognitive
models of design, digital models of design, and parametric tools and scripts. The
work identifies forms of cognitive mechanisms in parametric design; types of
logical flow of information that can be applied in digital processes for
performance-based design; generative design and form finding. It explores the
impact of parametric models and tools upon styles of design thinking from
conception to production. These are presented as a body of knowledge in the
search for thinking and process models of PDT in design.

Keywords: Parametric Design, Parametric Schema, Parametric Design

Thinking, Generative Design, Performative Design

INTRODUCTION sign methodology and new epistemological bases of

Due to significant recent design-related technologi-
cal developments, design theories and processes are
undergoing re-formulation and an epistemological
shift. Parametric design systems today can adapt
to changing context (Woodbury 2010) under the in-
fluence of parametric languages and scripting tech-
niques (Jabi 2013) and to diverse topological rela-
tionships and generative processes of design (Ox-
man 2006). Among its forms of influence paramet-
ric design has affected the topological and formal
characteristics of designs produced in diverse design
fields such as architecture, industrial design and fash-
ion design. Current research has also shown that
the development of new tools and scripting envi-
ronments are also contributing to a distinctive de-
design knowledge resulting in new forms of design
thinking (Oxman and Oxman 2014). We refer to these
emerging phenomena as Parametric Design Think-
ing (PDT).
The work presented in this paper is motivated by
the need to explore and characterize current theories
and practices of parametric design and to reformu-
late the underlying concepts behind parametric de-
sign thinking. One of the bases for understanding
these phenomena is the emergence of a body of cog-
nitive and computational concepts that are expand-
ing the role and overall design impact of paramet-
ric design. This body of concepts is rapidly becom-
ing the nexus of theory and production in paramet-
ric design. Terms and concepts such as parametric

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 477

 schema, algorithmic thinking and parametric reason-
ing are becoming an important body of new knowl-
edge in the search for a general theory of PDT.
Following upon recent studies on parametric de-
sign methods and tools in academia and practice
(Hernandez 2006; Iordanova 2009; Cellini and Vaz
2012) we focuses in this research upon theoretical
and methodological issues, and the definition of con-
cepts while exploring their relationships in order to
expand current design theory and knowledge.
Our research is built around three areas of knowl-
edge: cognitive models of design, digital models of
design, and the examination of the impact of para-
metric tools and scripts. The research aims to explore
their relationships and their mutual impact on PDT. In
the following sections a body of design topics is intro-
duced, discussed and presented with specific exam-
ples from architectural design.
PARAMETRIC DESIGN
Parametric design thinking can be defined as hav-
ing three characteristics - thinking with abstraction;
thinking mathematically; and thinking algorithmi-
cally (Woodbury, 2010). Thinking with abstraction is
a base that enables parametric design as a genera-
tive approach for producing parallel alternatives and
it also enables parts of the parametric model to be
reused. Thinking mathematically refers to the the-
orems and constructions used to define the script-
ing language for design representation and genera-
tion. Thinking algorithmically means that the script-
ing language provides functions that can add, repeat,
modify or remove parts in a parametric design.
Woodbury claims that in a parametric design en-
vironment designers need a different kind of knowl-
edge that can "predict persistent effects to under-
stand the diversity and structure of the mathemat-
ical toolbox, and to shuttle between the intended
effect and mathematical invention that models it"
(Woodbury 2010). That means that parametrically
discriminating designers would need to know more
than merely basic architectural knowledge. How-
ever, there should also be an informed balance be-
478 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
tween pure parametric tool manipulation and the
utilization of a broad understanding of architectural
knowledge in the parametric design process. For ex-
ample, some designers who embrace what is referred
to as Parametricism may tend to abandon fundamen-
tal architectural principles and concerns, having the
tendency to avoid comprehensive critical judgment
and aim instead for formal novelty through comput-
ing power without addressing other basics of archi-
tectural design such as social, historical and environ-
mental concerns, functional and programmatic re-
quirements, and user's psychological needs (Castel-
lano, 2011).
The following three points are generally charac-
teristic of the parametric design process:
• Designers design rules and define their logi-
cal relationships in the creation of 3D visual-
ization models
The distinction of parametric design in comparison
to traditional computer modeling is that rule-sets
become basic design procedures in configuring 3D
models of parametric design (Abdelsalam, 2009). In
building parametric models, designers set variables
and digital data flows, adjusting the values of param-
eters, and revising the rules accordingly. Rather than
traditional configuration ways of the object itself, the
design of the generative rule set and their logical rela-
tionships is becoming the main focus of design think-
ing. In this way, more alternative solutions can be ex-
plored by changing the parameters of the logical re-
lationships (Hernandez, 2006; Karle & Kelly, 2011).
A recent cognitive design study (Yu et al, 2014)
presents the following findings: Designers write their
rules referring mainly to geometric modeling focus-
ing on geometric elements. This suggests that wider
comprehensive aspects of architectural knowledge,
principles and concepts are outside of this primary
focus.
• Designers can change and modify their de-
sign at any stage
 Designers can change and modify their own rule-
based representations in any stage of the design pro-
cess. In processes of parametric design, the design
system is differentiated and correlated. In the para-
metric model, all design procedures and activities
are related to one another and clearly defined (Schu-
macher, 2008). Therefore, designers can return back
in any stage and revise parameters or rules to mod-
ify their design or to pursue a different one. This al-
lows them methodologically to keep the design pro-
cess open and flexible.
• Design alternatives can be developed in par-
allel in any stage
Designers often consider a relatively limited number
of alternative solutions (Woodbury & Burrow, 2006).
In the parametric design process, once the rules are
implemented, unlimited numbers of design alterna-
tives can be generated in parallel. The possibility
to use parallel design generation is changing modes
of thinking and contributes to explorative processes
(Hernandez, 2006; Holland, 2011; Karle & Kelly, 2011).
PARAMETRIC DESIGN THINKING (PDT)
Beyond any particular formal style or design tool,
parametric design thinking is emerging as a theoret-
ical topic (Oxman and Gu, 2013) and a key model
of digital design. With the emergence of new lan-
guages and tools, and in comparison to traditional
models of the parametric, the generic formulation of
a Parametric Design Schema should be formulated
and explored as a comprehensive theoretical frame-
work to support design.
Karle & Kelly, 2011 describe this process as "a new
way of relating tangible and intangible systems into
a design proposal removed from digital tool speci-
ficity and establishes relationships between proper-
ties within a system. It asks architects to start with
the design parameters and not preconceived or pre-
determined design solutions." (Karle & Kelly, 2011)Be-
yond being merely a new digital technique, paramet-
ric design thinking is more about an understanding
of parametric structures of design knowledge that
can be formulated and represented as generic para-
metric schema. The adoption of design patterns in
certain domains is a phenomenon that has been ob-
served by a number of researchers in both traditional
architectural design (Alexander et al., 1977) and in
parametric design (Woodbury et al., 2007).
According to Brett Steele, parametric design
knowledge is a model of design thinking that in-
tegrates topological patterns within generic typolo-
gies. This cognitive capability has been termed, the
"serial sensibility" (Brett Steele, in Lee and Jacoby,
2007).
The Role of the Cognitive Parametric
Schema
The cognitive role and the logic of a generic knowl-
edge schema as a basis for understanding pro-
cess of schema adaptation and refinement by re-
representation can be demonstrated through exam-
ples of prior research (Oxman, 1992; 1997). The emer-
gence of a new schema is a fundamental cognitive
capability of creativity in the human designer. In the
process of design, engineering, and construction the
schema can be modified and adapted. To summarize,
the role of the parametric schema:
• Providing an explorative mechanism
• Providing a medium for generating variation
• Providing a medium for transformational pro-
cesses
The cognitive roles and the logic of a generic schema
(referring in this case to architectural knowledge of
basic classical temple types) can be demonstrated
through the example of the Classical Greek Temple,
reflecting the different styles, geometrical series and
proportions (see figure 1). The cognitive role and the
logic of a generic schema (referring in this case to
architectural knowledge of column types and vari-
ables) can also be demonstrated by examples of the
Classical Greek columns (see figure 2).
These two examples represent the distinc-
tion between generic typological-schema referring
to typological design of different types versus a
Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 479
 topological-schema referring to topological forma-
tion by changing the value of parametric variants of
the Greek Columns.Please also write your "reply to
the reviews" directly in the paper, using notes such
as this one to point out where you have reacted to
the inputs given.
The Role of the Visual Representation in
Parametric Schema
Traditional representations in design are focused
upon visual and geometrical representation of the
design object. Visual representations are generally
non-explicit with respect to presenting the structural
logic behind form making and the development of
the object under design.
In visual parametric schema the designer inter-
acts with parametric modeling using visual code
symbols. The image of the design is generated by
the 3D Rhino modeling component of the system.
The parametric capability of a Grasshopper system
enables generation and modification of the design
by changing the parameters rather than rewriting the
480 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
code (or 3D re-modeling by Rhino). This presents a
typical process of visual reasoning in which a para-
metric modification process of the script maintains
the parametric relationships that have been defined
and generated.
Tools, Scripting and Coding of Parametric
Design Process Figure 1
Understanding and developing methods of pro- Classical variation
graming such as parametric scripting and coding for of the generic order
various process-based models of digital design are of the Greek Temple
providing a foundation for the characterization and (Wikipedia)
conceptual definition of parametric design thinking.
In order to represent processes of parametric de-
sign there is a need to explicate the flow of informa-
tion and the logic that is embedded in process mod-
els of design focusing on the explication of knowl-
edge structures and the order of flow of informa-
tion; the constructive logic should become explicit.
In parametric modeling of digital models of design
(for example: Grasshopper) there are two types of vi- Figure 2
sual display. An interactive display of the visual im- Schema for
age is generated in parallel to interactive program- topological
ing by visual scripting code. Parametric variations of formation of a Doric
the image can be updated and generated simultane- Greek Column
ously in a visual display in parallel to code modifica- (Credit: Michael
tion. The following figure illustrates the linked dual Weizmann)
provision of the visual interface for interactive code
input and the resultant 3D graphical representation
(Oxman 2016) (see figures 3-6).
Understanding how a parametric schema sup-
ports the logic of a digital process model in de-
sign (Oxman, 2006) requires skill and knowledge that
includes parametric design, theories of topological
structures and their relations, mathematics, and as-
sociative geometry.
Figure 3
Schema for
topological
formation of a
Corinthian Greek
Column (Credit:
Michael Weizmann)
Figure 4 of a comprehensive theory of PDT in parametric de-
Visual scripting in sign in architecture is a comprehensive and impor-
performative model tant undertaking.
of digital design Such a comprehensive theory would be based
(Oxman 2016) upon the distinctive concepts and models of para-
(Credit: I. Musizuk) metric design thinking and their impact on the for-
malization of distinctive forms of information flow
in parametric models of design. This would include
a comprehensive formulation of the generic cogni-
tive and computational reasoning models that are
applied in processes of parametric design.
Figure 5 It appears to have now become important to
Visual 3D image in understand the role of parametric tools on design
performative model thinking. We have here made a first attempt to con-
of digital design tribute to the definition of PDT, its dominant con-
(Oxman 2016) cepts, theories, models, and its emerging research
(Credit: I. Musizuk) agenda. Given the rapid development and the broad
acceptance of parametric design tools, the further ex-
tension of this research agenda as well as the defini-
tion of its intellectual resources appears to be a high
priority agenda for design research and the digital
design community.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Figure 6 The images presented in this article are based on
Visual image experimental work developed by Illia Musizuk and
resulting of Michael Weizmann under the supervision of Profes-
algorithmic sor Rivka Oxman of the Technion, Faculty of Architec-
scripting in ture and T.P.
generative model
of digital design REFERENCES
(Credit: I. Musizuk) Celani, G and Vaz, C 2012, 'CAD Scripting And Visual Pro-
gramming Languages For Implementing Computa-
tional Design Concepts: A Comparison From a Peda-
gogical Point of View', International Journal of Archi-
tectural Computing, 10, pp. 121-138
Conclusions Hernandez, C.R.B. 2006, 'Thinking parametric design: in-
We have introduced and explored a range of research troducing parametric Gaudi', Design Studies, R. Ox-
issues in the characterization and definition of PDT man (ed.) special issue on Digital Design, 27, pp. 309-
in architectural design. Certain basic terms and con- 324
cepts have been discussed in order to provide a the- Holland, N 2011 'Inform form perform', Proceedings of
ACADIA 2011
oretical framework for defining PDT. The clarification
Iordanova, I 2009 'Parametric methods of exploration
of the taxonomic, epistemological, and theoretical is- and creativity during architectural design: A case
sues in PDT has been outlined. Further development study in the design studio', Proceedings of CAAD Fu-

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 481

 tures 2009,
Jabi, W (eds) 2013, Parametric Design for Architecture,
Laurence King, London
Jacoby, L 2007, 'Typological Formations: Renewable
Building Types and the City', in Steele, B (eds) 2007,
Serial Sensibilities, AA publications
Karle, D and Kelly, B 2011 'no title given', Proceedings of
ACADIA 2011
Oxman, Rivka 1997, 'Design by Re-Representation- A
Model of Visual Reasoning in Design', Design Studies,
18, pp. 329-347
Oxman, Rivka 2006, 'Theory and Design in the First Dig-
ital Age', Design Studies, R. Oxman (ed.) special issue
on Digital Design, 27, p. 229–265
Oxman, Rivka 2014 'Parametric Design Thinking', DCC
Workshop
Oxman, Rivka 2016, 'The Role of the Image in Digital
Design: Processing the Image versus Imaging the
Process” in Inge Hinterwaldner and Sabine Ammon
(eds.) Springer-Verlag', in Hinterwaldner, I and Am-
mon, S (eds) 2016, Imagery in the Age of Modelling:
Operative Artifacts in the Design Process in Architec-
ture and Engineering, Springer-Verlag
Oxman, Rivka and Oxman, Robert (eds) 2014, Theories of
the Digital in Architecture, Routledge, U.K.
Woodbury, R 2010, Elements of Parametric Design, Rout-
ledge, N.Y
Yu, R, Gu, N and G, J 2014, 'Architects' cognitive be-
haviour in parametric design', International Journal
of Architectural Computing, 13, pp. 83-101

482 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Automated Generation of Heuristics for Design
Richard Schaffranek1 , Trapp Harald2
1,2
TU Wien
1,2
{richard.schaffranek|trapp}@tuwien.ac.at

The crisis of architecture is a crisis of form, therefore new approaches and

definitions are necessary. The children´s game of Hide-and-Seek seems extremely
relevant to learn the complex interplay of social interaction and space. What if its
hiding places were to be designed by an architect? Is there a method to relate the
rules of the game to the number, design and layout of its obstacles in such a way
as to create a successful game?A possibility to tackle this problem is the use of
metaheuristic solvers. But even for the simple game of Hide-and-Seek, their use is
confined to cases with a very limited set of obstacles and players, since the time
needed to calculate the fitness function increases rapidly. To overcome this we
suggest the use of statistical methods to develop a heuristic fitness function based
on properties which can be directly computed from the values of the genotype.
The resulting function makes is possible to solve the given problem using a
metaheuristic solver not only for the simple cases with 3 or 4, but also for those
with n obstacles.

Keywords: Architectural Systems, Metaheuristic Solver, Generative design,

Decision Making, Machine Learning

INTRODUCTION exist as long as complementary forms of interaction

The current crisis of architecture is a crisis of form,
which has become a victim of its own success. New
approaches and definitions are necessary to over-
come the increasingly meaningless experiments of
"anything goes". If form in architecture could be ex-
tended to include the spatial aspects of social in-
teraction and these could be connected with ob-
jects that are formed to have an effect in such in-
teraction, a long needed link between "form" and
"function" might be provided. What is convention-
ally conceived as "architecture", i.e. objects like build-
ings, would merely become one group of elements
in complex systems of operative architectural forms.
Such autopoietic architectural systems would only
and forms of objects continually connect to each
other. (This definition was formulated by Harald
Trapp in Dichte Distanz (2013)) Digital design meth-
ods are well suited to simulate such systems, but
are lacking an architectural theory and are strug-
gling with the amount of data to be handled even
in simpler cases such as children's games. Neverthe-
less an operational definition of architectural form
might have to begin there, as some of these games
are fundamental to the individual`s development of
the concept of space. In particular, Hide-and-Seek
seems extremely relevant to learn the complex in-
terplay of social interaction and space. What if its
hiding places were to be designed by an architect?

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 483

 Is there a method to relate the rules of the game
(which could be interpreted as constraints on the ran-
dom movement of players, e.g. children) to the num-
ber, design and layout of its obstacles (which could
be interpreted as constraints on the random move-
ment of objects, i.e. architectural design) in such a
way as to create a successful game? Fortunately in
Hide-and-Seek not only the rules for the movements
of the players, but even the game´s success can be
rather simply defined. Like all good games it has
to challenge its participants, but should avoid frus-
tration (of course, these parameters are debatable,
but they seem reasonable enough as a basic assump-
tion). Therefore all players involved (seeker, hiders)
should have an equal chance to win, which means
not only the seeker can find hiders, but also the hiders
can escape, if being closer to the centre than the
seeker before being detected.
As simple as the definition of the rules and suc-
cess in the case of Hide-and-Seek might be, com-
ing up with a design even for the most simple lay-
out proves rather complicated. The game challenges
the design through aspects of vision (from where
can a player see what?), movement (which routes
can a player take to explore the field?) and dis-
tance (what is the difference in distance to the cen-
tre between the different players?). Metaheuristic
solvers have been used to find valid/good solutions
solving layout-problems in many different instances
(e.g. (Elezkurtaj and Franck 1999) (Donath, König
and Petzold 2012)). (Metaheuristic-solvers can be
used to solve optimisation problems without know-
ing specifics about the problem. Therefore they can
be applied to a variety of problems. Depending on
the type e.g. a genetic solver, different strategies e.g.
evolutionary principles are applied to search through
possible solutions, trying to find the best solution.
The quality of a solution is defined by a single value,
its fitness. Finding the best solution is not guaran-
teed. Through plugins to existing CAD programs e.g.
Grasshopper3d, they are made available to a broad
audience.) But other than in most cases, the archi-
tectural form here is not restricted to a fixed object
484 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
which houses a function, but interpreted as a contin-
ually changing operation. Such a definition tends to
promote not to find or produce successful architec-
tural forms, but to invent them or "to breed" as De-
Landa (2002) suggests. Because of the combination
of moving and perceiving players within a modifiable
playing field this seemingly easy task becomes rather
complex, and needs therefore a simplified approach
to generate layouts.
HIDE-AND-SEEK SETUP
The game consists of at least three players, one
seeker p(s) and two hiders p(hi) with equal properties
concerning vision and movement. The seeker starts
from the fixed centre point (red dot, figure 1) and will
start to visit the obstacles one after the other always
taking the shortest path moving along the grey lines
in figure 1 representing all possible shortest path. He
finds a hider (green dot, figure 1) as soon as he makes
visual contact with him crossing the blue lines (first
line of sight). Each hider is concealed behind one ob-
stacle and tries to reach the centre before being de-
tected by the seeker. As all players move with the
same velocity, a hider can escape and thereby win by
reaching the centre before the seeker, if he is closer
to the centre as the seeker (isochrones represented
by the dotted lines, figure 1) before he has been de-
tected. The deformation of these circles is a result of
the obstacles blocking the direct path from the start-
ing point to the hiding positions.
The obstacles o(i) are positioned around the cen-
tre, perpendicular to the direct lines from their cen-
tres to the centre of the playing field. The number
of obstacles shall exceed the number of hiders by at
least one. In order to obtain different layouts, the ro-
tation around the centre of the different objects can
be changed in discrete steps (±0.1π). In a second
test-scenario each obstacle itself can rotate around
its centre within a given range (-0.4π to 0.4π;±0.1π).
The seeker starts at the centre of the playing field
and moves to all possible hiding points, one after the
other, following the shortest path until all hiders ei-
ther have been found or run free. If the seeker finds
Figure 1
Possible layouts; On
the left is a layout
where the obstacles
are perpendicular
to the straight line
from the centre of
the obstacle to the
centre of the
playing field. On
the right each
obstacles is also
allowed to rotate
around its centre.

more hiders, than can run free, the seeker wins s. If
more hiders can run free, than the seeker finds, the
hiders win h. Otherwise the game is a draw d.
GENERATION OF RESULTS
For the smallest layout possible, three players (one
seeker p(s), two hiders p(h1,2)) and three obsta-
cles o(1,2,3), there are three different combinations
where players can hide (AB, AC, BC) and six different
paths on which the seeker can visit the obstacles (SP
ABC, SP ACB, SP BAC, SP BCA, SP CAB, SP CBA) .
! total wins of either the hiders h or the seeker s. This
v(p, o) = o · o! (1)
ph ! · (o − ph )!
The results for all these 18 possible game-variations
v (Equation 1) are computed until either all hiders are
found or have run free. Based on this simulation the
quality of the layout can be measured through a fit-
ness function f. To vary the playing field, the place-
ment of the obstacles around the centre of the play-
ing field can be changed in discrete steps (±0.1π). In
a second version, additionally the rotation of each
obstacle around its centre can be changed (-0.4π to
0.4π;±0.1π). This can be done randomly and then the
best layout can be picked. Another possibility is to
use a metaheuristic solver such as simulated anneal-
ing or a genetic algorithm.
As mentioned above, the quality of a layout (fit-
ness f ) can be defined rather easily, as seeker and
hiders should ideally have an equal chance to win.
For this, the chance to be found should equal the
hiders chance to escape by reaching the centre be-
fore the seeker. Thus the game would ideally result
in a draw. The number of draws d of a possible layout
can be measured against the difference between the
seems to result in a valid fitness function. The more
quotient 2 approaches 1, the more attractive the lay-
out for the players (because there are fewer "frustrat-
ing" results).
d
f (d, h, s) = ≤1 (2)
d + |h − s|
However, this function ignores the difference be-
tween draws on one hand and hider / seeker wins on
the other hand. As long as the hiders´ wins equal the
seeker´s wins they can exceed the number of draws.
E.g. d=2 h=8 s=8, this would result in a fitness of 1

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 485

 and therefore in a perfect layout even so the number
of draws are not very high compared to the number
of runs where the hiders or the seeker wins.
To overcome this problem, equation 2 has to be
multiplied with the number of draws divided by the
total number of game variations.
d d
f (d, h, s) = · ≤1 (3)
d + |h − s| d + h + s
To examine the fitness function behaviour, randomly
generated numbers for d,h,s were used. Figure 2 illus-
trates the relation between draws, hiders´ wins and
seeker's wins. It shows that the higher the fitness, the
lower the number of hiders´ wins and seeker's wins,
whereas the total number of draws increases but is
not necessarily maximized. This could be seen as in-
sufficient, but enables to keep the fitness value as a
relation with a fixed upper limit of 1. Furthermore this
allows comparing layouts with different constraints,
numbers of obstacles and/or players.
In our research, a readily available metaheuris-
tic solver (Grasshopper, Galapagos) without any fur-
ther modifications was used to generate layouts for
the game of Hide-and-Seek. The best-found layout(s)
can be seen in Figure 3.
486 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
If considering only the rotation around the fixed
centre of the playing field, chances can be evened
out to a certain point (Figure 3, left), since the side
from which an obstacle is approached does not play
a role. The obstacle farthest away is the worst obsta-
cle to hide. If the obstacles are arranged in line, the
seeker always wins. Further it shows that no groups
are formed but the obstacles tend to be evenly dis-
tributed around the centre of the playing field. In this
case the metaheuristic solver was able to find a layout
with a fitness of 0.397. The same result was also found
after a few tries when the layouts were randomly gen-
erated. This suggests that the problem with this lim-
ited set of constraint is rather simple and a lot of pos-
sible best layouts exist.
Only when allowing the obstacles to rotate
around their centre, a more evened out layout can
be generated (Figure 3, right). In this case the best-
found layout had a fitness of 0.667. At first sight the
resulting design seems similar, but a closer inspec-
tion now finds the farthest obstacle as the one where
most hiders were able to run free. This is due to the Figure 2
fact, that the side from which the seeker approaches Randomly
starts to play a role as soon as the obstacles are ro- generated results
tated. When the seeker approaches the farthest ob- for d (green), h
stacle from the left side the hider has the opportu- (red), s(blue) and
nity to run free, since the distance to the centre of the resulting fitness
the playfield is greater from the position where the (equation 3).
seeker first sees him than from the hiding position.
This is clearly visible in the isochrones in Figure 3 or
Figure 4.
SOLUTION-SPACE COMPLEXITY
As shown for the smallest version of Hide-and-Seek
with three players and three obstacles, metaheuris-
tic solvers can be used to generate a layout, as the
fitness function can still be calculated within an ac-
ceptable time. But when adding only one obstacle to
this setup of Hide-and-Seek, the amount of possible
game variations rises to 144 (compare to Equation 1),
quickly increasing the computational time, making it
infeasible to generate a layout through the utilization
of such techniques.
Figure 3
The left diagram
shows a best layout
found (d=10, h=2,
s=6; f=0.397) if the
obstacles are not
rotated around
their centre. The
right diagram
shows the best
layout found (d=12,
h=3, s=3; f=0.667) if
the obstacles are
allowed to rotate
around their centre.
The dotted lines
show the
isochrones for each
hiding position. The
red part of a circle
shows the number Further the number of distinct possible layouts AUTOMATING GENERATION OF HEURIS-
of found hiders, strongly depends on the discretisation of the layout TICS
whereas the green and the amount of obstacles placed. When the ro- As simple the game of Hide-and-Seek might be,
part shows the tation around the centre is limited to steps of ±.1*π the use of metaheuristic solvers is confined to cases
number of hiders (or={0,.1,.2,... 1.9}) and three obstacles have to be with a very limited set of parameters, since the time
that where able to placed, then there are 3ˆ19=1 162 261 467 possible needed to calculate the fitness function (the analy-
run free. The lines layouts. Adding an obstacle increases the amount to sis of the layout) increases rapidly. Therefore other
are an overlay of all 4ˆ19=274 877 90 944 layouts. methods have to be found to generate or evaluate a
possible paths that With this quick increase of complexity in both the layout. Simple heuristics can provide an answer to
the seeker took to fitness function and the solution-space it gets infeasi- the problem. As shown by Gigerenzer, Todd et al.
visit all hiding ble to use metaheuristic solvers to find good layouts (2000) simple heuristics (e.g. 'Take the Best'), work-
points. for setups with more than 4 obstacles and more than ing with limited amounts of information, can provide
3 players (1 seeker, 2 hiders). a good base for decision making, especially in cases
This observation is not only valid in the case of where it is infeasible to take into account all available
the game of Hide and Seek but also has been re- information.
ported in other cases (e.g. 'Graphical Smalltalk with These researchers demonstrated their approach
My Optimization System for Urban Planning Tasks' on the prediction of school drop out rates. Based
(Koenig , Treyer and Schmitt 2013) and seems to on a set of collected data they applied four different
make what Faucher and Niver (2000) described as "in- strategies: 'Take the Best', 'The minimalist', 'Multiple
verse design" inapplicable in daily design practice. Regression' and 'Dawes's Rule'.
("Inverse design" can be referred to as design by in- In the case of e.g. 'Take the Best' a set of ranked
tents, used as constrains to a form and not as form by cues is used to compare two different solutions. The
itself.) An analytic approach is needed! first occurrence of a difference in a cue is used to de-
termine which of two solutions is better. To achieve

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 487


the ranking of the cues the algorithm has to be
"trained" upfront. The ranking is interesting beyond
pure prediction. It enables to identify which parame-
ters are important to the problem and which are not.
'Take the Best' could be used for the first example
of our Hide-and Seek, where the obstacles are only al-
lowed to rotate around the centre of the playing field.
However, as will be explained, it performs bad for the
second example where the obstacles are also allowed
to rotate around their centre.
Therefore in the case of Hide-and-Seek we had to
use the strategy of 'Multiple Regression'. A thousand
random results where generated for both examples
with and without obstacles rotated around their cen-
tre. (The Random class of the .NET framework is used.
The documentation ensures an even probability from
a finite set of numbers. Since the random numbers
needed are limited (max 4/solution) enough random
numbers are provided.) For each generated layout
the fitness and other properties, such as the aver-
age rotation of the obstacles around the playing field
centre or the average distance between the possi-
ble hiding positions, were saved. These properties
can be chosen at will, but the computational time to
488 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
Figure 4
Game play
variations of the
two layouts.
compute these parameters has to be limited. Since
the problem was explored upfront, the observations
made when looking at the best layouts should be
taken into account when choosing the properties.
These data were used as training set to find an-
other function that would remodel the fitness func-
tion as good as possible but with less computational
effort. In a first step each property was used to com-
pute the correlation of the property and of simple
transformations of the property (xˆ(-1); ln�(x)) against
the fitness function values. In a second step an itera-
tive process (Branch and Bound) was applied to try if
the correlation could be improved through multipli-
cation of the different cues.
For the first example (obstacles are without rota-
tion around their centre) 18 different properties were
examined. The best correlation to the fitness func-
tion was found when the relation between median
and average angle between all pairs of obstacles o
(Equation 5) got multiplied with the relation of the
geometric average angle between all pairs of obsta-
cles and the angle that would distribute the obsta-
cles equally (Equation 6). With this combination a
correlation to the fitness function of r=0.8182 can be
Figure 5
The left scatter
plots shows the
best-found
correlation of a
single cue. The
right scatter plot
shows the best
combination of two
cues.

Figure 6
The left scatter
plots shows the
best-found
correlation of a
single cue. The
right scatter plot
shows the best
combination of up
to six cues.

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 489

 achieved. However, as can be seen in the left scat-
terplot of figure 5, the performance increases only
slightly when using multiple cues ('Multiple Regres-
sion') over using only the best correlating cue ('Take
the Best').
median(∠(oi=0...n , oj=0...n ))
uf 0(o) = (4)
avg(∠(oi=0...n , oj=0...n ))
avg(∠(oi=0...n , oj=0...n ))
uf 1(o) = π (5)
2 |o|
uf (o) = uf 0 · uf 1 (6)
It shows that this example is rather simple and even
though the layouts were randomly generated, many
of them are as good as the best layout found by the
metaheuristic solver. The found correlation is high.
Therefore the found linear regression line can be
used to estimate the fitness function with a minimum
of computational complexity. Furthermore the pos-
itive correlation of both selected cues suggests that
an equal distribution of obstacles across the playing
field would generate the most satisfying layout.
For the second example 85 different properties
were collected. Here the best correlation (r=0.3824)
of a single cue (Figure 6 left) was the average distance
along the shortest path between all pairs of hiding
positions hp.
This cue was not included when searching for the
best correlation (r=-0.4909), taking a maximum of 6
cues into account. Instead of the average distance
the geometric average distance along the shortest
path between all pairs of hiding positions was cho-
sen. Nevertheless this suggests that when through
the placements of obstacles the shortest path be-
tween two hiding points is maximised the chances
on the layout between hiders and seekers are evened
out.
Another cue selected the maximum of the differ-
ence between all distances of the closest and the far-
thest point of an obstacle to the centre of the play-
ing field. This cue suggests that an obstacle, which is
oriented nearly in line with the straight line between
the centre of the obstacle and the centre of the play-
490 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
ing field is better than an obstacle perpendicular to
this line.
Both of these observations are in line with the
observations made from the generated examples but
they are only loose clues since each cue cannot be
evaluated by itself, which would be done when ap-
plying the 'Take the best' strategy, but only in combi-
nation ('Multiple Regression'). Further it can be noted
that the best-found layout produced by the meta-
heuristic solver was not reached when randomly
generating layouts. This suggests that the fitness-
landscape for the second example is more complex.
However, since the initial fitness function cannot be
used for larger layouts, the found linear regression
line provides an acceptable tool to estimate the fit-
ness function.
The found regression lines can be used to es-
timate the fitness and generate layouts of different
sizes. (Figure 7) Note that the number of players is
of no importance for the generation since no simula-
tion is preformed but the fitness function is estimated
based on geometric properties. In the first exam-
ple, the estimated fitness function can be computed
directly from the values of the genotype, which im-
proves computational time manifold.
For the second example more properties have
to be computed and some of them make it neces-
sary to construct all possible shortest paths between
the hiding points (compare Figure 1). This makes the
computation of the estimated fitness function more
complex in comparison to the first example, but still
way cheaper than the original fitness function.
DISCUSSION
The game of Hide-and-Seek is a good testing ground
for simple heuristics for two reasons: in the defini-
tion introduced by Harald Trapp (2013) it constitutes
a very simple form of a complex architectural sys-
tem and therefore represents a promising example
for a new definition of the relationship between form
and function in architecture. Neither "form follows
function", nor form as an aesthetic or signifying ob-
ject, but the dynamic connection of two types of
Figure 7
Two layouts with 10
obstacles,
generated through
the use of the
regression line
computed for both
examples on the
left, with obstacles
rotating around the
centre of the
playing field. On
the right, obstacles
were also allowed
to rotate around
their centre.

operative architectural forms. Defining "Hide-and-
Seek" in this way, the simple design task to develop
a functional (= successful) layout for the distribution
of obstacles, which cannot be solved with traditional
methods, can be approached. The operative dynam-
ics of both the movement and perception of the play-
ers, as well as the flexibility of the layout of obstacles
interact with a complexity that can only be digitally
simulated. To develop an algorithm generating lay-
outs that are "fitter" and therefore more successful
with the players, has to begin with a research of the
correlation between arrangements of obstacles and
hiders and the success of the players.
As the possible game variations increase expo-
nentially with the number of obstacles and hiders,
heuristic fitness functions provide a highly efficient
tool extrapolating data learned form the smallest
setup possible, producing complex arrangements
close to real time. Thus they might become a valid
tool for the design practice in the future. In this pa-
per, the game of "Hide-and-Seek" is interpreted as a
complex architectural system whose design requires
the development of a heuristic fitness function. But
still a metaheuristic solver has to be used to find a
good layout/design. More research should be carried
out to investigate under which circumstances other
generative approaches could be successful to gen-
erate designs procedurally without any iterative pro-
cess.
REFERENCES
DeLanda, Manuel 2002, 'Deleuze and the use of the ge-
netic algorithm in architecture', Architectural Design,
71(7), pp. 9-12
Donath, Dirk, König, Reinhard and Petzold, Frank (eds)
2012, KREMLAS: Entwicklung einer Kreativenevolu-
tionären Entwurfsmethode für Layoutprobleme in
Architektur und Städtebau, Verlag der Bauhaus-
Universität Weimar
Elezkurtaj, Tomor and Franck, Georg 1999 'Algorithmic
Support of Creative Architectural Design', Proceed-
ings of the 17th Conference on Education in Computer
Aided Architectural Design in Europe, Liverpool
Faucher, D and Nivet, ML 2000, 'Playing with design in-
tents: integrating physical and urban constraints in
CAD', Automation in Construction, 9(1), p. 93–105
Gigerenzer, Gerd, Todd, Peter M and ABC Research
Group, - 2000, Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart,
Oxford University Press, Oxford
König, Reinhard, Treyer, Lukas and Schmitt, Gerhard

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 491

 2013 'Graphical Smalltalk with My Optimization Sys-
tem for Urban Planning Tasks', 31st eCAADe Confer-
ence, Delft, pp. 195-204
Trapp, Harald 2013, Dichte Distanz, Ph.D. Thesis, Vienna
University of Technology

492 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2

 Shanghai Lilong Tower Urbanism
Towards an Urbanism of Parametric Preservation

Christian J. Lange1
1
Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong
1
cjlange@hku.hk

This paper describes a design approach for a new urban building typology for
Shanghai utilizing a set of parametric design techniques to arrive at an
alternative solution to current models of urbanization. The goal in this approach
was to find a solution that is adaptable and sensitive to the urban environment
and has the capacity to preserve historic urban street patterns. The approach
included an understanding of the historic urban fabric of Shanghai, a respective
plot analysis and the development of a computational method to produce a new
urban type. The parametric set-up was build upon an analytical workflow with
integrated feedback procedures that informed the design exploration and resulted
in multiple design solutions.

Keywords: Parametric Urbanism, Computational feed back strategies, Design

Research

Figure 1 INTRODUCTION
Old city fabric gets Shanghai is the largest city in China with a population
replaced with of over 20 million inhabitants in its greater metropoli-
generic housing tan area. In the last two decades the metropolis has
towers, Shanghai undergone a rapid economic and urban expansion.
The city contains now thousands of buildings labeled
as tall, with many more to come within the next few
years. This development has irreversible effects on The research project entitled "Shanghai Lilong Tower
the quality of urban space and the way people live. Urbanism - Towards an Urbanism of Parametric
In large parts of the city the traditional urban fabric of Preservation." is a theoretical attempt that offers a
low rise, low-density row houses has been already re- counter proposal to the current models of urban de-
placed by generic high-rise typologies that are trans- velopments in Shanghai. By utilizing computational
forming significantly the urban life and neighbor- methods the project aims to arrive at an alternative
hood relationships (Fig.1). If this trend continues, the solution, addressing the original qualities of the tra-
original character of the city will be largely at danger. ditional urban fabric.

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 493

 ISSUE AND BACKGROUND
Until the early 1950's more than 60% of the total
housing area in Shanghai consisted of Lilongs, Qian
Guan (1996). This ground-related building block is
characterized by an outer perimeter along the main
streets that is dominated by workshops and shops
and an inner circulatory rational system that gives ac-
cess to the two to three story high residential units
(Fig.2). This set up provides a high degree of security
and privacy, while at the same time delivering social
cohesiveness through a strong neighborhood com-
munity.
Since China's economy has burgeoned in the early
90s' huge parts of the city were redeveloped by uti-
lizing to a large extent the two usual suspects of
modern Asian city developments; the generic point
block tower set in an open green landscape, and the
podium tower dominating and internalizing an ur-
ban block. Both became the predominant building
model of efficiency and economy for high-density
housing in the city.
While the personal living conditions plus the
floor area ratio for the individual increased through
494 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
the development of new housing towers, the tra-
ditional urban neighborhood qualities with active
street life diminished. As a result social interaction
amongst residents decreased and the concept of the
collective shrunk, which in general are very strong
in the traditional pattern of Lilong settlements in
Shanghai, Qian Guan (1996).
URBANISM | PARAMETRIC URBANISM
With rapid urbanization happening around the world
and specifically in China, there has never been a more
crucial time to challenge, reassess and propose alter-
natives to conventional urbanism and its associated
Figure 2
conventions, types and standards, Verebes (2013). In
Lilong Settlement,
the last two decades much research and design de-
Shanghai
velopment has been undertaken utilizing computa-
tional methods to arrive at novel solutions for mas-
terplans and urban organizational patterns, which all
have one in common: To provide an alternative to the
ideas of modernism.
One North Masterplan in Singapore by Zaha Ha-
did Architects is only one of many projects utiliz-
ing these new methods. While the masterplan uses
parametric techniques to arrive at a solution that of-
fers variation in plot size, density and plot height, it's
mostly concerned with the urban form. One North
achieves unity in difference - exploiting gentle, un-
dulating, dune-like urban mega-forms to generate a
sense of spatial coherence, (Hadid/Schumacher).
Most approaches in contemporary parametric
urbanism neglect the existing city and use patterns
to generate new kinds of street network and plot ge-
ometries. While the patterns are fascinating, there
seems to be a lack of understanding whether they
produce an urbanism that results in a livable city. It's
not so much the pattern that dominates how a city
works; it's rather open public spaces that provide a
good living environment. Already over a century ago
Camillo Sitte stated that the key element of success-
ful city planning is the plaza or public square. If they
are created and utilized in a accurate way they have
the capacity to create a backdrop to everyday life
within the city, animating their surrounding build-
 ings as well as providing a space to perceive the build today and will have in a few years time if this develop-
environment, Sitte (1889). ment continues no historic residue left. While in 2001
The other public space that generates city life is the site was still primarily structured by low-rise ur-
the street, which in most cities is along the edges of ban fabric with a dense and intricate street network,
blocks. In most cases historic city fabric provides a lot in 2014 around three quarter of the area was trans-
of them in various grains. Though for modern plan- formed into a new environment that had erased most
ning they seem to be an obstacle, since there are dif- of the existing street pattern and combined the pre-
ficulties to cope with the traffic of today, they repre- vious plots into larger zones that are now occupied
sent an invaluable asset. Frequent streets and short with generic high-rise buildings.
blocks are valuable for a city, because of the fabric of
Figure 3 intricate cross-use that they permit among the users
Areal view of of a city neighborhood, Jacobs (1961). So, why not
prototypical tower keep them?
That leaves us with the last element of impor-
tance for a successful city, the building type. It's time
for the search for 'renewable' building types that are
able to negotiate the rapidly changing circumstances
of cities in an era of global capitalism, Lee & Jacoby
(2007).

HYPOTHESIS AND GOAL

Taking the qualities of the Lilong settlement as a
point of departure, the premise of the project was to
establish an alternative building type with the capac-
ity to maintain the original character and network of
the city, while offering at the same time new types
of urban public spaces(Fig.3). Based on a compu-
tational adaptable system the project suggests so-
Figure 4 lutions that have the ability to preserve the identity
Testing site near and urban quality typical to Shanghai, without ne-
Xiaonanmen. glecting the call for densification. In fact the project
Urban situation is aiming to find a compromise between the need
2001 and 2014 for compaction, the desire to preserve the most pos-
(Source: Google sible quantity of historical city fragments, and the
Earth). idea of an architectural organism that combines ver-
tical built volumes together with ground-level public
open spaces.
As testing ground the project utilized a larger
urban context around Xiaonanmen Subway Station PARAMETRIC FORM GENERATION
(Fig.4). The site with an overall area of around 80 The project utilized the generic Rhino software pack-
hectares is situated between the old city center and age with the Grasshopper plug-in to analyze the ex-
the Huangpu River. In the past two decades it has isting urban patterns, to simulate the overall urban
been heavily affected by the Tabula rasa mentality of configuration and to generate prototypical individ-

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 495

 ual towers that could adapt to any given individual
plot. The overall digital set-up was divided into a
set of different grasshopper definitions in order to
make the workflow easier and less memory inten-
sive. Eventually the definitions were divided into
three main areas. There was one definition for the
analysis of the plots, one for the massing of the ty-
pology, and one that interpreted the massing into a
structural solution and unit arrangement.
496 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
Analysis:
Most existing plots within the testing ground can
be categorized as shapes with four dominant cor-
ners that form the intersections of the circulatory sys-
tem. Each shape within the system is unique in its
edge condition and geometry. All plots were first
drawn manually in the Rhino environment as accu-
rate as possible and with the least amount of con-
trol points as possible for better control purposes.
Plugged in into Grasshopper all plots were then an-
alyzed in terms of shape (length to width relation- Figure 5
ship), access possibilities and overall area, to deter- Analysis & Process
mine whether a site had the potential to be rede- diagrams
veloped or to be preserved (Fig.5). This judgment
was mainly based on the prospective building mass
possible for each site and not on the actual cultural
value of the buildings on the site. The shapes were
also tested for the possible courtyard scenarios us-
ing different offset settings of the boundary condi-
tion (Fig.6).
Research into existing plazas:
While Sitte suggests that urban plazas and courtyards
are key elements within a city context, they don't
work per se. The success of them is dependent on Figure 6
eaves height, width, length and programs. Since pro- Plot analysis with
gram is a factor that is difficult to monitor, the project Grasshopper,
focused on the geometry and size of the resulting Understanding of
open spaces. To determine the maximum area a re- potential
search was conducted into existing plazas that are configuration for
generally considered as spaces with a high degree of courtyard
spatial quality, but are also on the larger end of the measurements
spectrum in terms of area.
• Pariser Platz in Berlin (108m x 120m,
12960m2)
• Placa Real in Barcelona (80m x 48m, 3840m2)
• Placa Major in Madrid (120m x 85m, 10200m2)
• Piazza Navona in Rome (40m x 246m,
9600m2)
• Hoxton Square in London (54m x 84m,
4536m2)
• Place des Vosges in Paris (130m x 130m,
16900m2)
 Most of these places develop a vibrant life through- for a double loaded corridor with unit depths
out the day, yet this might be also largely due to of around 7m.
their touristic character. However, the average sizes • The intermediate geometry that negotiated
of these spaces were around 9600 m2, which even- between the extrusion of the footprint and
tually was used as a maximum size for the courtyard the generic tower was set at a minimum
sizes of the project. Since larger sites in the testing height of four stories and maximum of seven
ground had a larger offset the biggest courtyard was stories, in order to minimize too much deep
eventually 6900m2. Most of the generated spaces space.
were between 700m2 and 4500m2. • Cores of towers could be either located on the
inner perimeter of the footprint towards the
Rule based approach: courtyard or on the outer perimeter towards
The problem with parametric design in general is that the existing street, depending on whether
a designer of a definition or script can easily get car- one would like to activate the courtyard or
ried away and set up a system with too many param- keep it more private.
eters. The danger of this is that it becomes hard to
While there are exceptions of plots with more than
evaluate the possible outcomes. To avoid this the
just four dominant corners, in principle, the system
project was following a set of strict rules, making it
offers plot access strategies that have one, two, three
easier to understand the outcomes. For the footprint
or four access lanes. Depending on the offset pa-
generation of the towers and courtyard's the project
rameter and number of access lanes for each plot,
utilized the following rules:
the overall set up produces a secondary urban net-
• No plaza should be larger than 9600m2 and work, resulting in more connectivity of the neighbor-
smaller than 700 m2 hood. Multiple configurations would be possible that
• Plots that could not cater for open spaces would result in different kinds of urban flow (Fig.7).
above 700m2 would be automatically pre-
Figure 7 served
Density Scenarios • Offsets of plots should be a minimum of 20 m
of Urban Formation and a maximum of 45m to allow for econom-
ical use of the resulting footprints.
• Plots can either have two, three or four access
lanes, resulting into two three or four towers
per plot.
• To allow for more variation and more privacy
courtyard offsets can be rotated by a maxi-
mum of 25 degrees.

For the towers the following rules were applied:

• Each tower had a two-story extrusion of the

generated footprint to adapt to the eaves of
the adjacent lilong structures.
• The massing of the tower was generated
through a surface generation that negotiated
between the profile of the actual footprint
and a generic rectangular profile that allowed

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 497

 In essence the overall set up generates a two to
three story podium that adapts to the eaves height
of the traditional context, while implementing access
lanes to a variably sized inner courtyard that provides
a more private urban environment. This inner court-
yard is surrounded by a commercial perimeter, acti-
vating the more intimate public space (Fig.8). The
landscape of the podium that terraces from the roof
of the second level several floors up before merging
into the tower, provides an open space accessible to
the public working as half park and half promenade.
Animated with trees and urban green it functions as
an extension of the urban life. The typology is in prin-
ciple a synergy of a podium and a tower that gener-
ates in between the two conditions publicly accessi-
ble urban terraces vertically and inner urban court-
yards horizontally. The towers that are flexible in
form evolve out of the ground figure that adapts to
the site and the specific input settings (access, height,
courtyard-size, etc.) The typological configuration
can be changed to a more extroverted setting, that
directs the cascading terraces towards the street and
a more introverted setting that directs the same to-
wards the inner courtyard (Fig.9).
498 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2
Since each plot has its unique polygonal shape with
its respective control points, the definition to create
the overall massing was developed with a set of nu-
merical sliders that allowed for real-time feedback
during the design process. The system underlying
the project that is based on a simple lofting tech-
niques that negotiates between the footprint and the
profile of the tower is hereby able to adapt to any
given plot topology of the city, while offering flexible
tower morphologies that can orient independently.
All urban and architectural features that are impor-
tant for the overall outcome can be altered through
interactive sliders.
CONCLUSIONS + OUTLOOK
The key question must be asked, how does this new
typology compare to the current models of urbanism
in Shanghai that are ultimately following the max-
imization of any given plot ratio. Since quality of
space is at times hard to measure a quantitative anal-
ysis was undertaken. For evaluation purposes two
specimen of the generic typology within the vicinity
of the site were measured in terms of their plot ratio
and compared with the proposed typology on one of
the larger sites within the testing zone (Fig.10). While
Figure 8
the generic podium tower had a plot ratio of 7.5 the
Inner Courtyard
tower in the green park had a plot ration of 5.9. In or-
setting of
der to make the comparison meaningful the height
prototypical tower
of the proposed typology was set to the same, which
was in this case100m. Although none of the three
versions of the new typology (four towers, three tow-
ers, two towers) reached the plot ratio of the podium
tower, two of them had at least a higher plot ratio
then the tower in the park.
Ultimately it needs to be discussed whether this
type has a chance against the more efficient podium
tower. Certainly it has the potential to preserve parts
of the city and to bring new public spaces to the
neighborhood.
Figure 9
Matrix of adaptive
Tower
configurations

Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 499

 Jacobs, Jane 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Figure 10
Cities, Random House, New York Plot Ratio Chart of
Lee, Christopher C. M. and Jacoby, Sam (eds) 2007, Typo- generic and
logical Formations: Renewable Building Types and the proposed
City, AA Publication, London typologies
Lewis, Simon 2008, The Rough Guide to Shanghai, Rough
Guide, London
Sitte, Camillo 1889, City Planning According to Artistic
Principles, Rizzoli, New York
Verebes, Tom (eds) 2013, Masterplanning the Adaptive
city: Computational Urbanism in the Twenty-First Cen-
tury, Routledge, London
[1] http://www.zaha-hadid.com/masterplans/one-
north-masterplan/#
[2] http://www.emporis.com/city/100213/shanghai-
china
However, given the current situation in cities in China
today, the project could open up a discussion about
new types for the city and the implementation of
computational tools in city planning. Though the
project was in this case focusing on Shanghai and
its respective urbanism, the project could be applied
onto different urban settings within China. The coun-
try is currently facing tremendous urban pressures.
Within the next two decades the government's vision
is to transform around 270 million village dwellers
into city dwellers. In the years to come China will
annually construct more than fifteen hundred build-
ings of thirty stories or higher, which is in essence
the equivalent of a new Chicago every year, Hulshof
& Roggeveen (2011). The pressure on existing envi-
ronments is large. Parametric modeling techniques
could be part of a solution to simulate environments
ahead of time and to evaluate the spatial qualities
and quantities.
Preservation is a complex topic. The project
leaves it up for discussion the negotiations between
preservation of the architectural heritage of the city,
and the need for urban densification, rather than sub-
urban sprawl.

REFERENCES
Guan, Qian 1996, Lilong Housing, A Traditional Settlement
Form, Master's Thesis, McGill
Hulshof, Michiel and Roggeveen, Daan 2011, How the
city moved to Mr Sun, SUN Publications, Amsterdam

500 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Generative Design - Applied
Shopgenerator v2
Automated Design, Analysis and Optimization of Shopping Layouts

Moritz Rosenberg1 , Benjamin Straßl2

1,2
Vienna University of Technology
1
moritz_rosenberg@gmx.at 2 b.strassl@atn.ac.at

In shop design a common method to maximize sales is to manipulate the

customers through spatial arrangements of shelves and products. The aim of this
practice is that shoppers have to spend a long time in the store and pass a high
quantity of products. Using this technique requires a lot of empirical analysis of
POS (point of sale) data and experimentation with product and shelf
arrangements, while not upsetting the customers by guiding them through a
"shopping maze". For this reason we developed a tool that semi-automatically -
just a couple of inputs concerning the type of shop are required - creates different
shopping layouts which are later analyzed and optimized for visibility and
product placement. This tool aims to support shop designers in an early planning
stage. This is done by creating and testing a large number of different shopping
layouts without having to conduct experiments in an actually built environment.

Keywords: Algorithmic generation, Agent based model, Product placement, Sale

maximization, View analysis & optimization

OVERVIEW to implement our design ideas:

This paper is a summary of two theses (shopgener-
ator: 2D generation of shopping layouts (Straßl 2015)
and Agent-Based Analysis and Optimization of Shop-
ping Layouts (Rosenberg 2015)) which focus on the
development of a tool for automated generation,
analysis and optimization of shopping layouts.
A first version of this tool (shopgenerator v1) was
created in course of a design-class and competition
initialized by "UMDASCH Shopfittings" at the Univer-
sity of Technology Vienna.
The goal of the competition was to design a
retail-store utilizing new technologies and media. We
approached this task by analyzing fundamentals in
shop design and determining how we can use these
• Customer routes - to keep customers in the
store as long as possible - and increase sale
numbers accordingly - "attractor-products"
(products with high sale numbers like milk,
bread and produce) are arranged as far apart
as possible. Customers looking to buy those
products have to walk long paths in the shop
and therefore walk by more products. This
technique increases the numbers of impulse
purchases and overall sales. (Hitt 1996) (Kreft
2002)
• Visibility/orientation - customers are guided
through a shop by their vision. The spatial lay-
out and the arrangement of product groups

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 503

 are the cornerstones of the customer's orien- groups and neighborhood relations of the product
tation. Through accentuation and visual high- groups (e.g. product group A should be close to
lights customers can be attracted and guided product group B, but should be far away from prod-
to remote areas of the shop. (Gretz 2000) uct group C).
• Shopping behavior - depending on the type This tool was implemented in three layers which
of shop (groceries, clothes, electronic me- handle (figure 1):
dia,...) and individual interest of shoppers
their behavior might vary strongly. In gro- Figure 1
cery stores for example, most shoppers prob- Sequence of
ably are looking to work of their shopping list generation, analysis
as fast as possible, whereas in clothing stores and optimization
customers preferred to take their time and
browse through the shop. (Silberer 2009)

To apply these principles to different shop types and

requirements, we implemented a first version of the
shopgenerator. With different user-inputs it was pos-
sible to create various layouts fitted to a narrowly de-
fined design idea.
Because it's limitations in generating broader
variations of layouts and it's inaccuracy in simulating
customer paths and movement patterns, we devoted
our theses to improve and further extend the shop-
generator.
We developed two separate tools (generation
and analysis/optimization of shopping layouts) which
work together by exchanging the computed results
via .png color maps.
By implementing these tools we hope to create
a program that can support planers in early design
stages. The tool is capable of creating multiple lay-
outs and computes a feedback that could otherwise
only be given by empiric research of built environ-
ments.
The planers can determine by themselves which
generated layout fits their needs best and take it and
the produced data as basis for further design ideas
and decisions.

SHOPGENERATOR V2
Generation
The generation of the layout is based on several user
inputs, mainly regarding size of the store, product

504 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

 • Zoning - Using Delauney Triangulation, force The generation-tool was programmed in
based circle packing and a kd tree Subdivision Grasshopper for Rhino and works semi-automated
algorithm, the shop is divided in different ar- (only the imports regarding shop size and product
eas for different product groups. groups is required to produce a shop). The tool gen-
• Path generation - per analysis of wanted erates layouts in three consecutive layers (Impulse
and unwanted neighborhood relations of the Computer generated city patterns - see related work)
product groups a main path throughout the which will be described here (figure 2):
shop is defined
Figure 2 • Furniture - The different areas are now popu-
Several user inputs lated with shelves, whose density and orienta-
influence the force tion are controlled by the kd tree Subdivision
vectors to localize and the user input.
their position
within the store
Analysis and optimization
To further edit and improve the visibility within these
layouts, an agent-based model was built. This model
aims to improve the overall visibility of products and
the orientation within the shop. To simulate differ-
ent shopping behaviors and shopper types (regular
customers, seeking customers, browsing customers)
different approaches on decision making and path-
finding were implemented:

• Shortest path Algorithm

• Random Step Algorithm
• Guided Step Algorithm
The agents are given a field of view to find their
way through the shop. Guided by their shopping
list and interests they navigate throughout the shop
while the model tracks their movement and vision to
analyze the placement of products, the overall visi-
bility within the shop and possible improvements to
the visibility and product placement.
After this analysis, the heights of the shelves are
manipulated to improve overall visibility in the store.
The model can be run again to achieve further im-
provements and analyze the changes made.
METHODES
Part I - layout generation
The layout generation - and part I of the shopgenera-
tor v2 - is discussed at length in the thesis shopgener-
ator: 2D generation of shopping layouts (Straßl 2015).
Zoning. The user of this tool has to specify a cou-
ple parameters regarding the planned shop before
the automated generation starts. First the overall size
and shape of the store have to be defined. The user
can specify where the entrance and the exits of the
shop should be located.
The planer also has to provide the number and
percentual size of different product groups. These
product groups - represented by a circle displaying
their size - then are placed manually in the shop to
determine the rough position and neighborhood re-
lations. The last required input, to generate a fully
functional layout, is to appoint one of the product
groups as checkout area.
The centers of the placed circles are automati-
cally connected to each other using a Delauney trian-
gulation (Pottman et al. 2007) algorithm. These con-
nections represent the neighborhood relation be-
tween the product groups. Unwanted neighbor-

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 505

 hoods can be blocked, wanted connections can be
set.
The precise position of the - prior roughly placed
- product groups is defined by a force based circle
packing algorithm (Stephenson 2005) (König et al.
2012). Through an iterative process the products
groups are brought into balance by moving force
vectors. The influencing forces are composed of the
product size, the neighborhood relations, the con-
nection to entrance and exit and the overall size and
shape of the store. (Impulse RaumLabor - see related
work)
To generate a rectangular layout out of the -
now balanced - circle representations of the prod-
uct groups a kd-tree algorithm was implemented (the
used kd-tree subdivision algorithm is an enhanced
version of the sliding midpoint split (Maneewong-
vatana and Mout 1999)).
The overall shop shape is repeatedly divided by
sectional planes until every product group has an as-
signed rectangular area within the store. The cutting
planes aim to sever as few neighborhood connec-
tions as possible while taking into account that the
predefined product size and an even ratio should be
preserved.
Analysis and path generation. The generated sub-
division is now analyzed and compared to the prede-
fined wanted and unwanted neighborhood connec-
tions. Because it is unlikely that all inputted connec-
tions are preserved throughout the subdivision pro-
cess the layout is altered to fit the requirements.
Products that should be next to each other, but
were separated during the segmentation, are con-
nected by adding an aisle across the product group
lying in between.
Products that should not be adjacent to one an-
other are separated by a shelf.
The main path through the store is generated
along the borders of the allocated product areas.
The separating shelves block unwanted accesses and
therefor also play an essential role in defining the
main path.
506 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
Generating furniture. The third generation layer
handles the shelf and shop counter arrangement.
To do so, every product group can be handled
separately, so the user can define, which shelf lay-
out fits which product group. After the user se-
lected his/her preferences (high shelves or low shop
counters, orientation of the shelves, aisle width, shelf
width and length) the algorithm populates the re-
maining area (allocated product group zone without
main path) with furniture.
The area closest to the entrance and exit is al-
tered so a larger empty space is generated. This aims
to give customers a more appealing first impression
of the store and also accentuates the exit.
The checkout area - defined by the user in the
zoning layer - doesn't generate shelves but cash
desks. The design of these desks is different accord-
ing to the areas position. If the checkout area is adja-
cent to the exit, multiple oblong desks are created; if
the area is not adjacent to the exit, a single checkout
piece of furniture is generated.
The zoning layer - with its definition of neighbor-
hood relations and product group sizes - is essential
for the layout generation. Every change in these set-
tings alters the overall layout and therefor changes
the entire look of a shop.
The inputs given for the product groups on the
other hand only change the design of the individual
areas. By editing these values the product groups can
be edited to fit specific needs and parameters.
Data exchange. Because the two tools (layout gener-
ation and layout analysis and optimization) were im-
plemented in different programs but need a point
of intersection, the generated layouts have to be ex-
ported for further use.
To do this, the layouts are fitted to a grid
(60x60cm) and divided into different layers. These
layers (furniture, product groups and optimization
priority - defines which shelves are locked for opti-
mization) are exported as color maps using the .png
format. The .png files then can be imported into the
tool for analysis and optimization (figure 3).
Figure 3
layout generated by
the shopgenerator
Part II - analysis and optimization
The second tool of the shopgenerator was created
with NetLogo (Wilensky 1999). For information ex-
ceeding this short overview, see: Agent-Based Analy-
sis and Optimization of Shopping Layouts (Rosenberg
2015).
This tool was created as agent-based model to
simulate and analyze realistic customer paths within
a store. This is done to gain information on overall
visibility in the shop and to later manipulate the gen-
erated furniture to improve path-finding and product
placement.
The NetLogo Model consist of:
• a 2D-grid representation of a store layout -
containing information on way-patches, fur-
niture (high shelves, low desk), walls, en-
trances and exits,
• product agents - static agents that collect data
on visibility and sale numbers
• and shopping agents - simulated customers
who walk through the shop guided by individ-
ually generated shopping lists and interests.
Vision - perception of the environment. To be able
to interact with and move through its environment
every shopping agent is given vision. This is simu-
lated by a parabolic view-cone of 170° and 20 meter
view-distance. (Penn and Turner 2002) (Kreft 2002)
Because the agent has to react to spatial config-
urations and also to visible products, the vision is cal-
culated for every step it takes. The vision is calcu-
lated by processing precalculated isovists (Benedikt
1979) and gives information on visible way-patches
and products. It also calculates which products could
be seen from the current location but are blocked by
other objects (shelves, walls, etc.) - which is deter-
mining for the later optimization.
Shopping lists - definition of agent goals. For every
shopping agent an individual shopping list is created.
This shopping list is a list of product agents the simu-
lated shopper wants to buy. The products are chosen
randomly, but also factor in sale numbers (that can be
edited manually in the NetLogo model or imported as
another color map).
The products on the shopping list are divided
into three groups, which affect the path finding ap-
proach of the shopping agents:
• Known products - the exact position of the
product is known by the agent
• Wanted products - the agent wants to find
and buy the product, but doesn't know its lo-
cation
• Impulse purchase - these products are only
bought if the agent sees it and it awakens the
agents interest
How many products of which group are on an agents
shopping list is defined by its individual shopping
type and the category of the shop (defines sale num-
bers and the percentage of the different shopper
types). There are three shopper types implemented
in this model:
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 507
 • Regular customers - the position of many
products is known; the agent is not very inter-
ested in impulse purchases;
• Sporadic customer - the shopping list mainly
consist of wanted products; also the interest
in impulse sales is higher;
• Browsing customer - the agent is mainly in
the store to browse through the shop and look
for impulse sales.
Decision making - Path-finding. For every different
product type, there is a different approach on finding
it:
• Known products / shortest path: (Impulse
Pedestrian Behaviour Modelling - see related
work) it is assumed that shoppers that want
to buy certain products and know there exact
position approach it by the shortest possible
path. Therefore the shortest path within an
agent's view-cone is calculated and the agent
approaches the product directly. Once a
wanted product - which position isn't known -
is seen, the agent memorizes the location and
the product now is also approached by the
shortest path.
• Wanted products / guided step: To find
products on the shopping list, an agent uses
a random step algorithm. (Impulse Space Syn-
tax Based Agent Simulation - see related work)
Hereby a random target within the view-cone
is chosen as temporary target for the next
step. Using this approach the shopper can
navigate through the store guided by spatial
arrangements. However, using only a random
step doesn't help the agent find the products
it's looking for. So the algorithm is enhanced
by adding personal interests. Every product
the agent has seen manipulates the probabil-
ity of the next random step. The agent is more
likely to visit unknown areas in the shop and
approach personal interests.
• Impulse purchases: - also using the guided
step algorithm the agent navigates through
508 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
the store. If close to a possible impulse sale,
the agent chooses to buy it or not to.
Analysis & Hotspots. After a simulation-cycle the
shop can be analyzed on visibility and customer
paths (figure 4).
Besides the walked paths, the seen products, the
percentage how many products were spotted, the
position with the best visibility and the products best
visible also the shelves that limit visibility the most
can be pointed out.
Optimization. The size of these shelves is manipu-
lated in the optimization phase (figure 5). The high
shelves that limit the overall visibility the most are
changed to low shop counters. Every simulation-
cycle only a couple of shelves is manipulated and the
simulation is run again. This way the change is vis-
ible to the shop planer and the agent's behavior is
changed accordingly.
Because of this optimization the orientation and
path-finding of the shopping agents is improved
(products are seen sooner and therefore agents know
earlier where their desired products are). This is done
without restricting the previously mentioned guide-
line for shop planning (lead customers past as many
products as possible,...).
To also improve path-finding and the overall ori-
entation also the mentioned attractor products can
be rearranged. These are set to the positions best vis-
ible in the store.
RESULTS
The implemented shopgenerator v2 is able to auto-
matically generate, analyze and optimize shopping
layouts considering various user inputs and shop
specific parameters.
The generation of the layout prioritizes the
placement of product groups and their wanted and
unwanted neighborhood relations. The definition of
the main path and the placement of furniture is han-
dled in separate layers closely intertwined with each
other.
Figure 4 Through this approach it is not only possible to
Hotspot-Analysis on create a large variety of layouts by little changes of
customer pathes; various parameters, but also to fit single product ar-
Analysis on visibility eas to specific needs and design ideas.
limiting shelves The subsequent analysis and optimization pro-
vides information about realistic movement patterns
and visibility within the store. This information nor-
mally is not available to planers because it usually can
only be obtained by empiric analysis of built environ-
ments.
As a consequence the shop planer can not only
fit the design of a shop to his design ideas, but can
also consider - otherwise not available - background
data. Shelves and counters with good visibility val-
ues can be accentuated; areas with low visibility can
be improved by manipulating the shelf height or po-
sition.
The automatization of these processes aims to
quickly provide various possible design solutions,
which later can be compared by the shop planner. Af-
ter choosing one possible solution the shop designer
can prioritize the actual store and shelf design and in-
tegrate pre-computed information on visibilities and
Figure 5 product arrangements (figure 6).
Visualisation of
optimizations DISCUSSION
Fully-automatized layout generation and
optimization - combined interface
The shopgenerator v2 currently works as combina-
tion of two, independent tools that communicate
through the exchange of .png color maps. In a next
development phase these two programs could be
further intertwined by creating a conjoint layout to
control the generation and optimization of the store
layouts. All required parameters could be defined in
one step and the interface handles the communica-
tion between the separate tools and also combines
the resulting data in one layout.

Possible expansions of the layout genera-

tion
Because its program architecture (different layers for
different program phases) the generation-tool can

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 509


easily be expanded stepwise. Every layer can be en-
hanced separately and thus increase the variety and
precision of generated layouts:
• Zoning: The subdivision of the kd tree for
unique situations (for example: decision mak-
ing on x- or y-parallel subdivision for product
groups with equal neighborhood relations)
could be surveyed and expanded
• Path generation: The current approach (gen-
erate paths along boundaries of product ar-
eas) is designed for small areas. To han-
dle path generation for larger areas, differ-
ent path generation solutions could be imple-
mented.
• Furniture: By integrating further subdivisions
possibilities and shelf arrangements such as
star-shapes, advances and setbacks or "court"
arrangement the diversity of generated lay-
outs could be extended.
510 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 6
Design process
using the
shopgenerator v2
Possible expansions of the agent based sim-
ulation
• Collision avoidance: The current implemen-
tation of the shopping agents doesn't simu-
late collision avoidance between agents. By
adding this and running the model for peak
and trough hours additional information and
a higher level of detail could be provided.
• Buy-time: Depending on the type of product
and individual interest, shoppers take differ-
ent amount of time to compare and choose
which item to buy. For purchases done rarely
(TVs, kitchen appliances, baby products,...)
shoppers take more time and do a lot of com-
paring. By implementing this, the analysis of
shoppers could be expanded to also give ac-
curate predictions on time spent in various
stores.
 • Customer classification: To further cate-
gorize and simulate customers it would be
possible to integrate demographic data and
customer profiles. With preceding research
a comparison of different shopping profiles
could be made and compared to the imple-
mented version of shoppers (How does the
shopper profile change movement patterns -
e.g. 60 year old male retiree vs. 25 year old
businesswoman)
Integrating POS (Point-of-sale) data
The generation of layouts and the implementation of
the agent-based model is currently based on shop-
ping fundamentals and data extracted from our lit-
erature review. Because of time and expense con-
straints no actual POS data was collected or inte-
grated in the tool. Also this data is hard to obtain. In
the shopping industry, POS data is very valuable and
therefor it is protected very well.
It certainly would be very interesting and helpful
to compare our findings with actual collected data.
The visual comparison with different analysis
found in literature showed that our outcomes fit rela-
tively well to constructed shops and movement pat-
terns.
Variation of scale
Like stated by Gretz (Gretz 2000), there are many sim-
ilarities between shop design and urban planning in
allotment, constructions and human interaction.
It would be very appealing to broaden the imple-
mented tools, adapt the parameters and try to gen-
erate and analyze urban areas.
RELATED WORK
KaisersRot - RaumLabor
KaisersRot developed a model to generate town
structures using a bottom-up procedure. In a larger
area a number of small properties / plots are placed,
whose position is subject to change. For every plot
various parameters - regarding personal needs, de-
sires and possible neighborhood relations - can be
defined. After inputting these factors, the model cal-
culates a perfect balanced solution for the plot place-
ment within the overall area (plots are attracted and
repelled by fixed points and other plots). In contrary
to many top-down models the overall allotment is
generated after the area allocation. (Friedrich 2005)
(Hovestadt 2010)
Computer generated city patterns (König
and Bauriedel 2004)
To create an automated city generation tool, König
analyzed essential characteristics of urban patterns in
the development of various cities.
Based on these findings a multi-layered auto-
mated tool to generate city structures was created.
The tool divided the creation of patterns in an infor-
mation layer (to store geographic information), an al-
lotment layer (streets and squares), a building layer
and an optimization layer.
Every layer consists of various different algo-
rithms and functions. By splitting the model in mul-
tiple layers it was possible to create various solutions
for different initial conditions.
Pedestrian Behaviour Modelling (Kitazawa
and Batty 2004)
Kitazawa and Batty created an agent-based simula-
tion to predict customer paths in a shopping mall.
They divided the mall-layout in multiple nodes (ev-
ery junction and every shop is a node) and created
a graph, representing the walkable area. Agents are
provided with total knowledge of the environment
and a list of stores to visit. By calculating the short-
est possible path between its goals agents moved
through the shopping mall. The predicted paths
were compared to actual customer paths and found
similar. According to Kitazawa and Batty the short-
est path approach on path-finding is a reasonable
method to simulate some customers, but they also
point out that this model is not suitable to simulate
various shopping behaviors and doesn't give a total
representation of customer paths.
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 511
 Space Syntax Based Agent Simulation versitätsverlag, Weimar, pp. 23-28
(Penn and Turner 2002) Maneewongvatana, S and Mount, D 1999 'It's okay to be
Penn and Turner developed a model to simulate skinny, if your friends are fat', Center for Geometric
Computing 4th Annual Workshop on Computational
shopping behavior by implementing a random step
Geometry, pp. 3-5
algorithm. Agents are given vision and choose a ran- Penn, A and Turner, A 2002, Space Syntax Based Agent
dom visible point as target for their next step. By re- Simulation, Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL,
peating this process after a certain walked distance, London
the agents are able to freely move throughout the Pottmann, H, Asperl, A, Hofer, M and Kilian, A 2007, Ar-
simulated environment. chitectural Geometry, Bentley Institute Press
Rosenberg, M 2015, Agent-Based Analysis and Optimiza-
Although this model is based on probabilities
tion of Shopping Layouts, Master's Thesis, Vienna
and randomness Penn and Turner state that the University of Technology
agents move in patterns close to reality. They also Silberer, G (eds) 2009, Verhaltensforschung am Point of
state that this approach doesn't consider personal in- Sale: Ansatzpunkte und Methodik, Universitätsverlag
terests or targeted shopping but still manages to sim- Göttingen
ulate customers very well. Stephenson, K 2005, Introduction to circle packing. The
theory of discrete analytic functions, Cambridge: Uni-
versity Press
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Benedikt, ML 1979 'To take hold of space: isovists and layouts, Master's Thesis, Vienna University of Tech-
isovist fields', Environment and Planning, pp. 47-65 nology
Friedrich, K 2005, Stadt spielt Stadt. Experimente Wilensky, U 1999, NetLogo, Center for Connected Learn-
computer- und webgestützter Bürgerbeteiligung und ing and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern
Planung, Thelem Verlag University
Gretz, F 2000, Läden richtig planen. Fehler vermeiden., Karl
Krämer Verlag, Stuttgart + Zürich
Hitt, J 1996, 'The Theory Of Supermarkets', The New York
Times
Kitazawa, K and Batty, M 2004, 'Pedestrian Behaviour
Modelling: An application to retail movements us-
ing a genetic algorithm', in Leeuwen, V, Timmer-
mans, JP and Timmermans, HJP (eds) 2004, Develop-
ments in Design & Decision Support Systems in Archi-
tecture and Urban Planning, Eindhoven University of
Technology, pp. 111-126
Kreft, W (eds) 2002, Ladenplanung: Merchandising-
Architektur; Strategien für Verkaufsräume:
Gestaltungs-Grundlagen, Erlebnis-Inszenierung,
Kundenleitweg-Planung, Verlagsanstalt Alexander
Koch
König, R and Bauriedel, C (eds) 2004, Computergener-
ierte Stadtstrukturen v 1.0. Grundlegende Methoden
für die Simulation städtischer Entwicklungsprozesse,
Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
König, R, Schneider, S and Knecht, K 2012, 'Kapitel 2:
Stand der Forschung', in Donath, D, König, R and
Petzold, F (eds) 2012, KREMLAS. Entwicklung einer
kreativen evolutionären Entwurfsmethode für Layout-
probleme in Architektur und Städtebau, Bauhaus Uni-

512 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

Design by Nature: Concrete Infiltrations
Alexandros Kallegias1 , Elif Erdine2
1,2
Architectural Association (AA) - School of Architecture
1,2
{alexandros.kallegias|elif.erdine}@aaschool.ac.uk

The paper aims to address methods of realizing computationally generated

self-organizing systems on a one-to-one scale with the employment of a singular
material system. The case study described in this paper is the outcome of an
investigation which has explored earth scaffolding, fabric form-work, and
concrete materiality during an international three-week architecture workshop.
Real-time generative form-finding methods based on branching and bundling
systems in nature have been developed and simulated in an open-source
programming environment. The outcome of the simulation stage has been
analyzed structurally via Finite Element Analysis (FEA), results of which have
served as inputs for the fine-tuning of the simulation. Final three-dimensional
geometry has been fabricated by employing fabric, essentially forming the fabric
form-work. Fabric form-work is then laid on top of the earth scaffolding,
followed by the process of concrete casting. From a pedagogical point of view,
the research focuses on the integration of digital design techniques between
various design/architecture/analysis platforms combined with basic and
advanced techniques of construction within a limited time frame.abstract here by
clicking this paragraph.

Keywords: Simulation, Generative design, Nature, Earth scaffolding, Fabric

formwork

INTRODUCTION proach to design and construction, becoming an es-

Nature folds various functions into basic material sys-
tems through differentiation. The systematic diver-
sity in the observed and microscopic world of na-
ture occurs due to the ways in which basic materi-
als, such as cellulose and chitin, re-order and self-
organize themselves to form complex constructions
of varying scales. Diversity in nature does not emerge
from which materials to use, but how to use avail-
able materials (Hensel et al. 2010). In the recent
decades, the complexity that is observed in natural
systems has provided the inspiration for a new ap-
tablished part of the architectural discourse (Vincent
et al. 2006). With the vast range of digital tools,
the designer is now able to explore the correlation
between the multiple subsidiary systems operating
across a range of scales in all design related fields.
Situating itself within the complexity paradigm
and its design-oriented implications, the research
investigates methods of realizing computationally
generated self-organizing systems on a one-to-one
scale with the employment of a singular material
system. The case study described in this paper is

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 513

 the outcome of an investigation which has explored
earth scaffolding, fabric formwork, and concrete ma-
teriality during an international three-week architec-
ture workshop. From a pedagogical point of view,
the research focuses on the integration of digital
design techniques between various design/architec-
ture/analysis platforms combined with basic and ad-
vanced techniques of construction within a limited
schedule. In this way, the complete process revolves
around how students can understand the ways of
transition from the digital paradigm towards phys-
ical fabrication and assembly processes with a fully
hands-on experience.
The objectives of the research are two-fold.
While real-world constraints through the implemen-
tation of advanced physics calculations in computa-
tional simulations are taken into account, attention is
also given to how the digital paradigm and physical
materiality can inform each other during design and
fabrication processes. As such, it is argued that com-
putational and physical attributes are two equally im-
portant aspects which have direct feedback on one
another during the design and fabrication processes.
METHODOLOGY
A research methodology has been developed in or-
der to test the research objectives. The design brief is
to propose and construct a one-to-one scale pavilion
made from concrete in a forest located in the south of
United Kingdom within a limited time frame. Initially,
real-time generative form-finding methods based on
branching and bundling systems in nature have been
developed and simulated in the open-source pro-
gramming environment Processing. Key influences
in working with branching systems have been their
structural advantages coupled with the motivation to
contextualize the design outcome in the natural en-
vironment of the forest.
Methods of transmitting forces over a given
distance in the most effective way have been ex-
plored by Frei Otto and his team at the Institute for
Lightweight Structures (Figure 1). The first method,
minimal path system, links given points with de-
514 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
tours to produce the least overall distance. In na-
ture, the minimal path system can be observed in
the self-formation of soap films. Structurally, this sys-
tem is less effective for the transmission of forces as
the outer support arms are loaded in bending. The
second method, direct path system, connects every
given point with a straight line to each other with no
detours. Through this method, the forces are trans-
mitted on the shortest possible path, but the over-
all path length increases drastically. This system be-
comes more effective if the points of force applica-
tion are connected with beam ties so that the bars
are compression loaded. The third method, namely
the minimal detours system, can be viewed as a ne-
gotiation between the minimal path and the direct
path systems. Synthetic analogy research about this
method has been carried out by exploring the self-
formation processes in moistened thread networks.
In this setup, first of all the prearranged points are all
connected with threads as in the case of direct path
systems. The threads are then given a limited excess
length, such as 8%, thereafter being dipped in wa-
ter. The threads bundle with each other as a result of
the surface tension of water. Even though the overall
length of the threads is 8% longer than in the case of
direct path system, the overall area to be covered de-
creases by 30-50%. Reviewing this method in a struc-
tural context yields the result that the forces to be
transported are more optimized due to the concen-
tration of paths, increasing the buckling resistance
of structural members. Effectiveness of the system
is increased more if the points of force application
are connected with a beam tie. As a result, branched
structures generated with minimal detours system
use less material in a more effective manner than the
ones generated with direct path system (Otto et al.
2006).
In nature, branched structures can be found in
abundance throughout various plant systems. Ma-
terialized direct path systems can be observed in
umbels, and materialized minimal detours systems
can be viewed in bushes and shrubs. The differ-
ence between branched constructions in architec-
Figure 1
Diagrams showing
the direct path
system, minimal
path system and
minimal detour
system respectively.
ture and nature lies in functionality. Whereas the
branched structures built by humans are mainly de-
signed to carry a structural function, the branched
constructions of nature have the property of multi-
functionality. In the case of plants, the branches need
to transport water, minerals and products of photo-
synthesis for survival as well as maintain the neces-
sary structural resistance against the various forces
applied to the leaves (Otto et al. 2006).
In biological systems, self-organization refers
to the process where pattern at the global level
emerges from the interaction between lower-level
components. The rules specifying the interactions
between lower-level components rise from local in-
formation, without the interference of external di-
recting instructions (Weinstock 2004). Swarm intel-
ligence, a concept mainly used on research about Ar-
tificial Intelligence, is the behavior exerted by natural
or artificial self-organized systems, being made up of
boids/agents which interact locally with each other
and their environment. These interactions lead to the
emergence of complex systems demonstrating intel-
ligent behavior on a global level (Reynolds 1987). The
inspiration for generating swarm intelligence mainly
come from biological systems, such as bird flocking,
fish schooling, ant colonies, and bacterial growth. In
the computational paradigm, agent-based models
are used to create decentralized, self-organized be-
havior. These computational algorithms simulate the
local interactions of agents in order to evaluate their
complex behavioral patterns leading to swarm intel-
ligence (Shiffman 2012).
In the context of this research, self-organization
refers to form-finding methods directed at optimiz-
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 515
 ing the load bearing capacity of structures through
a process where the amount of material of the sys-
tem is decreased as its strength is increased, while
simultaneously having the ability to make local ad-
justments according to preferred architectonic qual-
ities. As such, the digital simulations present a pro-
gression from the analogue-optimized path exper-
iments of Frei Otto due to additional design con-
straints relating to gravitational forces, levels of ad-
justing bundling intensity on a local scale, and the
ability to follow free form three-dimensional shapes.
During the simulation processes, various iterations
have been generated. The iterations vary according
to the amount of paths, intensity of bundling force,
the minimum and maximum distance ranges which
bundling forces can influence, as well as the start-
ing geometrical form. Initially, a starting geometri-
cal form is created in a three-dimensional modelling
software, McNeel Rhinoceros, and its iso-curves in
the U and V directions are extracted. These curves
are then divided into a specific number of points.
The point coordinate data is then exported from
Rhinoceros as a text file and imported into Process-
ing. In Processing, these points are defined as nodes
which are connected to each other via particle-spring
systems; therefore, it is now possible to create real-
time dynamic interaction between them. At this in-
stant, the mathematical description of minimal de-
tours system as a function of proximity is applied to
the nodes. If the nodes are within a maximum neigh-
boring distance to each other, then a force which
bundles them together is created. The force is de-
scribed mathematically as the average vector from
each of the nodes towards the neighboring nodes;
therefore, the nodes within the neighboring range
begin to move towards each other. This force is ap-
plied until the distance between the nodes reaches
a minimum amount specified as a parameter. The
maximum amount of magnitude for the bundling
force is determined as a parameter in order to limit
the strength of bundling. This magnitude grows by
an increment of 0.00005 as the z-coordinate of the
nodes increases, in order to provide for more open-
516 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
ings in the higher ranges of the form. The calcula-
tion of the bundling force is repeated for every frame
of the simulation, whereby the particle-spring sys-
tem reaches its resting position after all the nodes are
bundled together.
Figure 2 demonstrates instances of the Process-
ing simulation during its course, starting with the
paths in their initial position and finally concluding
when all the paths reach their resting position as a
result of the applied forces. It must be noted that a
shell form has been opted for after initial tests with
free-form surfaces, as concrete's strong compressive
capacity makes it suitable for shell structures, a sys-
tem containing mainly compression forces. After the
generation of various iterations, a design option is
selected according to criteria including the desired
number of openings and anticipated structural sta-
bility.
The outcome of this stage, visualized as curved
geometrical elements, is exported from Processing
as a text file comprising the coordinates of points
which form every curve element. This data is then
imported to McNeel Rhinoceros and given structural
thickness. The radius of each branch in the model is
15 cm. The model is evaluated via FEA analyses in
Rhinoceros' plug-in Scan&Solve. The structural anal-
ysis is carried out as a solid volume analysis, the se-
lected material properties belong to high strength
concrete (Table 1), and the model is analysed under
its own self-weight. The total displacement values
gained from initial FEA analyses serve as inputs for
re-adjusting the parameters of the Processing algo-
rithm through various iterations. It is observed that
nodes where several branches come together per-
form inadequately due to buckling. Therefore, in the
final iteration the maximum neighbouring distance
has been decreased to generate 2 branches per node
in order to decrease buckling. The final parameters
related to bundling can be viewed in Table 2. Figure
3 illustrates the resulting configuration of optimized
path members generating the pavilion and the corre-
sponding total displacement values, which range be-
tween 0.000149382 meters and 1.08157e-12 meters.
Figure 2
Instances of
Processing
simulation
demonstrating the
applied forces on
the initial path
network.

Table 1 The objective of the next stage is to transform the

Material properties three-dimensional geometry into a two-dimensional
for high strength layout which can then be cut from fabric. For this
concrete. purpose, the final geometry has first been sliced ra-
dially into 12 pieces. Each piece is flattened via the
Table 2
Rhinoceros Squish command, which is developed
Parameters of
to flatten non-developable surfaces. The parame-
branching /
ters of the command are adjusted to match those
bundling operation
of an elastic material in order to control the com-
in Processing.
pression and stretch amounts realistically. Figure 4
shows one of the slices of the final output, both as
Figure 3
a three-dimensional geometry and two-dimensional
Total displacement
pattern with the corresponding compression and
values on the final
stretch amounts, which have minor numerical values.
output as a result of
The resulting two-dimensional outputs of this stage
FEA analysis.
are then marked on fabric via CNC router and stitched
together, thereby creating the fabric form-work for
concrete casting.

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 517

 In the concluding stages of the process, the scaffold- Figure 4
ing for the pavilion is assembled from earth in the Transformation of
forest (Figure 5), forming a second point of integra- three-dimensional
tion with the environment of the context. The over- geometry into
all form in the digital simulations is adhered to by the two-dimensional
inclusion of timber ribs serving as guidelines during layout.
the earth scaffolding construction process. The fabric
form-work is then laid on top of the earth scaffolding,
followed by the process of concrete casting (Figure 6).
The structure is made of a special concrete mix with
fiberglass additives which has enabled it to be cast, Figure 5
dried and held strongly in place in a period of sev- Earth scaffolding for
eral hours without being limited by the constraints the pavilion.
of applying conventional reinforcing systems such as
re-bar. Finally, the earth scaffolding is removed and
reunited with the surroundings (Figure 7). Being 2.1
meters tall and 4.4 meters wide, the fabrication and
assembly of the pavilion has been realized within a
period of one week (Figure 8).

RESULTS
The design and fabrication processes have demon-
Figure 6
strated the strong independence between the digi-
Fabric formwork
tal and physical paradigms in design. While the com-
placed on top of
putational simulations have taken real-world con-
earth scaffolding.
straints into account with the implementation of
physics behaviour, the material properties of con-
crete and the correlations between earth and con-
crete have been some of the critical aspects which
could not have been predicted via the simulations.
Due to the humid conditions in the forest envi-
ronment, the earth scaffolding became condensed
which in turn restricted the settling of the fabric and
concrete while concrete was being poured. There- Figure 7
fore, future work needs to incorporate CFD (Compu- Final pavilion
tational Fluid Dynamics) simulation of concrete in the structure.
digital environment in order to allow for more precise
control of the final physical output. It has also been
witnessed that the density of the fabric formwork is
crucial in manipulating the behaviour of concrete. An
ideal formwork setup would comprise fabric with less
density, in other words more openings, in the lower
parts of the scaffolding in order to accelerate the cur-

518 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 8
Close-up view of
final structure.
ing speed of concrete.
Data exchange between Processing and McNeel
Rhinoceros has been smooth due to the utilization of
the import and export functions in Processing as a
text function. As such, the output model has the ad-
vantage of high portability - it is essentially a geomet-
rically precise 3 dimensional spatial model of nodes
and lines connecting them with data attached.
Further observations have been made regard-
ing the structural thickness of the final output. In
terms of structural performance, if the diameter of
the branching elements is decreased towards the
higher parts of the pavilion, total displacement val-
ues will also decrease accordingly. Future work on
the research area will incorporate this principle dur-
ing the computational phase of explorations.
The analysis process which is characterized by
the initial creation of an output model in Process-
ing and the application of FEA tools in the second
step proves to be of a linear nature whereby design
and analysis procedures cannot create feedback for
each other. It is necessary that this process is altered
to move away from a linear setup towards a gener-
ative one by employing real-time FEA analysis con-
currently with the Processing simulation. This proce-
dure can allow for a feedback loop between Process-
ing and the FEA platform such that the nodes in Pro-
cessing can regulate their position and concentration
according to the progressive results obtained from
FEA.
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 519
 DISCUSSION Vincent, J, Bogatyreva, O A, Bogatyrev, N R, Bowyer, A
Throughout the design, fabrication, and assem- and Pahl, A K 2006, 'Biomimetics: Its Practice and
bly processes, the progressive inter-relationship be- Theory', Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 3(9),
pp. 471 - 482
tween different simulation software has been a key
Weinstock, M 2004, 'Morphogenesis and the Mathemat-
driver in recognizing the ways of integrating architec- ics of Emergence', AD (Architectural Design) Emer-
tural criteria with the structural performance of the gence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies, 74(3), pp.
pavilion. Furthermore, the comparison between the 10 - 17
digital simulation of the architectural output and the
final output, the pavilion itself, provides useful infor-
mation to be considered and embedded in the future
digital simulations. Overall, the research aims to illus-
trate the architectural possibilities of using concrete
in a non-conventional way, directly connecting com-
putational design methodologies with digital fabri-
cation processes.
The pedagogical approach engaged in this work-
shop aim to establish ways of integrating the con-
ceptual and practical aspects of innovative design
methodologies. The major intention is to enable the
students to grasp the theoretical, computational, and
physical advantages and constraints of the described
methodologies. It is believed that active engage-
ment with the procedural levels of creation from the
early stages of architectural education has a signifi-
cant contribution to the student's understanding and
development in the design context. As such, it has
been observed that a pedagogical setting incorpo-
rating an intensive learning process with a limited
amount of time has rendered students to be more ab-
sorbed and involved in all stages of design and mak-
ing.

REFERENCES
Hensel, M, Menges, A and Weinstock, M 2010, Emer-
gent Technologies and Design: Towards a Biological
Paradigm for Architecture, Routledge, UK
Otto, F, Rasch, B and Schanz, S 2006, Finding Form: To-
wards an Architecture of the Minimal, Axel Menges
Reynolds, C W 1987 'Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A
Distributed Behavioral Model', SIGGRAPH '87, Pro-
ceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on Computer
Graphics and Interactive Techniques, New York, pp.
25-34
Shiffman, D 2012, The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural
Systems with Processing, The Nature of Code

520 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

Performative Design and Fabrication of a Parametric Wall
Screen for Tropical Climates
A Modular Approach

Thomas Wortmann1 , Bige Tuncer2

1,2
Singapore University of Technology and Design
1
thomas_wortmann@mymail.sutd.edu.sg 2 bige_tuncer@sutd.edu.sg

We have developed a modular approach to the parametric design of a patterned

façade for tropical climates, using a "lighter" data set and model that integrates a
number of performance considerations. This modular approach separates the
façade's design into form, façade pattern, façade density requirements, and
façade components, and reintegrates these aspects via a triangular mesh,
represented as a fast and convenient data structure based on half-edges. Through
this separation, the design team can simultaneously work on the architectural
appearance of the design, its performance, and its fabrication, while retaining
holistic control through the constant reintegration of design changes via the
half-edge data structure. In this way, we retain the advantages of a
parametrically driven design process, such as automatic design generation and
the integration of performance aspects, while permitting more flexible and
non-sequential design explorations by different members of the design team.

Keywords: Generative Design, Parametric Design, Performance-based Design,

Computer-aided Design Tools, Modular Design

INTRODUCTION of its parameters. For example, Datta et al. present

Parametric design promises great opportunities to
develop "performative" designs that respond to chal-
lenges such as global warming and diminishing natu-
ral resources (Kolarevic 2005; Hensel 2013). However,
environments for the development of such para-
metric designs rely on topologically sorted graphs
(Woodbury 2010), in other words, on linear flows of
data from inputs to outputs, suggesting relatively lin-
ear design processes. In other words, a designer in-
fluences a design at the initial definition of the para-
metric system, and then only by the manipulation
a parametric system that automatically generates a
façade based on randomized parameters (2014). In
performance-based design, performance values de-
rived from simulations often take the role of design
parameters (e.g., Oxman 2008), raising the question
of how designers can integrate performance values
into a parametric system while retaining control over
the design's final appearance. Modularization ap-
proaches have been applied in order to integrate per-
formance considerations into parametric design (Tur-
rin et al. 2012). However, these approaches often

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 521

 create a set of parametric models that perform explo-
rations in a rather linear manner.
Contrastingly, the literature on architectural de-
sign processes often emphasizes the the non-linear,
heuristic natures of architectural design processes
(Rowe 1991; Lawson 2006). The increasing numbers
of consultants and stakeholders involved in architec-
tural design compound these difficulties (Loukissas
2012).
A powerful approach to improve the perfor-
mance of architectural designs is BIM-modelling
(Eastman 2011). However, BIM-modelling, although
widely adopted for design documentation and anal-
ysis, appears unsuitable for early design stages due
the difficulty of changing complex, information-rich
BIM models. Such models consist of hundreds, and
sometimes thousands, of "intelligent" objects, each
with their own properties, behaviours, and relation-
ships. Accordingly, Holzer (2007) identifies a need for
"lighter data-sets and models", which, compared to
BIM-models, are easier to change.
The modular approach to the parametric design
of a patterned facade for tropical climates is an exam-
ple of such a "lighter" data set and model that inte-
grates a number of performance considerations. Our
modular approach separates the façade's design into
the four aspects of form, façade pattern, façade den-
sity requirements, and façade components, and rein-
tegrates these aspects via a triangular mesh, repre-
sented as a fast and convenient data structure based
on half-edges. Through this separation, the design
team could simultaneously work on the architectural
appearance of the design, its performance, and its
fabrication, while retaining holistic control through
the constant reintegration of design changes via the
half-edge data structure. In this way, we retained the
advantages of a parametrically driven design process
- such as automatic design generation and the in-
tegration of performance aspects - while permitting
more flexible design explorations by different mem-
bers of the design team.
522 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
CASE STUDY: A MODULAR APPROACH TO
PERFORMATIVE DESIGN
Specifically, we present the design process of a panel-
ized façade for a free form, multi-functional pavilion
in Singapore. The pavilion's facade combines struc-
tural requirements with shading and natural venti-
lation through a pattern of variable density, derived
from a limited set of parametric, triangular tiles. To
develop this façade, the design team created and
manipulated digital models, analyzed structural and
daylight performance, and digitally fabricated physi-
cal models and prototypes.
Representing Form with the Half-edge Data
Structure
The design team modelled the pavilion's shape as a
triangular mesh, i.e. a collection of triangles (faces),
each of which was defined by three corner points
(vertices). Specifically, every mesh triangle served as
the base geometry of one façade component. (For
this base geometry, the thickness of the facade com-
ponents is not taken into account.) In such a mesh,
the sides of the triangles, i.e. the connections be-
tween vertices, are called edges.
To implement the integration described above
in an efficient manner, we needed to represent the
triangular mesh with a data structure that would
quickly find the vertices and edges of a face, the
one or two faces incident to an edge, and the edges
and faces incident to a vertex (the so-called one-ring
neighborhood). Of the four types of data structures
for polygonal meshes listed by Botsch et al. (2010)
- Face-Based, Edge-Based, Half-Edge-Based, and Di-
rected Edge - only the half-edge data structure sup-
ports the required queries without additional com-
putations (p. 25-27), which is why we chose it to rep-
resent the pavilion's architectural form and façade
components. However, the 3D-modelling environ-
ment employed for the design (Rhinoceros) only pro-
vided face-based data that we had to convert into
a half-edge data structure. (See figure 1 for a visual
comparison of the face-based and half-edge-based
data structures.)
 Face-based Mesh Representation. The face-based
data structure is the smallest and simplest, and con-
sists of an array of vertices and an array of faces,
with each face defined as an array of indices into
the array of vertices (ibid., p. 22-24). This data
structures underlies common file formats for the ex-
change of three-dimensional information (e.g. STL
and OBJ), and is available in scripting languages (e.g.
RhinoScript and Maya Embedded Language) and vi-
sual programming interfaces (e.g. Grasshopper) for
3D-modelling environments. For example, Aish et
al. (2014) employ this representation to represent
a triangulated façade in DesignScript. However, al-
though topological information such as the incident
faces to an edge or the one-ring neighbourhood of
faces around a vertex is implicitly available in the ver-
tex and face arrays of the face-based data structure,
the retrieval of such information is slow and difficult
to implement (Botsch et al. 2010). Specifically, find-
ing the edges incident to an edge or vertex requires
scanning all faces. This scan takes linear time or, in
asymptotic notation, O(n), where n is the number
of vertices.
Half-edge-based Mesh Representation. Half-
Edge-based data structures address this problem
by splitting every edge into two half-edges point-
Figure 1
Comparison with
the face-based data
structure on the
left, and the
half-edge data
structure on the
right. Note that
some of the
half-edges are
lacking a twin.
Half-edges without
a twin indicate
"naked" half-edge
on the boundaries
of a mesh.
ing in two opposite directions, and by storing mesh
vertices, half-edges, and faces in three interrelated
arrays (ibid., p. 25-26). The vertex array stores the
location of every vertex, as well the index of one inci-
dent half-edge. The half-edge array stores the indices
of the start and end vertices for every half-edge, as
well as the previous, next, and opposite half-edges.
(The opposite half-edge is referred to as the twin.)
The face array simply stores the index of one incident
half-edge for every face. One can now enumerate
the vertices of a face by repeatedly querying for the
next half-edge. Similarly, one can enumerate the
half-edges and faces incident to a vertex by repeat-
edly querying for the next half-edge of the opposite,
twinned, half-edge. Despite their usefulness, half-
edge data structures are less available in scripting
and visual programming interfaces than face-based
representations, possibly because of their relative
complexity. (An exception is Plankton, a free third
party plug-in for Grasshopper that provides an im-
plementation of the half-edge data structure.)
Converting a Face-based Mesh Representation
into a Half-edge-based Representation. Convert-
ing face-based data into half-edge data takes two
straightforward steps:
(1) First, one traverses the sides of every face (ac-
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 523
 cording to the arrays of indices in the face-based face
array), creating one half-edge per side and assigning
previous and next half-edges according to the traver-
sal of each face. The traversal and assignment ensure
that the half-edges for each face form a closed ring,
and that corresponding, i.e. opposite, half-edges are
pointing in opposite directions. (Assuming that the
normal directions of the original mesh are uniform,
which is usually the case in 3D-modelling applica-
tions, the order of vertices defining a face in a face-
based data structure is either uniformly clockwise or
counter clockwise.) Simultaneously, one creates a
new face array by storing the first half-edge of each
face. The number of operations for this step increases
linearly with the number of vertices, or O(n), since it
requires one traversal per face.
(2) The second step pairs half-edges with their
twins. (As explained above, twinned pairs have op-
posite directions as long as the original mesh displays
unified normals, but one still needs to find them.)
Finding these pairs with brute force by comparing
each half-edge against ( every
) other half-edges takes
quadratic time, or O n2 . Sorting the half-edges ac-
cording to the coordinates of their mid points in the
x, y, and z directions improves the required number
of operations to linearithmic time, or O(nlog n). Due
to the sorting, twinned half-edges adjoin in the half-
edge array, and thus can be referenced to each other
in a single pass, i.e. in linear time, while the three sorts
in x, y, and z take linearithmic time.
The above algorithm allowed us to convert the
face-based representation of the triangle mesh pro-
vided by the 3D-modelling environment into a half-
edge data structure in linearithmic time, which in
practice did not take more than a number of sec-
onds. The resulting half-edge data structure pro-
cesses topological queries about neighbouring ele-
ments in constant time, or O(1). One can also com-
pute vertex normals, edge normals, and face normals
in constant time by taking the cross product of two
adjacent edges to compute face normals, and by av-
eraging the face normals of adjacent faces for edge
and vertex normals. Consequently, the calculation of
524 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
all edge normals takes linear time with the half-edge
data structure, opposed to the exponential time re-
quired with a face-based data structure. Since the
design team modelled the pavilion in Rhinoceros, we
implemented the half-edge data structure and con-
version algorithm with RhinoScript and IronPython.
The next section discusses the pattern we applied to
the façade.
Density-modulating Pattern
Our aim was to design a pattern that could achieve
a gradient of densities, and thus address structural,
shading, and programmatic requirements, from a
limited number of tiles. Furthermore, the pattern
should make the individual tiles less apparent visu-
ally. We could then assign a pattern tile to every
façade component (i.e., to every mesh triangle), re-
sulting in a cohesive pattern of variable density for
the pavilion's façade overall.
The pattern consists of thirteen parametric tiles,
as depicted in figure 2. Defining each tile are its three
corner points and the three density values associated
with them, with the density values spanning a range
from 0 to 4. The five tiles in the middle row represent
tiles of homogenous density, progressively densify-
ing from left to right, while the tiles in the top row
represent tiles where one corner is less dense than
the others, and the tiles in the bottom row repre-
sent tiles where one corner is denser than the others.
Note that the design team intended the lines asso-
ciated with densities 0 and 1 as structural elements,
and the lines associated with densities 2, 3, and 4 as
non-structural shading devices. Since every mesh tri-
angle of the pavilion's form corresponds to a pattern
tile, and every mesh triangle to three vertices, one
can define a pattern for the whole mesh by assign-
ing density values from 0 to 4 to the vertices of the
mesh. The next section describes this assignment of
density values.
Figure 2 façade, and how we integrated these values with the
Thirteen pattern half-edge data structure described above.
tiles of varying
Determining Structural Displacement, Solar Irra-
density. The
diation, and Programmatic Requirements. For the
numbers on the
displacement analysis, we assumed a preliminary di-
lower left of a tile
mension for the structural lines of the pavilion (i.e.,
represent the
the edges of the mesh triangles representing the
numerical density
pavilion's form) of 200x60mm, and wood as a ma-
values associated
terial. (The face-based data structure simplified the
with each corner of
creation of this structural model through the direct
the triangle, going
accessibility of edges.) Simulating this structure un-
counterclockwise
der dead load with Karamba, a third-party structural
from the lower left
analysis plugin, resulted in a maximal displacement
corner of the
of 12.5mm.
triangle. Thicker
We conducted the solar irradiation analysis in
lines indicate
DIVA, a daylight simulation plugin for Grasshop-
structural elements,
per (Jakubiec and Reinhart 2011). Using the ver-
and thinner lines
tices of the defining mesh as sensors, the simula-
non-structural
tion predicted a maximum annual solar irradiation of
elements for
1663kWh/m2, reflecting the large amounts of sun-
shading only.
light typical for Singapore.
The pavilion's program consisted of an exhibi-
tion area, a small library, and a performance area. In-
Integrating Performance Data stead of defining numeric brightness requirements in
We determined the density of the pavilion's façade
term of lux or UDI, we opted for a sketch approach of
based on three considerations: Structure, solar ir-
directly defining relative densities for the pavilion's
radiation, and programmatic requirements for day-
façade based on programmatic brightness require-
light and views. These considerations led to quan-
ments. To indicate these relative densities, the de-
titative density requirements for the façade, which
sign team prepared a painted mesh. According to
we represented as a labelled point cloud and inte-
the values of the painted mesh (expressed as relative
grated into the design process by matching these la-
percentage from 0% to 100%), the exhibition areas
bels to the vertices of the mesh defining the pavil-
should receive a relatively large amount of daylight
ion's form. Specifically, we simulated the pavilion's
and thus have a relatively open roof (˜50%), with the
structural displacement and solar irradiance, and de-
library receiving less light (˜75%), and the stage of the
termined relative daylight and view requirements ac-
performance area being maximally closed (100%).
cording to the pavilion's program. (The resulting
The design team required the sides of the pavilion
density requirements were sufficient for the prelimi-
to be less dense than the roof (˜25%), allowing views
nary design of the pavilion's façade. However, the ap-
of the surroundings areas. The least dense areas of
proach presented here can also accommodate more
the façade (0%) half-enclosed a courtyard, allowing
precise simulation results and requirements.) The fol-
views into and across the courtyard.
lowing two sections describe how we obtained the
values for the three considerations of structure, so- Labelling the Half-Edge Data Structure with Den-
lar irradiation, and program, how we translated these sity Requirements. Note that the structural, solar
values into density requirements for the pavilion's irradiation and programmatic analyses described in

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 525


the preceding section resulted in three values for ev-
ery vertex n of the mesh defining the pavilion's ar-
chitectural form: The length of the displacement vec-
tor δn expressed in mm, the annual solar irradiation
amount σn expressed in kWh/m2, and a program-
matic requirement φn expressed as a percentage.
Further, note that the pattern discussed previously al-
lows five different degrees of density x, labelled from
least to most dense as 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. (See figure
3 for visualizations of the displacement, solar irradi-
ation, and programmatic density requirements, and
their combination.)
Instead of optimizing a difficult, time-consuming
multi-objective problem to reconcile the three fac-
tors of structure, solar irradiation, and program, we
directly calculated combined density requirements
and integrated them into the half-edge data struc-
ture according to the four steps described below:
(1) As the first step, we normalized the values for
displacement δn and annual solar irradiation σn ac-
cording to their maximal values.
(2) We then mapped the displacement values δn
to the range from 0 to 0.6, and the solar irradiation
σn and programmatic values φn to the range from 0
to 0.5.
(3) We combined these values into a single den-
sity value per vertex according to following formula:
if δn > σn + φn ⇒ xn = [δn · 4]
if δn < σn + φn ⇒ xn = [(σn + φn ) · 4]
(4) Finally, we labeled every mesh vertex with
its corresponding density value by first sorting the
density values according to their x, y and z coordi-
nates. (Analogous to the matching of half-edges, this
method achieves the matching of density values in
linearithmic time).
526 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 3
Colored meshes
indicating the
pavilion's
displacement, solar
irradiation, relative
programmatic
density, and the
In other words, in cases where the sum of the val- combined density
ues for solar irradiation and programmatic require- requirement.
ment were smaller than the displacement value, the
density was determined based on the displacement
value alone, resulting in a maximal density of de-
gree 2. In cases where the sum of the solar irradi-
ation value and the programmatic value was larger
than the displacement value, this sum determined
the density, resulting in a maximal density of degree
4. (This distinction between two cases reflects that
the design team only intended the pattern elements
up to density degree 2 to be structural, while the
team intended the remaining density degrees 3 and
4 only for the modulation of daylight and views.) Due
to the prodigious availability of sunlight in Singapore,
the structural requirements influenced the combined
density only to small degree, since the density re-
quired for shading was usually larger than the struc-
tural requirement.
Generating Façade Components for Visual
Preview and Digital Fabrication
Above, we have discussed how three density values
associated with the corner points of each pattern tile
define that tile's density and appearance. The pre-
vious section has explained how the design team
derived these density values according to structural,
shading, and programmatic considerations, and how
the half-edge data structure could integrate these
density values. We could thus generate the geome-
try of the pavilion's facade by mapping the different
parametric tiles of the pattern to the corner points
of every façade component and their corresponding
density requirements.
Since we separately defined the pattern tiles, the
Figure 4 form of the triangular mesh, and the façade's den-
3D printed (Nylon) sity requirements, we could quickly generate differ-
scale model of the ent versions of the pavilion's geometry for different
pavilion. Photo purposes. Specifically, we employed this parametric
credit: Advanced model to generate geometries for visual preview, for
Architecture the 3D printing of scale models, and for the creation
Laboratory (AAL), of full-scale prototypes. (We implemented these ge-
SUTD ometries with an objected-oriented programming
paradigm; specifically, as a single class for the cre-
ation of the three types of façade components, with
the pattern tiles defined in a second class.)
Due to the linearithmic matching of labelled
points enabled by the mesh-based representation,
and the constant time topological queries enabled
specifically by the half-edge data structure, the de-
signers could quickly recreate a visual preview (com-
posed of simplified, two-dimensional components)
from the underlying information of the mesh and its
density values. Depending on the size of the mesh
and the type of the required geometry, regenerating
the model can take from several seconds to a couple
of minutes. In this way, designers can interact with
the form of the façade by manipulating the geome-
try of the mesh and the density of its pattern by ma-
nipulating the associated density values and derive
visual feedback to their design changes (see figure 5
for a diagram of this process). One can also use the
resulting model to validate the design with more ac-
curate simulations of the daylight distribution inside
the pavilion, allowing the simultaneous exploration
of visual and appearance and performance (although
these simulations take additional time.).
Beyond visual representation, we employed the
parametric model for digital fabrication. To create
an intersection-free solid geometry for the 3D print-
ing of a scale model (see figure 4), we offset the ver-
tices of every mesh triangle up and down according
to their vertex normals, and defined the façade com-
ponents according to this new set of corner points.
(This technique avoids intersections between com-
ponents, but results in slightly twisted sides for these
components. See Aish et al. (2014) for a more ex-
tended discussion of this geometrical problem.)
The design team also created several full-scale
prototypes of the pavilion's facade from folded sheet
metal. (Figure 5 depicts one of these prototypes.) For
these prototypes, the design team reinterpreted the
façade components as two interlocking sheet metal
elements forming a triangular box (see figure 6). The
sheet metal elements consisted of thin aluminium
and were cut by a large-scale CNC laser-cutting ma-
chine. The parametric model assisted in the creation
of these elements by generating not only the ge-
ometry of the sheet metal components, but also by
unfolding these elements into fabrication ready cut-
sheets. To avoid the twisting of the components'
sides described in the previous paragraph, we ori-
ented the sides of each sheet metal component ac-
cording to the normal of the corresponding edges
of the underlying mesh triangle. (This orientation
according to the edge normals leads to small mis-
alignments at the nodes, i.e. the mesh vertices. We
circumvented this problem by only connecting the
sides of the façade components and by leaving the
nodes devoid of material.)
Since the automatically generated cut sheets
took the edge alignment of the completed compo-
nents into account, the prototypes could be assem-
bled without precisely checking the folding angle of
each component's side. Instead, the components ad-
justed their shape during the assembly process, be-
cause the pre-defined boltholes only permitted the
assembly of the intended form. (This process of self-
adjustment was aided by the softness of the thin ma-
terial.)
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 527

MODULARIZATION AND RE-INTEGRATION
The half-edge data structure encodes topological re-
lationships such as adjacency, and thus allows con-
stant time searches for queries such as the corner ver-
tices of a faces, the faces surrounding a mesh ver-
tex (necessary for calculating the vertex normal), and
the two faces adjacent to a mesh edge (necessary
for calculating the edge normal). As we have seen
in the preceding section, the availability of such ge-
ometric information not only allowed the quick re-
generation of the model for visual previews, but also
aided in the generation of fabrication-ready geome-
tries. Organizing the pavilion's design around the in-
formation encoded by the half-edge data structure
thus allowed the separation of four critical aspects
of the design. These aspects were: (1) The architec-
tural form of the pavilion, represented as a triangular
mesh and encoded as a half-edge data structure, (2)
the parametric tiles of the density-modulating pat-
tern for the pavilion's façade, (3) the desired density
for the façade, based on considerations such a struc-
ture, solar irradiation, and program, and (4) the differ-
ent geometries for representing and fabricating the
pavilion's façade components.
528 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 5
Full-scale prototype
of the pavilion's
facade, consisting
of 262 façade
components,
folded out of thin
aluminium sheet.
This façade
segment was
exhibited at the
National Design
Centre (NDC) in
Singapore in
December 2014.
Photo credit:
Advanced
Architecture
Laboratory (AAL),
SUTD
This modularity allowed the designers to ex-
plore different implementations of each aspect sep-
arate from the other three, and thus enabled col-
laboration between different members of the de-
sign team by allowing individual contributions to the
design at different levels. For example, we imple-
mented the façade components in terms of a sim-
ple, two-dimensional geometry for visual preview,
as a solid geometry from 3D printing, and as folded
sheet metal components suitable for the produc-
tion of large-scale prototypes. This development
of the façade components could proceed indepen-
dently from the determination of density values for
the pavilions façade, which the design team based on
performance values.
Interactive visual previews, enabled by the near
real-time time integration of the four aspects of ar-
chitectural form, pattern, components, and density
values, allowed the design team to judge the emerg-
ing appearance of the final design and, where nec-
essary, amend the density values to achieve a bet-
ter aesthetic result. The speed and convenience of
the half-edge data structure, and the ease of match-
ing labelled points to it, allowed this modularization
 of the design process and the fast re-integration of adopting "intelligent" objects as building compo-
the different modules. In this way, we combined the nents as one of the key advantages of BIM-modelling.
possibility of simultaneously exploring different as- Although the case study presented here relies
pects of the design with an ability for quick previews heavily on customized programs, we believe that one
of the combined result, ensuring holistic control of can integrate the advantages of the third approach
the different aspects of the design. (See figure 6 for a into existing CAAD packages by adopting modular-
diagram of the different modules and their relation- ized workflows to parametric design and perhaps by
ships.) employing specialized plug-ins. The non-manifold
meshes proposed as building representations by
Figure 6 Aish and Pratap (2012) could extend this approach
Overview of our from planar to three-dimensional topologies. We see
modular approach. special relevance for centralized network models for
Pattern, aspects of a building design that lend themselves to
architectural form, a representation as components that are organized
and density by an underlying, lightweight geometry and other,
requirements are perhaps performative or construction-related, infor-
integrated via a mation such as building facades and structures.
labelled mesh As our case study demonstrates, such a cen-
(represented as a tralized network - with the half-edge data structure
half-edge data at its centre - can generate different types of out-
structure), allowing comes for both visualization and fabrication. While
the generation of this study has considered only visual feedback to de-
façade elements for sign changes, future work should aim to include au-
visual preview, 3D tomatic performance updates as well, while preserv-
printing, and full ing flexibility for design exploration and interven-
scale prototyping. tion. Ultimately, we believe that approaches such as
Guided by the the one presented here might lead to design envi-
visual preview, ronments that allow designers to effortlessly ingrate
designers can performance and fabrication aspects into their de-
independently signs without unduly restricting their heuristic explo-
change the shape CONCLUSION
rations.
and the density In conclusion, we have identified three types of para-
metric models: (1) Linear flow models that create Acknowledgement. We thank the anonymous re-
values (perhaps
a set of outputs from a set of inputs, (2) BIM mod- viewers for their insightful comments, which helped
based on additional
els that most commonly are collections of paramet- to strengthen and clarify the ideas in this paper. The
performance
ric components, and (3) centralized network models pavilion presented as a case study is a design by
considerations).
that organize parametric components according to a the Advanced Architecture Laboratory (AAL) at Sin-
Changing the
lightweight guiding geometry that integrates other gapore University of Technology and Design.
pattern tiles is also
possible, but more inputs, such as performance data in a non-linear ex-
difficult, since ploration structure. REFERENCES
changes to the We believe that the approach of modularizing Aish, R and Aparajit, P 2012 'Spatial information model-
pattern entail an architectural design, and re-integrating it via a ing of buildings using non-manifold topology with
lightweight, topological data structure, mitigates the ASM and DesignScript', Autodesk
changes to the
façade elements. linearity of parametric design environments while

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 Aish, R, Verboon, E and Fagerström, G 2014 'Topo-facade:
envelope design and fabrication planning using
topological mesh representations', Fabricate: Nego-
tiating Design and Making, Zurich, CH
Botsch, M, Kobbelt, L, Pauly, M, Alliez, P and Levy, B 2010,
Polygon Mesh Processing, A K Peters, Natick, MA
Datta, S, Hanafin, S and Woodbury, RF 2014, 'Respon-
sive envelope tessellation and stochastic rotation of
4-fold penttiles', Frontiers of Architectural Research,
3(2), pp. 192-198
Hensel, M 2013, Performance-Oriented Architecture: Re-
thinking Architectural Design and the Built Environ-
ment, Wiley, Chichester, UK
Holzer, D 2007 'Are You Talking To Me? Why BIM Alone
Is Not The Answer', Proceedings of the Fourth Inter-
national Conference of the Association of Architecture
Schools of Australasia
Jakubiec, JA and Reinhart, CF 2011 'DIVA 2.0: Integrating
daylight and thermal simulations using Rhinoceros
3D, Daysim and EnergyPlus', Proceedings of Building
Simulation 2011, Ottawa, ON, pp. 2202-2209
Kolarevic, B 2005, 'Computing the Performative', in Ko-
larevic, B and Malkawi, A (eds) 2005, Performative ar-
chitecture beyond instrumentality, Taylor and Francis,
Hoboken, NJ, pp. 193-202
Lawson, B 2006, How designers think: the design process
demystified, Elsevier/Architectural, Oxford; Burling-
ton, MA
Loukissas, YA 2012, Co-designers: cultures of computer
simulation in architecture, Routledge, Abingdon, UK
Oxman, R 2008, 'Performance-based design: current
practices and research issues', International journal
of architectural computing, 6(1), pp. 1-17
Rowe, PG 1991, Design Thinking, The MIT Press, Cam-
bridge, MA
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metric design process', Automation in Construction,
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Woodbury, RF 2010, Elements of Parametric Design, Rout-
ledge, London, UK

530 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

Option One: A Model of Participatory Design to Construct
a Rural Social Housing From Digital Fabrication
Diego Alejandro Velandia Rayo1
1
Universidad de los Andes
1
dvelandi@uniandes.edu.co

Option one is the first prototype in the process of construction, based on the
application of integrated processes of digital fabrication: This methodology was
developed through a research project which explores options of rural public
housing. The design process is integrated with other variables such as:
participative design, directed self-build and the integration of tangible and
intangible aspects. Parametric modeling was used as a strategy to create an
integrated process of design, production and assembly based on a code created in
grasshopper. Once finished, the housing unit will be handed over to a rural
family. This will allow for doing follow-up and evaluation.

Keywords: Parametric modelling, Social housing, Digital fabrication,

Integrated process

INTRODUCTION such as that of Colombia.

In Colombia in the year 2005, the housing deficit
(urban and rural) was 36% which is equivalent to
3,800,000 units. This is to say that one of every three
housing units either did not exist or had habitability
problems.
Of these 3,800,000 units, 1,600,000 correspond
to the rural sector, a quantity equivalent to 68% of
the rural housing units. The means that two of ev-
ery three rural housing units either did not exist or
presented habitability problems. This is due, in part,
to the fact that State policies favor the production
of urban housing principally because rural housing
presents logistical problems related with the storage
of materials and the complexity of construction pro-
cesses, which makes the development of State poli-
cies and the distribution of resources difficult. These
aspects are even more evident and create a stark con-
trast in a varied and uneven topography and culture
This research proposes the development of a ru-
ral housing unit prototype based on an integrated
process of digital production as a possible strategy to
reduce the housing deficit. Such a prototype must in-
clude the specific conditions found in rural Colombia
and defined in the research as tangible and intangi-
ble aspects. They must also guarantee minimal con-
ditions of habitability and sustainability.
HOUSING CONSTRUCTION IN COLOMBIA
Two processes are used for housing production in
Colombia: processes of self-build and industrialized
processes. Even though directly related with eco-
nomic aspects of the construction industry, they also
impact social, cultural and even educational aspects
of the community.
Normally, the processes of self-build are associ-
ated with low quality and poverty due to the fact

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 531

 that the very owners or occupants of the housing unit
are those who build it without minimal standards in
terms of habitability and stability. Generally, these
are informal processes without major technical sup-
port which leads to construction deficiencies related
to long periods of construction, inefficient uses of re-
sources and non-compliance with minimal standards
of habitability and stability, among others (Alvarado
2010). In fact, the processes of self-build as a strategy
to face the problem of public housing are criticized
since they can show a lack of governmental presence
(Marcuse 1997).
Nevertheless, the processes of self-build of hous-
ing have a potentially positive impact in social terms
when there is an adequate assistance on the part of
State entities. This impact is related with: Inclusion
of the community in the decision-making processes,
the possible generation of more economically acces-
sible projects, the training improves and creates new
skills in the owners that construct their own hous-
ing units and new employment opportunities are cre-
ated. The owner is integrated into the design process
while respecting their socio-cultural conditions. Lo-
cal resources are used which creates desirable local
social and economic dynamics (Simioni 2007).
Furthermore, industrialized processes (Echev-
erry, 2000), generally applied by construction com-
panies guarantee a higher quality when compared
with the self-build processes due to the use of repet-
itive and standardized processes. Among the advan-
tages are: less construction time, less waste of re-
sources, non-dependency on factors related to cli-
mate, possible reuse of resources and the continu-
ous presence of assistance and technical support (Al-
varado 2010).
Even though the industrialized systems can
guarantee a better quality in the final product, they
can also present problems and disadvantages related
to intangible aspects such as: the non-inclusion of
the community in the decision-making process, in-
flexibility and almost no capacity for adapting the
housing to the needs of the users, reduction in the
workforce used during the construction process, hav-
532 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
ing an impact on the levels of unemployment, pos-
sible cost increases due to the utilization of special-
ized workers, material and element transport and lit-
tle sense of belonging on the part of the owners due
to the widespread growth of housing units. In sum-
mary, industrialized processes can get to the point
where they ignore the cultural, social, economic and
environmental contexts of a community (Alvarado
2010).
Therefore, it is very important to guarantee qual-
ity housing in terms of an adequate process of design
and construction which includes the participation of
the community. These two aspects imply that the
housing unit, as a finished product, must include tan-
gible aspects related with the quality of the materials,
the finishing touches, processes, resources, environ-
ment, habitability and stability as well as intangible
aspects related with social, cultural and economic is-
sues (Arango 2003).
DESIGN, PRODUCTION AND ASSEMBLY:
INTEGRATED METHODOLOGY BASED ON
CAD / CAM
A desirable scenario for a housing prototype is one
in which the advantages of the industrialized pro-
cesses (tangible aspects) are combined with the self-
build processes (intangible aspects) (Arango 2003).
This means a number of important variables to con-
trol. If the entire design, production and assembly,
management, administrative, integration and even
the visualization of information processes are central-
ized, they all become key and determining factors
that would affect the final product (quality). In this
scenario, the CAD/CAM tools, as processing and in-
formation integration and production tools, become
a viable alternative (Barrow 2006).
Computer application experiences (CAD) in par-
ticipative design and self-build, demonstrate that the
use of computers with specific methodologies can
help to facilitate the integration of the owner into
the decision-making process while allowing for spe-
cific conditions to be adapted through real time mod-
ifications which update relevant data for the sub-
 sequent cost structure and definition of workshop
plans for construction elements and components
(Ottokar 1992). The supervision and accompani-
ment of qualified personnel during the entire design
process will assure acceptable levels of technical-
constructive quality (Ottokar 1992). Nevertheless,
when the CAD tools are only applied in the design
stage and not in the stages of production and con-
struction, it is less likely they reach acceptable levels
of quality (Ottokar 1992), due to the fact that what
is defined and controlled in the design process are
not necessarily maintained as the same characteris-
tics in the production and construction processes (Ul-
rich 2012).
To be able to have control over the different
construction phases of a building (design, fabrica-
tion and assembly), CAD/CAM processes can be used
which recently and slowly have been more involved
in the field of architecture. The CAD/CAM pro-
cesses commonly applied to industrialized processes
of mass production, allow the phases of design, pro-
duction and assembly or the fabrication of an ele-
ment to be integrated into a "digital continuum" (Ko-
larevic 2005).
If this is indeed desirable in the field of architec-
ture, the projects or buildings seen as products are
not repeated with the same frequency of an indus-
trialized product and possess a certain level of indi-
viduality that is difficult to standardize and mass pro-
duce (Ulrich 2012). This is precisely the huge diffi-
Figure 1 culty or the great challenge to overcome: how to pro-
Integration of the duce individual or personalized architecture despite
design, the use of systematized, repetitive and modular pro-
manufacture and cesses (Ulrich 2012).
assembly stages. However, recent research in the field of digital
Incorporation of the fabrication and specifically in Computer Assisted De-
tangible and sign Systems (Ulrich 2012) shows that when these
intangible aspects. processes are not applied to the same object as a final
product (which would create mass-produced build-
ings) but rather, quite to the contrary, a methodology
is created in which individual architectural designs
are systematically analyzed under specific parame-
ters, to be broken up into constructible parts, which
can later be recombined in a new process where they
are itemized to be produced and assembled, singular
buildings can be obtained under systematized and
standardized processes (Ulrich 2012). The basic prin-
ciple is that each building possess some degree of
modular repetition and therefore can be defined us-
ing a specific module. This implies systematizing the
production process but allowing it to have flexibility
and the capability of being personalized in the mo-
ment of reaching the final product (Ulrich 2012).
This is the scenario in which it could be pro-
posed that rural public housing be based on an
integrated digital process (design, production and
assembly), being aware of tangible and intangi-
ble aspects, which would allow having a degree of
personalization or individuality in the final product
(Duarte 2001), maintaining an adequate level of qual-
ity throughout the process.
STRATEGIC DESIGN STAGES
The principal objective of the research is to propose
a digitally integrated design, production and assem-
bly process of a rural housing unit in the Colombian
context which takes into account both tangible and
intangible aspects.
Four general and abstract principles were pro-
posed as strategic work stages. These should be
present and recognized in any project under devel-
opment:
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 533
 1. Definition of a context, population and/or
setting: It should not be too specific (there
would not be much opportunity to replicate
the methodology) or to general (there is not
one answer to all problems). This implies rec-
ognizing possible technologies and local ma-
terials, climatic and geographic aspects, etc.
2. Integration of the stages of design, produc-
tion and assembly, Figure 1: the integrated
process must seek to guarantee habitable and
stable public housing.
3. Integration of the tangible and intangible as-
pects of the possible users, Figure 1: this im-
plies recognizing cultural and social aspects,
etc., which are relevant and which can be in-
troduced into the housing.
4. Definition of a strategy and scope for user
participation. This basically depends on how
much the user may want to be involved in the
quality and/or stability of an element or of the
very housing unit. From this point of view,
three levels of participation or interaction can
be identified, Figure 2:
• Interaction in assembly: the individual or
group user receives a pack of elements or
components and with a clear instruction man-
ual, is able to assemble everything. In this
case, the quality of the final product is pro-
vided through the simplicity in the assem-
bly process and through the quality of the in-
structions. At the end, the user should not af-
fect the quality foreseen and calculated by the
assembly system.
534 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
• Interaction in the fabrication: The user or
group of users produce an element or compo-
nent with a predetermined level of assistance
by qualified personnel. In this case, if the user
intervenes directly in the fabrication, the qual-
ity of the end-product could be affected in a
significant way.
• Interaction through modification: The user
may modify determined elements in an al-
ready assembled system without compromis-
ing the general stability of the housing unit.
OPTION ONE: APPLICATION OF THE
STRATEGIC STAGES
The four general principals were applied to the pro-
totype called Option One:
Stage one: One-floor house, located on the sa-
vannah of Bogotá, specifically in the rural zone of the
municipality of Suesca. Cold climate. A predomi-
nance of rock and dirt as building materials can be
observed. The housing unit will be inhabited by a
family made up of a mother, head of the household,
and four children.
Stage two: The phases of design, fabrication
and assembly were integrated in a parametric model
(grasshopper), keeping the following specific charac-
teristics in mind for Option One:
• Maximum area of 72 square meters, approxi-
mately
• Rectangular floor module equivalent to two
OSB sheet material: 2.44m x 2.44m. and a
total area of approximately 6 square meters.
Figure 2
Definition of user
participation
strategy.
 This with the purpose of avoiding unneces-
sary cuts and material waste.
• The proportions of the floor of the house are
3 x 4 modules. This in response to the scenar-
ios discussed with the family unit who will live
there.
• The definition of the spaces is determined by
the dimensions and the grouping of the mod-
ules.
Stages three and four: The stages of design, fabrica-
tion and assembly are integrated. Each one of these
three processes is carried out individually. Each has
stability and habitability requirements, the integra-
tion of tangible and intangible aspects and a user
participation strategy.
OPTION ONE: INTEGRATED DESIGN PRO-
CESSES
DESIGN STAGE
Four basic systems are defined (Rush 1986): structure,
exterior enclosure, interior enclosure and mechani-
cal system. Each system must be independent to re-
duce problems in the interaction between systems
and with the user.
The parametric model (grasshopper) is made up
of four systems. Each one has independent param-
Figure 3
Parameters into
grasshopper code
and its visualization.
eters which allow for variations within some prede-
fined ranges,. This allows for interaction with the user
to bring him/her into the decision-making process
on variations such as area, height, inclination of the
roof, height of the platform, projection dimension,
etc., Figure 3.
Structural system.. Responsible for the stability of
the housing unit. The structure is divided into two
independent components to avoid unwanted inter-
actions: roof which determines the upper limit of the
housing and a platform which defines the lower limit
and the total floor area, Figure 4. It is decided that the
structure be fenced to avoid unwanted interactions
with the enclosure system. This creates an open floor
plan and allows for flexibility in the internal design of
the housing unit, Figure 4. Assembly intervention is
defined as an intervention strategy of the user based
on the prefabricated system of elements whose fabri-
cation and assembly process must take into account
that the workforce used is not well-trained. Thusly,
the user is made part of the process but the end qual-
ity should not be affected.
Exterior and interior enclosure system. This is lo-
cated between the roof and the floor (container
space). It is possible to propose different configura-
tions based on non-structural elements on the plat-
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 535

form, Figure 4. The three user intervention strategies
can be applied: for assembly, for fabrication or for
modification.
Mechanical system. Assembly interaction and mod-
ification interaction are defined as user intervention
strategies. This implies that the system would be
made up of 'plug-in' type elements that can be in-
stalled, modified, updated complemented, etc., in ac-
cordance with the specific needs.
FABRICATION STAGE
Each system has an associated parametric model in
grasshopper which allows for fragmentation, Figure
5. The fabrication of each part is done with the avail-
able machinery in the Fab-Lab of the Faculty of Archi-
tecture and Design at the Universidad de los Andes.
536 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 4
Left: General
configuration.
Center: Interaction
between structural
system and
enclosure system.
Right : Container
space.
Structural system.
• Roof:
Radiata pine lumber and metallic roof as main mate-
rials.Tests have been done to scale 1:10 through laser
cut.The roof is supported by pre-made shallow foun-
dations in reinforced concrete.
• Platform:
Radiata pine lumber and 9mm OSB sheets as main
materials.The platform is made up of lumber cut
frames over which OSB sheets are placed.The plat-
form is supported by pre-made shallow foundations
in reinforced concrete.
Exterior and interior enclosure systems. The enclo-
sure is made up by two layers:
Figure 5
• Basic enclosure System
components
The first layer is a basic enclosure which creates min-
imal conditions of habitability and allows the unit to
be used in the moment of finishing the construction.
The material is wood (radiata pine and OSB sheets).
• Compound enclosure
The second layer is an enclosure that is made up of
the intangible aspects of the context based on the
available materials and technology. In this specific
case, an exploration with rock and dirt enclosures
was explored. These enclosures are not part of the
structure. It is proposed that this enclosure is built by
the users.
 Mechanical system. At the moment of publication,
this mechanical system was under development.
Figure 6 ASSEMBLY STAGE
Participatory
Design Process Structural system.
• Roof
Self-supporting modules are proposed whose geom-
etry guarantees stability, rigidity and facilitates the
assembly process, Figure 7. Each self-supporting
module is made up of two double-jointed supports, a
main beam and secondary beams which make up the
surface of the roof.The entire roof system is designed
to be moved by a group of between 3 to 6 persons.
Two modules are used in total which are sup-
ported by eight shallow foundations, Figure 7. The
use of support joints and links allows each module to
be assembled on site under a controlled setting.
• Platform
Modules with platforms equivalent to two sheets of
OSB (2.44m x 2.44m) are proposed. Each module is
made up of a framework of beams and small beams in
wood on which OSB sheets are placed. Prefabricated
shallow foundations in reinforced concrete support
the modules.
Exterior and interior enclosure system.
• Basic enclosure
The basic enclosure is pre-made and ready to assem-
ble. It is made up of panels structured in lumber
(pine) and covered in OSB sheets. Depending on the
case, each panel is coated on both sides or just on the
one.
• Compound enclosure
For the compound enclosure, a structure-type fur-
nishing is proposed which would be secured to the
exterior enclosure and to the platform and which can
be "filled" with local materials. The management and
technological specifications to integrate local mate-
rials is still under development and testing.
Mechanical system. At the moment of publication,
this system was still under development.
CONCLUSIONS-DISCUSSION.
This article demonstrates the current development of
a research project which proposes the construction
of a rural housing prototype (Option One) applying
the methodology described here.
Although there are applications or research that
may be similar to the work presented here, the spe-
cific contribution has to do with its local applica-
tion. In Colombia, the technology of digital fab-
rication is slowly entering and applied mainly to
rapid prototyping. Up to this moment, there have
been no recorded applications to permanent hous-
ing projects esc 1:1. This research investigates the
possibilities, challenges and difficulties to develop
and construct a habitable prototype based on tech-
nology related with digital fabrication, available in
Colombia.
A great number of the adjustments during the
process are due to restrictions with respect to fabri-
cation technology. This has led to adapting manu-
facturing processes with existing machinery and to
think about acquiring new CNC machinery for spe-
cific processes.
Even if one of the objectives is to apply digi-
tal fabrication technologies, the local conditions in
relation to the workforce, materials and construc-
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 537
 Figure 7
Construction
Process

538 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

tion technologies cause that within this process local
technologies are integrated into the design process.
In this way, a final product is obtained in which digital
technologies are mixed with more traditional analog
technologies.
In some cases, digital technology is applied to
optimize or improve the quality of the traditional
analog process. This can be seen in the construction
of the enclosures, for example.
The use of grasshopper as a means of parametri-
cally modeling has shown itself to be an efficient and
feasible strategy. The three stages mentioned in this
paper: design, production and assembly have been
able to be effectively coordinated and integrated.
The norms developed and the methodology
used have furthermore allowed for interaction with
the user and to be able to make modifications in real
time responding to their needs. The improvement in
issues related with user interface and interaction are
the objective of further stages in the research.
The structural system has shown itself to be sta-
ble and feasible for construction with self-supporting
modules, with a construction system that does not
require a great deal of training nor is it extremely
complex. Tests have been carried out and it is feasible
to construct the pieces esc 1:1, ready to assemble.
The proposed enclosure system allows for defin-
ing and integrating intangible aspects. The prelimi-
nary tests have shown that local materials can be in-
tegrated without compromising the structure. In ac-
cordance with the availability of resources, the users
can complete and personalize their houses.
The housing unit should be constructed and oc-
cupied near the end of 2015.
tute of Technology
Duffau, A. 2010 'Construcción industrializada para la
vivienda social en chile: análisis de su impacto po-
tencial', II Encuentro anual Sociedad Chilena de Políti-
cas Públicas, Sociedad Chilena de Políticas Públicas,
Centro de Políticas Públicas UC, Santiago de Chile, pp.
1-40
Echeverry, D. 2000, Vivienda de interés social: inventario
de sistemas constructivos, Universidad de los Andes,
Departamento de Ingeniería Civil y Ambiental, área
de Ingeniería y Gerencia de la Construcción, Bogotá,
Colombia
Knaack, U. 2012, Prefabricated systems: principles of con-
struction, Basel, Germany
Kolarevic, B. 2005, Architecture in the digital age: de-
sign and manufacturing, Taylor & Francis, New York-
London
Marcuse, P. 1992, 'Why Conventional Self-help Projects
Won’t Work', in Mathéy, K. (eds) 1992, Beyond self-
help housing, Mansell, London, England, pp. 15-21
Rush, R. 1986, The Building systems integration handbook,
Wiley, New York
Simioni, D. and Szalachman, R. 2007, Primera evalu-
ación del programa regional de vivienda social y asen-
tamientos humanos para América Latina y el Caribe,
Naciones Unidas, Santiago de Chile
Uhl, O. and Tavolato, P. 1992, 'Computers, Participation
and Self-Help Housing', in Mathéy, K. (eds) 1992, Be-
yond self-help housing, Mansell, London, England,
pp. 269-280

REFERENCES
Arango, G. 2003, La calidad de la vivienda, Biblioteca dig-
ital, Repositorio institucional, Universidad Nacional
de Colombia, Medellín, Colombia
Barrow, L. 2006 'Performance House: A CADCAM Modu-
lar House System, Synthetic Landscapes', Association
for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture
Duarte, J.P. 2001, Customizing Mass Housing: A Discursive
Grammar for Siza, Ph.D. Thesis, Massachusetts Insti-

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 539

A Parametric Process for Shelters and Refugees’ Camps
Design
Elie Daher1 , Sylvain Kubicki2 , Gilles Halin3
1,2
Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology/LIST - 3 UMR MAP CNRS/MCC
1,2
http://www.list.lu/ 3 http://www.crai.archi.fr/
1
elie.c.daher@gmail.com 2 sylvain.kubicki@list.lu
3
gilles.halin@crai.archi.fr

Many situations related to natural environment and human activities increase the
risk related to housing and create a demand for rapid post-disaster solutions. The
solutions implemented by both the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and
the local and national organizations should fulfill the requirements of the
temporarily displaced populations. However post-disaster design faces many
challenges in its process making the response always more complex. At the same
time, computer-based design is a growing approach in both architectural practice
and research. The research described in this paper aims to help in finding
solutions to design issues by addressing the potential of computer-based
architectural design support. It is applied to shelter and camp development and
takes into account physical, contextual and climatic parameters. The outcome is
a design process for shelter and camp, which has been validated by a parametric
prototype experiment in a case study. This should support humanitarian teams
and contribute to enhancing the quality of design as well as to reducing the time
required for the design and construction processes.

Keywords: Parametric architecture, Generative design, Humanitarian design

INTRODUCTION meet the emergency needs of the displaced popula-

Currently, factors related to natural environment and
human activities increase the risk relating to housing.
These factors create a demand for a rapid, sustainable
and effective post-disaster response. This response
is a collection of interventions during and after crisis
based on previous experiences (Santos et al. 2013),
either to answer the direct need of the displaced pop-
ulation or to focus on a long-term process of develop-
ment. Still, the solutions implemented by NGOs, the
local and national organizations most often target to
tion. Criteria such as time reduction, resources con-
servation, safety and cost should also be taken into
consideration. The unpredictability and diversity of
cases in addition to the different locations as well as
the culture and tradition of each region make the re-
sponse more complex (Balcik et al. 2010).
However, the need of sheltering is increasing. In
addition to that, the average lifespan of camps is 10
years while families can remain up to 17 years. Poorly
organized camps are often transformed into slums

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 541

 with harsh living conditions, thus the interests of an-
ticipating camp planning at the urban scale. More-
over, the refugees' camps planning should be per-
formed as soon as possible during the humanitarian
intervention process rather than to wait for calm or
stable periods (Corsellis and Vitale 2005).
PARAMETRIC GENERATIVE DESIGN
The application of computational design is increas-
ing in the Architecture, Engineering and Construc-
tion industry. "Parametric Modeling" reflects recent
trends in computing design in academic research as
well as market innovation. It allows the designers
to control the generation of visualized 3D objects
from an overall logical computing script or scenario
(Davis et al. 2011). They embed mathematical for-
mulas, constraints and control functions to derive a
geometric model from series of input data through
a generative process. The characteristic of this ap-
proach is that it produces more than static geometry,
i.e. a model with a collection of primitive shapes (Fer-
nando et al. 2012).
Parametric design and humanitarian field
In disaster and crisis, the need for shelter is increas-
ingly significant and the design must meet multiple
constraints (technical, sociological). Therefore, the
design should not only take into account physical pa-
rameters (such as gross area, height or structure), but
also the contextual and climatic parameters (e.g. site
conditions, culture of inhabitants, tradition, climate
etc). Generation tools can be the optimum solution
for meeting this increasing need by implementing
different types of parameters.
Only few applications related to design comput-
ing have appeared in the humanitarian design field.
One of the studies focused on the application of
the digital architecture in low-tech reconstruction of
the Solomon Islands (Yeung and Harkins 2011). This
study targeted a set of tools needed to start with the
latrine by identifying appropriate parameters. An-
other example was the application of digital archi-
tecture to humanitarian design in the case study of
542 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
a post-earthquake case study in Haiti (Benros and
Granadeiro 2011), when automated systems were de-
veloped to create houses. This example focused on
a set of construction drawings as the resulting docu-
mentation. Jinuntuya focused in his research on the
use of digital tools and a game 3D virtual environ-
ment engine for decision-making support system (Ji-
nuntuya and Theppipt 2007) for humanitarian needs.
Another way to integrate the community in the de-
sign process for low cost housing design was the
development of an application user interface (Wut-
thikornthanawt and Jinuntuya 2011). This interface
was created for non-CAD users and has the advan-
tage of being able to import information from differ-
ent concerned fields with integrated real-time cost
estimation. Sener has also proposed a parametric
system to randomly arrange container shelters within
a given site (Sener and Torus 2009) for an immediate
answer to post-disaster relief. Recently, the research
of Gonçalves (Gonçalves 2014) was based on gram-
mars and configuration modules starting from an ini-
tial shape, and allowing the development of the origi-
nal form to generate shelter housing. The generation
process followed by this previous example is interest-
ing in terms of mass production as was also shown
in the research of Deborah for the reconstruction of
post-earthquake Haiti (Deborah et al. 2011).
On the other hand, the infiltration of a para-
metric approach into an urban context was carried
out within different projects and researches. Steino
shows in his research (Steino and Veirum 2005) the
capabilities of a parametric design approach in ur-
ban design through a case study. According to him,
urban components share a similarity that can be de-
fined parametrically. Aspects such as density, func-
tions, forms, and spaces, can be translated into pa-
rameters. This approach can help to evaluate dif-
ferent scenarios and to reach the optimum solution.
Thus, the infiltration of a parametric approach in ur-
ban design can lead to a sustainable result (Saleh and
Al-Hagla 2012). In his research, Saleh examines the
use of a parametric approach in sustainable urban
development. The case study developed in this re-
 search was the generation of an Arabian city by tak-
ing into account constraints such as wind and so-
lar envelopes. Saleh identifies different components
such as traffic, density and zoning that can be linked
to urban design.
This brief state-of-the-art shows that:
• The contextual, climatic and ethnographic
conditions that have an impact on the design
process were not taken into consideration as
structured sets of constraints, both regarding
shelter and camp design.
• The humanitarian "urban design" (i.e. refugee
camp scale) was not fully addressed in previ-
ous research efforts.
• A parametric system has the potential to be
used as decision-making support in humani-
tarian design.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This work is based on the previous recovery of post-
disaster process by humanitarian groups. It was vali-
dated through an experimental phase with human-
Figure 1 itarian partners. In particular the Shelter Research
Shelter model Unit (SRU) of The International Federation of the Red
provided by the Red Cross (IFRC) was involved in the design process and
Cross, Haiti 2010 in the identification of pertinent problems, as well as
in the determination of essential parameters affect-
ing the shelter and camp design. These parameters
are translated into algorithms in a 3D modeling soft-
ware allowing by this the experimentation of the pro-
totype.
Identification of parameters. Problem solving re-
quires the analysis of similar projects in similar crisis
situations to extract the list of specific variables, as
well as the identification of shelters and camps pa-
rameters (physical and contextual) and relations be-
tween them.
Among the list of identified variables, parame-
ters are chosen for the design and modeling demon-
strator. The chosen parameters are specified accord-
ing to their importance in the shelter and camp de-
sign. Pertinent components are specified with exter-
nal partners who have an experience in the design of
humanitarian housing.
Generative algorithm and their implementation.
The generation of solutions that fit design require-
ments involves the identification of an accurate algo-
rithmic resolution and formulas. Basic algorithms are
implemented in a 3D modeling parametric software
in order to create the physical model with a list of cri-
teria and constraints to be taken into account.
Experimentation. The utility has been assessed with
the IFRC expertise and in particular the SRU. This vali-
dation helped to reconsider the parameters used and
to verify the methodology implemented in the pro-
cess of humanitarian design for shelter and camps.
PARAMETRIC DESIGN PROCESS
This work assumes that the constraints and require-
ments in the design of the shelters and emergency
camps can be connected to parametric digital design
approaches. Variables and parameters proposed in
the paper reflect the constraints defined at the level
of both shelters and camps.
Shelter design process
The shelter design process is a linear process. It was
essential to identify this process to understand the
logical order in which information concerning these
various elements is defined and thus inserted in para-
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 543

metric modeling methods. For this paper, a "tran-
sitional shelter prototype" (Figure 1) was developed
with parameters based on the Red Cross standards
and prototypes for shelters (Saunders 2013). The de-
gree of flexibility and the allowed elements to be con-
trolled have been defined in the parametric model.
Adjustment of the elements and parameters will give
the ability to obtain the desired prototype accord-
ing to the criteria set. A shelter design process (Fig-
ure 2) was developed by identifying possible rela-
tionships between different elements of the shelter,
and by defining the specific phase for the implemen-
tation of the parameters in this process. The pro-
cess begins with the number of people expected to
live inside the shelter. This parameter enables to de-
rive the requested surface shelter through the usual
area per capita. According to the IFRC standards, the
minimum area by person should be >2.5 square me-
ter: this will define the interior area of the shelter
needed by each family. The process continues with
all the further implemented construction parametric
544 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 2
Shelter's design
process
elements based on the interior surface. The slab and
extensions as well as the roof and the structures are
deducted thereafter through the contextual and cli-
matic parameters. The structures and the envelope
of accommodation are chosen by deducting the roof.
The roof has a key role in customizing shelters indeed.
The importance accorded to the roof as an essential
element in the design stems from the fact that this
form will answer the local climatic conditions.
Camp design approach
Emergency camps design (Figure 3) is a more com-
plex and non-linear process often addressed through
the logistics issues raised. New concepts, require-
ments and ideas will constantly be introduced and
planners should be prepared to adjust accordingly.
The camp design should be linked to the types of so-
lutions envisaged for sheltering which must be con-
form to standards. The authors propose a multi-
criteria approach rather than a so-called "iterative de-
sign process" and identify the parameters and re-
Figure 3
Camp's design
elements and
parameters
 lationships between the pertinent elements in the ponents by transferring the data (geometrical or nu-
camp. These relations were combined to define a merical) to them (table 1).
conceptual model. The camp design process is then
Table 1 validated in a parametric experiment. The prototype
Parameters of was developed by defining the following elements:
shelter main camp configuration based on cultural and con-
textual criteria, mobility nodes, roads and distance
between shelters, interior roads, height of shelters
and distance between them, the location of differ-
ent resources (gathering place, water and sanitary
points, gathering area, school and religious buildings
etc).

Parameters
The parameters identified are based on a list pro-
vided by the Red Cross (Saunders 2013). Parameters Parameters included in the camp's design pro-
were classified according to their types in order to cess. A decomposition of camp's components is es-
choose the pertinent parameters at the good step sential when extracting the elements of the camp,
during the design process. We can identify three such as road, lots, sanitary, spaces, dimensions, green
types of parameters: (1) contextual parameters re- spaces, gathering spaces (table 2).
lated to living conditions and culture, (2) climatic pa-
Table 2
rameters related to climatic conditions and weather,
Parameters of camp
(3) physical parameters related to the forms, geome-
tries and dimensions.
The identification of parameters shows that
physical parameters can be easily expressed numer-
ically, while contextual and climatic parameters are
more complex to be be translated into qualitative or
numerical values.
Note that the elements of the shelters and the
camps can be affected by physical, contextual or cli-
matic parameters at the same time, climatic and con-
VALIDATION
textual parameters may have direct influence to a
physical elements.
Implementation
Shelters and camps parameters used for assessing
Parameters included in the shelter's design pro- our research propositions are implemented in a 3D
cess. In order to define the design structure of the modeling software allowing the generation of the
shelter, a decomposition with specific components prototype taking into account parameters and con-
is essential. These components represent the build- straints. Grasshopper and Rhino 3D are used in our
ing elements, such as walls, columns, beams, roof, study. The choice of Grasshopper and Rhino 3D is
and wall opening. Relations between these compo- justified by the ability of these software systems to
nents are defined and maintained along the design easily design and manipulate algorithms based on
process. Components can have the same parame- visual objects and defining the constraints and pa-
ters, but they can also serve as entries to other com- rameters. The prototype developed deals with pa-

Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 545

 rameters and constraints that can be expressed nu-
merically or geometrically. However while physical
parameters were easily expressed, other parameters
for the climatic and contextual variables could not be
defined by numbers. For handling this kind of pa-
rameters, we defined scenarios, the objective was to
create scenarios taking into account these parame-
ters and translate them into numerical algorithmic
formulas. In this project, the acceptable values of
parameters are defined and are manually introduced
into Grasshopper. These parameters are linked to
Rhino 3D allowing the visualization of the physical
model. This model can be controlled by the param-
eters included in Grasshopper giving the ability to
choose the final desired model.
The figure 4 shows the overall generation of the
shelter design process. The parameters used for the
shelter are implemented in Grasshopper, where the
user can manually modify the values. For each ele-
ment of the shelter, a sub-process were created al-
lowing the generation of a 3D geometry which can
be used as an entry for other element. Each element
of the shelter is developed by a sub-process and re-
lated to other elements. The figure 5 is an example of
the implementation of the roof parameters.
At the camp level, the scenario experimented in
this case considers a flat land. For that, a module is
proposed which divides each parcel into four differ-
ent surface plots where the surfaces of plots are pro-
portional to the shelter surface. The four surfaces can
vary proportionally, respecting defined limits. Each
surface is hosting one shelter. The plots can change
according to the shelter's surface. In addition, for-
546 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2
mulas were developed to give each shelter a differ-
ent height, allowing by this a dynamic non standard
camp. Similarly, the second part of the work focuses
on the camp development of previously cited ele-
ments (figure 6).
Assessment
The proposed system presents an opportunity for fu-
ture development with NGOs interested in the hu-
manitarian design taking into account selected phys-
ical and contextual parameters. Even though limits
and constraints were fixed in the model, this does
not prevent a certain level of flexibility; parameters
can be modified according to the given scenarios.
These limits were necessary in the definition of mar-
gins, thus reducing any unacceptable form they may
be having.
To test and evaluate the effectiveness of this sys-
tem, the prototype was confronted with experts from
both the humanitarian field and architectural and ur-
ban design. The review is done through different ex-
periments describing different scenarios created in-
stantly by modifying the parameters to test the abil-
ity of the design process to answering scenarios sim-
ilar to real cases.
Figure 4
Overall process for
the generation of
the shelter
prototype
Figure 5
Roof generation
process and
parameters
Figure 6
Camp experiment
model
Discussion
The shelter process can be criticized in real cases,
where the mass production and rapid prototyping
are considered the best answer for post-disaster re-
construction. Personalizing the shelters according to
some parameters (including the area of interior sur-
face) will help accelerating the mental recovery of
beneficiaries (Lawther 2009). The validation shows
that the design process developed for shelters and
the planning of the camps can be adapted to possible
real cases. The practitioners in the validation found
that the prototype process is adaptable to real case
assessments, and that such approach will help poten-
tial users in emergency design in term of flexibility,
collaboration and time economy.
CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVE
This paper describes the research carried out to in-
vestigate the potential application of computational
design to assist humanitarian design. It attempts
to explore the capacity offered by the parametric
modeling in the design of emergency shelters and
camps in order to help architects and humanitarian
in decision-making, and it attempts as well to explore
the limits of this technology. It starts with develop-
ing a design process for the shelter and camp. This
process is based on the idea to personalize each shel-
ter according to the size of the family, taking into ac-
count some cultural and contextual parameters. The
main result of this paper is a prototype of parametric
shelter and a model of a camp based on the Red Cross
standards. The prototype is linked to a set of parame-
ters and constraints with contextual and climatic im-
pact. Another part of this work was to define a list
of recurring parameters, to be used to model a shel-
ter and an emergency camp. Three types have been
identified: physical parameters, contextual parame-
ters and climatic parameters. It thus was necessary to
identify, with the external partners, the relationships
between parameters and variation margins of values
as well as the elements to be controlled.
The research field is delimited by the identifica-
tion of parameters for modeling a prototype shelter
and a layout of a camp. This prototype is inspired
by the shelters designed by the IFRC following dis-
asters in several regions. In addition, the design at
the scale of a camp is proposed using some relations
identified between the designed camps and shelters.
Aspects related to construction materials cost and
bills of quantity are not taken into account in this
part of the research even if they are important in the
humanitarian field. Future research should focus on
these points. This paper is part of a future project at-
tempting to answer humanitarians' needs by provid-
ing a decision-making support system in the design
of shelter and emergency camps, taking into consid-
eration multi-contextual conditions.
Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 547
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT tainable urban morphology', International journal of
The authors are grateful to Cécilia Braedt coordinator social, Human and Technology, Vol 6, pp. 37-44
of the Benelux IFRC-Shelter Research Unit (IFRC-SRU) Santos, ALR, Capet, L and Diehl, JC 2013 'The value of col-
laborative design to address the challenges of the
and to Diane Heirend architect and urban planner for
humanitarian sector', Proceedings of the 3rd Interna-
providing valuable insights on the pertinent param- tional conference on integration of design, engineer-
eters and the design process. ing and management for innovation, pp. 301-310
Saunders, G 2013, Post-disaster shelter: Ten designs, Inter-
national Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
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548 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Applied - Volume 2

Generative Design - Biological
Biology, Real Time and Multimodal Design
Cell-Signaling as a Realtime Principle in Multimodal Design

Frederico Fialho Teixeira1

1
MEF University
1
fialhof@mef.edu.tr

The common understanding of morphogenesis implies a three-dimensional

evolutionary change in form witnessed in the developmental process of an
organism. This evolutionary process emerges from cell growth, cellular
differentiation and environmental changes that generate specific conditions
between genotype and phenotype. The complex nature of these aspects is intrinsic
to evolutionary biology, and its accurate implementation in bio-generated
architectures potentiates a twofold understanding of different morphogenetic
strategies and its spatial consequences. Within this premise the morphogenetic
factors of cell-differentiation and cell-signaling become a crucial aspect in a
real-time communication system between an archetype and space, thus
performing within particular modes in which design correlates to space. The
paper hypothesizes and tests the use of Cell-Signaling as system of
communication that governs fundamental cellular activities within the process of
Gastrulation. This process occurs in early cell-embryo development and where
communication between cells is favorably active and cellular the structure is
established. The Emosphera project is a technical re-contextualization of this
specific morphogenetic process. The principles denote a genetic code of the
object can be scripted in a CAD environment and reproduced real-time by means
of communication through a multimedia platform, which render form as a
consequential aspect.

Keywords: Generative Design, Computation, Interaction, Multimodality

The common understanding of morphogenesis im-
plies a three-dimensional evolutionary change in
form witnessed in the developmental process of
an organism. This evolutionary process emerges
from cell growth, cellular differentiation and envi-
ronmental changes that generate specific conditions
between genotype and phenotype. The complex
nature of these aspects is intrinsic to evolutionary
biology, and its accurate implementation in bio-
generated architectures potentiates a twofold un-
derstanding of different morphogenetic strategies
and its spatial consequences. Within this premise
the morphogenetic factors of cell-differentiation and
cell-signaling become a crucial aspect in a real-time

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 551

 communication system between an archetype and
space, thus performing within particular modes in
which design correlates to space. The paper hypoth-
esizes and tests the use of Cell-Signaling as system
of communication that governs fundamental cellu-
lar activities within the process of Gastrulation. This
process occurs in early cell-embryo development and
where communication between cells is favorably ac-
tive and cellular the structure is established. The
Emosphera project is a technical re-contextualization
of this specific morphogenetic process. The prin-
ciples denote a genetic code of the object can be
scripted in a CAD environment and reproduced real-
time by means of communication through a multi-
media platform, which render form as a consequen-
tial aspect.
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary biology, like many parts of science,
is increasingly dependent on computer technology.
Among many sites for this interdependence, prob-
ably the most significant is the growth of high vol-
ume, high throughput molecular data generation, of
which the best-known instance is high-speed gene
sequencing. The question what to do with this data
has spawned the boom in systems biology and has
led many to question orthodox assumptions about
science as hypothesis-driven. As biological models
become ever more complex, the philosophical ques-
tion also arises whether scientific explanation should
require the possibility of a design premise. The cor-
relation between biology, realtime and multimodal
strategies requires to understand and to calculate the
impact of every element. Within these evolutionary
environments the integration of new media and in-
novative computational models will provide an inte-
grated design workflow (Grosz, 2001). This becomes
evident in the subfield of Computational Develop-
ment where the structure to build models that emu-
lates the real based on accurate computational tech-
niques. This competence to accurately emulate, al-
lows a deeper understanding of the processes of de-
velopment and to identify how mechanisms work,
552 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
and how to create complexity by simple procedures.
The same principle goes towards fabricating spa-
tial systems that interact with the environment. Only
some modules interact with the environment in cap-
turing and releasing different information, by means
of sensors and actuators. However, the way that in-
formation is processed within the code biologically
known as the genotype, in this case influences the
prototype, which subsequently affects further inner
behaviors. In biological terms, this sequence of pro-
cedures corresponds to the process of morphogen-
esis, biologically known as the twofold dynamic re-
lation between genotype and phenotype. By bor-
rowing the understanding of this autopoietic form
of evolutionary development, it enables the creation
of new computational techniques, and consequently
new forms of simultaneously appropriating informa-
tion and space. Yet, the manner in which the mor-
phogenetic processes are currently appropriated are
generally detached from its biological aptitudes and
merely used as a form-finding tool.
If biology requires such a complex structure of
disciplines, it seems reductive that one arbitrarily use
of morphogenesis to generate something as com-
plex as art or architecture. The specificity in the type
of morphogenetic structure that a design departs
from or which elements the genesis responds to are
among the questions by Evolutionary developmen-
tal biologists, hence they should be among genera-
tive design. Indeed, the process is biologically sim-
ilar for all organisms, however the manner in which
physical processes and constraints affect biological
growth should define some sort of a phylogenetic
structure (Figure1). Hence natural patterns of design
should be taken into consideration to avoid the risk
of falling into a mere representation of biological de-
sign.
Among the spectrum of evolutionary develop-
mental stages, emerge processes that specify how
different types of cells are organized into spatial
groups that contain different functions. Basically,
each cell is free to evolve within, as long as the con-
nections between their modules remain consistent.
Figure 1
Simplified version
of the Phylogenetic
Tree of Life
according to the
field of Evolutionary
Biology (Ciccarelli,
2006).
This characteristic denominated as cell-signaling pro-
vides complex intracellular relations that are embed-
ded in the genetic code. Accordingly each con-
tains cell specific molecular modules that foster in-
ner procedures such as, loops, symmetry and sub-
designs, meaning that cells have a behavioral code
enabling them to perform only a certain number
of tasks. Only through intracellular communication
new cellular functionality is developed, which is si-
multaneously based in the cells genetic code, as well
as the interaction signals from the surrounding en-
vironment. These actions create a framework imple-
mented in computational development, which con-
sequently aim towards the usage of evolutionary al-
gorithms in design (Holland, 1975).
The common understanding of morphogene-
sis merely implies a three-dimensional evolution-
ary change in form witnessed in the developmen-
tal process of an organism. This evolutionary pro-
cess emerges from cell growth, cellular differentia-
tion and environmental changes that generate spe-
cific conditions between genotype and phenotype.
Nevertheless the complex nature of morphogenesis
is intrinsic to evolutionary biology, and its accurate
implementation in bio-generated architectures po-
tentiates a twofold understanding of different mor-
phogenetic strategies and its spatial consequences.
Within this premise the morphogenetic factors of
cell-differentiation and cell-signaling become a cru-
cial aspect in a communication system between an
archetype and space, thus performing within partic-
ular modes in which design correlates to space.
BIOLOGY AND REALTIME SIGNALING
Within the biological process of morphogenesis dif-
ferent procedures potentiate different species by set-
ting different types of cells to organize and communi-
cate in groups that contain specific functions. Funda-
mentally, each cell is free to evolve within, as long as
the connections between their modules remain con-
sistent. These processes are bidirectional and specific
in the form they evolve, in order to remain fit in a de-
termined environment. Specificity in the process of
morphogenesis is an important factor that is contin-
uously neglected in the field computational architec-
ture and becomes even more critical if we deal with
the notion of realtime design (Maturana and Varela,
1980).
The notion of realtime is implicit and the field
of Evo-Devo and emerged simultaneously with some
of the earliest ideas by D'Arcy Thompson on how
physical and mathematical processes affect biologi-
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 553
 cal growth, which were subsequently applied and de-
veloped in the reaction-diffusion mathematical mod-
els by Alan Turing. These works propose the pres-
ence of chemical signals and physic-chemical pro-
cesses such as reaction and diffusion (activation and
deactivation) in cellular and organismic growth.
The usage and understanding of evolutionary
development enables the creation of new computa-
tional techniques, which recurs in the improvement
of science as well as technology. This stance though
the combination of computers and biology, provides
a scientific a correlation of biological behaviors as
data. Specificity can be understood as a measuring
component, which correctly limits the modularity bi-
ological behavior. A critical standpoint if the strategy
aims to be accurate in order to produce specificity in
a biologically oriented design.
Departing form the understanding that morpho-
genesis involves a change in the three-dimensional
form of the developmental process of any organism.
This emergent process encompasses a set of simulta-
neous procedures, which include cellular growth and
differentiation, as well as, environmental changes
that generate specific dynamics. The speciation oc-
curs through a set of genes called the hox genes
that through biological modularity allow specificity
in adaptation without having collateral effects in the
overall design. Computationally speaking this can be
understood as Diffusion-Limited Aggregation (DLA) a
process whereby cells follow signaling procedures to
aggregate a similar cell structure (Witten and Sander,
1981). Overall the complex nature of these aspects
is intrinsic to biology nonetheless their temporal and
spatial qualities are essential factors for generative
design. Consequently, an analogous morphogenetic
use of cell-differentiation and cell-signaling becomes
a crucial aspect in the system of communication be-
tween media and space. With an equivalent biologi-
cal modularity to the hox genes, space can perform
within particular modes in which correlates in real-
time with the environment, another individual, or
even another space of the same kind.
554 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Gastrulation as Realtime Generative Sys-
tem
In order to support this methodology, the use of
Gastrulation as a specific phase of morphogenetic
development was selected. Gastrulation is a par-
ticular coordinated cell migration that forms a gut,
which is a process also known as invagination. In
some cases it might form as a blastula a spherical
layer of 128 cells surrounding a cavity. Develop-
mental processes are crucial in construction and self-
organization, which form the structure that drives a
cell to become a multicellular organism. There are
five main processes that are involved in the biologi-
cal development. These are cleavage divisions, pat-
tern formation, morphogenesis, cellular differentia-
tion and cellular growth. All of which are collectively
controlled by proteins that are assembled by amino
acids, in which are produced by genes.
Cleavage Division occurs when a fertilized cell
undergoes a series of divisions to create more cells.
There is no increase in cellular mass and the result is
a hollow ball of cells, known as blastula. The blas-
tula production comes out from Pattern Formation
a process that occurs when pattern of cell activities
within the embryo is organized to develop a viable
structure. This structure contains two main stages,
Fate Maps and Germ Layers. Fate Maps are defined by
positioning the body plan, which defines where each
cell is going to be placed. Simultaneously, the Germ
Layer process organizes different cell types by layer
in order to produce different functions, such as the
ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm of a cell (Fig-
ure 2). These different cell functions occur by cell
differentiation process where the cells acquire a dif-
ferent structure by regulating different amounts of
proteins, oxygen molecules and enzymes. Cells are
therefore differentiated not only by the genetic ma-
terial but the manner their evolution regulates dis-
tinctive ratios within their nucleus. This adjustment
within cellular differentiation occurs simultaneously
due to cell-signaling and asymmetric division. The
cell-signaling process can also be called as Inductive
Signaling as the cell genome selects a single signal
 set expecting a singular response. Cell signaling also
allows cells to detect and respond to extracellular
environmental conditions, which allow their growth
and differentiation. To complete this cycle of devel-
opment, the cells multiply by duplicating their mat-
ter and consequently reproducing into a parent and
offspring.
Figure 2
Gastrulation,
Localized Fate Maps
and Phylogenesis
Process (Stern,
2004).
These processes are achievable due to the presence
of chemical signals and physic-chemical processes
such as reaction and diffusion (activation and deac-
tivation) in cellular and organismic growth, hence es-
tablishing a direct link to the development of an em-
bryo. Due to the complexity of its elements and in-
trinsic connections, the understanding and practice
of evolutionary development prompts the creation
of new computational techniques, which rematerial-
ize in the improvement of science as well as technol-
ogy. This a arrangement of computers and biology
permits decoding of biological behaviors into data.
By encoding specific biological data, recoding
for a specific media and decoding it into a certain
array of media, one allows the presence of biologi-
cal behaviors in a previously solely formal element,
merging in this manner biology, realtime and mul-
timodal design. Inherently de design becomes an
autonomous agent itself that requires three charac-
teristics; a sensor, which receives information from
the environment or other machines; a code contain-
ing the logic that combines all incoming and outgo-
ing information; and an effector that can perturb the
environment or other machines. All of these have
equivalent elements within a cell, and this intracellu-
lar communication holds a biological translation be-
tween technology and spatial behaviors. This pro-
vides a natural to interact and transact with space al-
lowing individual objective and subjective communi-
cation with space.
Cell-Signaling in Diffusion-Limited Aggre-
gation
From a biological standpoint, DLA systems are
a highly intricate network of co-dependent sub-
systems, which Drift, Gene Flow, Mutation, Natural
Selection and Speciation are a limited part. Corre-
spondingly, these are comprised of a large amount
of interacting constituents - such as proteins, oxygen
molecules and enzymes - whilst the intracellular sig-
naling process occurs.
The generative methods of this project are
based on the morphogenetic process of Gastrula-
tion. The process happens in an early cell-embryo,
in which the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm
are established. This process forms multilayered
unicellular elements by means of determination
(Fate Maps) differentiation (Blastoderm) functionality
(Morphogenetic Fields) and cell lineage (Phylogene-
sis). The development occurs when Fate Maps (extra-
embryonic signals) inform extra-embryonic cells of
their Morphogenetic Field, a process called Fibrob-
last Growth Factor (FGF). The FGF signals are sent
within intracellular pathways via Bio-Molecular con-
nections in a binary format, allowing the cells to em-
body emergent characteristics and behaviors.
The Gastrulation procedure allows different
types of cells to organize into spatial groups that
contain different functions. Basically, each cell is free
to evolve, as long as the connections between their
modules remain consistent. This characteristic gives
complex results that include inner procedures, such
as loops, symmetry and sub-designs within each cell
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 555
 or module,. Similarly, these are the procedures that embeds simultaneous mathematical determinations
create the framework implemented in computational of the highest performance between theoretical and
development, which is consequently used in this functional factors. This process could be interpreted
project. as a potential effort to achieve the design solution
by finding its fitness between form and context. It
CELL-SIGNALING AS A MULTIMODAL DE- would help architects to find optimal or suitable so-
lutions that would support the design throughout
SIGN PRINCIPLE
multidisciplinary barriers a project goes through to
Within the field of biology and its vast use of mor-
find possible design alternatives. If applicable this in-
phogenetic processes, different procedures potenti-
tegrated process would go against the creative na-
ate different species. Despite of the overall schema of
ture of design itself. This would require coding the
action-reaction, different types of cells organize and
subconscious and experience of the architect, as well
communicate in groups that contain specific func-
as the design intentions. Undoubtedly, this transfor-
tions. Fundamentally, each cell is free to evolve
mation will be very difficult to achieve. Another po-
within, as long as the connections between their
tential disadvantage to take into account in applying
modules remain consistent. These processes are
this methodology is the fact that various problems
quite specific in the form they evolve in order fit
arise or diversify during the design procedure. Con-
in a determined CAD environment, within architec-
sequently, this interactivity between designer and al-
tural realms the understanding and implementation
gorithm requires constant adjustments, in order to al-
of these connections is often bleak. Specificity in the
low the designer to operate variables or fitness func-
process of morphogenesis should be understood as
tions, which require resetting and rerunning the al-
an important factor that is continuously neglected
gorithm. This is a procedure that partially obliter-
in the field computational architecture and becomes
ates the automation aspect, which quintessentially
even more vital if it is strategically dealt within real-
genetic algorithms are design for.
time interactive spaces.
Departing from the premise that the code of
Overall the path delineated through new me-
the space is, to a certain extent, intrinsic to the
dia and architecture in combination with technol-
archetype's environmental experience, this construc-
ogy, evolved into art forms that are the founda-
tion includes a system of communication by means
tions of what can be understood as a dynamic form
of cell-signaling. The system hypothesizes a con-
of "Correalism" (Kiesler, 1939). From the initial as-
strained evolution through specific principles of in-
sertive approach of the Total Work of Art, through the
tracellular communication within the DLA morpho-
Bauhaus, the avant-garde movement as it pertains to
genetic process, which aim to induce a biological re-
new media art and beyond, the concept of an art-
lation between environment, interaction and form.
work containing several interconnected art forms has
emerged from its subculture and taken its place in
Integration of Cell-Signaling and Realtime
the mainstream of new media. The difficulty stands
as the placement of this realm into the current tax-
Systems
Intrinsic to this construct of biological networks, is
onomy; and the opportunity, the introduction of this
the use of realtime procedures that call upon multi-
domain as a form to evolve space through any form
ple media along a single algorithmic structure. In this
of open-end communication.
manner the process of coevolution can only occur,
A possible solution to this drawback is the coor-
if there is a structure of interaction with the system.
dination of generative tools with optimization tools
This exchange between automatic control systems in
an integration of a twofold algorithm of sorts. This
both machines and living things is the study subject
combination could provide a design solution that

556 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

in the field of cybernetics. The design relevance in
the use cybernetics is linked to the cognitive aspects
of this association of multiple systems.
The use of cybernetics in art and architecture
is not new, and is highlighted in the "Evolutionary
Architecture" as Gordon Pask was particularly inter-
ested in how interactive systems might be applied
to the architectural design process in order to evolve
structural form and behavior. Pask's understanding
is particularly important since it suggests how, in the
emergent field of ubiquitous computing, humans,
devices and their real and virtual worlds, can coexist
in a mutually positive association (Haque, 2007).
Having the ability to interact with multiple spa-
tial systems, Pask's experiments with electrochemical
systems provide a conceptual framework for build-
ing interactive objects. Without becoming rigid or
restrictive, the structure of these artifacts are able to
deal with the natural dynamic complexity that en-
vironments embody. An example of such natural
mode of interaction with space is in the interface
used in "Evolutionary Architecture". By appropriating
the human competence to manipulate cubic mod-
ules, a natural mode of interacting with a computer
is achieved, but more importantly a form of interact-
ing in both real and virtual spatial systems.
In this context, these artifacts demonstrate inter-
active systems that encourage distinctive interaction
profiles with each user. This allows necessary unre-
stricted interpretation of any context that is particu-
larly important to consider in any design process, and
more importantly achieving a natural spatial experi-
ence. This interaction becomes spatially applicable
when our actions are recognized by the system and
where a reaction by the system generates some feed-
back in its environment. The fact that one is aware
of the interaction with multiple systems is known
as second-order cybernetics. By being part of the
system, and the importance of consciousness, along
with the self-organizing abilities of the system, one
can never understand how the arrangement works
by because the users are continuously engaged with
the system.
This parallel awareness and interaction with dif-
ferent spaces makes it clear that we need to be able
to make intelligible relations with our environmental
systems, rather than simply doing exactly what we in-
struct them to do. This fundamental change departs
that one must know exactly what to do while inter-
acting with machines, which implies that one must
know the terms that are predetermined by the origi-
nal designer. Alternatively, the interaction with evo-
lutionary systems informs what they consider for the
individual. This approach relies on the environment
interpreting our spatial needs, as the system informs
us with a method for comparing our notion of spatial
conditions with the one designed by the evolution-
ary conception of the space.
It is vital at this stage in the development of inter-
active and time-based media to reconsider authori-
tarian models of interaction, particularly because to-
day's user is no longer inexperienced in dealing with
technological interfaces. The present society expects
more than a general form of interaction, and is also
increasingly able to comprehend the structures be-
hind them. An evolutionary approach to spatial sys-
tems does not necessarily require complexity of inter-
action as it relies on the properties of the media and
the computational design across an interface, being
this technological or otherwise. Presently an individ-
ual is already socially ubiquitous thus this manner of
interaction should also transverse into spatial modal-
ities.
Cell-Signaling and Realtime Systems Work-
flow
In order to decode an automated principle of an al-
gorithmic solution needs to perform a number of it-
erative searches, commencing each new search from
a specified starting point. Nonetheless the difficulty
arises when this principle still fails to provide full con-
fidence that our algorithm has discovered the best
outcome of our solution array. Furthermore, as the
amount of variables used to define the problem pro-
gressively increases, the outcome can be a solution
interval which might contain elements such as edges,
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 557
 tunnels or bridges which undermine the confidence
in the final solution (Dehne, Sach and Zeh, 2007). The
problem becomes even more complex when the al-
gorithm will unfold into multiple media. As the gen-
eral topological qualities of a solution interval ap-
proaches high levels of complexity, finding the clear-
est solution, or even to find the ability to tell the
difference between initial/last or top/down becomes
highly problematical. These problems rely in the
manner in which a designer uses search techniques
of an algorithm so it sheds some order to the overall
result.
The initiation starts from the emerging clusters
and will adjust itself to proximity, separation, prop-
agation and continuity. The artifact was produced
with a genetic code, developed and run in Maya Em-
bedded Language (MEL). The code emulates the evo-
lutionary structure that characterizes the Emosphera
project. The procedures that define the generative
function are as follows: Generation of Geometry, Dif-
558 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
ferentiation, Lineage, Fitness, Cell Signaling and Mu-
tation.
In each stratum, the assembly of the genetic al-
gorithm is constantly evolving, as it holds the traces
of its development and obtains its own ruled-based
scheme. The decoding of the artifact becomes a plan
of its dual process, merging scripting implementa-
tions that evolve from early biological responses into
primary procedures in form of triangulations, strat-
ifications, repetitions and formal geometries. The
structural base for the gastrulation script has an em-
phasis in non-linear emergent behavior according to
object lineage. The code is developed from a matrix
of random objects, to which follows an initial selec-
tion of potential elements (Figure 3).
As the initial elements try emerge with the
neighboring constituent, the model becomes a mor-
phogenetic field; the basic requirement that allows
an evolutionary and developmental growth, equiv-
alent to the process of Gastrulation. The communi-
Figure 3
Phylogenetic
structure of
Gastrulation-based
geometrical output.
 cation signals are sent and received continuously via
CVs within the object surface in order to transpose
the characteristics between elements. Object sig-
naling is also used to know their positioning within
the morphogenetic field, in order to achieve self-
organized patterns. In the case cells are unable to
communicate, they eventually fall out of the field and
die, creating a phylogenetic structure.
In order to control the procedure's propaga-
tion, one can decide between two main strategies
of growth according to different assembly structures.
For instance, one strategy would be to choose a pos-
sible high number of cells to evolve and develop
through a constrained number of iterations. Or an-
other method can be to input a small number of cells
(even only one) and let it iterate in a longer period,
allowing the a constant evolutionary output of simi-
lar elements while preventing them to fall into an op-
timal state of repetition. This recursive dual process
allows the allocation of non-linear cyclic relations be-
tween any constituents and unfolds as the basis of
the multimodal design structure.
Cell-Signaling Structure in Multimodal Design.
The premise of the Emosphera project is to provide
a structure that affords interoperability among het-
erogeneous, autonomous events. These events in-
Figure 4
Multimodal System
view of
Emosphera’s
integrated realtime
signalling structure.
clude both direct interaction and/or remotely usable
information, which assemble a system based on ex-
tensible multimodal design that also meets its gen-
erative requirements. The multimodal design struc-
ture recodes the established Sell-Signaling Structure,
promoting interoperability among existing compu-
tational procedures. Parallel to establishing a for-
mal connection to a DLA realtime approach (Kahl and
Burckert, 2012). The procedures allow distinct modes
of spatial modalities according to the preexisting ar-
ray of embryological division, therefore emulating
the specific cell-signaling structure for multimodal
systems of control. The emulation of cell-signaling
structure in multimodal design is attained through
the use of specific modules that interact with the en-
vironment. This interaction is achieved through the
capture and release of spatial information through
distinct modal qualities, by means of sensors and ac-
tuators (Figure 4).
Emulating the cell differentiation the multimodal
structure extracts and reads spatial data through
proximity, spatial occupation, light and sound. Sub-
sequently, a designed array of reactions either com-
bined or individual emerges through kinetic actua-
tors, sonic and visual modalities. The multimodal
communication structured developed in MaxMSP , is
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 559
 continuously evolving and aiming to achieve spatial
balance, by instigating even qualities of interaction.
If there is overstimulation the system decreases its ac-
tions and lack of stimulus will increase its activity. The
system also learns the traces of its own activity and
extracts its on ruled-based strategy, which allows it
to choose the mode it will interact with the environ-
ment. The decomposition of the piece becomes a
map of its original process, synthesized scripting per-
formances that evolve from initial kinetic responses
into visual techniques through the use of animated
isosurfaces, meshes, light and colours; and into sonic
performances through the use of Granular Synthe-
sis in the form of grain size, grain separation, grain
pitch, grain rate variation, grain size variation and
grain pitch variation.
Multimodal Kinetic, Visual and Sonic Operations.
The unfolding and understanding of the algorithm
transgresses the singularity of the formal object, and
spawns into a series of multimodal elements which
carry a specific code but vary in mode of interaction
with the space. Due to the distinct modal qualities
in which the communication is expressed, the design
attracts singular modes of spatial interaction due to
its kinetic, visual or sonic qualities, therefore delineat-
ing the form an individual interacts with archetype.
Consequently this propagation introduces the prob-
lem of tracing communication systems, thus requir-
ing synthesis as a set of instructions, are composed
of a large number of interacting components -such
as; proteins, oxygen molecules and enzymes- while
the cell signaling process occurs.
560 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
The correspondence of such elemental compo-
nents into the visual and sonic modalities is estab-
lished by the characteristics of the grains - the ele-
mental structure of Granular Synthesis. These prop-
erties include; grain size, grain separation, grain
pitch, grain rate variation, grain size variation and
grain pitch variation. This equivalence is then after
filtered through communication and fitness values
generated and extracted from the code.
The granular structure characterizes the multi-
modal kinetic, visual and sonic operations output of
the Emosphera project. An initial an evolutionary
strategy defines a generative function with an array
of stochastic output that is combined with a state of
optimal fitness, which is ultimately reached, in the
absence of an exterior factor. In case of reaching opti-
mal state this would be expressed by a uniform com-
bined behavior of kinetic, visual and sonic in the form
of a synchronized interrelation between the kinetic
mobile wires, the visual boids, meshes and surfaces,
and the sonic grains and pulses of the archetype. This
homogeny would be expressed in any modality mak-
ing the experience a repetitive and dull monotone.
Therefore instead calling upon the usage of an evo-
lutionary strategy, the alternative was the use of one
of the principles used in Complex Adaptive Systems
(Figure 5).
This recursive process allows the allocation of
non-linear cyclic relations between any composi-
tional technique and time structure (Feldman, 1992).
Producing a constant evolutionary output of modal-
ities, preventing these to fall into an optimal state of
Figure 5
Graphics mapping
the realtime
normalization
sequence of the
genetic algorithm
(from top-left to
bottom-right).
repetition. Similar to a cell-signalling, a succession of
operations results from the combined formalization
of the genetic algorithm with the acquisition specific
data. Where subsequently the task is to decipher the
algorithm as an evolutionary mechanism in search
of a symbiotic relation with the environment. The
integration of external data with generative opera-
tions unfolds into kinetic visual and sonic inventories
of transformation, introduced as formal expressions
of the algorithm. The unfold of morphogenetic pro-
cesses of genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, fitness
and speciation are at this point formally transposed
to kinetic, visual and sonic components, directly con-
nected to their signalling properties.
CONCLUSION
The motivation behind this dissertation was to define
a language, based in academic and critical discourse,
which one could use to describe the procedures and
operations employed in the creation within a archi-
tectural stance of a biological derived total artwork.
Within this perspective this dissertation, although
not strictly about architecture, follows a long line of
similar researches in the field, in which designers de-
scribe the techniques and theory used in the making
of their work. A fundamental for this research are the
notions of " Correalism" that unfolded into the con-
structs of "Evolutionary Architecture" as works that
embed and resonate as contemporary understand-
ings. As fascinating as it is for some, the idea of breed-
ing buildings inside a computer, it is also clear that
simple use of digital technology without functional,
structural and topological thinking is insufficient for
real architecture.
Certainly there are numerous difficulties in the
application of algorithms in architecture, there is po-
tential to play a more effective role in the design
and perception of space. By directly addressing al-
gorithm and spatial design the project emulates cell-
signaling elements and processes that denote a ge-
netic code of an archetype, and can be recoded
and unfolded into multimodal means of communica-
tion. By replicating the cell-signaling system of com-
munication, the modeling system exposes a specific
manner of biological representation between form,
sound an visuals within a realtime communication
envelope. The technique differs from generative de-
sign techniques by means of cell-signaling, modu-
larity and recoding, thus limiting aggregation tech-
niques. Despite the workflow the design principle
evolves in a continuous reconfiguration of its ele-
ments, with a final objective of having an adaptive
correspondence in a multimodal space. Nonetheless
the workflow that integrates computational biology
structure with multimodal design can also be further
refined in order to improve and optimize the rela-
tion and implementation between tectonic and mul-
timodal design.
Overall the research is the baseline model for the
development of various works that is abstract and
open enough that it can be scaled, augmented, and
modified as needed. The modularity of the definition
of the study facilitates experimentation with the form
and structure of works developed using biological re-
altime construct. Therefore, multimodal aspects can
be swapped with each other readily, leaving only the
specifics of second-order cybernetics and other con-
textual considerations open for later definitions. In
other words, an assortment of methods and struc-
tures could be used with a single modality, and a mul-
titude of modalities could be used with a single struc-
ture and operation.
REFERENCES
Kahl, Burckert,, G, C, 2012 'Architecture to Enable Dual
Reality for Smart Environments', 8th International
Conference on Intelligent Environments, 42–49, p.
2012
Ciccarelli, FD, Doerks, T, Mering, C, von Creevey, CJ, Snel,
B and Bork, P 2006, 'Toward Automatic Reconstruc-
tion of a Highly Resolved Tree of Life', Science, 311,
pp. 1283-1287
Feldman, Y 1992 'Spatial Machines: A More Realistic Ap-
proach to Parallel Computation', COMMUNICATIONS
- ACM, San Francisco, pp. 35-45
Grosz, EA 2001, Architecture from the Outside: Essays on
Virtual and Real Space, MIT Press, Massachusetts
Haque, U 2007, 'The Architectural Relevance of Gordon
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 Pask', Architectural Design, 77, p. 54–61
Holland, JH 1975, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Sys-
tems: an Introductory Analysis with Applications to Bi-
ology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence, University of
Michigan Press, Michigan
Kiesler,, F 1939, 'On Correalism and Biotechnique', Archi-
tectural Record, 4, pp. 66-74
Maturana, HR and Varela, FJ 1980, Autopoiesis and Cog-
nition the Realization of the Living, Springer, Nether-
lands
Stern, CD 2004, Gastrulation: From Cells to Embryo, Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York
Witten, TA and Sander, LM 1981, 'Diffusion-Limited Ag-
gregation, a Kinetic Critical Phenomenon', Physical
Review Letters, 47, p. 1400–1403
Dehne, Sack, Zeh, F, JR, N 2007 'Algorithms and Data
Structures: 10th International Workshop', WADS
2007, Halifax, pp. 15-17

562 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

The Evolutionary Adaptation of Urban Tissues through
Computational Analysis
Mohammed Makki1 , Ali Farzaneh2 , Diego Navarro3
1,2
Architectural Association 3 Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
1,2
{mohammed.makki|ali.farzaneh}@aaschool.ac.uk
3
navarro@uic.es

The use of evolutionary solvers in design has introduced the potential of dealing
with multiple conflicting objectives under a single design model. The experiments
presented in this paper employ an evolutionary solver towards the generation of a
4x4 urban superblock in the city of Barcelona, one of the highest population
density cities in Europe. The superblock is based on Cerda's iconic 8-sided block
and takes three conflicting objectives into account, aiming not only to achieve a
high density proposal but one that considers block relations, as well as green
space throughout the city. The design is based on principles of evolutionary
science, generating a population of solutions, whose individuals are ranked and
selected based on a fitness criteria. Rather than aiming to reach a single 'optimal'
solution, the model produces a population of solutions that are optimized in
relation to the design environment.

Keywords: Evolution, Computation, Algorithms, Biology

INTRODUCTION: Within the field of architecture and design,

Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively
in recent years to solve real world problems through a
'search and optimization' procedure. The algorithm,
which is based on principles of evolutionary science,
searches through a set of solutions and selects the
fittest based on a preferred design criteria. The use
of evolutionary algorithms can be found in various
disciplines from economics to politics to music and
even architecture. While the applicability of evolu-
tionary algorithms has been common in solving sin-
gle objective problems, they have proven to be an ef-
ficient problem solving technique for multiple objec-
tive problems as well, finding trade-off solutions for
problems that possess multiple 'fitness criteria' that
are commonly in conflict with one another.
the emergence of several CAD-based evolutionary
solvers has increased the utilization of evolutionary
computation as a design strategy; a development
that has bridged the gap between the domains of bi-
ology, computer science and the field of architecture
and design. Although the former domains may seem
unrelated to many within the field of design (consid-
ering their complexity and rich history), the evolu-
tionary solvers developed have attempted to trans-
late the algorithmic computation of natural evolu-
tion through a relatively user friendly environment.
An efficient implementation of evolutionary
tools within a CAD-based environment is facilitated
with a practical understanding of the underlying al-
gorithms that drive the solver, as well as a clear expla-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 563

 nation of the evolutionary principles implemented
within the algorithm - both of which are clearly lack-
ing in the domain of architecture and design. As
such, the application of the evolutionary solver as
well as a description of its underlying principles will
be expanded upon in the experiments presented
within this paper. The evolutionary solver - Octopus
3D, is utilized to develop an urban patch in the city
of Barcelona; a design problem that consists of mul-
tiple conflicting objectives whose solution cannot be
considered to be a single optimal solution, rather a
set of optimal solutions that take into account all of
the objective criteria without the need to employ a
trade-off strategy to arrive at a given solution set.
A brief account of Barcelona's urban growth and
its current implications on the population residing
within will be explained, as they play a pivotal role
in defining the objectives that drive the experiments.
In addition, a brief summary of the developments in
the field of evolutionary computation will also be en-
gaged, as its key principles play a significant role in
providing the proper foundation for an understand-
ing of the methods employed by the evolutionary
solver.
other prominent cities (Boston, Buenos Aires,
New York, etc.), the consideration of block ori-
entation, climatology and sun exposure were
considered to be decisive in developing a san-
itary urban expansion.
• Circulation (Cerda, 1863) - A hierarchical street
network aimed to create efficient transporta-
tion throughout the city to accommodate
both pedestrians and vehicles within the
same network while generating greater effi-
ciency in visual connectivity through the im-
plementation of chamfered intersections (fig-
ure 2).
• Social Equality - The design attempted to gen-
erate the possibility of an 'endless' urban ex-
pansion of the city, establishing social equal-
ity through urban homogeneity.
Figure 1
Fragment of Cerdá
Plan, block types
and orientations.
(5)

BARCELONA
Urban Growth
The city of Barcelona's development into one of the
highest population density cities in Europe has been
propelled in part by the Example (2). The Eixample
Figure 2
(figure 1) is an urban plan proposed by Ildefons Cerda
Hierarchy of street
that addressed issues of population growth, build-
network and green
ing density, unsanitary conditions, illnesses and high
vs built area
mortality rates that had inflicted the city of Barcelona
occupation. (6)
during the 19th century, necessitating an expansion
of the city beyond its walls.
Cerda's plan for the city engaged three primary
domains:

• Sanitation (Cerda, 1856) - Addressed through

a predominantly statistical-driven approach
(Figuerola, 1849) that was the result of an in
depth field analysis of Barcelona as well as

564 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

 The Existing Setting
During its implementation, the lack of infrastructure
and its remoteness from the city center resulted in
several alterations to Cerda's original plan, mainly
in the form of increased density within the Eixam-
ple's iconic eight sided block. Rather than conform-
ing to the original plan which attempted to main-
tain a high percentage of open spaces and visual
connectivity throughout the city (Busquets, 2004)
(which intended to avoid a repeat of the unsani-
tary conditions that inflicted the walled city), polit-
ical and investment opportunities transformed the
original two sided block with an open courtyard, to
a four sided block with an enclosed courtyard (3).
More recently however, the 'internal courtyard' has
been rendered obsolete as it has been reclaimed by
the city as a storage facility (figure 3). Currently,
the green-area/inhabitant ratio in Barcelona is 6.5m2,
compared to the 15m2 green-area/inhabitant ratio
recommended by the World Health Organization (1).
Figure 3
Development of a
typical block in the
Eixample.
As a result of the modifications to Cerda's original
plan, the city of Barcelona has been in a continuous
state of change and adaptation in an attempt to ad-
dress diverse issues that have challenged the quality
of life within the city. Most prominently, the city's re-
lationship to its geography (sierra Cornella, riu Besos,
riu Llobregat) the hierarchical and relational changes
in specific areas such as Barcelona's future center (Les
Glories) and the restructuring of the Eixample - which
is engaged in this article - have been the driving fac-
tors of change within the city.
In an attempt to restore Cerda's intent of a city
that encompasses sustainable mobility, public space
rehabilitation, biodiversity and green areas, accessi-
bility, social cohesion and energetic self-sufficiency,
the city has followed a strategy of restructuring the
superblock (a unit smaller than a neighborhood but
larger than a block) in an attempt to create relation-
ships between different blocks as well as between
the block and the street (4). However, due to the
existing density of Barcelona, attempts at restructur-
ing the Eixample are notably constrained to minor
changes to the existing urban condition. Thus, rather
than attempt to restructure the existing city, the ex-
periments carried out in the following chapters apply
an evolutionary design strategy to generate an urban
patch that incorporate Cerda's original design objec-
tives as well as take into account Barcelona's current
population density.
THE EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY
The experiments in the following chapter employ an
evolutionary solver as the underlying principle for
the design process. By the mid 20-th century, several
computational evolutionary models had been devel-
oped, the most prominent of these algorithms were
Rechenberg and Schwefel's 'evolutionary strategies',
Fogel's 'evolutionary programing' and Holland's 'ge-
netic algorithm' (De Jong, 2006). Although each of
these models had been developed almost indepen-
dent from one another, the establishment of sev-
eral evolutionary algorithm conferences in the 1990's
resulted in highly beneficial interactions between
the domains of evolutionary computation. De Jong
(2006) clarifies that "the result of these first interac-
tions was a better understanding of the similarities
and differences of the various paradigms, a broad-
ening of the perspectives of the various viewpoints,
and a feeling that, in order to continue to develop,
the field as a whole needed to adopt a unified view
of these evolutionary problem solvers". Figure 4 illus-
trates the basic principles associated with evolution-
ary algorithms.
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 565
 strategies apply the principles of selection and vari- Figure 4
ation are notably diverse in different evolutionary The principal flow
algorithms. However, the most progressive evolu- of evolutionary
tionary algorithms (e.g. NSGA-2, SPEA-2) excelled algorithms
through their ability to achieve the most diverse
Pareto optimal set in both an efficient timeframe
The 'integration' of different evolutionary paradigms, as well as a reasonable computational environment
as well as the challenge associated with finding a (Luke, 2014). As such, the algorithm associated with
solution to multiple conflicting objectives, led to an Octopus 3D is the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algo-
upsurge in different evolutionary algorithms. Each rithm 2 (SPEA-2) (figure 5).
employed a different evolutionary strategy driven by
a different interpretation of evolutionary principles Figure 5
with the ultimate objective of achieving the most op- SPEA2 Algorithm -
timal solution-set to a problem in an efficient time- to increase the
frame. However, the two basic evolutionary princi- efficiency of
ples of selection and variation remain the main driv- reaching a diverse
ing force behind most evolutionary algorithms. Zit- optimal set,
zler (1999) explains that: algorithms
"In evolutionary algorithms, natural selection is incorporated
simulated by a stochastic selection process. Each so- different
lution is given a chance to reproduce a certain num- techniques and
ber of times, dependent on their quality. Thereby, variations to the
quality is assessed by evaluating the individuals and basic interpretation
assigning them scalar fitness values. The other prin- of the principles of
ciple, variation, imitates natural capability of creating natural evolution.
"new" living beings by means of recombination and The evolutionary
mutation." solver employed in
The progression of different evolutionary strate- the experiment
gies over the past few decades has revolved around implements the
THE EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY FOR algorithmic flow
the efficiency of an algorithm to apply these two ba-
BARCELONA above.
sic principles in order to achieve the two most fun-
Cerda's initial plans attempted to provide a solution (Reproduced from
damental objectives of multi-objective optimization
to a problem with multiple conflicting criteria (some Weise, 2008)
(Zitzler, 1999):
of which were implemented at a later date). The pri-
mary conflicting criteria during the implementation
• Application of the most efficient assessment
of Cerda's plan was the requirement for the city to ac-
and selection methods to achieve the optimal
commodate a high density ratio yet maintain a high
set of trade-off solutions - the Pareto optimal
number of street-accessible green spaces. However,
set.
rather than generate a solution that accommodated
• Maintain a diverse population throughout the
both criteria, a trade-off strategy directed the city to-
simulation run in order to diminish the prob-
wards one that prioritized population density over
ability of premature convergence as well as
green spaces.
maintain a dispersed Pareto optimal set.
Although unknown at the time, Barcelona was
following a preference-based approach that found
Thus, the methods by which different evolutionary

566 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

 it necessary to "convert the task of finding multiple ary solver every individual is evaluated to each fitness
trade-off solutions in a multi-objective optimization criterion independent of the other criteria.
(problem) to one of finding a single solution of a
Table 1 transformed single-objective optimization problem"
Definition of (Deb, 2001, p.7). The use of evolutionary popula-
terminology within tion based solvers empowers the possibility to mod-
the evolutionary ify, evaluate and select a set of candidate solutions
solver. The per each iteration, rather than a single optimal solu-
definitions tion. Such a process allows all objectives to be con-
correspond to their sidered without the requisite of employing a trade-
relevance within off strategy during the simulation.
the CAD software
and therefore are Terminology
not to be As the biological paradigm may be perceived as for- Therefore, it is plausible that the Pareto optimal so-
interpreted as the eign to many designers, a brief description of the ter- lutions comprise individuals that achieve a high fit-
biological minology interpreted within the Octopus 3D solver ness value in relation to one criterion, while attaining
definitions of the is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the a low fitness value in relation to another criterion, re-
terminology. experiment (table 1). sulting in "multiple optimal solutions in its final pop-
ulation"(Deb, 2001, p.8) (figure 7).
Experiment
Table 2 Experiment Setup. Considering the multiple objec-
Summary of the tives and goals aimed by Cerda's original plan, the
experiment set up. experiment objectives set out to generate an ur-
ban patch that optimizes for a high population den-
sity, greater block connectivity and a high courtyard
area/density ratio. The primary element of the ex-
periment is Eixample's iconic 8-sided block; however,
to ensure greater homogeneity between neighbor-
ing blocks, the phenotype is comprised from a 4x4
superblock of 16 individuals. Each block within the
Figure 6 phenotype is governed by a gene pool of parame-
Courtyard ters that transform the block's morphology through
connectivity is changes to the number of units within the block, the
ranked to size of the ground floor area, the size of both the main
encourage larger block courtyard as well as inner unit courtyards, the
courtyards between number of floors within each unit of the block and the
blocks and number of sides that comprise the block (table 2).
generate wide The density factor, connectivity factor (figure 6)
fields of view. A low and courtyard area/density ratio serve as the fitness
ranking discourages criteria by which each phenotype is evaluated and as-
blocks that have signed a fitness value. However, contrary to classical
courtyards with search and optimization methods, where all objec-
one-sided access. tives are merged as a single objective to generate a
single solution, within a population-based evolution-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 567


Solver Parameters. Although the algorithm mimics
natural evolution by incorporating variation and se-
lection strategies to evolve the population towards
an optimal solution set, the intensity of their appli-
cation is also essential in generating a diverse solu-
tion set within an efficient timeframe. Ideally, the al-
gorithm setup should balance a search and optimiza-
tion strategy that is both explorative - adequate mu-
tation and crossover to allow for a diverse population
of candidate solutions, as well as exploitative - em-
ploy an efficient selection and variation strategy that
directs the algorithm towards an optimal solution set
within a feasible number of generations (Luke, 2014).
To achieve the 'ideal' balance between explo-
ration vs. exploitation, the population is limited to
100 individuals, while the simulation target is set to
100 generations. At every iteration of the simula-
tion run, the 100 individuals are evaluated according
to the fitness criteria (stated above) and prescribed
a fitness value. To evolve the population towards
one that is both diverse as well as optimal, an elitism
value of 50% is implemented which ensures half the
population is bred from the most optimal solutions
while the other half is randomly bred from the re-
maining solution candidates. Finally, a high muta-
tion rate coupled with a low mutation probability,
complimented with a moderate crossover rate en-
sures adequate variation is applied to the individuals
in the population to generate diversity while simulta-
neously evolving the population towards 'fitter' indi-
viduals (table 3).
568 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Experiment Results Figure 7
Unlike a single-objective design experiment, the evo- Every individual
lutionary solver does not tend to converge towards within a population
a single optimal solution, rather it aims at evolving is ranked according
multiple optimal solutions driven by multiple objec- to the number of
tives. The conflicting objectives defined in the ex- individuals that
periment led to significant geometric variety in the dominate it. In the
Pareto solution set within each population, however, diagram above, the
objectives that did not conflict evolved individuals Pareto front
that shared similar geometric traits (figures 8a-c). The solutions are not
variety of phenotypes throughout the simulation re- dominated by any
flected an appropriate balance of exploration vs. ex- other individuals
ploitation within the algorithm, thus reducing the therefore they are
probability of premature convergence of the popu- considered as the
lation towards a local optimum (figure 8d). optimal solutions
Throughout the experiment, four different gen- within the
erations were selected for analysis and comparison: population.
generations 1, 30, 60 and 100. The application of an (Reproduced from
evolutionary solver as a design strategy generates an Luke, 2014).
exponential number of design solutions within each
iteration, making it inefficient and unnecessary to vi-
sually analyze each individual in the simulation (in
the case of this experiment, a total of 10,000 solu-
tions) (figure 9). Thus statistical analysis of the gen-
erated solutions plays a pivotal role in the selection
and modification of the optimal solutions. A compar-
ison of the results of each generation stated above
proved higher fitness factors of population density,
greater courtyard relationships and higher courtyard
area/density ratios (which in turn translates to larger
courtyard areas). The results presented a noticeable
uniform increase in the average fitness per popula-
tion throughout the simulation (figure 10).
Table 3
Summary of the
solver parameters
implemented in the
simulation
Figure 8 dividuals selected achieved a larger population den-
Pareto front sity compared to Cerda's proposal, as well as greater
individuals ranking courtyard relationships and larger courtyard areas
high in each fitness when compared to the existing Eixample superblock.
criterion. The The Pareto individuals provided a largely successful
similarity between and diverse set of solutions, each excelling in a differ-
8a and 8b is a result ent criterion, equipping the designer with the choice
of the objectives of selecting the solution (or solutions) that best fit the
complimenting design objectives.
each other, while
the geometric
differences to 8c is a
CONCLUSION
Back, Hammel and Shwefel (1997) argue that "the
result of the
most significant advantage of using evolutionary
objectives
conflicting one
Eixample, Cerda and the Pareto Front search lies in the gain of flexibility and adaptability to
The experiment aimed to generate an urban tissue the task at hand", and while the optimal solution for
another. The
that exhibited high density ratios while simultane- a single objective problem is clearly defined, multi-
distribution of the
ously increasing green space areas and promoting ple objective problems require the "robust and pow-
Pareto front
greater courtyard relationships. Thus, a comprehen- erful search mechanisms" (p.13, Zitzler, 1999) of evo-
solutions presented
sive analysis of the results require the comparison of lutionary algorithms to find the fittest solution candi-
in 8d reflects the
several Pareto front superblocks from the final gen- dates that take into consideration all of the assigned
variety of different
eration of the simulation to an existing Eixample su- objectives. The experiments proved successful by
optimal solutions
perblock in Barcelona, as well as a comparisson to the breeding a diverse set of individuals across genera-
within a single
proposed Eixample superblock put forward by Ilde- tions that continued to perform better towards their
population.
fons Cerda (table 4). The solutions were selected ac- fitness criteria. While the experiment did not provide
cording to a balanced fitness value that accommo- a single optimized solution, something that is often
dated the three objectives of the algorithm (figure sought after in design, it did respond to the multiple
11). design objectives of the design model, providing a
diverse set of optimal solutions.
Figure 9 The computational environment plays a signifi-
Visual comparison cant role in the application of an evolutionary model
of all individuals as a design strategy. The experiments carried out
from different were limited to 100 individuals and 100 generations,
generations is an a limit imposed by the computational load and time
almost impossible required to carry out the experiments. However, a
task. General larger population and generation count would gen-
patterns may be erate greater diversity as well as allow more optimiza-
observed, however tion of the fitness criteria.
an efficient While the field of evolutionary science has con-
examination of the The Pareto solutions selected could not achieve tinued to develop and progress, the field of evo-
solutions must the density of the existing Eixample superblock with- lutionary computation has been stagnant on Dar-
incorporate out sacrificing the fitness values of the other crite- winian principles synthesized in the mid-20th cen-
statistical methods ria, as was the case for the courtyard areas of Cerda's tury. Significant advancements in the fields of ge-
of analysis. proposed Eixample. However, all of the Pareto in- netics, and more prominently, evolutionary devel-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 569

 Figure 10
Comparison of the
objective fitness
values of different
generations. The
results present an
almost uniform
increase in fitness
for all objectives
between
generation 0 and
generation 100

Figure 11
Four Pareto
solutions selected
from generation
100 that exhibited
balanced fitness
values in relation to
all objectives.

570 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

Table 4
Fitness comparison
between four
Pareto solutions
from generation
100 to a typical
Eixample block and
the Eixamle block
proposed by Cerda.
Factor values are
not indicative of
actual figures, the opment have reformulated evolutionary principles, and Applications, Weise
factor values however, they are yet to be incorporated within evo- Zitzler, EZ 1999, Evolutionary Algorithms for Multi-
presented in the lutionary algorithms. Preliminary experiments car- Objective Optimization: Methodsand Applications,
table are remapped Ph.D. Thesis, ETH
ried out by the authors incorporating key concepts of
to a domain [1] http://elpais.com/diario/2009/10/24/catalunya/1
evolutionary development as a design strategy have 256346439_850215.html
between 0 and 1, yielded successful results in generating a significantly [2] http://www.bcn.cat/estadistica/catala/dades/anu
where 0 is the diverse population of solutions within a shorter time- ari/index.htm
smallest possible frame. However, a thorough application of modern [3] http://www.anycerda.org/web/es/any-cerda/fa-150
fitness factor and 1 evolutionary principles within the field of evolution- -anys/neix
is the largest [4] http://governobert.bcn.cat/ca/content/supirelle
ary computation is yet to be achieved.
possible fitness s-la-maternitat-i-sant-ramon
[5] https://talkarchitecture.wordpress.com/2011/02/
factor.
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tation, 1(1), pp. 3-17
Busquets, J 2004, Barcelona: La Construccion Urbanistica
de Una Ciudad Compacta, EDICIONES DEL SERBAL,
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y manera de satisfacerlas', Revista de Obras Públicas,
1(15), pp. 173-179
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Deb, K 2001, Multi-Objective Optimization Using Evolu-
tionary Algorithms, John Wiley \& Sons, Chichester,
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Cambridge, Mass,
Luke, S 2014, Essentials of Metaheuristics, Lulu
Weise, T 2008, Global Optimization Algorithms - Theory

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 571

Cell-Based Venation Systems
Christoph Klemmt1 , Klaus Bollinger2
1
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Zaha Hadid Architects 2 University of Applied
Arts Vienna, B+G Ingenieure Bollinger und Grohmann GmbH
2
www.bollinger-grohmann.de
1
christoph@orproject.com 2 office@bollinger-grohmann.de

Venation structures in leaves fulfil both circulatory as well as structural functions

within the organism they belong to. A possible digital simulation algorithm for
the growth of venation patterns based on the leaf surface has been described by
the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary.Cell-based
growth algorithms to generate surface meshes have been developed by biological
and medical scientists as well as artists, in order to gain an understanding of
developmental biology or to generate artistic form. This paper suggests the
combination of the two algorithms in order to generate the morphologies of
leaves and other structures while at the same time generating the corresponding
venation system.The resulting algorithm develops large non-manifold mesh
structures based on local rules of division of the individual cells. The venation
system develops in parallel based on the flow of the plant hormone auxin from
those cells towards the start point or petiole of the leaf. Different local
behaviours of the cells towards their adjacent neighbours, towards their rules of
division and towards the rules of developing veins have been investigated. The
eventual aim of the algorithms is their application as tools to develop
architectural and structural morphologies.

Keywords: Venation, Structure, Cell division, Developmental biology, Growth

INTRODUCTION well as learn (Benyus 1997).

The analysis and abstraction of biological prece-
dents for architectural and structural applications has
found interests within the realm of a biomimetic de-
sign (El Ahmar 2011, Panchuk 2006). Organisms in
the natural world have evolved over tens of thou-
sands of years to be well adjusted to their environ-
ments. Nature is used as a model in design, but also
as a measure to evaluate the performance of the de-
sign, and as a mentor from which we can extract as
In architecture, biomimetic ideas are applied to
a wide range of aspects, ranging from sustainabil-
ity (Pawlyn 2011, Volstad and Boks 2012) to creating
adaptive environments and material systems (Hensel
2006, Hensel and Menges 2007, Hensel et al. 2010,
Weinstock 2010).
The aim of the paper is to define a cell-based
algorithm which can be used to generate or grow
morphologies for applications in architecture. A cell-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 573

 based growth algorithm is combined with a venation
algorithm to enclose spaces while at the same time
developing a possible support system for the struc-
ture. (figures 1, 2)
574 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
VENATION SYSTEMS
The vein networks found in leaves fulfil two func-
tions: They form the circulatory system as well as the
structural support of the leaf (Roth-Nebelsick et al
2001). Starting from the petiole, the network covers
the surface area of the leaf and reaches the proximity Figure 1
of each cell. Angiospermae show the largest variety Cell and venation
of ramifying patterns, which can express both den- structure
dritic (open) or reticulate (closed) topologies (Sack
and Scoffoni 2013).
Figure 2
The development of the leaf and its venation sys-
Planar system with
tem happens during two distinct phases: An initial
venation
phase of cell proliferation and a second phase of cell
expansion. The higher order veins develop during
the initial phase. Their development is influenced by
sources of the plant hormone auxin in the leaf (Sack
and Scoffoni 2013).
The lower order veins develop during the sec-
ond stage of the leaf growth (Sack and Scoffoni 2013).
Sachs formulated a canalisation hypothesis for the
development of the veins (Sachs 1991), however
stress in the leaf surface may be a driving factor which
can explain especially the abundance of closed loops
in reticulate venation patterns (Laguna et al 2008). Figure 3
Venation
Algorithmic Simulation of Venation Sys-
tems
Different algorithmic models for the simulation of
leaf venation have been developed (Prusinkiewicz
and Runions 2012). Aristid Lindenmayer developed
L-Systems in order to describe branching networks
(Prusinkiewicz and Lindenmayer 1990). A canalisa-
tion model based on auxin flux was described by
Rolland-Lagan and Prusinkiewicz (Rolland-Lagan and
Prusinkiewicz 2005). A model for the simulation of
lower order anastomoting veins based on stress mit-
igation between the epidermis and mesophyll was
proposed by Laguna et al. (Laguna et al. 2008).
One algorithm to describe the growth of leaf
venation has been described by the University of
Calgary (Runions et al. 2005, Runions et al. 2007,
Runions 2008). Variants of the algorithm have been
used to create geometries within the fields of ar-
 chitecture and design (METAfolly by ecoLogicStudio,
Xylem and Hyphae series by Nervous System).
The algorithm is based on a seed point and a
shape which gets filled with target points. In the case
of a leaf venation simulation this shape will be the
surface of the leaf (Runions et al. 2005).
In each iteration, the outline shape grows and
gets filled with further target points using a dart-
throwing algorithm. Starting from the seed points,
the vein network grows a step per iteration towards
the average direction of the target points. If some
target points are in closer proximity to a vein node
than others, this vein node buds and the network
branches out (Runions et al. 2005).
Figure 4
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
Developmental biology is the study of the growth of
Transparent mesh
plants and animals at the level of cells. The main fac-
with extruded
tors which are studied and which influence growth
venation structure
are cell proliferation, cell differentiation and morpho-
genesis (Wolpert el al. 2011).
Developmental Systems Biology
Algorithmic simulations are used as a methodology
to understand the intercellular processes and be-
haviours. The development of multicellular systems
are programmed to understand growth processes of
plants and animals (Kaandorp et al. 2005, Kaandorp
and Kübler 2001) or to understand human medical
conditions (Shirinifard et al. 2009).
Due to the morphogenerative character of de-
velopmental systems biology, cell-based algorithms
have also been used to generate forms for artistic
purposes. George W. Hart generated geometries
based on "bud" cells which divide and form new tis-
sue (Hart 2009). Andy Lomas programmed systems
of cell division based on the availability of nutrients
(Lomas 2014).
In the iterative algorithms of Kaandorp, Hart and
Lomas, individual cells are simulated as points in
three-dimensional Cartesian space. The cells react
to their neighbours, especially in order to maintain
a certain distance between each other (Kaandorp et
al. 2005, Kaandorp and Kübler 2001).
Specific rules control the behaviours of cell pro-
liferation. Kaandorp uses diffusion limited aggrega-
tion to control the cell division (Kaandorp et al. 2005,
Kaandorp and Kübler 2001, Hart 2009, Lomas 2014).
Hart uses bud cells which divide (Hart 2009), while
Lomas uses nutrient values in the cells to define the
cell proliferation (Lomas 2014).
Further behaviours are used to control cell differ-
entiation (Hart 2009) and nutrient distribution (Kaan-
dorp et al. 2005, Kaandorp and Kübler 2001, Lomas
2014). The morphogenesis is further controlled by
external factors such as the initial setup conditions or
global geometric constraints (Kaandorp et al. 2005,
Kaandorp and Kübler 2001, Hart 2009, Lomas 2014).
VENATION SYSTEMS BASED ON CELL DIVI-
SION
Implementation
The algorithms for cell division and venation have
been combined into a single simulation. The aim is to
eventually integrate behaviours and constraints into
the system so that it can be used to generate archi-
tectural and structural morphologies.
Cells in plant and animal tissue grow in volumet-
ric accumulations (Wolpert et al. 1998). Organs with
cavity spaces, which are filled with non-cellular ma-
terial such as air or liquids, have cellular walls which
are built up of multiple cells. Even thin layers such as
the lamina of leaves have a thickness of several cells
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 575
 (Evert and Eichhorn 2006).
Morphologies which can be used in spatial de-
sign need to be able to enclose large volumes, the
spaces which are to be occupied, by enveloping them
with ideally thin structures and walls. In order to re-
duce the amount of cells necessary in the calcula-
tions, tissue thicknesses were defined as being one
cell thick.
This is in line with the simulations of Hart and
Lomas (Hart 2009, Lomas 2014), however it is sig-
nificantly different from the approach of Shirinifard
et al. (Shirinifard et al. 2009). This simplification
greatly enhances the speed of calculation for the en-
closure of a given volume, however many intercellu-
lar behaviours need to be adjusted from their biolog-
ical precedent. Especially morphogenetic processes
such as cell to cell adhesion or cell migration follow
very different behavioural rules (Wolpert el al. 1998).
The algorithms have been developed on differ-
ent platforms in parallel. Python, Processing (Java) as
well as Softimage ICE have been used. The simula-
tions are calculated in iterative time steps, with the
cells as points in three-dimensional Cartesian space.
(The Python implementation was calculated as four-
dimensional points based on a Library by John Hull.)
Simulations have been run with up to 50,000 vertices.
Basic Cell Behaviour
For the movement of the cells, both a velocity-only as
well as a velocity-acceleration based model were im-
plemented. The velocity-acceleration based model
appeared to result in more coherent simulations.
Hart as well as Lomas are using a system in which
each cell is part of a manifold enclosed mesh, simi-
lar to the arrangement within a spherical mesh. The
neighbours of a cell in the mesh are defined from the
beginning according to its insertion point (Hart 2009,
Lomas 2014).
A venation simulation based on the Calgary algo-
rithm however is able to compute any arrangement
of target points, and in the original case of simulating
leaf veins, the target points can be described as a flat
open mesh (Runions et al 2005).
576 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
As the aim of the algorithm for this paper is to
create architectural morphologies and to be able to
enclose various types of volumes and spaces, the
mesh arrangement of the cells does not need to be
manifold nor completely open nor closed, but in-
stead it needs to be able to enclose different volumes
while continuing to grow. The mesh therefore needs
to be able to grow back onto itself and cells need to
be able to form new connections to already existing
cells. The mesh in this case will cease to be manifold.
This demanded a dynamic cell neighbourhood:
If available, the six closest neighbours of any cell are
chosen as the direct neighbours, and this set of cells
is updated whenever another cell comes into closer
proximity.
A feedback between the intercellular forces and
the adjustment of the direct neighbours is a likely rea-
son for inconsistencies in simulations which are not
using acceleration but velocity only. Due to a static
direct neighbourhood, Andy Lomas does not get this
feedback in his simulations.
Intercellular Forces
For the simulation, let a cell have position C, and n
direct neighbours with positions Pr . The target dis-
tance (spring rest length) between two cells be d. Let
a point or vector have the coordinates
   
Cx Pr,x
C = Cy , Pr = Pr,y  (1)
Cz Pr,z
Spring Force. The cells attempt to maintain a con-
stant distance towards their direct neighbours. This
is calculated by adjusting the cell's acceleration (or
velocity in the velocity-only model) according to the
distance to its direct neighbours by a spring system:
( )
1 ∑n d−|Pr −C|
accelerationSpring = n |P −C|
·
r=1 r
(Pr − C)
(2)
(Lomas describes the same behaviour in writing,
however the formula in his paper appears to have a
different result.)
Planarisation. In order to achieve a surface like ar-
rangement of cells rather than a pile shaped accumu-
lation, the cell position needs to be moved towards
the mesh surface of the direct neighbours, similar to
a mesh smoothing. Lomas uses a force towards the
average location of the direct neighbours to achieve
this, similar to a cohesion behaviour of the Boids al-
gorithm (Lomas 2014, Reynolds 1987).
However in the system for this paper, the mor-
phology has edge conditions, cells which only have
neighbours towards one side. A cohesion behaviour
would contract a system like this. Therefore the pla-
narisation was achieved by a force which pulls the cell
towards the plane through its three closest neigh-
bours:
accelerationPlanar =
(C − P1 )((P2 − P1 ) × (P3 − P1 ))
∗ 
|(P2 − P1 ) × (P3 − P1 )|2 (3)
((P2 − P1 ) × (P3 − P1 ))
Cohesion. A cohesion force as in the Boids algorithm
can be applied in order to achieve certain results,
however its factor may need to be relatively smaller
than that of the spring force which will keep the at-
tracted cells apart. Cohesion was used only to a lim-
ited extend in the simulations due to its contracting
behaviour (Reynolds 1987).
1 ∑ Pr − C
n
accelerationCohesion = (4)
n r=1 |Pr − C|2
Separation. A separation force as in the Boids algo-
rithm pushes cells apart, and it can have a planarisa-
tion effect similar to the planarisation as described
above if applied to the neighbours of direct neigh-
bouring cells (Reynolds 1987).
1 ∑ C − Pr
n
accelerationSeparation = (5)
n r=1 |C − Pr |2
Unary Force. A unary force can be used to simulate
gravity or other directional forces onto the cells. It
needs to act either in combination with static cells
or with obstacles such as a ground plane which can
keep certain cells in a fixed position. A unary force
will become useful for the generation of structurally
acting geometries.
 
Ux
accelerationUnary = Uy  (6)
Uz
with Ux , Uy , Uz being the forces in each Cartesian
direction.
Direction Dependent Factor (Drag). A cell can be
accelerated or decelerated in its movement within a
certain direction. A deceleration in the z direction
will result in the generation of more horizontal layers
of the mesh. This factor is applied not as a force, but
as an adjustment of the cell's velocity. An even decel-
eration in all directions will result in a drag effect on
the cell:

velocityX∙a
velocityAdjusted =  velocityY ∙b  (7)
velocityZ∙c
with a, b, c being factors in each Cartesian direction.
Cell Proliferation
Cell division has been programmed to occur either by
cell age or according to the amount of neighbours
a cell has within a certain range. The cell prolifera-
tion by amount of neighbours can be used to gen-
erate marginal growth as described by Runions et al.
(Runions et al. 2005). The cells along the edges have
fewer neighbours and therefore divide.
Cell division by age can generate a uniform
growth, but it can also be used to generate uni-
form isotropic (isogonic) growth, uniform anisotropic
growth or non-uniform anisotropic growth as de-
scribed by Runions et al. (Runions et al. 2005).
Of importance for this is the direction in which
the cell splits into two, and the trigger of the division.
If the split direction is random, a uniform growth will
occur. A uniform anisotropic growth can be gener-
ated by aligning the split direction across the cells,
and a non-uniform anisotropic growth can be gener-
ated by making the split direction dependent on, for
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 577
 example, the local direction of auxin flow.
Cell Differentiation
The algorithms use different types of cells:
A petiole cell, which forms the start point of the
simulation. Its position can be fixed and may be at-
tached to a ground plane. The petiole cell is of im-
portance for the development of the venation sys-
tem as it forms the sink for the auxin flow. A system
can have several petiole cells, and during a simula-
tion new petiole cells can be created.
A general type of cell, similar to a meristem cell
in plants. This cell can divide and turn into any other
type of cell. For the simulations, a separation be-
tween meristem cells and mesophyll cells has not
been made, all the cells can cause photosynthesis
and produce auxin.
Vein cells are formed during the venation pro-
cess and have different behaviours from the other
cells. Vein cells are placed within the cell surface,
rather than underneath as in many plants. Vein cells
have a parent and children, which define their di-
rection and auxin canalisation behaviour. The par-
ent and children always remain in the group of direct
neighbouring cells for the calculations.
Vein cells have been programmed to have a ten-
dency to straighten between their parent and their
children. This has been done by increasing the co-
hesion towards its parents and children while at the
same time increasing the separation from the par-
ent's parent and the children's children.
578 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Venation Growth
The development of veins in leaves has been shown
to be influenced by sources of the plant hormone
auxin in the leaf (Sack and Scoffoni 2013). In the algo-
rithm, every cell is being treated as an equal source of
auxin.
The flow of the auxin towards the petiole cell is
calculated, in two separate phases: The flow of auxin
towards the closest vein cell, and the flow through
the veins.
The flow towards the closest vein is calculated
in reverse. Every cell in direct neighbourhood to a
vein is updated and finds its neighbouring vein cell
with the largest flow rate. Then iteratively always the
next layer of adjacent cells is updated and finds its di-
rect neighbour with the largest auxin flow rate. This
neighbour's flow rate and that of its downstream cells
is updated with the additional auxin from the newly
incorporated cell.
In a second step, the cells adjacent to a vein are
checked for their flow rates, and if this surpasses a
certain value, i.e. a certain amount of upstream cells,
this cell turns into a vein cell. It connects to its neigh-
bouring vein cell which becomes its parent vein. As
with the basic cells, the auxin flow rates, which de-
fine the diameter of the veins, is updated for all down-
stream vein cells.
The flow rate which defines if a cell becomes a
vein cell fulfils a similar function to the "kill distance"
in the Calgary venation algorithm, it controls the dis-
tance between adjacent veins (Runions et al. 2005).
Figure 5
RESULTS Venation structure
The types of geometries which can be generated by
the algorithm are surprisingly rich in their geometric
behaviour and range from relatively flat, waving sur-
faces (figures 2, 3), to very intricate formations remi-
niscent of flowers or corals (figures 4, 5, 6, 7).
When using a direction dependent movement
factor, horizontal planes can be created which can be
used to simulate leaf surfaces. The venation patterns
are most clearly visible in those structures. (figures 2,
3)
Figure 6
Cell division growth
Figure 7
Generated
morphology
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
The geometries generated with the algorithm are
very promising and show how a cell based simulation
can be used to create complex morphologies. Very
different types of structures can be generated by the
system, which is controlled on a local cell level but as
well can react to global constraints.
The geometries generated so far seem very suit-
able for the creation of art projects or experimental
architecture. However they will need significant ad-
justments in order to become applicable for a func-
tioning building design.
Various adjustments and additional behaviours
should be incorporated into the algorithm:
• global constraints and influences such as site
conditions to control and guide the growth
• growth of shell structures by reverse gravity
acting on the cells
• venation beams which connect between peti-
ole cells
• differentiation of vein cells of different orders
as they appear in leaves
• stress between cells as a driver for venation, as
proposed by Laguna et al. 2008
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The paper was written by Christoph Klemmt as part
of a doctorate under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Klaus
Bollinger at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
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Structure, Function, and Development, John Wiley &
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Hensel, M 2006, 'Computing Self-Organisation:Environmentally
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gent Technologies & Design: Towards a biological
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Kaandorp, JA and Kübler, JE 2001, The algorithmic beauty
of seaweeds, sponges and corals, Springer, Heidel-
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meij, MJA and Maier, C 2005 'Morphogenesis of the
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580 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

An Artificial Life Approach to Configuring Architectural
Space
Tim Ireland1
1
De Montfort University
1
tireland@dmu.ac.uk

This paper presents a method of configuring architectural space that articulates

the coupling of an organism with its environment; expressing the spatiality of
unfolding engagement in the world. The premise is that space is a consequence of
cohesion, effected through constraints and processes of enaction. An Artificial
Life model is presented as an analogue of a bottom-up approach to architectural
design that takes into account that we as organisms interact with our ever present
changing environment and redefine our spatial domain depending on our sensory
interaction with said environment.

Keywords: Configuration, Agency, Agent-based modelling, Self-organisation

INTRODUCTION operands (i.e., reflection, rotation, subtraction and

Spatial problems are complex. A key constraint in
architectural practice is the general reliance on tra-
ditional methods to organise architectural layouts,
which tend to flatten spatial problems into some-
thing quantifiable so they can be managed and
planned. Approaching the configuration of space in
the standard way raises the question whether any
richness is lost? There is often a qualitative discon-
nect between the articulation of spatiality in the built
environment and the spatiality of being. Material
properties of objects, and the environment, can be
depicted and practical measurements (such as di-
mension, distance, angle, area, and so on) can be
utilised productively to communicate and engineer
our mental and physical environment. Spatial prob-
lems are inherently situated in the world, which we
manage and solve within the confines of geometry.
This is the strength of geometry: that it states general
laws about geometrical objects and scenarios that
we can then apply back to the real world. Simple
so forth) can be utilised in solving spatial problems
to manipulate parameters without questioning the
issue of space. Such mathematical operations pro-
vide a cognitive basis for ordering and manipulating
the environment, and enable us to manage everyday
tasks. More importantly, they allow us to communi-
cate past, current and future spatial scenarios. In a se-
quence of lectures on 'The Relation of Space and Ge-
ometry to Experience' Norbert Wiener claimed that
"geometry is the science of a 'form' into which we cast
our spatial experiences" (Weiner 1976, p95). Space,
he argues, is experiential and that geometry is an ab-
straction of that experience, being a set of rules by
which experience may be replicated.
The spatiality of an organism is an effect of its
distributed cognition. The concept introduced by
Hutchins (1995) is understood as "the ability of an or-
ganism to interact with its environment for the pur-
pose of satisfying its physiological (internal and ex-
ternal) and social needs in order to survive and sus-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 581

 tain itself" (Cardenas-Garcia 2013). The capacity of
an organism to affect its environment is a result of
its mobility and the effect of the environment on
the organism (relative to its objective and subjective
needs), instigating the organism to act in some par-
ticular way. On the basis that design is a construc-
tive activity (Glanville 2006) a distributed cognition
approach to design is proposed, whereby an artifi-
cial archetypal organism is utilised for the purpose of
configuring architectural arrangements. A novel ap-
proach to arranging room layouts is presented; tak-
ing a behavioural approach that builds on aspects
of spatial character and adopts distributed cognition
as a driver to generate layouts. The behaviour of
natural phenomena is leveraged, such that their ac-
tivities and goal seeking behaviour is bent towards
designing. Looking to distributed (swarm) systems
the collective (social) behaviour of natural phenom-
ena is utilised to capitalise on their constructive (i.e.
nest building) and configurational (i.e. food foraging
and agglomeration of slime moulds) activities. Artifi-
cial organisms are used to represent spatial regions,
which self-organise according to association parame-
ters. The resulting configurations are akin to bubble-
diagrams and may thus serve as a basis from which
to develop actual architectural arrangements.
CONFIGURING ARCHITECTURAL LAYOUTS
Planning is the usual way of systematically work-
ing through the arrangement of activities in a build-
ing, and for all intents and purposes is the process
through which an understanding of the building pro-
gram is determined. Working out the organisation
of a building is one of the most important and tax-
ing aspects of the design process concerned with the
physical arrangement of objects and areas to fulfil the
requirements of the diverse human activities perti-
nent to a particular building scenario. The success
of the plan is in abstracting such problems into two-
dimensions to define a plane to render them man-
ageable, so that the numerous intertwined compo-
nents may be arranged. Experience is an asset in
planning, but may be counter-productive as solu-
582 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
tions may remain hidden on the basis of 'what one
knows', or 'what has been done before'. Architects of-
ten fall back on previous plans (as a template) for in-
spiration, enabling one to judge and construct solu-
tion's by interlacing the template with design criteria
of a particular scenario. The problem of organising
plan layouts is combinatorially hard and has received
much attention in the fields of architecture and engi-
neering, particularly since the computer came to be
utilised as a tool for analysis and design.
The field of automatic plan generation is com-
posed of two distinct approaches. (1) optimisation,
which automates planning to present a single 'best
solution' according to specified objective function(s),
(aligned to the objective of shortest path in wiring di-
agrams) and (2) enumeration, which presents possi-
bilities to enable exploration of alternatives. The lat-
ter presents a 'world of alternatives' to open up the
designer to possibilities (Steadman 1970; Mitchell,
Steadman and Liggett 1977; Flemming 1986, 1990).
Another distinction is between methods that are in-
teractive and engage the user. The LOOS model
by Ulrich Flemming (1986, 1990) generated 'loosely
packed' arrangements of rectangles. This diagram-
matic resolution maintained a level of ambiguity
generating partial solutions; seen as a step in the
process towards resolving arrangements, but not to
produce a final layout. Flemming focused on the in-
termediate stage of space allocation to generate ar-
rangements in which rectangles describing crucial
spatial relations between the primary elements are
allocated. Circulation spaces were not specified at
the outset, and so the process generated arrange-
ments containing "gaps or holes that are used later
to allocate auxiliary spaces or that are added to pre-
viously allocated spaces once the shape of the circu-
lation area has been determined" (Flemming 1986,
p192).
Methods to automate the generation of planned
layouts diminished in the mid 80's, by those who pi-
oneered them, because architects in practice were
turned off by the approach and due to three basic
logical difficulties:
 1. The strengths of association between spaces
were defined in practice by surveying patterns
of movement in existing buildings of the same
type - which may of course be the result of the
plans considered. Fundamentally the spatial
relations used to generate a plan were based
on existing plans so in essence what was gen-
erated was a replication, or alternatives of the
same spatial arrangement.
2. Circulation tended to be privileged above
all other generic functions. This is certainly
true of the first group, whereby the result-
ing layouts became optimised on this basis,
which tended to produce centralised layouts,
tightly clustered around the most strongly
connected space(s).
3. Circulation spaces were specified at the out-
set, which is the opposite to what tends to
occur in practice, where circulation is often a
consequence of the room arrangement. Note:
There is an issue of scale here. Specifying cir-
culation in a small house is not unreasonable;
as only a central circulation space, such as a
hall from which all spaces are accessible is re-
quired. Else, in the case of two levels a stair
with landing on the next level is also required,
from where, again all other spaces are acces-
sible.
Recent and current work in the field of auto-
matic plan generation:
There has been a resurgence of interest in the
automatic planning of layouts using a variety of
computing techniques: such as shape grammars
(Duarte 2003); evolutionary methods (Rosenman
1997; Rosenman and Gero 1999; Jo and Gero 1998;
Elezkurtaj and Franck 2002, 1999); physically based
modelling (Arvin and House 1999, 2002, Arvin 2004);
agents (Ophir 2009; Ireland 2010); three-dimensional
planning and conceptual form generation (Hsu and
Krawczyk 2003, 2004; Derix 2010; Ireland and De-
rix 2003). These efforts have occurred both in an
academic and commercial context. The latter has
occurred as a result of architectural practice com-
ing to terms with computation and large architec-
tural practices employing computational design/re-
search teams to operate at the edge of practice and
academia. This re-interest seems to have occurred,
not least because architectural planning is a complex
problem and a key aspect of the design process, but
because no model has yet met the requirements of
practice, and new computational techniques provide
alternative approaches towards achieving this.
One focus of attention in modelling spatial ar-
rangement that is of particular interest to this work
is (what may be called) automatic space adjacency
analysis, because it is focused on the pre-planning
stage aimed at generating partial solutions. Archi-
tects archetypally use space adjacency analysis (such
as bubble diagrams) as a way of considering the lay-
out of functions in a floor plan, to explore relation-
ships among the sizes, adjacencies and approximate
shapes of spaces needed for various activities (White
1986, Do and Gross 2001). A recent example of auto-
matic space adjacency analysis is the tool developed
by the computational design research team at Aedas
(UK) Ltd. for the design of the Abu Dhabi Education
Council's new headquarters (Abrahams 2011). Their
model used an attract-and-repel algorithm to organ-
ise the spatial adjacencies stipulated in the building
brief. (See also Arvin 2004).
Planning is an inherently top-down activity,
which tends to focus on adjacency and connectiv-
ity. There is an inclination to locate areas according
to functional requirements with an emphasis on con-
nectivity according to a scale of importance. Those
which have a high correlation are placed adjacent
to one another, or as close as possible, while oth-
ers are located at decreasing distances according to
the importance of their connectivity. "An adjacency
objective is a topological objective that influences
the distance between two spaces. For example, two
spaces that have a large amount of traffic between
them may be specified with an immediate adjacency"
(Arvin and House 2002). Spatial relations, naturally,
constitute much greater variance than the typical fo-
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 583
 cus allows for. Whilst it is clear that topology is a fun-
damental aspect of reasoning about space qualita-
tively, it only accounts for particular distinctions. In
the context of synthesising spatial relations we need
to be able to examine a relation and account for con-
ditions of both connection and parthood. Taking a
mereotopological approach allows a more encom-
passing approach to establishing spatial relations be-
tween constituents: (see Casati and Varzi 1999).
The approach of Hsu and Krawczyk (2003 and
2004) is of particular interest to this study. They de-
scribe rooms as having characters, making the anal-
ogy between configurations of people and the task
of configuring rooms. "If we consider a space is a
person, and a group of people who gather according
to similar requirements, we can then assume every
space has its own 'space character', either in a very ab-
stract or practical sense, or both" (Hsu and Krawczyk
2003). The relations between rooms, and to a site, are
thus transformed into 'spatial characters' arranged
accordingly in a space-planning program. Hsu and
Krawczyk define space adjacency as behavioural, ap-
plying certain traits of human activity to the param-
eters of a space. For example, a room taking advan-
tage of, or requiring, a view is perceived 'a watcher',
requiring a location against the building perimeter
to take advantage of a particular attraction. The ap-
proach taken in this study is similar, but opens up the
potential of spatial arrangements in a manner reflect-
ing pattern formation in natural systems; which are
not specifically constrained by topological relations.
The model thus reflects a naturalised conception of
space (Ireland 2015) and presents a bottom-up ap-
proach to spatial configuration.
AN ARTIFICIAL LIFE APPROACH
Various organisms have developed the capacity to
modify their environment in such a way that they
construct artefacts. These structures embody the
subject's intelligence, and whilst human-beings may
be understood to create artefacts 'par excellence'
their constructs are ingrained by patterns of inhabi-
tation, which (from an evolutionary perspective) may
584 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
be extended downwards. Scrutinising built struc-
tures enables us to consider 'lived-space' retrospec-
tively as a system of social relations and to thereby
extrapolate particular rules, or patterns, of inhabita-
tion. Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson (1984) trans-
ported themselves within the plans of built forms
to review their organisation, and illustrated how the
configuration of space alters when specified from the
discrete perspective of each room location. Identi-
fying architectural-space to be heterogeneous they
illustrate buildings to be social-systems determined
by the dynamics of habitation. Perceived in this
way architectural-space exhibits structure and con-
stitutes organisation, becoming a sort of medium, es-
tablished through a system of relations.
The model presented draws on the theory of
organism-environment relations by Barry Smith and
Achille Varzi (2002). They define elemental forms
of interaction between organism's, to reflect con-
trasting sorts of interaction and how these affect
the niche of an organism: the niche of an organism
equating to its territory. In short what is proposed is
a general hypothesis for creating causally relevant spa-
tial regions that generate spatial formation in a cell-like
manner; on the basis that the cell is the primal organ-
ism. A cell may be defined, in abstract, as a niche with
the ability to distinguish self from non-self that acts
according to differences in the environment, which
mean something and that this meaning has spatial
consequences according to the significance of the
difference relative to the state of the perceiving 'self'.
The basic component of the model is an actant (a
term borrowed from Bruno Latour (1996) to refer to
an autonomous entity-in-its-environment), which is
an artificial cell-like organism that represents a region
of space. Actants coalesce with one another accord-
ing to their relations to form an aggregation; which
is deemed to represent a pattern of habitation perti-
nent to the spatial-regions represented.
Smith and Varzi identify four elemental forms
of interaction: (a) coupling, (b) nonchalance, (c) en-
counter (which may be a collision or impingement)
and (d) contrast (which may be conflict or incompat-
Figure 1
Scale of
consolidation
ibility). Whilst (b) expresses commonality the other
exchanges lead to deformations of the organisms
niche: the latter (c and d) in terms of negative de-
formation and (a) to positive deformation. These
forms of interaction are extended for this study to de-
fine relation potentials, establishing forms of associ-
ation between one actant and another. These asso-
ciational parameters distinguish the spatial-property
of a relation as a scale, not of dimension, but as a
gradient or degree of consolidation. The relation-
potentials between one actant and another are thus
sub-sumptive. (See Figure 1).
The basic component of the computer
model
An actant represents a region of space, depicted by
a boundary composed of 'boundary-nodes' that are
linked, and describe the actants form. The bound-
ary is a mutable entity, because the boundary-nodes
have the capacity to affect and be affected. Their con-
figuration therefore affects the actants conformation.
The boundary consisting of nodes, which act as the
actants receptors, and effectors, are affected by dif-
ferences detected in the environment. These nodes
(referred to as boundary-receptors) are agents which
move collectively while emitting and responding to
differences. These differences are created by the ac-
tants emitting pheromone, which acts as a signal
to other actants because each actants pheromone
is unique. As a difference , the pheromone can af-
fect the actant by constituting a centrifugal or cen-
tripetal force on the nodes, thereby affecting the ac-
tants current location relative to the difference de-
tected. Fundamentally an actant constitutes an ab-
stract swarm, with the capacity to distinguish self
from non-self. The pheromone an actant emits acts
as a unique signal, identifying itself to other actants.
Each actant thus has an identity, which its compo-
nents share and to which other actants refer. A dif-
ference may therefore be 'observed' by the actant,
through its boundary-receptors as something which
is not an aspect of its identity. The actant will thus
respond to the difference detected by positioning it-
self according to the significance: i.e., the association
with the other actant detected. Consequently, the
actants configure themselves according to those ac-
tants they have an association (or dissociation) with
by responding to their signals. Configuration arises
in the model as a result of boundary conformation,
determined by the way the boundary-receptors re-
spond to differences detected. (See figure 2).
The form of association and behaviour of an ac-
tant is determined by its capacity to sense, and dis-
tinguish differences present in its environment. The
differences thereby have meaning for an actant, act-
ing as a signal, according to the significance of the
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 585
 difference detected. The actants thereby respond to
a difference according to the association. If the as-
sociation is positive an actant will move towards the
difference (i.e. towards the source of production and
thereby moving in the direction of an associate). Oth-
erwise the actant will back off, moving away from the
source in a direction elsewhere from its dissociate.
Figure 3 shows actants responding positively to dif-
ferences they detect in their environment in various
circumstances. In the first instance to a point source,
secondly to a trail and thirdly to another actants sig-
nal.
The actants are building blocks to generate patterns
of configuration autonomously, whose behaviour
may be steered and manipulated to suit particular
objectives, by affecting their associations. An actant
moves through the collective actions of its boundary-
nodes, which move relative to their distance from the
nucleus and nearest boundary-node neighbour. The
former is a simple attract-repel mechanism: if too
close to the nucleus move away and if too far away
it move towards it. The latter a repel mechanism
from the closest boundary-node of the same niche.
This results in a wandering-like behaviour in which
the collective moves in a unified manner, reminiscent
of the movement of amoebae. An actant wanders
in this way for a period until, if no other actants are
sensed, one of its boundary-receptors is selected to
become a 'hunter'. Having been selected the hunt-
ing boundary-receptor will move away from the nu-
cleus, extending its search space to check for asso-
ciate boundary-receptors beyond the niche's imme-
diate vicinity. If another boundary-receptor is per-
ceived the hunter will position itself according to
the relation between the two activity-niches: see
right-hand image of figure 3. Otherwise the hunter
586 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
switches state back to boundary-receptor and settles
back. This hunting action is analogous to the cellu-
lar extensions of amoeboid type cells used in moving
and feeding. The propulsion of the extension can af-
fect the course of the niche's wandering. If no asso-
ciate is sensed after another period of wandering the
hunting behaviour is repeated. The autonomy and
sensorial capacity of an actant means that its form
is changeable. It is a mutable figure affected by the
conditions in which it is situated, which is diachronic:
being affected by motion, the actants composition
and individual relations.
Pheromone Contingency Figure 2
The form of association and behaviour of an ac- An actant: the basic
tant is determined by its capacity to sense, and component of the
distinguish differences present in its environment. model
An actant is equipped with the capacity to 'smell',
which is enabled through the capacity to distinguish
contrasting forms and levels of pheromone. The
pheromone thereby has meaning for the actant, act-
ing as a signal. The actants thereby respond to the
pheromone according to the association, following
pheromone 'uphill' (towards the source of produc-
tion and thereby moving in the direction of an as-
sociate) if there is a positive relation and 'downhill'
(moving away from the source in a direction else-
where from a dissociate) if there is a negative rela-
tion. This mechanism defines attract-repel behaviour
reminiscent of predator-prey relations. With this in
mind the emission of pheromone is determined by
the state of the boundary-nodes, such that they only
emit pheromone when open to being found; imi-
tating slime mould behaviour whereby the individ-
ual spores only emit pheromone when they are in
a state of hunger; causing them to aggregate. Like-
wise, a boundary-node only emits pheromone when
it is not evading and seeking, thereby discouraging
aggregation with dissociates. Since pheromone acts
as a signal it would be perverse to remain signalling
to a dissociate whilst evading, and to inform an asso-
ciate (to whom one is a dissociate) of one's presence,
thereby aiding evasion. To ensure an actant which is
Figure 3
Stills from the
computer model
showing an
activity-niche
responding to
pheromone. (Left)
to a pheromone
source, (centre)
following a
pheromone trail,
and (right)
engaging with an
associate dissociated to that which perceives it an associate is
activity-niche. not disadvantaged its sense of pheromone is more
acute: creating asymmetry in the actants capacity to
sense pheromone. Referring to the hunter/prey con-
dition we can see that an actant that is prey (it is dis-
sociate to another for which it is associate) wants to
evade. It therefore needs to be alert to any encroach-
ment from dissociates, and so the threshold for sens-
ing dissociate pheromone is therefore lower than
for sensing an associate. Alternatively the hunter
wants to be, as it were, 'quick off the mark'. Suc-
cessful evasion/invasion is dependent upon the sit-
uation determined by the trajectory of actants and
the presence (history) of pheromone. This means
that the hunter/prey condition is opportunistic, be-
cause whether the prey evades or the hunter attains
is a matter of directionality. The situation tends to
be better for the 'hunter' if the approach is from the
'front'; which equates to the direction of movement
because the pheromone, as a deposit, tends to form
a trail.
A DISTRIBUTED COGNITION PERSPECTIVE
OF CONFIGURATION
The model presents a process whereby configura-
tion is the result of the multiplicity of interactions
between the actants with their own timing, spacing,
goals, means and ends. At a basic level the attract-
repel mechanism (described above analogically as
predator-prey) relates to contrasting social relations,
defining conditions analogous to situations between
areas which have conflicting social properties, such
as one being public the other private or environmen-
tal properties where the effect of one is noise whilst
the requirement of another is quiet. In such cases
one actant will seek to evade the other. However,
the activities people perform, and the associations
between them are not necessarily fixed. Our activi-
ties may be habitual but they fluctuate depending on
physiological and social needs. Whilst the model as
it stands does not account for such 'fluctuating' con-
ditions the configurations generated are the result
of the actants individual timing, spacing and goals.
(See figure 4). The result of this is that, whilst the re-
sulting configuration satisfies the individual actants
associates the arising configuration is different each
time, because history is a significant aspect of the
model. Also, the actants' 'behaviour' is tensive, be-
cause an actant that has settled (having satisfied its
associations) may become unsettled by other actants
actions. This can cause the overall configuration to
unravel, because if a settled actants associate is un-
settled it is then caused to move; spoiling the settled
actants state of harmony, causing them to re-seek
their state of cohesion. This is good, because the fi-
nal configuration rests on the harmony of all actants
realising their individual relation potentials. Config-
uration in the model is aggregative.
The individual actants conformation and thus
the concluding configuration are determined by the
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 587
 behaviour of the population. Looking back at the
middle image of figure 3, we see an actant respond-
ing to a pheromone trail. The actant is in the process
of adapting to its environment according to the dif-
ferences it 'perceives'. Relating this to how people re-
spond to their changing environment, and how our
activities change or the way we alter our surround-
ings to reflect (for example) a changing climate we
can see how the actants transformation reflects this:
changing from one stable state to another. Before
detecting the pheromone it is in one state, but hav-
ing detected 'a difference' it responds to that differ-
ence (and follows the pheromone trail) and settles
into another state once that difference has been 'ac-
commodated': i.e. it reconfigures its boundary con-
formation to changing conditions. The model re-
flects how an organism moves from a stable spa-
tial domain, representing a given understanding of
588 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
said spatial domain at a specific time, to another sta-
ble but different spatial domain due to the organism
sensing changes in its environment and adapting to
such changes. For example, in much the same way
that the internal state of an organism may change
according to external perturbations, an inhabitant
sensing a changing climate may alter the configu-
ration of his or her living quarters to accommodate
or embrace changing external conditions: thereby
satisfying physiological needs. The model is an ana-
log of a bottom-up approach to architectural design
that takes into account that we as organisms inter-
act with our ever present changing environment and
redefine our spatial domain depending on our sen-
sory interaction with said environment. The changes
affecting our sensory interaction are not only phys-
iological, but are social too. For example, whilst we
might engage in seasonal changes of our living quar-
Figure 4
Actants settled in
different
configurations
according to their
associations
ters due to perceiving changes in our spatial domain
consequent to external conditions, changes may also
occur as a result of social or life events.
The relation between one actant and another is
causal, the significance of which is contingent on the
conditions particular to each actant. Each actant de-
posits a unique pheromone, thereby identifying itself
to other actants. The actants thus configure them-
selves according to those actants they have an asso-
ciation (or dissociation) with by responding to their
pheromone. The point being that the 'form' of the
pheromone relates to what meaning it holds for the
individual actants. The pheromone may represent
many other factors other than whether one activity
relates to another: such as daylight, noise, a view,
and so forth because the pheromone simply repre-
sents a difference; which (if the pheromone repre-
sents something of significance to an actant) is some-
thing which either attracts or repels an actant.
CONCLUSION
What has been presented is a conceptual material-
isation of spatial configuration, in a way reflecting
the behaviour of spatial formation found in natural
systems: such as slime mould aggregation. By tak-
ing such cases into account, the model here pre-
sented can serve as a starting point for an artificial
life approach to generating architectural layouts. The
model illustrates a novel user-centic method, tak-
ing a behavioural approach that accounts for an or-
ganisms sensorial engagement with its environment,
and demonstrates a general hypothesis for creating
causally relevant spatial regions that generate spatial
formation in a cell-like manner.
As it stands the model does not generate results
an architect may utilise. The computer model needs
further development and, as is, stands as a rhetor-
ical device for the theoretical perspective and ap-
proach argued for. There are two significant issues,
which the results (figure 4) illustrate, that require at-
tention. (1) the actants associations are purely sub-
jective, which leads to (2) the models practical imple-
mentation. The actants should have objective, as well
as subjective, parameters to satisfy, such as main-
taining a min-max area. Of the relation-potentials
presented (figure 1) only weak overlap, coincidence
and disjunction are accounted for. The computer
model demonstrates a scale-of convergence but ex-
tending it to allow for greater variance would enrich
its output. Development of the model lies, initially,
with resolving these two key aspects. Further devel-
opment lies in extending the forms of pheromone,
so as to incorporate site contingent factors such as
views, access and environmental constraints, so that
the actants may respond to greater variances. Fur-
ther enhancement of the actants sensorial capacity
would benefit the ability of actants to engage with
differences present in their environment. A question
then stands as to whether the computer model is to
be taken as a conceptual diagramming tool (along
the lines of Flemmings (1990) LOOS programme) or
is developed for more practical consideration. The
author suggests the former most beneficial, so that
the model stands as an explorative aid rather than a
tool for solving planning problems. Developing the
model into 3dimensions would extend it beyond the
standard 2dimensional perspective adopted in plan-
ning and serve to articulate Smith and Varzi's (2002)
general theory of causally relevant spatial volumes.
THANKS
This paper stems from my PhD thesis (completed
2013). I thank my supervisors Philip Steadman and
Paul Coates for their input, encouragement and sup-
port, and the EPSRC for funding. Thanks also to Jaime
Cardenas-Garcia for his on going discussion and in-
put on distributed cognition and relevance to the
computer model.
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Geometric Identity of Living Structures Translated to an
Architectural Design Process
Ricardo Gago1 , Luís Romão2
1
Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon / CIAUD 2 Faculty of Architecture,
University of Lisbon
1
umassena@gmail.com 2 lromao@fa.ulisboa.pt

Biological life manifests in space through a large diversity of physical structures

perfectly bind and identifiable in the environment. This reveals that all share a
common generative design process which allows them the same physical identity
in all the shapes that generates, The human ecological design process used in
architecture is not able yet to reach this design identity neither the spontaneous
integration associates to it. Why? Because the geometrical design process used
in ecological architecture and living structures are not similar. Thus, this paper
proposes, through the identification of some geometrical characteristics from the
growth mechanism of living structures, a process of shape generation through
shape grammar. With this generation process is possible to generate, only in
geometrical terms, a large diversity of architectural models with a common
identity, that reveals some geometrical characteristics of spatial integration that
living structures share with the surround environment.

Keywords: Ecology, Geometry, Bio-design

INTRODUCTION to review different ecological design processes (Nery

This investigation presents initial results from an on-
going research, which aspires to increase the knowl-
edge in the development of an ecological design pat-
tern able to decrease the formal border between hu-
man and living structures. This study, approach the
ecological design pattern only in terms of geome-
try, more precisely, the geometric characteristics of
the growth mechanisms. Through a design process,
this investigation demonstrates how growth process
and the geometric characteristics associated to it,
are crucial to emerge in living structures a geomet-
ric identity with structural optimization and a spon-
taneous spatial integration. So this research start
Oxman, Rachel Armstrong, Joachim Mitchell, Achim
Menges, Magnus Larsson, Sanfte Strukturen) and in-
terpretations of natural geometry (Maggie Macnab,
John Blackwood, Peter Pearce, D'arcy Thompson,
Christopher Alexander). With this information is de-
fined a set of geometrical characteristics which are
translated to a shape grammar language. Finally,
through shape grammar rules is developed a process
of shapes generation. The generated shapes allow to
reach the follow conclusions: 1) the design method is
crucial to generate shapes that can reach some levels
of spontaneous integration on the environment and
2) the spontaneous integration can only be reached

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 591

 when the geometric compositions reveal structural
optimization, which in geometry terms means that
shapes can be only composed by the geometric el-
ements that they need to exist.
AIMS
This investigation aspires to increase the knowledge
on the geometrical complexity level of ecological
pattern (Loehle, 2004). The choice of approach ecol-
ogy by a geometric perspective arises from an idea
defended by Alexander. He argued that the quality
of the human architectural shape is directly related
with its integration capacity in the environment. In
his view, today's architecture is very poor, because it
is completely separate from the nature design logic.
Alexander defends that the most successfully archi-
tecture is the one that contain some of the geomet-
rical characteristics of the living structures, i.e. char-
acteristics from the maximum example of shape in-
tegration in the environment. To do these analogies,
he defines a set of geometrical characteristics of the
living structures identity. He concludes that architec-
tural structures do not achieve the same integration
ability in the environment like living structures have,
because these geometric characteristics are not all
present in the geometric composition of the architec-
tural structures. So to "restore" the architectural qual-
ity, he proposes that human design process have to
change to a similar to the living structures. In order
to respond to that challenge, the main goal of this in-
vestigation is the development of a design process,
only in geometric essence, able to generate architec-
tural structures with the geometrical qualities of liv-
ing structures identity. To reach that goal, this inves-
tigation aims the following points: 1) identify a set
of geometrical characteristics of the living structures
shape identity, 2) develop a design tool able to gen-
erate shapes that reflect simultaneously all these ge-
ometric characteristics in the same structure, 3) gen-
erate tridimensional models able to be used in hu-
man activities.
592 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
SIGNIFICANCE
The geometric design process developed arises in
the ecological design field as a proposal to gener-
ate human structures through a biologic perspective.
The reason to focus the ecological design by this field,
is to inform that biological structures, which are the
maximum ecological reference, are built with a spe-
cific kind of geometry that allow their easy identifica-
tion in the environment, but also allows to achieve
all ecological qualities related to optimization and
spatial integration known. So if the aim of ecologi-
cal design is to achieve the ecologic pattern, in our
opinion, architecture must share the same geomet-
ric identity of living structures. In this investigation,
the geometrical characteristics identify in the growth
mechanisms of this particular geometry, allow us to
develop, only in geometric essence, a design process
able to achieve some of the geometrical qualities of
spatial integration reveal by living structures and also
reveal how living structures optimize the structural
elements that use in their shapes. So, these success-
ful achievements can be a reason to inform others re-
search lines in ecologic design, that this kind of ge-
ometry can have some particular influence on their
optimization goals, which in social terms, can be very
relevant in ecologic and economic factors. In the aca-
demic terms, this geometrical design process can be
introduced as a drawing tool that allows experiment-
ing a different process of space conception. This may
enhance our capabilities to create and explore differ-
ent space solutions for human activities, which is one
of the main goals of designers and architects.
BACKGROUND
In the last years have emerged, in the ecological de-
sign field, several research lines that develop human
structures without copying directly natural shapes,
but through the implementation of design processes
based in structural characteristics of these shapes.
These research lines can be interpreted through two
distinct groups: digital morphogenetic (Hensel et al,
2006; Menges, 2012; Oxman, 2010) and living archi-
tectures (Armstrong, 2012; Larsson, [1]; Mitchell, [2];
 Strukturen, [3]) .The main intention of digital mor- living structures. The big difference between the two
phogenetic research line is to understand the rela- is that Alexander argued that the identity of some-
tions between geometry and material optimization thing is inseparable from the process as this gener-
taking into account the materials properties, the cli- ates, while Macnab interprets the identity of living
mate factors and the structure purpose (figure 1). In structures as a set of geometric qualities additions. It
the case of the living architecture the main inten- will be Alexander characteristics set more complete
tion is also the material optimization, but through that the others? Its set of geometric characteristics al-
a different perspective, by using living structures it- ready includes in general, the geometric characteris-
self as constructive materials or using their metabolic tics of other references. This means that the interpre-
qualities to produce materials able to generate the tation of geometric characteristics through a growth
structures (figure 2). All these different approaches process, already encompasses concerns of identity
shows that material optimization reveal a change and variation by diversification (figure 4).
of geometry in the physical structures when com-
Figure 1 pared with the ones that resulting through the hu-
Digital man design processes used today. This geometry
Morphogenetic. 1) also shows other relevant qualities. The shapes re-
Medusa 2 - Neri veal a geometrical identity closer to the one of the liv-
Oxman (left), 2) ing structures and a more ability of integration with
Hygroscope - Achim the environment. So, if the aim of ecological concept
Menges (right). is to achieve the structural qualities of the identity
shape on those living structures, then, in our opin-
ion, one aims at unraveling what kind of geometric
Figure 2 patterns and form generation process needs to be in-
Living architecture / terpreted so that the human structures start reflect-
metabolic process. ing in their structural compositions, patterns of op-
1)Protocells - Rachel timization and spontaneous integration of the living
Armstrong (left). 2) structures.
Turning dunes into The natural geometry has been studied through
architecture - at least three different types of approaches: growth
Magnus Larsson ( Alexander, 2001; Thompson, 1992), identity (Mac-
(right). nab, 2011) and minimal inventory / maxium diversity
(Blackwood, 2012, Pearce, 1978). Both Blackwood as
Figure 3 Pearce, focus their research only in a geometric qual-
Living architecture / ity of living structures, the first deepening the sym-
living material. 1) metry and the second morphological character. All
Fab tree house - other features that they referenced are complemen-
Joachim Mitchell tary to these. The same applies to Thompson, fo-
(left). 2) Auerworld cusing only on allometry, i.e. the proportional rela-
Palace - Sanfte tionships of forms during the process of growth and
Strukturen (right). evolution. Alexander and Macnab already addressed
the geometry of living structures in a different way.
They look for a set of characteristics, in order that to-
gether they can reproduce the geometric identity of

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 593


RESULTS
Design process _ Geometrical characteris-
tics
Being one of the research goals, the generation of
architectural models with the geometric qualities of
living structures identity, this intention will require
a generation process that allows to create a wide
range of shapes with the same geometric identity.
According to Alexander, the phenomenon of life do
it, but the geometric characteristics that his iden-
tity imposes only emerge in the structures if they
are generated by growth mechanisms. Therefore, it
seems clear that the adopt design process to gener-
ate models with the identity of living structures, one
should support the geometric features inherent to
the growth process of the same. Which are the struc-
tural requirements evidenced by the growth phe-
nomenon? Growth always begins with something
that expands and never ceases to be an integral part
of the environment that contains it. It is, therefore,
a process which comprises at least three parameters:
origin, expansion and connection (figure 5).
594 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 4
Author's geometric
characteristics.
Figure 5
Three structural
particularities of
growth process
Which particularities of formal design are associ-
ated with each of these parameters? The origin, re-
gardless of its geometric configuration, is always the
source of all the information that will give body to
the structure. It will define the morphological charac-
ter of the structure as well as the relations that need
to exist between the elements given a particular pur-
pose of structural cohesion. Therefore, the geomet-
ric characteristics associated with the origin, include
the definition of a geometric vocabulary and the def-
inition of the proportions ratios for the elements of
the vocabulary and which are approached under the
theme allometry (figure 6). The expansion, in turn,
focuses on how the reproduction of the origin takes
place and on the cohesive way in which this repro-
duction propagates in space. This requires as geo-
metric characteristics the repetition and the gener-
Figure 6
Origin geometrical
characteristics. 1)
Geometric
vocabulary - All
living structure
result from a
combination
between structural
shapes and
expansive shapes.
2) Proportion - The
proportion ratio
between adjacent
elements have to
reflect harmonious
variations.

ator center, and this is approached under the theme
structural expansion (figure 7). Finally, the connec-
tion focuses on how the structures work with the sur-
rounding environment, in order to become an inte-
gral part of it. Therefore, the geometric characteristic
associated with the connection, is the union and it is
discussed under the topic of spatial integration (fig-
ure 8).
Design process _ shape generation
How is made the transfer of these geometric char-
acteristics to the design process? By creating rules
described with the graphic and algebraic languages
of shape grammars (Stiny, 2008). This grammar will
divide the shape generation process in four distinct
phases: global rules, shape delimitation rules, local
rules and spatial rules, each one with its own rules. It
must be pointed out further that the elaborate gram-
mar is a parametric grammar. This means that the
rules must be interpreted by geometric parameters
and not by the dimensional accuracy of their geom-
etry in the graphic description of them.
Shape grammars rules
Global rules - Living structures proliferate in space by
growth levels. They are so important in the geomet-
ric composition of the shapes that all structural ele-
ments are organized by their rules. This suggests that
growth levels play an important structural basis role.
Thus, it seems important and clear that the first phase
of the design process is intended to generate a struc-
tural basis where will be referenced all the following
phases. Therefore, global rules define the structural
basis rules. They control the proportional relation-
ship of the shapes as well the proportional variations
between the structural elements which embody the
shapes. The rules developed to this phase will only
contemplate wave expansion (figure 9).
Shape delimitations rules - These rules are based
on the union geometrical characteristics of the liv-
ing structures growth mechanisms. Their purpose is
to generate irregular shapes contour over the struc-
tural basis, able to reveal the multi diverse connectiv-
ity of the union principles. For this operation a guide
mesh of points is introduced over the expansion lev-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 595

 Figure 7
Structural Growth
geometrical
characteristics. 1)
Growth center -
Living structures
are generated from
a center through
growth levels. 2)
Repetition - The
structural
composition result
from the repitition
of elements with
spatial exclusivity.

Figure 8
Connection
geometrical
characteristics. 1)
Union - The
connection with the
surround require
irregular limits with
multi-diverse
irregularities.

596 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2

Figure 9
Shape generation
design process.
Examples of some
grammar rules in
each phase.

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 597


els rings. These points will be the contour guide refer-
ence of shapes. The union of the selected points will
be made by concave or convex lines in order to in-
crease the shape connectivity with the environment
(figure 9).
Local rules - These rules correspond to the shape
materialization stage. It is the stage where the phys-
ical structure is generated. These rules will generate
the structural shapes of the geometric composition
one by one, from the geometrical qualities of the ini-
tial shape. To generate these shapes is applied the
voronoi diagram concept. To simplify the generation
process of structural shapes, this grammar only con-
templates the use of polygonal shapes (figure 9).
Spatial Rules - The purpose of these rules is to
transfer the two dimensional geometric composition
defined in phase 3, to a curved surface in space. Two
geometric surfaces are used as the basis for this trans-
fer, the torus and the sphere. Both surfaces share the
main structure quality of the geometrical composi-
598 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 10
Example of a
bidimensional
geometric
composition
transferred to a
torus surface.
Figure 11
Example of a
bidimensional
geometric
composition
transferred to a
sphere surface.
tion, the expansion from a center. Thus, the surfaces
centers will be the base reference to transfer the bidi-
mensional composition into space. The concavity of
these curved surfaces allows enclose internal space.
This particularity gives to these compositions a struc-
tural purpose of "shelter", which enables the human
occupation (figure 9, 10 and 11).
Validation
The design process proposed, generate shapes
whose structural composition reflects the geometri-
cal characteristics identified as crucial to the growth
mechanism of living structures. The shape structural
elements reveal the same geometric familiarity. All
are polygons. These polygons are distributed by the
structural composition through an expansive shape
(wave). The proportion ratios between them also re-
spect the scale variations of harmonious proportions.
The structural composition is generated from a cen-
ter through growth levels. The composition is struc-
Figure 12
Validation schema.
tured through the repetition of familiar geometrical
elements with spatial exclusivity qualities. They do
not share anything with other shapes or elements.
They are clear, simples and irregulars. The resulting
spatial exclusivity of the combination of all the ele-
ments reveals a vibrant geometrical pattern (rough-
ness). The shapes union with the environment is
strong. They contain boundaries with a large diver-
sity of connection with the environment. The result
is a strong "friction" between shapes and environ-
ment. The result of combining all these features in
one structure only, is compact, cohesive and non uni-
form shapes. So, the geometric design process pro-
posed, respond positively to the challenge of being
able to generate a wide range of geometric shapes
with the same identity and to the challenge of gen-
erate shapes that reveals a geometric pattern more
similar to the ones existing in the living structures.
CONCLUSIONS
This investigation shows through a geometrical de-
sign process that is become necessary to change the
design process for the architecture start to demon-
strate simultaneously in the same geometric compo-
sition, the geometrical characteristics of living struc-
tures identity that Alexander advocates as crucial to
the architectural quality in terms of spatial integra-
tion of the shapes in the natural surroundings. The
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 599
 major change is the interpretation of shape gener-
ation through a perspective of growth mechanisms.
These mechanisms require that the shape genera-
tion be always made from the geometric qualities
present in the geometric composition before each
transformation. This fact shows the crucial role of
each element in the geometric composition and in
its cohesion. So in ecological terms, what can be de-
duced from growth mechanisms is that these are cru-
cial in the optimization of structural elements, be-
cause its generation requirements only use the nec-
essary elements to its composition, without leftover
elements. So, it is important to pass for community
that the growth mechanism have an important role
in the structure optimization and inform others re-
searches lines which operate in the ecological pat-
tern for this fact. The idea is to see how this informa-
tion can influence their optimization goals and how
their results, may in turn, influence this research. In
terms of architecture, the geometrical design pro-
cess developed reveal that is able, only in geomet-
ric essence, to generate space for human activities
through a diverse range of shapes that reveal the ge-
ometrical characteristics of the living structures iden-
tity identified. Right now, the design process only ex-
plores the spherical and the torus surface. The idea is
to add in the future more complex surfaces which al-
low exploring different types of architectural spaces.
In this stage of the investigation, the models gen-
erated through the chosen surfaces give the idea of
portable "shelters", but the generation process can-
not be restricted only to that, because these geomet-
ric compositions can be influenced by scale. So, this
design process suggests that scale can diversify the
applications in the architectural field, which shows
how versatile it can be for architecture and for all the
design in general.
REFERENCES
Alexander, Christopher 2001, The nature of order: An es-
say on the art of building and the nature of the uni-
verse, The center for environmental structure, Cali-
fornia
600 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Armstrong, Rachel 2012, Living architecture: How syn-
thetic biology can remake our cities and reshape our
lives, Ted Books, New York
Blackwood, John 2012, Geometry in nature: Exploring the
morphology of natural world through projetive geom-
etry, Floris Book, Edinburgh
Hensel, Michael, Menges, Achim and Weinstock, Michael
2006, Architectural Design: Techniques and technolo-
gies in morphogenetic design, John Wiley & Sons,
London
Loehle, Craig 2004, 'Challenges of ecological complexity',
Ecological complexity, 1, pp. 3-6
Macnab, Maggie 2011, Design by nature: Using universal
forms and principles in design, New Readers, Berkeley
Menges, Achim 2012, Architectural Design: Material com-
putation, higher interation in morphogenetic design,
John Wiley & Sons, London
Okabe, Atsuyubi, Boots, Barry, Sugihara, Kokichi, Chiu,
Sung Nok and Kendal, D.G. 2008, Spatial tessella-
tions: Concepts and applications of voronoi diagrams,
John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey
Oxman, Neri 2010, Material-based design computation,
Ph.D. Thesis, MIT
Pearce, Peter 1978, Structure in nature is a strategy for de-
sign, The MIT Press, Cambridge
Stiny, George 2008, Shape: Talking about seeing and do-
ing, The MIT Press, Cambridge
Thompson, D'arcy Wentworth 1992, On growth and
form: the complete revised edition, Dover Publica-
tions, New York
[1] http://tedxproject.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/mag
nus-larsson-turning-dunes-into-architecture/
[2] http://www.archinode.com/fab-tree-hab.html
[3] http://www.sanftestrukturen.de/Weidenbau/Weiden
bau.html
Error as Optimization
Using Cellular Automata Systems to Introduce Bias in Aggregation Models
through Multigrids

Yota Adilenidou1
1
The Bartlett, UCL
1
yota@arch-hives.net

This paper is focusing on the idea of error as the origin of difference in form but
also as the path and the necessity for optimization. It describes the use of
Cellular Automata (CA) for a series of structural and formal elements, whose
proliferation is guided through sets of differential grids (multigrids) and leads to
the buildup of big span structures and edifices as, for example, a cathedral.
Starting from the error as the main idea/tool for optimization, taxonomies of
morphological errors occur and at a next step, they are informed with contextual
elements to produce an architectural system. A toolbox is composed that can be
implemented in different scales and environmental parameters, providing
variation, optimization, complexity and detail density. Different sets of
experiments were created starting from linear structural elements and continuing
to space dividers and larger surface components.

Keywords: Cellular Automata, Semi-randomness, Generative Design,

Morphology Optimization

INTRODUCTION Error relates to imperfections arising from mu-

An error is actually a very simple process of devia-
tion and a time based procedure. It is argued that
it is not a random event, but on the contrary, a very
important part of the process. In fact, it is seem-
ingly random only for the external viewers of the
system. Errors are significant for the evolution and
development of form, as they constitute an origin
of difference. (Adilenidou 2014) They result from
the flow of information that reaches the rule�based
model, which is not only different each time but
also self�reorganized and self�rearranged through
the same basic set of rules and inputs.
tations of ideal bodies and geometries. It relates to
symmetry breaking and repetitive variations, muta-
tions of perfect bodies. According to Greg Lynn, com-
menting on Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry,
the necessity of the mutation iterations of a perfect
form is more important than the ideal geometry it-
self. (Lynn 1998)
The research is situated in the general framework
of computation while it provides experimentation
using Cellular Automata (CA) systems. CA systems
have been used extensively in the area of computa-
tion. In the specific research they are used in com-

Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 601


bination to differentiated multi-grids that are able to
mutate before and during the process of CA prolifer-
ation through generations, leading to a different out-
come and application from other CA projects, while
deforming the very defined and static background of
the system.
ERROR, EVOLUTION AND OPTIMIZATION
Sean Carroll explains in his book Endless Forms Most
beautiful (Caroll 2005) the stages of development of
an embryo to a fully developed body. The points
(coordinates) of the embryo geometric ideal surface
is referenced to the elements of the final body for-
mation, the surface, pattern, layers, organs and ap-
pendages. Matter is organized with the help of
the embryo "manual", the genotype. In its coordi-
nates, the information of body structure and growth
is found. Carroll talks about the geography of the em-
bryo as a system of longitudes and latitudes evenly
arranged and dividing the embryo. Longitudes are
referring to the pattern of the body, the repetitive
parts and the way they are varied through the body
via development. Latitudes refer to the surface and
the layers below, epidermis, mesoderm and other tis-
sues. The intersections of longitudes and latitudes
602 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 1
Mesh resulting from
poin clouds
give the points were the appendages and organs
will grow to other directions of the embryo para-
metric space. Carroll also mentions a region in the
embryo responsible for its organization, called the
"organizer" (Carroll 2005) that holds the structure of
body together and maintains the order. Any change
in the organizer will cause disorder and will upset the
equilibrium.
The development process depends upon an au-
tomated procedure. A small set of similar genes pro-
duce a countless number of animal species. Switches
turned from on to off (repressors - activators), turn on
and off specific digit parts of the body on growth and
act as operating instructions for the genetic toolkit,
affecting the body pattern, its layering and exten-
sions (Carroll 2005) Carroll is talking about episodes
instead of instantaneous events - environmental
changes or chance that affect this automated pro-
cess. While the switches circuit is assembled, fail-
ures take place that produce errors in body symme-
try, changes in morphology as well as in the use
of appendages, creating advanced new bodies and
species. In this way, errors or otherwise, deviations
from the default, are leading to optimized forms
and structures that are adjusted to their environ-
ment. These symmetry breaking changes are also de-
scribed in Bateson's Materials on the Study of Vari-
ation. (Bateson 1894) We can trace here a very im-
portant relation between error, variation, and opti-
mization. The body works with a repetitive structure
of digits that create a pattern describing the form of
each animal. The digits are proliferated in different
sizes according to the rules described above. In this
process we can trace an amount of randomness that
is filtered with a set of defined instructions leading to
seemingly random results.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND AIMS
The question that arises is if we can invent a process
for creating an error system as a response to opti-
mization. How an error, a deviation from the default,
as an origin of evolution, is related to variation and
optimization in architectural design? And how can
this be implemented in structure, fabrication and for-
mal investigation? Repetition and semi�randomness
are used as a part of this mechanism. So, if we involve
randomness as a partial error initiator how does this
relate to the control of a designer-author over the fi-
nal outcome, how does it affect the design research?
And finally, how are we able to control the digital or
analogue tools we are creating?
The aim of this research is to create an architec-
tural system that is able to evolve, self� calculate its
properties, and control the production of strength,
robustness, spatial complexity and consistency vari-
ation. Also, to create a toolbox of elements that can
lead to outcomes of different scales, leading to for-
mal, structural and spatial explorations.
DESIGN METHODOLOGY
Cellular Automata (CA) systems are used to simulate
a body development process in design. Stephen Wol-
fram talks about complexity arising from simplicity
in his CA structures (Wolfram 2002) The role of the
initial seeds arrangement in the resulting patterns is
very important as described by Wolfram and Packard.
Organized initial seeds can lead to symmetric pat-
terns while the same rules with disorganized (ran-
dom) seeds can lead to disorganized patterns. On
the other hand, there are CA structures, where very
symmetrical and organized patterns arise from dis-
organized initial seeds while following certain rules.
(Packard and Wolfram 1985) Disorganized seeds can
be considered as errors introduced to the system,
while locally disorganized resulting patterns can be
read as pseudo-errors of the system although they re-
sult from defined rules.
In the design research model, the proposed
structure of errors consists of the cellular system and
the multigrid. Like in nature, matter is distributed
and is fastened together by the interaction between
cells. A cellular automaton model is used to guide
the formations around the differential and multi�part
grid, creating point clouds, which will be meshed to
provide topology and space. Instead of the Cartesian
grid a more rotational, multipolar grid is introduced
which is also extended in a proliferation of polar ar-
rays and their in between Boolean operation. By sub-
divisions of the perfect volumes, we are found in front
of a new multi�polar, multi�scale, subdivided grid.
(Figure 2)
If the grid is a medium between the author of the
project and the builder (Carpo, 2011) but more im-
portantly the mean between idea and fabrication, or
the network and the mass, can we introduce different
types of grid, grids that result from complex systems
as cellular automata, agent systems, fractal and iter-
ative systems. It is a non�static grid, a grid that read-
justs, a grid that changes, that is transformed and car-
ries the geometry with it. A similar grid is created by
Gaudi with the interaction and repetition of his ruled
surfaces in Sagrada Familia.
In the experiments illustrated in this paper, the
grid results from the edit points of a set of mul-
tiple polar arrays of curves that intersect creating
Boolean operations in between the wireframes of
different centers. The local behavior of cells is mu-
tated via a set of errors / external conditions based
on proximity, topology of the cell and cell aggrega-
tion. The outcome of this process is a number of
bodies of deviated topology and structural behavior,
re�establishing locally broken symmetries. The error
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 603

is found either on the curve� grid or on the sudden
change of rules of the cellular automaton.
Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is used as an exam-
ple model for investigating the complexity of form
emerging through perfect polar geometries and in-
tersections of simple ruled surfaces that become sub-
divisions, increasing detail and resolution. (Burry,
Burry, 2012) This research attempts to revisit the
connection between the use of absolute geome-
tries, symmetries, and Boolean operations. Their dis-
tortions become "decorative elements", elements of
complexity production and real�time matter distri-
bution, displayed in a series of new prototypes, vir-
tual and physical that examine error and randomness
as a convolution primary ingredient. Boolean opera-
tion acts as an agent of complexity, sub�division, in-
ward self�repetition, it sculpts the surfaces, it read-
justs the topology of the design object.
604 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 2
Multigrids
GAUDI'S SAGRADA FAMILIA CASE STUDY
While the research has started with design tests that
were linear and were consisting more of structural
components than spatial distribution elements (Fig-
ure 3), the detail resolution and the sculpting quali-
ties that the experiments revealed from the very be-
ginning, led the discussion to the Gothic architecture
and the sculpting methodologies of Gaudi in Sagrada
Familia. The multigrid of polar arrays of curves, de-
scribed above, found reference to the curves that
were guiding the form and the detail in gothic el-
ements, describing the geometry of ruled surfaces
that were intersecting, while they were transferring
load and matter. This grid that emerges from the
gothic nerves, holds all the information of detail
intensity, affects perforation, and light distribution.
While in Gothic Architecture the ruled surface is the
receiver of subcomponents of a different resolution
and form, in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, the ruled sur-
face becomes the subcomponent. The detail and
sculpting results arise from the multiplication of the
Figure 3
Initial vertical
elements
ruled surface, its rotational array and its intersection
with its neighboring subcomponents-ruled surfaces.
The proliferation of clear geometrical forms becomes
origin of complexity. These surface subdivisions were
transferred in the digital interface by Mark and Jane
Burry as Boolean operations in order to recreate the
methodology via computation.
APPLICATION - THE CATHEDRAL
While the methodology of the research was com-
pared and connected to the multi-grids resulting
from intersecting ruled surfaces of Gothic Architec-
ture and Gaudi's sculpting methods, the Cathedral
was a perfect application model for the next set of
experiments. The plan typology of the cathedral was
kept intact and was used as a base for the creation
of multi-grids. The aim was not to reinvent a new
spatial arrangement but to rewrite the same spatial
relationships through a different vocabulary aiming
at a new type of spatial experience. As a first step,
the parts of the cathedral were categorized and in-
troduced defined polar grids of multiple centers. The
grids created through these centers varied in scale,
resolution, and density, as well as in boundary condi-
tions according to the different spatial needs, the size
of the specific cathedral part, its location to the whole
system and its neighboring conditions, the context
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 605

conditions and the relation of the cathedral with the
immediate environment of the city. This process led
to taxonomies of elements, structural and spatial, but
also to a pattern of directions and matter distribution.
The multi-grid was used as a base for the cellular au-
tomata aggregation.
The cathedral and its parts still keep some ob-
ject qualities of the initial tests but this time the ob-
ject is dispersed and its boundaries are dissolved in
order to make it interact with the neighborhoods.
CA rules are transformed trough context geometry
but also through environmental data in order to pro-
vide boundary conditions, openings, and perfora-
tion, light and shadow distribution, as well as dec-
oration and sculpting. The symmetry of the typical
cathedral plan is readjusted and mutated. The initial
seeds arrangement is also mutated according to en-
vironmental factors to provide alterations in density
606 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 4
Multi-grids creating
the central linear
core of the
cathedral and the
resulting point
cloud
but also changes in the local areas of the pattern, af-
fecting the sculpting, the perforation of the surfaces
as well as the volume aggregation for structural ca-
pacity. Although the linearity of the cathedral is kept,
the resolution of the grid with more than 600.000 re-
sulting editing points from polar curves of different
centers and different array density, created intricate
outcomes of high complexity.
The surfaces of the parts of the cathedral, the
narthex, the nave, the cloister, the choir and the
transept (Figure 5) are constructed through a point
cloud extracted from the CA aggregation through
the grids. The linear core can result to various out-
comes with curves of different shapes arrayed around
the same centers. (Figure 6) Mutation of the initial
seeds and the CA code is reshaping and breaking the
symmetry. The two mirrored parts of the cathedral
typology are differentiated although they are result-
Figure 5
Central part of the
cathedral – the
solidification
provides bearing
walls and space
divisions
ing from grids of the same initial center points. The
same set of "genes" with different "initial switches" re-
sult to loss of information, local differentiation, and
symmetry imperfection. (Figure 6)
In the surface sculpting of Gaudi, we can read
the use of simple surfaces as a subcomponent for the
creation of detail and complexity. The proliferation
of the ruled surfaces, hyperboloids and paraboloids,
and their intersection was creating carving patterns,
on the larger surfaces of the Sagrada Familia cathe-
dral. Polar arrays of intersecting surfaces in different
angles, directions, densities, and repetitions was pro-
ducing a result of maximum detail intensity. Inspired
by this methodology, a different set of experiments
was introduced. In the previous examples, the linear
typology of a cathedral was simulated through differ-
ent polar grids creating space distribution and struc-
tural elements. In the next experiments, Boolean op-
erations will be used in order to create surface resolu-
tion and decoration, using the resulting elements as
perforation and surface sculpting. The grids are again
initiating the process but instead of space distribu-
tors they play the role of surface subdivision guides.
(Figure 7)
The base used for the experiments was a set
of Boolean union surfaces that were copied and ro-
tated around a center creating a pattern. The ex-
tracted wireframe of these surfaces became the grid
of curves upon which the CA would be arranged and
would generate the point clouds. The first tests were
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 607

examining conditions of bridging floor and ceiling
through vaults while the next tests were focused into
creating parts of the cathedral ceiling. The surface di-
vision resulting from Boolean geometries is reflecting
the space distribution below, while it allows connec-
tivity with the environment, through perforation that
breaks the solidification of forms created by the CA
aggregation. (Figure 8) The Boolean operations are
breaking the rotational symmetry of surfaces as they
alter the perfect ruled surface by subtracting a part
from it. By mutating the code and the initial seeds
we end up with many variations that are used accord-
ingly in different parts of the ceiling.
608 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 6
Different
aggregations
investigating the
central long part of
the cathedral –
choir, nave and
transept
FABRICATION
In the first stage of the fabrication, Makerbot 3D
printers were used. The forms were cut into 3d bricks
in the size of the 3d printer plate in order to achieve a
larger scale model. As a next step, UR10 robots are
used for 3d printing with a custom made extruder.
This process can allow for external parameters, act-
ing at the time of fabrication, including sensorial in-
tervention, working in parallel to the code and affect-
ing the movement of the robot while introducing an
extra level of error to the final system model.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper a number of experiments were pre-
sented, that using the logic of cellular automata,
investigate how different initial conditions filtered
Figure 7
Boolean union
surfaces wireframe,
resulting point
cloud and mesh
through defined rules create variations, errors or else,
deviations from the default condition that often re-
lates to symmetry and to disorder of form. Complex-
ity can actually originate from simple geometry and
specific rules leading to detail concentration, disor-
der, intricacy and infinite variation. Sets of simple
ruled surfaces were used as a base multi-grid for the
CA to aggregate.
The errors introduced to the system are not ran-
dom but actually have a strong connection to context
parameters. There are a number questions that arise.
How do you control randomness? Is it randomness,
disorder or mutation what is implemented in the
script? Is mutation intentional? Are the disordered
initial seeds manually mutated according to param-
eters or they are randomly generated? This can be
Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 609

answered by accepting the fact that the location of
every mutated initial seed is not as important as the
analogy of mutation needed in order to feed parame-
ters into the system. This means that the parameters
in order to control the system need only a percent-
age of mutation in specific surface "neighborhoods"
in order to provide for example perforation while the
actual location of each seed is not necessarily impor-
tant. The use of the error as a term, aims at dislocating
it from the random to the seemingly-random area,
accepting an amount of authorship over the action.
This is actually very important for design research as
it adjusts control over tools, evaluating how random-
ness is actually filtered through specific environmen-
tal, social or morphological factors aiming at formal
and structural optimization.
The implication in the design research is the cal-
ibration between the amount of randomness used
and the control by the author of design. This calibra-
tion extends to the tool use, either it is a program,
script, or a robot. Analogy as described above is an
answer to this and relates to the previous concepts of
semi-randomness explained in the paper. Despite a
factor of randomness, the control remains to the user.
610 | eCAADe 33 - Generative Design - Biological - Volume 2
Figure 8
An assemblage as
the ceiling of the
cathedral
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper presents part of the PhD by Architectural
Design Research "Scripting Errors" pursued by Yota
Adilenidou at the Bartlett School of Architecture at
UCL, under the supervision of Dr. Marjan Colletti and
Prof. Stephen Gage.
REFERENCES
Adilenidou, Y 2014 'The Geometry of the Error', Advances
in Architectural Geometry 2014, Springer, London
Bateson, W 1894, Materials for the Study of Variation,
Macmillan and Co, and New York, London
Burry, J and Burry, M 2012, The New Mathematics of Ar-
chitecture, Thames and Hudson
Carpo, M 2011, The Alphabet and the Algorithm, The MIT
Press, Cambridge, Massachcusetts
Carroll, S 2005, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Sci-
ence of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal King-
dom, Phoenix, London
Lynn, G 1998, Fold, Bodies and Blobs: Collected Essays, La
Lettre Volée
Packard, N and Wolfram, S 1985, 'Two�Dimensional Cel-
lular Automata', Journal of Statistical Physics, 38, pp.
901-946
Wolfram, S 2002, A New Kind of Science, Wolfram Media
Inc.
Smart and Responsive Design -
Concepts
Spacing Time
Engaging Temporality in the Realm of Architectural Space

Carlos L. Marcos1 , Angel J. Fernández2

1
Universidad de Alicante 2 Universidade da Coruña
1
carlos.marcos@ua.es 2 angel.fernandez.alvarez@udc.es

The paper is a theoretical approach regarding digital architecture, performance

and time. It tries to reflect on the philosophical taxonomy of time -cosmological,
phenomenological and narrative- and how digitally conscious architectural
design developed by architects, media artists, engineers and multidisciplinary
teams address the engagement of the architectural space in real-time. The
traditional static conception of architecture is altered through performativity and
the ideals of permanence and endurance radically questioned. The research also
constitutes a reflection on interaction, participation and performance in an ample
sense with regard to performative architecture and some urban implications it
may entail. Various examples addressing these topics mainly installed or built
during the last decade exemplify the different issues that the paper reflects on. A
critical reading of the installations and the intelligent-façades commented is
posed to the reader together with the conceptual implications the different
performative approaches involve and the goals they may achieve. The question
remains if buildings instead of being or meaning should, more than ever, perform.

Keywords: Temporality, Digital Consciousness, Performance, Interaction,

Intelligent-façades

"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor
who boards ship without a rudder and compass and
never knows where he may cast" Leonardo da Vinci.
Acknowledgement: This paper partially shows
the results of the research project "Pensamiento Grá-
fico. Percepción visual, expresión gráfica y concien-
cia digital" funded by the Conselleria de Educación,
Cultura y Deporte (Generalidad Valenciana).
INTRODUCTION. MATTER, SPACE AND
TIME IN ARCHITECTURE
Our universe is subject to perpetual change. Be-
cause it is made up of material "bricks" it is doomed
to constant transformations that are energy consum-
ing. The rate of these modifications is what Aris-
totle (Physics IV, VIII) called time, a human abstrac-
tion to measure these changes and what could be
referred to as cosmological time. No matter how
simple or apparently ethereal the architectural lim-
its may be, they are always material. Considering

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 613

 Diller&Scofidio's celebrated Blur Building as proba- in the field of digital architecture or how temporality
bly one of the finest examples in diluting the limits may be engaged in the architectural space in varied
ever achieved -provided the foggy cloud is consid- ways: the digitally conscious spacing of time through
ered an architectural limit- its diffuse and unstable architecture.
changing geometry has the materiality of the misty
tiny drops that define its continuous flowing form. ENGAGING COSMOLOGICAL TIME. ARCHI-
Architecture is configured as an act of delimitation
TECTURE AS AN OBJECT
(Mendelsohn, 1924:3) and since only matter can be
Cosmological time could be envisaged as the "ob-
perceived through our senses a corollary may be de-
jective time", the articulation of being (matter) and
duced implying the materiality of the limits in any ar-
becoming (in time). This worldly perpetual flow
chitectural form. Space is the container of matter and
can be measured through our universe's chronology.
time engulfs both. Thus, space can only be conceived
Buildings are conceived to respond to these external
through time and, reversely, time through space as
changing agents affecting the living conditions of its
changes occur within the limits of the latter and are
inhabitants.
measured according to time.
Architecture has traditionally been assigned the
Due to the physicality of the architectural space
role of stasis (Lynn, 1999), being stable and enduring
a phenomenology occurs between the object -
in time -reacting to it in various ways to provide an
architecture- and the subject -its dweller-. This phe-
unchanging frame; a certain notion of permanence.
nomenological approach of time, initially introduced
Buildings are to support the loads in a world gov-
by Agustine of Hippo (Confessions, XI) in the philo-
erned by gravity but they must also shelter men pro-
sophical debate, takes into account the subjectivity
tecting them from the daily changes in temperature,
of our individual perceptions and experience. A cer-
rainfall, wind, or sunlight as well as seasonal fluc-
tain polarity arises between the world and its being
tuations. Traditional architecture has responded to
-objective and alien to any phenomenology, on the
them passively; louvres, for instance, may control so-
one side, and the individuals and their perceptions of
lar lighting inside the building.
the world -subjective and depending on the duration
The idea of permanence in architecture has been
of their own existence and context.
progressively questioned, especially since the advent
According to Ricoeur (1984) three different as-
of new technologies and the so-called digital revolu-
pects of time should be considered: the cosmolog-
tion. Digital architecture has evolved towards a non-
ical (objective), the phenomenological (subjective)
linear conception of interactions of complex dynamic
and the historical (narrated). The latter is conceived
systems (De Landa, 2011:14). Responsive architec-
as intersecting both key notions of time. Shifts in
ture is shaped incorporating membranes of mutable
the professional strategies, the bases of knowledge
appearance with space programs that are not spe-
and the technological foundations have extraordi-
cific nor predetermined, but multiple, fluid and de-
narily affected the way in which we think, make and
liberately ambiguous. Led by dynamics of tempo-
build architecture within the broader framework of
rality they depend on socio-economic, cultural, and
what has been coined as "Digital Culture in Architec-
technological changes attaining multiple connota-
ture" (Picon, 2010). The development of responsive
tions. This emergent approach to architectural de-
façades and the use of new materials allows us to ap-
sign with its new dimension of temporality defies ar-
ply the term performance to the interaction of archi-
chitecture's usual static conception of form and func-
tecture with the environment or with its dwellers in
tion.
time.
These possibilities are explored in the SOMA's
This paper reflects on the way time is addressed
proposal for the Thematic Pavillion at the 2012 World

614 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Expo in (Yeosu) South Korea. A kinetic façade is
opened to the sea with rotating vertical lamellas that
allow a greater amount of light to the interior or an
ampler visual connection with the sea. An ingenious
system of displacement at one of the edges in com-
bination with the different lengths of these elements
produce an irregular opening of this "gilled" imagi-
nary on the "sharkish" shaped pavilion enhanced at
night with LEDs illumination.
The development of intelligent façades and reac-
tive membranes implies challenging the static con-
ception of architecture to redefine a new dimension
of temporality; an architecture anew that could well
be referred to as performative. The possibility of de-
signing enclosures or constructive systems capable
of reacting to environmental changing conditions or
interacting with its dwellers transforms architecture
into a real machine to be manufactured rather than
constructed, alike dynamic engineering designs. We
may speak of a new materiality or animated mat-
ter involving a qualitative change with regard to sta-
ble appearance over time of the architectural work
thus becoming a sensitive reality with a certain ca-
pacity of reaction to external stimuli. Something
which, to some extent, implies a cyborgisation of ar-
chitecture (Picon 2010). Although the influence of
new technologies in architecture in the last decade
has increased performative approaches, these have
been addressed in various ways during the previous
decades which prefigured what we now understand
as performance in ample terms. Performance is an
emergent design approach in which the performa-
tive capacity of the building becomes a guiding prin-
ciple of the design. Performance is assessed together
with the conception of the architectural form -form-
making- employing digital quantitative and quali-
tative simulation technologies -performance-based
design- to offer a new global approach to the design
of the built environment.
Performance-Based Design
A performance-based design analyses and reflects
on how the environmental context can "in(form)"
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 615
the complex processes of design synthesis. Oxman
(2014) defines three seminal concepts of PBD: simula-
tion, parameterization and optimization. Simulation
involves the use of tools that enhance instrumental
analytical procedures. This simulation is subject to
the consideration of multi-value parameters pursu-
ing the integration and balance of various factors for
a specific theoretical problem. This entails a consid-
erable complexity of the design methods even if sim-
ulation techniques are limited to the parametrisation
of physical and environmental data such as structure,
climate or acoustic factors. Finally, optimization is re-
lated to the evaluation criteria and how should they
be formulated and applied to the design itself.
This digitally driven design strategy has concep-
tual implications and is indebted to the capacity to
predict the performance of structural behaviour or
energy optimization thanks to the possibility of simu-
lation, to mention only two. Thus the development of
parametric models that consider the stresses that the
structural elements may have to bear or the radiation
gain which a façade may be subjected to may serve
as a guiding tool in the design process itself. Con-
sequently, the material properties and the actions in
time that are to be expected in a particular design
may be accurately predicted and introduced in the
design assessing it and contributing to form-finding
strategies following iterative processes. A research
on shape-morphing wind responsive façade systems
by Lignarolo, Lelieveld, and Teuffel may illustrate this
digitally conscious approach. Wind loads in high-rise
buildings with shape-morphing façades may be anal-
ysed by numerical simulation, taking into account
the influence of the surface texture on the wind pres-
sure and velocity fields. The research concludes that
the texture of a building façade may have significant
effects on the wind flow fields. Using smart façade
tessellation with materials capable of modifying their
shape in real time and, consequently, changing the
texture of the skin depending on the wind speed or
its direction, may modify the building's overall reac-
tion to wind stress. This phenomenon can be ex-
ploited to modify natural ventilation inside the build-
 ing, the heat exchange through the skin, and, con-
veniently designed and positioned, to achieve a re-
duction of the drag forces with the incorporation
of roughness elements on the façade actuating as
strong vortexes (Lignarolo et.alt.2012). By integrat-
ing design and analysis of buildings with digital mod-
elling and simulation technologies, the roles of ar-
chitects and engineers are increasingly being assim-
ilated into a digital collaborative enterprise from the
earliest conceptual stages of the design (Kolarevic
2005).
The Homeostatic Façade System (Fig. 1) devel-
oped by Decker&Yeadon architectural office (Mossé
et. alt. 2012) may exemplify a responsive approach
to external changing conditions, making a wise use
of biomimicry and new materials. The engineered
ribbons inside the double skin glazing react to so-
lar changing conditions contributing to control solar
heat gain as well as natural lighting in the interior in
real time.
Architecture is, thanks to this performative approach,
reactive to environmental external agents, such as
the solar radiation. On the one hand, this produces
an animated enclosure whose aspect is in constant
flow; on the other, the enclosed space and its living
conditions are simultaneously altered in time. It is ob-
viously an engagement of the cosmological time pro-
vided the changing conditions are subjected to the
physicality of the solar radiations. Consequently, this
616 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
animation of the responsive architectural limit goes
beyond a mere aesthetical proposition on the façade;
it improves the dwelling conditions on the interior in
real time.
Nevertheless, the homeostatic façade is, to a cer-
tain extent, a passive reactive skin in as much as the
solar radiation induces it to be reshaped but there is
no machinic intervention in the reaction; however,
there are other possibilities that digital design may
enhance. Responsive architecture is based on its re-
activity to external stimuli. More sophisticated in-
teractions can be envisaged in terms of performa-
tive architecture which may be the result of an ac-
tive response of the building itself. A fully "perfor-
mative" architecture involves incorporating devices
which include four different categories: sensors, con-
trollers, actuators and materials (Achten 2011). That
is, if architecture is no longer passive and must be
able to react to environmental inputs it is necessary
for these complex systems to equip themselves with
sensors able to identify, discriminate and perceive
Figure 1
such stimuli. Analogously to their role in living or-
Homeostatic
ganisms these sensors constitute the perceptive ap-
Façade System,
pliances of the "mechanic organism" which now be-
Decker&Yeadon
comes architecture. To be really interactive, an as-
Architects. New
sessment of these stimuli and the actions that should
York, 2010.
be carried out due to them is necessary to be oper-
ated by the "technologically animated body" in ac-
cordance to the nature of the stimuli and the capac-
ities of the sensors; this role falls on controllers. Acti-
vators, conversely, are the mechanisms that respond
to the controller's input enabling the reactions of this
responsive architecture. Finally, all this has to be
embodied into a physical membrane capable of re-
sponding to these stimuli. Evidently, this process of
animation is not easy due to the complexity of the
scale involved and to the limited experience of archi-
tects in this field.
The Flare façade by WhiteVoid is an example of
kinetic façade. Modular tiltable metallic shingle bod-
ies pneumatically activated and computer controlled
produce the possibility to reflect or to hide sunlight.
Thus, dark or bright "pixels" appear on the façade de-
 pending on the sensor controlled activation of the nized through the changing appearance of the build-
shingle bodies allowing to create patterns or to shift ing's skin and its varied perceptions. Within this
the skins' permeability depending on the desired ef- new paradigm of communication, façades become
fects and modifying the static condition of a conven- screens conveying a narrative of meta-architectural
tional façade [1]. contents. Architecture no longer is or means, it is
a channel for advertising, announcing cultural and
ENGAGING PHENOMENOLOGICAL TIME. social events, transmitting weather data or financial
markets exchange rates, etc.; in summary, it informs
ARCHITECTURE, SUBJECT AND OBJECT
(Fernández 2010).
Agustine of Hippo in his Confessions (XI) introduced
Screen work by architects is not new; it forms
the psychological dimension of time placing the in-
part of a disciplinary assimilated lineage. Ray and
dividual as an observer of the flowing world and con-
Charles Eames were pioneers of multi-media presen-
sidering how his subjectivity affects the temporal-
tations with their work "Glimpses of the USA" (1959).
ity he is to live, the recollection of his lived expe-
Some of the boldest architectural proposals on the
riences or his expectation towards the forthcoming
second half of the twentieth century incorporated
ones. The abstract Aristotelian conception of time as
large projection screens such as the utopian visions
a cosmological chronology is confronted with the liv-
of Archigram's "Instant City" (1969-1970), the initial
ing temporality of the human beings and their per-
draft of the CNAC George Pompidou in Paris by Pi-
ceptions of the world in the moment they live. While
ano and Rogers (1977), Koolhaas's unbuilt proposal
traditional architecture was attributed a certain role
for the ZKM in Karlsruhe (1992) defined by the au-
of permanence reacting to the world flow in a pas-
thor as an "electronic Bauhaus", the KPN Tower by
sive way, performative architecture is responsive to
Renzo Piano in Rotterdam (2000) or the architectural-
external stimuli in real time, modifying part of its lim-
media installations by Diller+Scofidio such as Jump
its to react to them. But this has further conceptual
Cuts (1995) or Facsimile (2004).
implications as the perception of the temporality of
Figure 2 architecture is shifted from permanence to instabil-
BIX communicative ity and, consequently, the phenomenology between
display skin for the the building and the observer introduces a new di-
Kunsthaus Graz, mension to architecture if it is considered as part of
realities:united, the design itself.
Graz, 2003
Addressing Perception
Digital conscious architecture may challenge the
boundaries between the real and the physical gen-
erating new layers of meaning to the reality of the
physical limits on whose surface virtual images may
be displayed. Time literally creeps through the dis-
play of ambivalent images on architectural limits that
suggest multiple readings in continuous flow intro- Digital architecture finds in creativity one of its hall-
ducing temporality as a changing dimension in a marks. The possibility of conceiving façades as dis-
discipline traditionally characterized by form stabil- plays introduce new possibilities to work on them as
ity; architecture thus assumes a new role within the a design element; that may include working on the
paradigm of mediation and communication. Cos- displays themselves. The idea of using a low resolu-
mological and phenomenological times are synchro- tion display based on conventional circular fluores-

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 617

 cent tubes was used by realities:united (Jan and Tim Figure 3
Edler) for the BIX installation (2001-2003), (Fig. 2). GreenPIX, Zero
The dynamic display of light -the changing of light Energy Media Wall
patterns- is one of the primary project's performative by Simone Giostra &
features. BIX is a light and media installation, placed Partners and ARUP,
behind the Plexi-glass membrane to create a com- Beijing, 2008
municative skin on a low-resolution computer con-
trolled basis; a "media façade" that, through display
signs, adds and banners, refers to activities that take
place inside the building transmitting to the city the
internal processes of the cultural institution [2]. Per-
formative aspects of the building are all geared to-
wards a "strategy of urban communication". This was
an interactive installation for the Graz's Kunsthaus
(2003) blobby-architecture design by Peter Cook (co-
founder of Archigram) and Colin Fournier.
GreenPIX façade (Fig. 3) developed by Simone
Giostra & Partners and ARUP for the Xicui entertain-
ment complex in Beijing is a recent example of a
media-façade which is, moreover, a sustainable pro-
jection screen. This ground-breaking design is a
promising example of what is to be expected out of
a successful interdisciplinary approach applied to ar-
chitectural design. The collaboration between the
architectural office lead by Giostra, ARUP, Schucco Thus, phenomenological façades screened rather
and SunWays produced one of the finest examples than walled are capable of projecting images at a
of smart-façades up to date. Polycrystalline pho- large-scale introducing a new notion of temporal-
tovoltaic cells were laminated within the glass of ity in architecture that challenge the latter's role al-
the curtain wall and positioned with varying den- though the still expensive technologies to employ
sity on the building's façade. The density patterns may undermine their diffusion. For example, the
on the façade produce a certain irregularity of the original draft for the Markthal by MVRDV in Rotter-
glazing modulation in accordance with one of dig- dam included liquid crystal displays for the great
ital architecture's most characteristic aesthetic fea- dome covering the public space but their cost and
tures. Simultaneously, the building's performance is the immense surface forced to replace them by a
increased as natural light is allowed when required by static colourful image rendered by Pixar at 6000
the interior program while reducing heat gain by so- dpi printed on aluminium plates (Fernández-Galiano
lar radiation and transforming its excess into energy 2014). LED's, on the other hand, keep reducing their
for the media wall. At night, all the accumulated en- cost as their production increases and their generous
ergy during day hours is beautifully displayed with life service hours make of them a competitive "con-
a combination of LEDs that instantly and colourfully struction material". May be low resolution imaginar-
transform the appearance of the building projecting ies for phenomenological façades could contribute
low resolution digital art to the city [3]. to the exploration and development of this kind
of digitally conscious approaches. Additionally, if

618 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

 the costless energy these screens may gain from systems (it is a small sized prototype) and users. An
the sun is considered into the equation -just as in irregularly tiled double-curved surface built with Lu-
the GreenPIX project- things may change sooner miblade OLEDs is lit through an Ipad application that
than expected, especially as sustainability issues be- controls the order and arrangement of the on and off
come more and more part of the social and political values for each tile. The users may play orienting the
agenda. Ipad in space and changing different parameters on
the application to modify and unlimited variety of vi-
Addressing Interaction -Individual and Col- sual patterns for the illuminated OLEDs [1]. This inter-
lective action is intentionally driven by users that are able to
The aforementioned examples of media-façades modify the visual aspect of the set at their will; there-
constitute a clear example of architecture's engage- fore, temporality is addressed here in a truly interac-
ment with a phenomenological notion of time. Nev- tive way.
ertheless, they show how architecture can go a step
Figure 4 beyond its own meaning -if there is such a matter
Aperture by The- apart from considering the building with regard to
GreenEyl+Sengewald, its disciplinary narrative-. In any case, this engage-
2004 ment could only be in one-way since the commu-
nicative skins simply display information. However,
what if those skins became sensitive and were able
to react to individual or collective inputs? New pos-
sibilities of information coding would allow to inte-
grate this temporary factor into a dynamic network
of interactions, of multi-layered processes, intercon-
nected, challenging in new ways the concepts of
form, structure, value, or stable meaning convention-
ally assigned to architecture.
Figure 5 This is, in fact, another approach of digitally con-
LivingSculpture, 3D scious designed architecture. Not only do buildings
module system, become part of a cityscape with gleaming façades
designed for that are able to inform or display information use-
Philips, WHITEvoid, ful to their inhabitants; they may also interact with
London, 2012 them. This is a totally different way in which to
address temporality in architecture. Buildings are
able to interact in real time with individuals, showing
and incredible potential of architecture that entails
a friendlier engagement towards the public space.
Architecture does not simply react to the weather
conditions but to the action of pedestrians or even
through the Internet with the city inhabitants com- A pedestrian fed media-wall was conceived
fortably sitting on their sofas at home. WhiteVoid's by the Berlin based interactive artists The-
proposal of Livigsculpture 3D modular system (2012) GreenEyl+Sengewald in 2004 with their proposal
for Philips homonymous initiative (Fig. 4) is an exam- "Aperture" (Fig. 5), a mixed system to produce im-
ple of this interactivity between intelligent lighting ages from an array of diaphragms that react to hu-

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 619

 man activity in the vicinity. The question posed was
whether the buildings being equipped with sensors
and diaphragms could have recollections of what
"they" experienced to depict the previously per-
ceived images. The diaphragms acted as the façade's
installation eyes and also, due to their arrayed dis-
position, as a pixeled matrix capable of reproducing
in low-res previously perceived images on the "pix-
eled" display. In doing so, the role of interaction and
perception between users and architecture was com-
pletely inverted hinting an alternative path to reflect
on the phenomenological notion of time to be dealt
with by architects and media artists alike. This in-
stallation also evidences that full interaction implies
a notion of reciprocity and a synchronization of the
phenomenological times of subject and object.
The introduction of motion on responsive façade
adds sill another layer of complexity to the performa-
tive potential of buildings regarding the perception
of architecture itself. Both, interaction and participa-
tion emerge as relevant features of the new digital
media. Therefore, a significant change is observed re-
garding the way in which users relate to the built en-
vironment and also with regard to the way in which
the environment relates to us. Aegis Hypo-Surface
proposal by dECOI Architects (Mark Goulthorpe) ad-
dress this topic of responsive motion animated mem-
branes (Kolarevic 2003). A multifaceted perception
of form resulting from varied performative processes
appears. In it, architecture is conceived as an ani-
mated being able to interact with its dwellers or with
the environment where it is rooted in instead of sim-
ply enduring or lasting over time.
Projects as the D-Tower by Lars Spuybroek -
NOX- (1998-2003) can be considered pieces of per-
formative interactive and participative architecture.
D-Tower is a digital hybrid material consisting of
a biomorphic structure, a website and a question-
naire form that generate an interactive system of net-
worked relationships. D-Tower changes its colour
depending on the prevailing emotional state of the
residents in the city that is processed from the an-
swers given by the people to an on-line question-
620 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
naire about their daily emotions -hate, love, hap-
piness, fear; their inputs are then mapped using a
four colour-code (green, red, blue and yellow). The
"mood" of the city is also accessible through a web-
site showing the "emotional landscape" of the neigh-
bourhoods in real time. A similar urban-scale in-
teractive and participative pioneering proposal for
an architectural display can be exemplified with
the Blinkenlights project (2001) located in Berlin's
Alexanderplatz. The group "hacker media art" Chaos
Computer Club (CCC) transformed the building of
the "Haus des Lehrers" in the world's largest digital
interactive device: a rudimentary screen on which
project's participants could play Pong, send simple
designs through the Internet or using their mobile
phones to create and send images to be displayed
on the building's façade. Each of the 144 windows
of the building became a pixel with an on/off value
controlled by a software system based on GNU/Linux.
Pedestrians and those who wished to participate in
the initiative were engaged with a real-state property
which was alien to them evidencing to what extent
the façades of buildings in the city are in fact part of
the public space.
INNOVATIVE NARRATIVES OF SPACE.
SPACING TIME
Ricoeur's contribution to the philosophical debate
regarding time is the notion of narrative as the in-
tersection of the cosmological and the phenomeno-
logical times providing what could be thought of as
a certain social dimension of time. Thus, ontolog-
ical and phenomenological approaches of time are
somewhat merged in any narration which is sequen-
tial and inserted in history. Historical events hap-
pen within the framing of the cosmological notion of
time, but are experienced by individuals subjected to
a phenomenology that connects events with those
individuals, and must necessarily be narrated by dif-
ferent actors to be recalled and interpreted in various
ways by future generations. To Ricoeur, both, "city
and architecture are stories that come together in the
past" (Ricoeur 2002).
 Architectural and Urban Performing narra-
tives
BIX light installation blurs the boundaries between
architecture and performative media. At the Kun-
sthaus, McLuhan's famous aphorism "medium is the
message" comes into being extrapolating his ideas to
Figure 6 the realm of performative architecture. The black and
Onskebronn by white low resolution array (only 930 pixels of 40w.
Phase 7, lamps) imposes severe limitations as much as it evi-
Sandnes(Norway), dences the need to produce specific content but at
2008 the same time generates a poetic of "low resolution"
as a feature of the intervention.
The more recent outstanding GreenPIX smart-
façade has managed to merge the notions of cosmo-
logical, phenomenological and narrative times in one
single design as the sun radiation -a physical exter-
nal agent, the idea of the display -implying a percep-
tion of the city inhabitants, and the projection on the
skin of contemporary media art match together jus-
tifying the whole conception and producing a con-
temporary piece of digitally conscious architectural
design. The LEDs technology and the irregular distri-
bution of the photovoltaic cells produces a colourful
and more expressive low resolution poetic compared
to the BIX installation that allows to use it as a wall for
the expression of media artists. Moreover, this green-
architecture -zero energy consuming- is not only dig-
itally conscious but also consistent with sustainabil-
ity issues; the curtain wall even allows opening win-
dows for natural ventilation. Its impact on the city
during the night spreads at various distances. Night
spatiality emerged in the XIX century as a result of ar-
tificial illumination in the cities and buildings (Holl et.
alt. 2012) but became more influential with the ad-
vent of curtain walls and high-rise buildings. The sug-
gestive glowing images of modern city downtowns
could well be reinforced with media façades if they
were to become a widespread trend.
The interactions of the city dwellers with these
technologies do not exhaust with media façades.
New applications are developed enriching the possi-
bilities of the pedestrians to participate and enjoy the
public space. German studio Phase 7's Onskebronn
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 621
first installed in Sandnes (Norway) in 2008 (Fig. 6)
consisted in an interactive transparent floor reactive
to the pedestrian movement with LEDs arranged be-
neath it glowing and changing colourfully synchro-
nized with the people's steps in real-time.
It could be argued that the lively mediated architec-
tural skins have the potential to change the way in
which we relate to the built environment and, con-
versely, how the built environment relates to us. Cy-
berspace permeates the urban space itself setting an
intricate network of connections and channels for hu-
man interaction (Mitchell, 1996) thus challenging the
conceptions of cosmological or phenomenological
time and their synchronic relations. These digitally
conscious designs also imply a novel narrative of ar-
chitectural space within architecture's own history;
something that could be paralleled with Ricoeur's
conception of historical time. The way in which these
buildings make use of these new technologies and
the ways in which time is engaged in the realm of
architectural space may well be interpreted as the
emergence of a new architectural narrative of space
or rather as spacing time in architecture.
CONCLUSIONS
Performative architecture addresses the ideal of real
time in architecture in various ways. Digital ap-
proaches transform the way in which architectural
form is conceived. Rather than formal stability it
should be envisaged as a dynamic and complex op-
eration addressing performative aspects that include
 perceptual and behavioural focusing.
The classic duality of the conception of form
based on image or on a mere functionalist attitude
must be replaced with a multi-layered perception of
complex geometries as a result of various performa-
tive processes. Architecture should thus be designed
as an animated artefact able to interact rather than
remaining or simply enduring over time.
Smart-façades may introduce new design vari-
ables including the possibility of contributing to im-
prove the sustainability of this hyper-technological
architecture, but they should also ensure the visual
connection between interior and exterior.
The goal towards a performative architecture
would imply a new logic in the conception of the ar-
chitectural form and a new relationship between the
nodes of the triangle "form-function-subject" shift-
ing the focus of the architectural discourse to the per-
formative approach.
Networked interactions may introduce collective
participation and a social dimension into performa-
tive architecture. This technological new media-
façades, with their large-scale displays, can become
a live city art museum able to exhibit media artist
works in real time in a more progressive commitment
towards the public space.
We are facing a new conception of temporality
in architecture: a dynamic and active conception in
which architecture is no longer an immutable object.
Neither is the city a virtually permanent framework
in which to develop human activities but rather a
networked place coupled with an architecture whose
appearance or capacity to respond to specific needs
may change over time. The performative approach
is therefore disruptive rather than evolutionary as it
introduces a shift of paradigm in architectural design
with regard to temporality.
REFERENCES
Achten, H 2011 'Degrees of Interaction. Towards a Clas-
sification', Proceedings eCAADe 2011, Ljubljana, pp.
565-572
Aristotle, - 2008, Physics, Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford
Fernández, AJ 2010 'Píxeles y pantallas. Hacia una ar-
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quitectura interactiva', Actas XIII Congreso Interna-
cional de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, Valencia,
pp. 171-176
Fernández-Galiano, L 2014, 'Markthal', AV Proyectos, 64,
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Agustine of Hippo, - 1991, Confessions, Oxford University
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Holl, S, Pallasmaa, J and Pérez-Gómez, A 2006, Ques-
tions of Perception, Phenomenology of Architecture,
William Stout Publishers, San Francisco
Kolarevic, B (eds) 2003, Architecture in the Digital Age. De-
sign and Manufacturing, Spon Press, New York
Kolarevic, B and Malkawi, A (eds) 2005, Performative Ar-
chitecture. Beyond Instrumentality, Spon Press, New
York
De Landa, M 1997, A Thousand Years of Non Linear History,
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Lignarolo, L, Lelieveld, C and Teuffel, P 2011 'Shape mor-
phing wind-responsive facade systems realized with
smart materials', Proceedings of International Adap-
tive Architecture Conference, London, pp. 3-5
Mendelsohn, E and Scheffhauer, HG 1924, Reflections
on New Architecture (1914-1917), Structures and
Sketches, London
Mitchell, WJ 1996, City of Bits, The MIT Press, Cambridge
(Mass.)
Mossé, A, Gauthier, D and Kofod, G 2012, 'Towards In-
terconnectivity: Appropriation of Responsive Mini-
mum Energy Structures in an Architectural Context',
Studies in Material Thinking, Where Art, Technology
and Design Meet (7), pp. 1-11
Oxman, R and Oxman, R (eds) 2014, Theories of the Digi-
tal in Architecture, Oxon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis
Group, Abingdon
Picon, A 2010, Digital Culture in Architecture, Birkhäuser,
Basel
Ricoeur, P 1984, Time and Narrative, University of
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[1] http://realities-united.de/#PROJECT,69,1 (ret
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Closing the Loop for Interactive Architecture
Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, and Wearables

Henri Achten1
1
Czech Technical University in Prague
1
achten@fa.cvut.cz

Interactive architecture occurs in buildings when part of the building engages in

exchange of information with the user, in such a way that the interactive system
adjusts it's assumptions about the user's needs and desires. Acquiring the user's
needs and desires is no trivial task. Currently there are no techniques that will
reliably make such assertions. Building a system that unobtrusively monitors the
inhabitant seems to be a tall order, and making the system ask the user all the
time is very distracting for the user. An alternative option has become available
however: personal wearables are increasingly monitoring the user. Therefore it
suffices that the interactive system of the building gets in touch with those
wearables, rather than duplicating the sensing function of the wearables. The
enabling technology for wearables is Internet of Things, which connects physical
objects (smart objects) on a virtual level, and Cloud Computing, which provides a
scalable storage environment for wearables and smart objects. In this paper we
outline the implications of the convergence of these three technologies in the light
of interactive architecture.

Keywords: Interactive architecture, Internet of things, Wearables, Cloud

computing

INTRODUCTION
In this paper we investigate a number of tech-
nologies through the lens of interactive architec-
ture. In earlier work we developed a framework for
the design of interactive architecture (Achten 2014a;
Achten 2014b; Achten 2013). Interactive architec-
ture occurs in buildings when part of the building
engages in a dialogue with the user. The dialogue
should not be taken as a literal conversation between
the building and the user (although it might take that
form), but means rather an exchange of information
and actions between the user and the building that
have some meaning for both the building and the
user. Meaning for the user usually is straightforward
- it can vary from utilitarian (switching on/off lights,
controlling the heating, managing shades, and so on)
to leisure (watching television, setting music, man-
aging ambient levels, and so on). The term "mean-
ing" for the building is a bit less obvious, as we can-
not attribute to the building a level of understanding
similar to people. In the current discussion it is suf-
ficient to speak of meaning when the action and in-

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 623

 formation exchange leads to a different state of the
managing system that enables the interactivity of the
building. The managing system has an internal rep-
resentation of the user's needs and desires, and uses
this to steer its own behaviour. From this we derived
that something has meaning to the building when-
ever the system adjusts it's assumptions about the
user's needs and desires.
Interaction in a building can amount to many differ-
ent things. In any sophisticated system we would re-
quire a minimum of necessary user interactions to ac-
commodate the needs of the user. Ideally, the in-
teraction should be as unobtrusive or ubiquitous as
possible (Weiser 1999). This puts quite a large bur-
den on the interpretation capacities of the interactive
system. It means the system has to observe the user
and infer their current or (near) future needs. Com-
puter vision and movement sensors are able to sense
the environment and the user, but robust and reli-
able algorithms for inferring user needs do not ex-
ist to our knowledge. A building needs some level
of self-understanding, for example in a representa-
tion of its own context, structure, components, sys-
tems, and processes (Mahdavi 2005). In research
on domestic and office robots, semantic maps are
proposed on top of metric and topological maps.
These semantic maps contain functional information
of spaces (kitchen, work place, etc.) and objects (fur-
niture) (Sheng et al. 2015), which is sufficient for
robots but not for user needs understanding. Auto-
mated user needs understanding is still on a theoreti-
cal level, for example concerning social emotional in-
624 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
formation (Esposito et al. 2015). There are some com-
puter vision techniques which are capable to anal-
yse human behaviour, but they apply only in very re-
stricted environments and contexts (Chaaraoui et al.
2012).
The main hypothesis in this paper is that part
of the burden to detect and infer user needs can be
transferred to three fairly recent technological devel-
opments which are still in early stage (Figure 1):
Figure 1
The building,
• Internet of Things. Internet of Things,
• Wearable technology. Wearables, and
• Cloud Computing. Cloud computing
constitute an
interactive ecology.
The Internet of Things aims to build computational
representations of physical objects so that they can
be manipulated by virtual entities. For interactive
architecture it means that a lot of intelligence and
knowledge about location and state of things is
transferred to the objects themselves, and needs no
longer be inferred top-down.
Wearables are simple or more advanced sensing
and computing devices that people wear on their
body. They often have GPS functionality and track
user vital statistics such as heart rate, respiration,
caloric burning, and so on. For interactive architec-
ture wearables form a middle layer that can inform
an interactive system about the physical condition of
the user.
Cloud computing is a comprehensive set of
servers and network technologies that are out-
sourced and scale with user's needs, meaning trans-
fer of data and computing resources from locally
managed systems to network-based services. For in-
teractive architecture it is relevant because the inter-
active system may obtain necessary data from the
Cloud and it may use computational facilities from
Cloud services - reducing the need for large capacity
facilities in the building
In the remainder of this paper, we describe the
technologies, and bring them together into a frame-
work for interactive architecture.
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a recent development.
As such, there is no general consensus yet about the
exact meaning (Atzori et al. 2010). The term was
most likely originally coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999
(Ashton 2009). IoT is a very much an umbrella term,
under which more research areas are located such
as such as Cyber-Physical Systems (Salim and Haque
2015), Embedded Intelligence (Guo, Zhang and Wang
2011), or Hybrid Products (Knutsen et al. 2011).
In the most general sense, IoT means that the In-
ternet space, which currently consists of connected
computers (virtual systems), is expanded to include
physical objects. These physical objects have com-
putational representations that through the Internet
can interact with other objects or computers. In most
cases these objects (also known as "smart objects")
are small ubiquitous devices such as sensors, actua-
tors, RFID tags, smart phones and embedded systems
(Petroulakis et al. 2013).
Increasingly connected versions of IoT are Web of
Things (WoT), and Social Web of Things (SWoT) (Mashal
et al. 2015). SWoT sees an increasing activity of
smart objects posting on social websites (Atzori et al.
2014). Integration with social websites is an enabler
for higher acceptation and usage of IoT because of
the low threshold of social media. Businesses again
build on this through participative marketing (Jara et
al. 2014).
The wide variety of objects requires the develop-
ment of protocols that can be accessed by devices
ranging from very low capabilities (for example RFID
tags) to high capacities (for example smartphones)
(Gama et al. 2012). Initiatives such as 6LoWPAN (IPv6
over Low-power Personal Area Networks) aim to inte-
grate sensors directly into the IP protocol (Atzori et al.
2010; Mashal et al. 2015). (Miorandi et al. 2012) state
that the inclusion of objects in the Internet is not
just an extension, but necessitates a fundamental re-
thinking what an object is in the context of IoT. Their
list of requirements (physical embodiment, commu-
nication functionalities, unique identifier, name and
address, computing capabilities, and means to sense
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 625
physical phenomena) is close to understanding of
agents or agency, and may actually include people
(although they do not claim this).
Search in IoT cannot use standard approaches
that are based on keywords, because smart objects
are located in the physical world and in many cases
are also moving; additionally the user also is dynamic.
To overcome this problem, (Römer et al. 2010) de-
veloped Dyser, a search engine which can find dy-
namic objects on the Internet. Another approach is
to search by themes through vertical searching en-
gines (Zhao et al. 2015). Location information by it-
self is not sufficient to anticipate future actions of a
system. (Jin et al. 2013) propose a so-called com-
posite subscription language that can capture spatio-
temporal events which can then be used to reason
about future actions. (Jara et al. 2014) discuss Digcov-
ery, a mechanism for global resource discovery, de-
vice access for deployed smart objects, and sensors
and devices from end users in the context of Smart
Cities. Another aspect improving search and speed-
ing up interaction with smart objects is storing indi-
vidual history of a smart object - so-called digital ob-
ject memory (Barthel et al. 2013).
Many smart objects only have very limited re-
sources in terms of memory, processing power, en-
ergy, and communication channels. Therefore, they
are also very limited in terms of security measures
that they can apply. It is clear that IoT remains only
a promise if security is not solved in a robust and re-
alistic way (Roman, Najera and Lopez 2011; Saied et
al. 2014; Sicari et al. 2015). (Erguler 2014) notes
potential weaknesses in RFID-based solutions that
may lead to security breaches when compromised
readers are used. Security and privacy are not only
technological issues but also social and legal (We-
ber 2010), requiring accepted social roles and legal
frameworks. It is also necessary to consider the eco-
nomic aspects for business in order to make IoT fea-
sible. (Lee and Lee 2015) identify three major cat-
egories for enterprise applications: monitoring and
control (including smart buildings), big data and busi-
ness analytics, and information sharing and collabora-
 tion. Business actors in these areas will develop their
own applications, some of which will find their way
into buildings as well.
Smart objects connected to IoT are embedded
in the world, where they may respond to events in
the world or through communication with other ob-
jects or actors. This means that an event (danger-
ous situations, social event, or other occurrences)
may trigger activation of a large amount of smart
objects within a particular area which may lead to
overload of communication channels. Control strate-
gies usually applies for human-to-human communi-
cation fall short because they do not count on such
massive communication. Therefore, different con-
trol strategies are required that lessen the potential
load, for example FASA proposed by (Wu et al. 2013).
(Asimakopoulou et al. 2013) suggest that on-the-
fly creation of so-called micro-clouds with smart ob-
jects such as smart phones outperform centralized
systems in emergency situations. (Guo et al. 2013)
discuss opportunistic IoT, which are conglomerations
of networking devices (typically smartphones and
smart vehicles) not relying on existing infrastructure
but using short-range radio techniques. (Du and Zhu
2012) propose a framework to apply IoT technology
for urban early warning systems. (Yang et al. 2013) in-
vestigate the potential of IoT to enhance emergency
response operations, in particular concerning three
rhythms: mobilization, preliminary situation assess-
ment, and intervention. These findings are integrated
in an ERIS (Emergency Response Information System)
and was assessed in the UK. They found that IoT of-
fers benefits to accountability of resources and per-
sonnel, assessment of the situation, resource alloca-
tion, and multi-organizational coordination.
For interactive architecture, IoT offers the tech-
nological infrastructure to embed the many and di-
verse sensors applications and communication re-
quirements of these devices in the building.
Wearables
Wearable technology integrates computational and
sensing functionality into objects that we wear close
626 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
on our body. These can be more or less tradi-
tional objects such as glasses, gloves, rings, arm-
bands, and watches, but also integrated into fab-
rics such as shirts, trousers, and coats. Usually wear-
able technology is said to have started in the 1980'ies
with the introduction of the wrist-watch with calcu-
lator or the "computer in a backpack" invented by
Steve Mann (Sultan 2015). Strictly speaking watches,
smartphones, and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA)
such as tablets are not wearable technology, but we
will consider them in this category. In particular
smartphones and tablets feature a wide range of sen-
sor types combined with communication facilties.
(Daponte et al. 2013) list for example: microphone,
infrared port, GPS receiver, WAP browser, CMOS/Dual
camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Proximity sensor, accelerom-
eter, digital compass, gyroscope, Near Field Communi-
cation, and barometer.
Most contemporary wearable technology devel-
opments take place in the area of health-care and
fitness. Agent-based applications for fitness moti-
vation have been around since early 2000 (Virtual
Coach by IJsselsteijn et al. 2004), followed a bit
later by wearable technology (SensVest by Knight et
al. 2005). (Buttussi and Chittaro 2008) developed
MOPET, a wearable system for physical fitness train-
ing. (Lee and Chung 2009) present a Smart Shirt,
which monitors heart rate, ECG, and acceleration.
(Lenzi et al. 2011) developed a thin contact layer be-
tween skin and wearable robot (for application of el-
bow active orthosis) that measures stress and con-
trols the therapy session for the patient. (Domingo
2012) identifies strong potential in the linkage be-
tween wearables, smart objects, and IoT to assist
disabled people for example with activities such as
shopping, learning, and domestic situations. Google
Glass, an Augmented Reality eyewear prototype de-
veloped by Google (2011-2015) has been used in var-
ious pilot projects in health-care (Sultan 2015). (Vi-
dal et al. 2012) found that wearable eye-tracking (us-
ing different technologies than Google Glass) may
be an unobtrusive technology for monitoring men-
tal disorders. (Lim et al. 2011) present a wearable
plaster system that wirelessly captures arm motion
for stroke patient recovery analysis. (Steele and Lo
2013) see a particular benefit of wearables for tele-
health in rural and remote areas that do not have ac-
cess to high-bandwidth facilities. (Santos et al. 2015)
developed a Constrained Application Protocol that can
link up Personal Health Devices to IoT. (Ogunduyile,
Olugbara and Lall 2013) report on a Wearable Ubiq-
uitous Healthcare System targeted to monitor elderly
people. Developing and designing proper wearable
products lacks a proper ergonomic foundation (Lin
and Kreifeldt 2001; Luximon et al. 2012), result-
ing many attempts to produce wearables that are
technology-pushed but not user-based (Knutsen et
al. 2011).
Wearables form a rich information source con-
cerning the state of inhabitants in the built environ-
ment. An interactive system needs to query the wear-
ables in order to obtain much information that other-
wise would be very difficult to infer.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a comprehensive set of servers
and network technologies "...to outsource IT activi-
ties to one or more third parties that have rich pools
of resources to meet organization needs easily and
efficiently" (Hassan 2011). They are the next gen-
eration follow-up of late 1990íes Clusters and early
2000's Grids. Cloud computing features novel ar-
chitectures and virtualisation techniques. It enables
transfer of data and computing resources from locally
managed systems to network-based services. Orig-
inally Cloud computing was a business model and
technological solution for enterprises, without IoT in
mind. The main benefits are flexibility in demand and
reducing in-house expertise on storage, processing,
safety, and security of the data management process.
(Buyya et al. 2009) state that computing will one day
become one of the essential utilities (next to water,
electricity, gas, and telephony) for people. As not ev-
eryone can afford powerful individual machines such
as PC's or laptops, they see the solution for this in
Cloud access (Broberg et al. 2009).
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 627
The properties of Cloud computing are not only
beneficial for business and people, but they align
very well with requirements of storage and process-
ing power in IoT which makes it a clear candidate
to connect with IoT. (Gubbi et al. 2013) note that
Cloud computing offers a reliable service which has
the capacity to store, process, and visualise the mas-
sive amount of data generated through IoT (Gubbi et
al. 2013). (Garg et al. 2013) offer a series of metric
and ranking system to compare commercially avail-
able Cloud solutions.
Micro-clouds (Sotitiadis et al. 2013) are proposed
as relatively closed pool of cooperating devices and
their resources that form smart environments. Typ-
ically a micro-cloud services a particular functional
area (house, office, industrial building, etc.). The
authors also developed a protocol for collaborating
micro-clouds in the case that advances can be gained
by combining resources of nearby objects (apart-
ments in a high-rise for example).
For interactive architecture Cloud computing
offers the background capacity for wearables and
smart objects in the IoT to store data, access process-
ing power, and stay updated on dynamic and moving
objects and people.
Convergence to architecture
Applying IoT, wearables, and Cloud computing in ar-
chitecture to buildings sets a number of boundary
conditions which simplify the application of the tech-
nologies:
• Location: buildings are precisely localised,
therefore their services are localised as well.
Inhabitants are either present in the building
(direct interaction), or in a different place (re-
quiring agency of the building services). Pub-
lic location-based services can breach privacy
(they gather information about place and in-
terest of a user; (Niu et al. 2015), but this is less
the case in the home/occupant relationship.
• Characteristics: (Gubba et al. 2013) note
the following characteristics for Smart Home-
/Office application: small network size, few
 users (family members), rechargeable batter-
ies power source, Wifi, 3G, 4G LTE backbone
Internet connectivity, local server, RFID and
WSN devices, and small bandwidth require-
ments.
• Easier orchestration of services: the
amount of smart objects and services which
have to coordinate their tasks in a building
context is much less and also more specific
than in the general IoT context. (Colistra et al.
2014) demonstrate that a consensus protocol
reaches a percentage error of 5% with respect
to the optimal allocation obtainable with a
centralized approach.
A number of applications of one or more of the
above technologies are in progress or have been con-
cluded. (Watson et al. 2004) report on an experi-
ment with five commercial buildings (supermarket,
bank office, government office, offices and cafeteria,
and university library), in which Machine-to-Machine
(M2M) technology was used to autonomously make
the buildings reduce electric demand based on fluc-
tuating energy prices posted on the Internet. (Fan-
tacci et al. 2014) propose a M2M Gateway archi-
tecture which they apply in Telecom Italia Lab of-
fices. The architecture is aimed to provide maximum
flexibility for the user, independent of the network
operator. (Torriti 2014) reports a 5.2% better en-
ergy demand reduction achieved by smart objects
compared to preset load controllers. (Ventura and
Baldassari 2014) experiment with a methodology to
generate interactive and connected smart objects.
(Kleiminger et al. 2014) report on home-occupancy
predicting algorithms for smart heating. Depending
on isolation quality and occupation ratios, annual en-
ergy savings ranged from 6% for well-isolated much
occupied buildings to 17% for poorly isolated build-
ings. (Calderoni et al. 2012) discuss the "around me"
application, which provides localised information in
a city environment - this was prototyped and tested
in Cesena, Italy. The SmartSantander project uses the
city of Santander, Spain, to provide and test smart
services such as environmental monitoring, parking
628 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
management and driver guidance, parks and gardens
irrigation, augmented reality, and participatory sens-
ing (Sanchez et al. 2014).
The majority of work on these novel technolo-
gies are obviously technology-pushed, as they are
still in early development - Cloud computing be-
ing the most mature of the three. In their study
on urban indicators, city benchmarking, and real-
time dashboards, (Kitchin et al. 2015) warn against
a naïve-instrumental interpretation of data gener-
ated by such systems. As they say, the data capture
is designed, negotiated, and debated and in conse-
quence, interpretation and action are normative, po-
litical, and ethical processes. This applies to cities and
to a lesser degree in buildings as well.
For the embedding in buildings, RFID tags cur-
rently seem to be the most robust candidate. The
technology is mature and well-developed (Mitton
and Simplot-Ryl 2011). To increase device lifetime
by better assessing sleeping times for Bluetooth de-
vices, (Collotta and Pau 2015) demonstrate a fuzzy
approach which increases device operational lifetime
by 30%. For Wi-Fi based devices, (Bovet and Hen-
nebert 2013) report a 2-6% energy demand reduc-
tion using a hybrid layer that selects the most appro-
priate communication protocol. They note that gains
increase with the amount of people using such de-
vices at the same time.
Closing the loop for interactive architecture
IoT, wearables, and Cloud computing, together with
other sensors in the building provide the technolog-
ical layer for interactive architecture. The data that is
generated through this layer needs to be interpreted
by the controller component of the interactive sys-
tem. Guo, Zhang and Wang (2011) distinguish be-
tween three different kinds of inferences: individual
intelligence (understanding inhabitants), spatial intel-
ligence (understanding the immediate environment
of inhabitants), and social intelligence (understanding
community dynamics). All these three aspects need
to be covered in an interactive system in order to cre-
ate sensible interactions. Because of their immedi-
ate bearing on daily surroundings, development of
smart environment requires a robust and reliable de-
velopment method to avoid costly (or worse) mis-
takes in the operation of the environment. Formal
programming methods such a π-calculus may pro-
vide such a basis (Lekshmy and Bhaskar 2015).
It has to be noted that an interactive system most
likely is not a completely closed system. New com-
ponents have to be introduced to an existing sys-
tem and be able to link up in the local ecology, and
users should also be able to fairly easily add their
own functionality (for example using Raspberry Pi -
Vujović and Maksimović 2015). For this purpose easy
to use platforms that takes care of these possibili-
ties have to be provided as well (Guinard et al. 2011;
García et al. 2014; Mayer et al. 2014; Mashal et al.
2015) such as Midgar, Cooltown, SenseWeb, Xively,
SensorBase, and so on. In addition, (Shin 2014) argues
that IoT developments should be considered from
a socio-technical viewpoint, not just a technology-
driven one. IoT should be localized, not "one size fits
all," which operates under the assumption that user
should adapt rather than technology. In the context
of Korea, he suggest that IoT literacy programs are re-
quired, a constant debate should be fostered, social
demands should not be dictated by the market alone,
and users have to be empowered to utilize IoT tech-
nology for themselves.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, we believe that it is clear
that the convergence of the three technologies of
IoT, wearables, and Cloud computing will have a ma-
jor impact on architecture. First of all, it will signifi-
cantly help the establishment of interactive architec-
ture. Second, this trend is so powerful that even with-
out professional consideration by architects of these
technologies, these technologies will merge anyway
and change architecture. It is critically important for
architects and researchers to be informed of these
developments and to assess its impact on architec-
ture and on the profession of architecture.
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 629
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632 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

A Symbiotic Interaction of Virtual and Physical Models in
Designing Smart Building Envelope
Do-Young Kim1 , DoJin Jang2 , Sung-Ah Kim3
1,2,3
Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea
1
http://desinfo.skku.edu
1,2,3
{doyoungkim|dojin721|sakim}@skku.edu

The building needs to be designed to minimize its environmental footprint and to

be sufficiently adaptive to changing indoor and outdoor environmental
conditions. The smart building envelope is an interactive system which is
adaptive to environmental conditions by transforming its shape and functions.
This is a kind of machine, not like a traditional building component, which should
be based on integrated engineering design methods in addition to the exploration
of formal aesthetics. As artistic genius or technical skill alone cannot not fully
support the design of such a novel product, the design needs to be systemized by
introducing a product development method such as prototyping in other
industries. Prototyping needs to be integrated in school environment, even if it
requires fundamental reconfiguration of current computer-based design studios.
This paper aims at proposing a teaching methodology for educating the
prototyping-based design of smart building envelope system in digital design
studio. This methodology allows novice designers to operate interactions
between virtual-physical models. And sketches are used to share ideas to other
collaborators such as programming, mechanical operations without technical
knowledge. The interactions between virtual-physical models and sketches
contribute to not only complement virtual models and physical models, but also
achieve high-performance of smart building envelope practically.

Keywords: Digital Model, Prototyping, Design Media, Design Process, Design

Education

BACKGROUND The overall performance of a building is heavily de-

The building needs to be designed to minimize its en-
vironmental footprint and to be sufficiently adaptive
to changing indoor and outdoor environmental con-
ditions: the building design needs to deal with cli-
mate changes and energy depletions (Wilde 2012).
pendent on that of its envelope system. It is an in-
dispensable subsystem which is tightly linked to all
other elements such as structures, technical services
and spatial configurations. Accordingly, the enve-
lope system significantly affects not only the overall

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 633

 energy efficiency and the carbon emission of a build-
ing (Schittich 2006, Bader 2014), but also the sym-
bolic image of a building.
The smart envelope, a.k.a. 'responsive facade'
or 'intelligent facade', is an interactive building en-
velope which is adaptive to environmental condi-
tions by transforming its shapes and functions (Weng
2013, Ron 2012, Gruber 2014, Salim 2014, Zari 2014).
The beauty of the smart building envelope system
can be obtained by its seamless interactions with
the environment while its structural integrity is main-
tained during the continuous transformation. A
smart building envelope system is integrated with
ICT-embedded components like sensors (sensing en-
vironmental conditions such as air flow, pollution,
temperature, etc.), actuators (controlling the move-
ment of physical parts or the change of their mate-
riality) and processor to perform desired functions.
Therefore, the success of smart building envelope de-
sign necessitates the collaboration among multidis-
ciplinary experts from robotics (movements of com-
ponents), embedded programming (interactions be-
tween exterior environmental conditions and spe-
cific functions of a system) and interaction designs
method (interactions between users and building
systems) (Wang 2010).
The smart envelope is a kind of machine, not like
any traditional building component, which should be
based on integrated engineering design methods in
addition to the exploration of formal aesthetics. Such
design process then becomes a series of optimization
seeking for the most suitable configuration for envi-
ronmental conditions while adopting smart compo-
nents and technologies to realize the design concept
(Kirkegaard 2011). As artistic genius or technical skill
alone cannot fully support the design of such a novel
product, the design needs to be systemized by intro-
ducing a product development method such as pro-
totyping in other industries.
The prototyping method is a proven technique
to accommodate empirical sources to a design pro-
cess, which has been widely adopted in product de-
sign field such as car or airplane (Fu 2008, Guimaraes
634 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
1991). Prototyping-based design process usually al-
low designers to not only adapt unacquainted tech-
nologies into architectural components, but also find
design solutions of better performances. Prototyp-
ing needs to be integrated in school environment for
these reasons, even if it requires fundamental recon-
figuration of current computer-based design studios.
The combined use of virtual and physical mod-
els has become a promising method in the process
of evaluating the usability of design to accommo-
date user requirements (Schmitz 2013, Wolfe 2011).
Users are able to evaluate building performances and
investigate problems caused by physical operations,
then solve those problems by reconfiguring the sys-
tem. However, the prototyping method tends to in-
crease cost for fabricating various types of mock-ups,
and requires high level of expert knowledge about
smart technologies (Z corporation 2010). As the de-
tails of this new technology is not fully considered
during the the phase of conceptual design, unex-
pected problems may occur by the time when the in-
stallation expert tries to apply the smart component
(Vries 2012). On the other hand, architects some-
times understand the smart technology at the su-
perficial level, which hinders the design of efficient
building systems (Silver 2009). Particularly, the proto-
typing method combining virtual and physical mod-
els is difficult to be introduced into architectural de-
sign studios in school environment as due to the con-
straints in time, cost, and human and physical re-
sources..�
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES & METHODOLOGY
This paper aims at proposing a design process model
for educating the prototyping-based design of smart
building envelope system. The prototyping method
is introduced to help architecture students deal
with the conceptualization and development of this
machine-like product. The backbone of this design
education process, then, is the prototyping process
that utilizes the complementary use of virtual model
and physical model. This process entails the gener-
ation of numerous design versions since the genera-
tive parametric tools are employed as a main vehicle
for developing the virtual model. Furthermore, the
design needs to be supported by the extensive use
of simulation tools, which makes it inevitable to con-
duct various data transformation tasks and create nu-
merous intermediate data objects. It is not easy for
a novice designer, i.e. architecture student without
the knowledge of programming or parametric tools,
to deal with such tasks against the limitation of class
hours and physical resources, and eventually to de-
liver a successful product. Furthermore, the physical
model required for the prototyping of smart build-
ing envelope is not just a static object but an actually
operating machine. Thus, the difficulties are com-
pounded by the burden of training the basic skills
of physical computing and digital fabrication even at
the basic level.
Based on the above observations, this paper
presents a complementary prototyping process of
virtual and physical models: a symbiotic model, and
this model considers the limitations of resources in
the field of education. In order to proceed with the
research, traits of both virtual and physical model are
examined. Then, an evolutionary process is modelled
where the design evolves through the iterative analy-
sis, evaluation, and refinement of design alternatives
represented by both type of models. A design stu-
dio whose task is on "biomimetic kinetic façade" was
coordinated and necessary courseware was also pre-
pared by reflecting this process model. The studio
was conducted for one semester (16 weeks), and the
whole process and the results have been recorded
and analyzed.
The focus of analysis is on how the two models
can enhance the traits of the other, and the design
productivity. The role of sketch, in particular, is of
special interest in term of facilitating the interaction
of two models, and helping students to better deal
with those two models, and yielding better design
solutions. Accordingly, such use of sketch, e.g. flow
chart for algorithm, by the architecture student was
carefully observed.
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 635
SYMBIOSIS OF VIRTUAL MODEL AND
PHYSICAL MODEL
Virtual models have evolved to expand design lan-
guage through developments of computer technol-
ogy which make complicated forms and experimen-
tal systems (Kim 1997, 2012). Moreover, the conver-
gence of heterogeneous technologies (e.g. Virtual re-
ality, Internet of things, Physical computing) enables
people to broaden sensuous experiences of virtual
space to real world (Say 2014). Parametric designs
and optimization techniques facilitate to generate
alternatives of various forms and find optimal ones
among numerous alternatives in accordance with de-
sign requirements (Carpo 2013, Shelden 2002). And
fully fledging technologies, digital Fabrication and
3D printing, help designers to conduct rapid proto-
typing (Singh 2011, Volnder 2014, Calado 2013). Fur-
thermore, interactions between virtual model and
physical model help designers not only simulate their
performances but also test operations to improve de-
sign fidelity (De 2014).
The virtual model (Figure 1, (A)) captures the
information of the smallest components to operate
smart building envelope by reacting to environmen-
tal conditions. Also, it contains invisible relationships
among building components and smart elements
such as sensors and actuators. On the other hand,
physical model (B) is confined by physical forces (such
as gravity and collision among components) which
influence on assemblies of components and changes
of behaviors. Designer generates variations by con-
trolling sub-parameters that cause changes in opera-
tion while maintaining critical relations between vir-
tual components (1). If versions are transfered to sim-
ulation tools, environmental performances are sim-
ulated (2). Using those simulation results, designer
decides parts to investigate in physical model (3).
Designer fabricates prototypes of versions that need
to be tested in physical environment (4). And then
they find problems that cannot be detected in vir-
tual model by activating the combinations (5). Also
by only changing sub-parameters in virtual models,
various shapes of prototypes are assessed for perfor-
 mances rapidly without fabricating in physical envi-
ronments (6). Virtual models and physical models
complement each other, eventually contribute to im-
prove overall performances of smart building enve-
lope (7).
Virtual models have underlying parametric variations
which are important evidences for representing de-
sired images (Figure 2, (1)), such as a control range
of motions (e.g., angle of rotation, distance of shift-
ing), which are used to revise forms or replace mate-
rial properties with keeping semantic orders in over-
all configurations or their sizes (2). When iterative
parts in the design process are constructed as an al-
gorithm, virtual models are used to generate similar
offspring versions. And, by connecting simulation or
optimization tools, optimum forms are found which
is close to design requirements (3). But if previous
versions are not able to fully satisfy design require-
ments by changing only parametric variations, a dif-
ferent solution will be designed (4). Novel versions
are evolved for semantic orders as mentioned above.
By such an iterative process results in a multitude of
different versions, heterogeneous versions enables
to be generated rapidly (A). On the other hand, physi-
cal models are constrained compared to virtual mod-
636 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
els, non-parametric, but it enables to assess practi-
cal operations in physical conditions through moving
kinetic parts (5). The designer can directly operate
the system so that the interaction facilitates to grasp
overall mechanism of the system. Through those op-
erations, it becomes even easier for the designer to
replace parts or accommodate tiny components con- Figure 1
sidering movements of components (6). Also, the Interactions
operations are used for evaluating physical perfor- between virtual
mances by adding environmental factors artificially, models and
e.g. ventilation, daylight, human's behavior (7). How- physical models
ever, physical models will be generated only for some when prototyping
prototypes which are critical enough to spend the smart building
cost of fabrication (8). envelopes
Figure 2
Evolution of virtual
and physical
models during the
prototyping
process
In spite of the usefulness of two models, it is diffi-
cult for students to operate virtual models as well as
physical models. The reasons are as follows. Com-
pared with filed experts, students tend to spend
much more time to grasp the mechanism of the
smart building envelope system rather than to es-
tablish design strategies. Also, the students experi-
ence difficulties in explaining to other collaborators
about the technical content of virtual components
or algorithms. They can also consider the integra-
tion of smart technologies in implementing forms
(2). This is why students have difficulties handling
two models in educational field directly. Both mod-
els require considerable technical skills, expense, and
time. To overcome these problems, this research
puts an emphasis on the roles of sketch. Sketches
are easy to modify by intuitions (Elsen 2012) and
explain forms or principles logically (Johnson 2009).
Sketching, as a familiar design method to novice de-
signer, not only supports functions of virtual-physical
models but also being a catalyst to help to utilize
both complementary models in the whole design
process. For example, sketches allow designers to
share ideas with other collaborators without tech-
nical knowledge. Therefore, virtual models, physi-
cal models and sketches support designers to specify
systematic structures and achieve successful results
for implementing high-performance smart building
envelope.
• Conducting design studio
1. Modelling itself needs to be closer to actually
operating object. So tutors choose general
tools for making forms and fabricate smart de-
vices (Virtual models - Rhinoceros and Ar-
duino, Physical models - Arduino, sensor and
actuator), so that students construct and op-
erate virtual models and physical models. Tu-
tors also provide tutorials for basic implemen-
tation skills.
2. Several types of sketches are served for stu-
dents to share design concepts, operation of
kinetic parts, and assembly mechanisms. Stu-
dents are instructed to brief the progress of
design using sketches along with written doc-
ument.
3. Students are asked to utilize three media (vir-
tual model, physical model and sketch) in
progress and to write out design history fo-
cusing on how they defined problems and
generated solutions. The design history pro-
vides important clues to investigate the roles
of three media in design process. It involves
numerous design contexts, such as cost, pref-
erence of forms, difficult problems for opera-
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 637
tions, which affect final results.
• Observation & Analysis
1. Types of virtual models and physical models,
their functions to complement other models
are investigated in prototyping process.
2. The design history is used to investigate the
stream of design thinking which interacts be-
tween problems and solutions as well as com-
plementary interactions between prototypes
and sketches.
DESIGNING DIGITAL DESIGN STUDIO
The digital design studio is a course targeting ad-
vanced students who have fulfilled a prerequisite ba-
sic CAD class. This studio deals with not only para-
metric design knowledge, but also recent technolog-
ical trends in architectural design. Students are able
to find potentials by coordinating design forms and
technical elements. On the other hand, biomimetic
design has been recently introduced as a method to
enhance the environmental adaptability of a build-
ing envelope (Gruber 2014, Park 2014, Salim 2014,
Zari 2014). The biomimetic smart envelope has re-
cently gained a potential to be one of the essential
features of the future building systems.
In this research, kinetic facade designs and
biomimetic approaches are converged in digital de-
sign studio for implementing smart building enve-
lope using prototyping-based design process. Due to
kinetic system embedded sensor, actuator and pro-
cessor, designers interacts to implemented models
spontaneously (Kim 2012). However, kinetic systems
need to be implemented as an operational mecha-
nism in articulated steps to mimic organic systems in
nature.
Biomimetic design is an approach for reinter-
preting principles in Biology into architectural design
(Davis 2013). Designing kinetic facades using this ap-
proach is to find optimal functions of components
and high-performance of holistic systems adapted
to design requirements (King 2014, Zari 2007, Imhof
2013).
In the digital design studio, virtual models and
 physical models are used not only to grasp funda-
mental mechanism of kinetic building facade, but
also to create desired systems. Functions of two
models were classified into 'before establishing con-
cepts (Figure 3, Level A)' and 'after establishing con-
cepts (Figure 3, Level B)'. Designers establish design
concepts close to an ideal solution while describing
the solution using sketches along with the construc-
tion of virtual models and physical model (Level A).
Sketches are used for representing simplified shapes
to describe images by translating bionic principle
into envelope systems (1). Virtual and physical pro-
totypes are refined repetitively until they are close to
the intended design (2). By interactions between vir-
tual models and physical models, a practical opera-
tion is conducted (Level B). In this step, systems are
tested for operation whether they can satisfy target
performances. Based on the test result, systematic
configurations or algorithms are modified to solve
the problem. If two models need to be modified to
solve investigated problems in (3), algorithms (4) or
systematic structures (5) are changed.
In the process of designing biomimetic envelope
system, designers are able to compensate problems
by interactions between virtual models and physical
models. Depending on what designers would like to
evaluate, sketches need to be proposed differently.
Sketches are classified into three types: about ele-
ments belonging to performances for evaluating vir-
tual models (Figure 4, (1)): about system structure
for evaluating physical models (2): about data flow
for evaluating interactions between virtual-physical
models (3).
First, when simulation results do not satisfy a
target performance, major factors are checked and
shapes and behaviors are modified (1). Second,
when operations are abnormal, behavior and re-
lationships between components are modified (2).
Third, when evaluating overall performances, data
flows are changed or components are added (3). Us-
ing sketches such as (1), (2) and (3), virtual versions
and physical prototypes are created according to
modified logics and replaced components (4).
Figure 3
Kinetic building
envelope design in
digital design
studio
Figure 4
Sketches &
interactions
between virtual
models and
physical models
CONDUCTING DIGITAL DESIGN STUDIO
Special lectures on virtual model, physical model,
and sketches were offered to students. These lec-
tures were coordinated according to the phase of de-
sign process. Three media are incorporated to de-
sign simplified smart building envelopes: Rhinoceros
is for representing geometries: Arduino is for analyz-
ing data collected sensors: Grasshopper is for chang-
ing geometries using parameters.
Figure 5 shows technological background and
educational materials provided on each step of de-
sign process. First, the tutors explained some ex-
amples of constructed kinetic façades focusing on
their design process and operation principles(E-(1)).
Students selected the examples of kinetic façade

638 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

 and analyzed their operation principles and design
requirements(D-(1)). Second, the students make up
the design requirements which would be fulfilled
by the kinetic façade system (D-(2)). They selected
an object which would be reinterpreted from the
biomimetic point of view and designed the over-
all operational principles(D-(3)). Third, tutors intro-
duced some similar cases of sketches and diagrams
about the kinetic façade system: architectural de-
tails, structure of system, and data flow(E-(3)). Stu-
dents explained the design through discussion us-
ing sketches(D-(4)). Students made a prototype with
virtual and physical models and analyzed to find
out which prototypes perform appropriately for the
design requirements with the tutors(D-(5)). Tutors
asked the students to predict and improve the errors
of the system considering the connection between
their components and its data flow(E-(4)). Finally,
students completed the final prototype through im-
proving the selected prototype or creating another
one(D-(6)).
Figure 5
Tutoring process
through design
process
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 639
The prototyping process (Figure 5, (5)) consists of
the four steps (Figure 6):
• Design a module (A)
1. Construct physical and virtual model by defin-
ing the structure of the system and data flow
which satisfy specific target performance set
on the conceptual stage(A).
2. Evaluate the performance of the module
via interaction between virtual and physical
model.
3. Replace the components or modify the struc-
ture of the system.
• Add requirements (B)
1. Add the new design requirements and check
if there are components which contradict
each other when a prototype of module is
completed.
2. Adjust the target performances and the struc-
ture of the system to get the best solution sat-
isfying the requirements.
• Expand systems using different modules (C)
1. Find problems occurring when new module
type is added(A) or the existing module was
expanded.
• Complete design (D)
1. Improve the system so it can provide the best
performance(C).
DISCUSSION
The design process is progressed not only to adapt
to the design requirements using smart components,
but also to specify the desired form according to con-
cepts: prototyping process. Virtual models, physical
models and sketches were categorized into 6 works
from the 6 project teams. A team which produced
balanced quantities of three media (virtual models,
physical models and sketches) was selected and their
roles were analyzed in terms of complementary roles
of models and media. This team designed a kinetic
façade to mimic a leaf like Carpinus laxiflora to im-
prove the quality of the indoor environment. Ki-
netic parts in this project operate in response to the

presence of human with the help of a proximity sen-
sor. The design process can be divided into 2 stages
based on the function change of three media. Def-
initions of stage A and B are based on the chapter
of 'designing digital design studio': In stage A, con-
nections between virtual models and physical mod-
els are not fully constructed for real-time operations:
In stage B, connections between virtual models and
physical models are completed for real-time opera-
tions.
• VIRTUAL MODEL
1. A stage: method to implement geometries
2. B stage: method to evaluate performance -
for acting by both adapting a luminous inten-
sity and a distance between a user and the en-
velope, simulation results are compared with
each other.
• PHYSICAL MODEL
1. A stage: method to apply the movement
of the leaves to folding mechanism of the
façade.
2. B stage: method to find physical problems by
640 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
Figure 6
Defining modules
and assembling a
system in
prototyping
process
operating the parts as in the real smart build-
ing envelope.
• SKETCH
1. A stage: It is used to skematize the image
of the facade. Virtual models and physical
models are implemented same as drawn us-
ing sketch
2. B stage: When awkward movements or phys-
ical crashes are detected, it is used to analyze
imperfections for factors or set complemen-
tary mechanism using connection between
virtual models and physical models.
When designers operate virtual models and physical
models separately (A stage), they need to compare
different versions or prototypes to improve design fi-
delity. In this stage, they are able to implement de-
sired form and choreograph systematic movement in
accordance with design concept. After schematic de-
sign are built in a simplified form (B stage), they oper-
ate system in real-time and interacts to achieve high-
performance of 'smart building envelope'. And Sym-
biotic virtual-physical models play a key role to de-
velop smart envelope systems. Sketches also help
implementing virtual model and physical model in
early design stages because they help facilitate the
communication among participants.
CONCLUSION
Prototyping is a critical design method for smart
building envelope which needs to be developed with
step-by-step evaluations on its operations and var-
ious required performance factors. Also, reflecting
the trend in contemporary architecture which be-
comes similar to engineering product packed with
ICT technologies, a more systematical learning is
needed to be integrated especially in digital design
studios. Old-fashioned CAD teaching curricular pro-
viding the content according to the difficulty of tools,
e.g. 2D drafting - 3D modeling - Visualization - Sim-
ulation, are not able to fully support those require-
ments. To integrate the prototyping method into the
learning process, a holistic strategy is needed to en-
compass various requirements such as determining
the type of design product, levels of implementation,
coordinating tools, providing necessary knowledge
and skills. This paper tried to address this strategy in a
digital design studio where the theme was to imple-
ment a smart building envelope, then analyzed the
content of the class. In this paper, a symbiotic model
between virtual-physical models was proposed. The
symbiotic interactions enable both virtual and physi-
cal models evolve in parallel, and help the novice de-
signer conduct the prototyping efficiently in a school
environment which suffers from the limitations of
time and resources. Particularly, this paper investi-
gated how two models complement other's disad-
vantages in deriving successful design. Another in-
teresting point was how traditional sketches facili-
tates the interactions between two models. In con-
clusion, a framework for prototyping-based design
studio was proposed which is based on the symbi-
otic virtual-physical models. Also, the integrated use
of traditional design media in digital design process
was emphasized. A rigorous analysis method was not
fully developed to quantify the statistical significance
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 641
of the observation. The symbiosis model was also
proposed by an empirical study without a full sup-
port of quantification, which needs to be enhanced
in future works.
AKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper was supported by 63 Research Fund,
Sungkyunkwan University, 2014.
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642 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

The One Day House
Intelligent Systems for Adaptive Buildings

Andrew John Wit1

1
Temple University
1
www.andrewjohnwit.com
1
a@wit-o.us

As the global population continues to climb and environmental conditions

become further unpredictable, the creation of a more robust, intelligent,
adaptable yet affordable housing system will become an evermore-significant
issue. Existing housing typologies find themselves lagging behind other
industries such as aerospace and even automotive, lacking advanced fabrication
infrastructures as well as embedded intelligent technologies that could allow for:
Global interconnectivity and or manipulation, automatic software/hardware
updating and physical/computational adaptability. The use of advanced tools for
manufacturing resembling industrial robotics, 3D printing and as well as
intelligent fabrication systems currently remains nearly non-existent. Constructed
using outdated design methodologies, materials and construction techniques, the
current dwelling functions merely as an enclosure for life rather then an
integrated system for information, comfort and commerce. This paper questions
the current typology of "house" through the rethinking of not only form and
material, but by reimagining the dwelling as a whole. Rather then observing the
dwelling as a static form for infrastructural permanence, this paper redefines the
home as a globalized commodity, which is both physically and technologically
connected and adaptable.

Keywords: Responsive housing, Adaptive skin, Robotic fabrication, Mass

customization, Computational design

INTRODUCTION varying driving/weather conditions (Bangle, 2008) to

In today's rapidly evolving digital/computationally-
based society, the tools and interfaces we inter-
act with on a daily basis are becoming more and
more adaptive and intelligent. From ever-more au-
tonomous automobiles with the ability to read their
surroundings and adapt their external form based on
mobile devices with the ability to model our envi-
ronment in 3D or finish our sentences, a growing
level of computational "awareness" has begun to ap-
pear within our everyday tools and environments.
This awareness allows for the further development of
more user centric and efficient environments, where

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 643

 it is no longer necessary for the user to be in complete
manual control. Yet this level of intelligence still re-
mains all but absent within the spaces and interfaces
people invest their greatest quantities of time and as-
sets, the detached dwelling.
Current building typologies remain static and
globally disconnected, unable to adapt to their in-
habitants changing needs as well as their surround-
ing environments in real-time. Recently, a grow-
ing number of architects and designers have been
delving more into the realm of "smart" and "adapt-
able" building technologies. Spaces with the ability
to sense temperature, occupation and internal/exter-
nal lighting conditions and can then learn to adapt
through usage patterns are becoming more com-
monplace (Wit 2014). Through these integrated sys-
tems, buildings are beginning to gain the ability to
not only sense and adapt to their surroundings, but
also communicate autonomously with their inhabi-
tants through inter-connected mobile devices.
Although certain systems or artifacts within
these buildings have become more "intelligent", the
fact remains that these new systems were built upon
an existing framework consisting of archaic build-
ing materials, construction methodologies, enclo-
sure systems and infrastructure that are both out-
dated and impervious to change.
Rather then attempting to make existing build-
ing materials, construction methods and integrated
systems smarter, this paper questions our current
methodologies of designing the built environment,
and proposes a novel system fueled by the integra-
tion of advanced composite materials, robotic on-
site fabrication for mass customization, environmen-
tally adaptive/robotic "soft" light-weight ETFE skin
systems and adaptive/intelligent data collection/dis-
semination systems that allow for continuous moni-
toring and upgrading of building systems. This move
away from standardized materials, common con-
struction methodologies and preconceptions cur-
rently linked with the idea of "home" allows for more
emergent/adaptive technologies to evolve simulta-
neously with the formal design and programming of
644 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
the building itself, rather then applied to an existing
system afterwards.
Recent projects such as the University of
Stuttgart's ICD Hygro Skin: Meteorosensite Pavilion
(Menges 2013) as well as their recent robotically fab-
ricated composite pavilions (University of Stuttgart
2012-2014), the Yeosu Expo 2012 Thematic Pavilion
(soma 2012) and ONL's 2003 NSA Exhibition in Pom-
pidou (Oosterhuis 2003) begin to question not only
our current formal logic but also our preconceptions
on ridged envelope systems and material choices.
These innovative projects not only push our current
design preconceptions but also introduce questions
on the long-term continuous occupation and mate-
rial durability
Through a series of small-scale prototypes and
robotically fabricated tests (figure 1), this paper takes
its first steps towards furthering these advanced
materials, methods and robotic fabrication systems
further into the everyday architectural realm, with
hopes that future research will lead to the production
of a series of novel, full-scale, high-quality dwelling
prototypes.
Figure 1
Composite Winding
Detail v.4.0
Throughout this ongoing process, a sequence of four
design strategies been utilized and pushed for the re-
alization of the "One Day House" prototype: 1) Form
finding through minimal surface tensile modeling 2)
Composite robotic fabrication and modularization 3)
Adaptive/robotic ETFE enclosure systems and finally
4) Intelligent control/monitoring systems. Following
are the processes and results shaping this evolving
research.
Context
Following the March 11th 2011 Earthquake and
Tsunami in Northern Japan, an international initia-
tive was started to reimagine the potential of the
detached dwelling. Initially envisioned as a means
of rethinking with emergency housing, the poten-
tials of the "One Day House" initiative have spread
beyond, with the hopes of redefining the detached
dwelling as a whole. By re-examining of spatial
needs through the integration of adaptable/efficient
spaces, the "One Day House" collapses the overall
area requirements of the dwelling. Ranging in foot-
prints of between 600 -1500 sqft. allows for the
easy integration of composite structural systems fab-
ricated through on-site robotic fabrication. The fol-
lowing describes early studies in structural form find-
ing, robotic fabrication and small-scale prototyping
used throughout the ongoing research in the "One
Day House" initiative.
INFORMED FORM
Architectural form can be generated through many
means, though many of today's methodologies are
outdated and do not afford buildings the highest lev-
els of formal variation, material efficiency and adapt-
ability necessary for todays rising environmental and
technological demands. Dependence on standard-
ized materials and dimensions currently force the
buildings form into inefficient shapes and configura-
tions in an attempt to minimize waste and upfront
costs. These attempts though fail in the long run
as these forms lack both environmental adaptability
and longevity.
Subtractive and stick-frame construction meth-
ods although quick and requiring less skilled labor,
require many layers of inefficient ridged material be-
tween the interior and exterior skins, while creating
minimal surfaces with any potential for adaptabil-
ity. This process also leaves inhabitants with huge
amounts of waste both during construction, as well
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 645
as at end of life. Although some of this waste can be
repurposed as hybridized composites, a large major-
ity ends in landfills.
In addition, additive construction methodolo-
gies tend to also use high-energy materials such as
steel reinforced concrete. In repetitive situations
reusable formwork can limit waste, but our desire
for the creation of unique built solutions requires
that extensive custom formworks be manufactured
creating vast amounts of un-recycled waste. Also,
the movement of time-sensitive/high-energy heavy-
weight materials over extensive distances in conjunc-
tion with additional materials required to compen-
sate for low tensile strength also leaves this method-
ology to be less desired.
Rather then relying on and working with these
outdated form-finding methodologies, this project
investigates using techniques such as computational
tensile-membrane modeling and inflated-surface
modeling while utilizing evolving internal and exter-
nal environmental conditions as constraints to deter-
mine an optimal, yet slightly flexible structural form.
In conjunction with robotic formless composite
winding of materials such as pre-impregnated car-
bon fiber tow, and clad in an adaptable pneumatic
ETFE pillows system to create an extremely flexible,
high quality, low-waste and structurally robust en-
closure system, this project aims to facilitate a novel
lightweight structural system for adaptive housing.
The "One Day House" currently investigates form
through several evolving inputs: 1) Monocaque vs.
Modular Structures 2) Formed and Formless Compos-
ite Winding 3) Continual Environmental Adaptation
and 4) Re-configurable Programmatic Spaces.
Form-finding through MPanel & Kangaroo
Building form was generated through the utilization
of the Rhino 3D plug-in's Meilar MPanel (a tensile
modeling software) and Kangaroo (a physics engine
created by Daniel Piker). As the enclosure system was
to be designed and potentially fabricated as a singu-
lar continuous skin in smaller instances of composite
winding, a system was developed for the easy trans-
 lation from digital model into a physical wound pro-
totype.
Initially, a basic outline for the dwelling was de-
fined from a simple primitive form. As this system is
parametric, the outline and base form could be ma-
nipulated or altered based on varying conditions at
any point. Thereafter, building site orientation, exter-
nal environmental constraints (sun, wind, etc.) and
internal programmatic forces were exerted on the
original formal outline as a series of dynamic vectors.
These forces in turn distorted the base form creating
a revised initial programmatic and formal diagram
Following the initial formal creation, a formless
winding framework is derived through the extrac-
tion of the open-end form geometries. These ex-
tracted splines become the end structure of an alu-
minum jig that the composite tow will be wound be-
tween. These curves also act as the bounding ge-
ometry for tensile form finding within the MPanel
environment. Within MPanel, this end geometry is
then configured as edges within a "fixed edge" ten-
sile membrane structure. These ends are then inter-
connected through a network of equally sub-divided
meshes representing the un-relaxed tensile forces. (A
refined mesh geometry is important here, allowing
for the highest level of accuracy in future compos-
ite winding.) Intersecting edges within the form are
defined as structural ridges. These ridges represent
catenary cables around which the composite mate-
rial will be wound. The cable also acts as a temporary
structure connecting the two frames together during
the baking process. Material properties are then pro-
grammed in MPanel and the meshes are relaxed cre-
ating a more robustly defined structural form.
The finalized MPanel form is then parametri-
cally linked into Kangaroo where internal and ex-
ternal forces can again redefine the building's form
to an infinite numbers of variations. The continu-
ous mesh is then offset inward creating a secondary
mesh for structural depth. The offset has the ability
to be asymmetrical depending on structural loading
and winding densities. For monocaque typologies,
splines can now be wound around the two meshes
646 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
creating an interconnected 3D structural network to
be extracted as the robotic winding data within KUKA
PRC.
Monocaque vs. Modular
Two structural design methodologies were investi-
gated for the "One Day House" both utilizing the
above-described form finding methodologies. In sit-
uations where interior floor area is minimized and
clear fabrication space is available, a singular mono-
caque system would be utilized. This system allows
for a more simplified fabrication process through the
utilization of a rotating platform and one or two
robotic arms. Although this method minimizes mate-
rial and time, it also faces several challenges. Firstly,
as the current composites must be baked in a low
temperature oven to cure this methodology requires
the fabrication of a large-scale portable oven. This
can be easily achieved though a modular insulated
system but requires three times the spaces for fabri-
cation, oven, and foundation.
The monocaque methodology also makes it
more difficult for the initial form to be manipulated,
as the structure is one contained element. In time if
the occupants wish to add on to or manipulate the
houses basic form, their number of options will be
minimized. A potential option for manipulation of
this system could be addition through aggregation.
of additional large-scale monocaque modules that
can be attached in either direction to allow for later
additions.
In instances where the overall building form
may be to large or complex to be fabricated in a
single continuous module, the initial minimal sur-
face geometries would be subdivided, thickened and
wound as individual bolt-on structural modules. This
system would allow for the creation of elements cur-
rently ranging between eighteen and sixty inches
based on the current end effector prototype that
could be easily condensed for baking, transportation
and assembled on site. This modular system could
also allow for a high level of post completion cus-
tomization both spatially as well as with the façade
 system as individual modules have the ability to be was designed specifically to investigate a system of
individually replaced and interchanged without dis- smaller lightweight high-strength composite mod-
turbing the overall structural integrity. ular building blocks. With the "One Day House's"
Just as with the monocaque system, there are in- potential to be designed, fabricated and assembled
evitably downsides. First is an increase in complex- on-site with minimal manpower and material waste,
ity. Where the monocaque system condenses struc- ROBO-WINDER aims to physically and visually re-
ture into a single module, the modular system could imagine what housing could look like in the near fu-
consist of around one hundred unique modules de- ture.
pending on the structural patterning. With the addi-
Figure 2
tion of panels also comes an increase in material. As
Form Generation,
individual elements must now connect to several ad-
Modularization +
jacent modules, each unit must now contain robust
Composite Winding
structurally wound walls creating connection points.
Finally module accuracy and ease of on-site aggrega-
tion will be of upmost importance, as imperfections
will compound throughout construction.

Modularization
With the current end effector prototype (to be de-
scribed below), there is huge potential for variation
within the modularization of the form. Current mod-
Figure 3
ular systems are modeled off of a hexagonal pattern-
ROBO-WINDER
ing with a varying diameter of between eighteen and
v.6.0. Fabrication
sixty inches. The current prototype also has the abil-
Drawing
ity to adjust in length in 1/8" increments of length cre-
ating extra flexibility (figure 2). For additional varia-
tion in form or winding patterns, arms can be com-
pletely removed creating new modular typologies
or elongated asymmetrically. Also, as symmetry be-
tween the inner and outer surfaces my not be struc-
turally or visually desirable, each arm also has the
ability to rotate 45 degrees on either direction out-
side of vertical. This allows for interlocking between
adjacent panels.
Module connections are currently designed as
flexible rubber hinges which allow for a minimal
amount of flexibility between the modules. The con-
nection system will be developed further in later
research, and as the individual module system be-
comes more robust. Through the utilization formless composite winding,
the dwellings form has the ability to remain flexible
Robo-Winder V.6.0 (form, joints and skin), as the building is no longer
Opposed to the previously discussed Monocaque constrained by the ridged connections and cross sec-
based structural winding; ROBO-WINDER (figure 3) tions of standardized materials such as wood, steel

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 647

 and glass. Complex doubly curved surfaces can be
computationally optimized and broken down into
unique, easily fabricated and workable geometries in
Rhino 3D's plug-in Grasshopper. These surfaces are
then reconfigured based on the end-effector work-
ing tolerances. After each module has been individu-
ally calculated, a winding simulation is created within
Daniel Piker's Kangaroo Physics with the output be-
ing a single continuously wound spline. The spline
data is then oriented in KUKA PRC where robot code
is simulated and is exported as robot code for wind-
ing the pre-impregnated carbon fiber tow around
the end effector. Following composite winding, each
module is densely stacked and baked on-site within
a low temperature oven. Through the design, fab-
rication and testing of a series of prototypical end-
effectors, ROBO-WINDER initiated the examination
for the potential of both thin shell aggregated mod-
ules as well as densely woven 3D modules
Initial Prototyping. Initial prototyping for winding
was accomplished through a simple modular based
system which allowed for individual users to create
large varieties of symmetrical or asymmetrical struc-
tural modules for the construction of the project. Al-
though the current end effector utilizes six adjustable
arms, each arm has the ability to be removed or split
to allow for higher levels of variation. Initial proto-
types were fabricated of laser cut cardboard or acrylic
and focused on creating a simple system for building
skin modularization into three-dimensionally thick-
ened units to be later wound in carbon fiber wind-
ing (figure 4). As initial testing focused on varying
winding methodologies and end-effectors typolo-
gies, structural rigidity and module connectors ini-
tially suffered and were developed further in later
prototypes.
Each prototype was designed with ease of as-
sembly and robotic actuation in mind. End effec-
tors were created to be simply laser-cut or water-
jet cut, and bolted together within minutes on-site.
Each prototype also allowed for vast amounts of pro-
grammed variation. Through a series of simply de-
fined numerical sliders, users were able to adjust the
648 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
length of each arm, the arms angle of attack as well
as the density of the wind. Each element of the
end effector could also be easily replaced with other
iterations or simply robotically actuated by the in-
tegration of a system of pneumatics. This embed-
ded flexibility allowed for the creation of modules
ranging from basic composite wrapping all the way
to complex three dimensionally wound composite
structural modules with vast levels of variation.
Figure 4
ROBO-WINDER
winding test
Further Development. Initial prototypes and test-
ing allowed for a robust understanding of robotic
composite winding and complex form generation
through robotic end-effectors and computational
design. Although these tests showed the possibili-
ties of aggregated composite modules, they initially
lacked the necessary structure to create larger-scale
projects with longer life spans.
The current phase of development investigates
the formal logic of the individual module, while
creating a more robust three-dimensional carbon
fiber network for structural applications (figure 5).
Through further material explorations, advanced
panelization, winding methodologies and structural
tests, ROBO-WINDER aims to create a novel system
for the rapid fabrication of the "One Day Houses"
composite structural system.
ENCLOSURE SYSTEM
Just as with the dwellings structure and infrastruc-
ture, it is important to rethink the dwellings skin. Cur-
 rent skin systems are extremely complex requiring
multiples layers and barriers. These barriers if not in-
stalled correctly can also lead to long term, imper-
ceptible problems that can appear without notices.
Rather then using these out of date systems, the "One
Day House" proposes a small-scale variation of the
ETFE pillow systems such as those found on buildings
like as the Water Cube in Beijing (figure 6).
Figure 5
ROBO-WINDER
v10.0 Complex
Winding Test
Figure 6
Prototypical Skin
Detail
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 649
Rather then working with a static system, this project
proposes an adaptive system that modifies air pres-
sure within individual pillows to accompany neces-
sary insulation values and lighting controls (through
printed offset fritting). Where as typical buildings in-
sulation remains static even in conditions where the
sunward side of the house retains the same value as
the shaded side, this system would have the ability
and intelligence to adapt values for the optimal inte-
rior conditions and energy harvesting.
As the structure has a controlled structural
depth, the façade system would consist of both inte-
rior and exterior pillow systems with a controlled air
space in-between. As individual pillows are related
to singular modules, damaged or aged pockets could
easily be replaced within a minutes. If lighting condi-
tions or insulation values are not appropriate to the
inhabitant, they could also be easily adapted by var-
ied inflation, fritting or material density.
Computational modeling for the ETFE pillows
was accomplished through a combination of MPanel
and Kangaroo physics. Initial constraints such as ma-
terial thickness, tension, air pressure and so on are
entered into the MPanel software where individual
pockets are rendered. These static panels then para-
metrically inserted into Kangaroo and linked to Lady-
Bug+HoneyBee which collects environmental data
from a given area then allowing for the manipula-
tion of inflation pressure within the individual pil-
lows. These new minimum and maximum values
are then once again verified in MPanel for material
stresses and tolerances. The output of this is the cur-
rent adaptable pneumatic skin prototype currently
under further development.
CONCLUSION
Although the "One Day House" is still in the early
stages of development, current research has shown
the potential and necessity for the integration of ad-
vanced materials, fabrication methods and robotics
into the design and fabrication of future housing so-
lutions. Through the utilization of these new mate-
rials and methods, the potential for the creation of
 a new typology of intelligent dwelling that is both
more formally diverse and environmentally reactive
has become increasingly feasible.
Rather than focusing on the formulation of a for-
mal language from the onset, this project utilizes en-
vironmental constraints (internal and external), fab-
rication methodologies (such as formless composite
winding) and adaptable lightweight skins to shape
the buildings form.
This new pedagogical framework for building
also questions the current production of artifacts
where the design process ends upon the comple-
tion of construction, and asks whether both the de-
sign process and the building itself could continue
to adapt and evolve throughout the lifespan of the
building.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to the following contributors through-
out the continued development and prototyping of
the "One Day House" Initiative:
Meliar Design for their continued use and sup-
port with their tensile membrane modeling software
MPanel throughout this project.
TCR Composites for their generous donation of
Pre-impregnated Carbon Fiber Tow for small-scale
prototyping.
Daniel Eisinger + Steven Putt for your continued
help in computational and robotic programming.
Ball State University for their continued grant
funding.
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332
Designing Real Time Sense and Response Environments
through UX Research
Kai Hansen1 , Thomas McLeish2
1,2
SapientNitro
1,2
{khansen|tmcleish}@sapient.com

Ubiquitous computing systems are changing the way retail environments are
being designed. With increasing frequency, User Experience (UX) designers
leveraging ubiquitous computing systems that observe and respond to user
behaviors are assuming roles once held exclusively by architects. As these
systems continue to spread, space designers will need to embrace UX research
and design methods. We will discuss how ubiquitous computing is leveraged in
our research, and our position on how these systems are impacting the design of
retail environments, illustrated by several examples of UX research projects
informing the design of retail environments.

Keywords: Ubiquitous computing systems, User experience, Retail environments

UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING IN THE RETAIL Ambient Information

SPACE
Mark Weiser, considered by most to be the father
of ubiquitous computing, described it as "invisible,
everywhere computing that does not live on a per-
sonal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork ev-
erywhere." (Weiser, 1995) He further explains, "[ubiq-
uitous computing's] highest ideal is to make a com-
puter so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we
use it without even thinking about it" (Weiser, 1994).
One can see that without good user experience de-
sign around products, interfaces, and digital environ-
ments, accomplishing such a feat would be impossi-
ble.
The goal of this paper, and our work in gen-
eral, focuses on informing the design of digitally con-
nected retail environments, so let's first take a look at
some of the ways in which we may experience ubiq-
uitous computing in that space.
This form includes digital signage for displaying
prices, sales, way finding, etc. The content for these
interfaces can be tailored for time of day, day of
week, and data on who buys what during those peri-
ods. Content can be delivered onto digital displays
or kiosks (see Figure 1). In some cases these inter-
faces are made interactive with a touch screen or
some other type of human interface. We would still
consider these to be mechanisms for the delivery of
Ambient Information. However, some are capable
of autonomously observing people that are interact-
ing with them. For example, there may be an imag-
ing device and computer capable of determining the
age and gender of a viewer(s), and tailoring content
based on that information. In these cases, the kiosk
would fall into the Observe and Respond category
discussed below.

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 651


Observe and Respond
Ubiquitous computing systems that observe behav-
ior and make decisions on how to respond based on
that data, and perhaps other sources of data from
within a network of supporting devices, are relatively
straightforward in terms of the process by which they
perform these actions. In many cases, it is an "if this,
then that" relationship that drives the experience. For
instance, if you bring your mobile smart device, that
is running an in-store application capable of look-
ing for one of Apple's iBeacons, near a product on a
shelf and you pass inside of a predetermined prox-
imity threshold, then you will receive a push notifica-
tion (see Figure 2) about a special promotional offer
for that product.
Observe and Broker
Systems like Observe and Respond - such as when
a mobile smart device interacts with a BLE beacon
to support an "if this, then that" action - can also be
driven by other bits of information and algorithmic
analysis taken from multiple streams of synchronized
data to derive insights and richer experiences .
Consumers might still receive personally tailored
content via push notifications or other means of com-
munication. However, the content that is being de-
livered can be based off of more than a simple bea-
con interaction. Data around online or mobile brows-
ing history, purchase history, location based informa-
652 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
Figure 1
Digital content
displayed on a mall
kiosk
tion, or customer loyalty programs can also be used
to ensure that the appropriate content is provided to
the user, providing a better chance that the user will
make a purchase.
In addition to what the consumer experiences,
retailers can receive data about a guest's browsing
on the their mobile app, procession through the store
while the app is running during a visit (see Figure 3),
and what the guest's level of interaction is with any
push notifications they may have received (do they
ignore it, click on it then navigate back to the previ-
ous task, proceed to purchase it online [a.k.a. show-
rooming] or potentially in store). Retailers can use the
insights gained from such user interactions to inform
the designs of future in-store experiences.
Figure 2
Receive product
specific deals based
on location or
proximity
Figure 3
Aggregated indoor
positioning data
showing general
procession and
moments of
engagement
UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOR THROUGH
UX RESEARCH AND UBIQUITOUS COM-
PUTING
Through the study of user behavior, ubiquitous com-
puting systems in the built environment are chang-
ing the way retail spaces are being designed. UX
researchers and designers now do work once per-
formed almost exclusively by architects.
We might consider the growth and evolution of
mobile smart devices as the key technology that ush-
ered in the new era of mass computing, and in fact
act as user interfaces (UI's) for many ubiquitous com-
puting systems. Between 1988 and 1994, the PARC
team at Xerox (led by Mark Weiser) developed sev-
eral working prototypes of ubiquitous computing in-
terfaces known as "tabs, pads, and boards" [1], which
are, perhaps not so surprisingly, very similar to the
devices we use to interface with ubiquitous comput-
ing today. These devices that handle our day-to-day
goals and needs while also helping us to do more
while doing less (McCullough, 2005), are capable of
interacting simultaneously with other devices, both
local and remote. Simultaneously interacting with
the physical and digital environments augments how
we experience our world, and the quality of these ex-
periences is driven by the thoughtfulness of their de-
sign.
In the coming years, interest in merging digital
and physical experiences will likely encourage the
use of UX research and design principals in other
types of built environments where ubiquitous com-
puting systems exist. This shift in methods and ap-
proach should serve as notice to architects that the
technological changes we are experiencing elicit a
fresh set of skills tailored to treating the digital envi-
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 653
ronment with the same considerations given to the
physical when designing space. We believe this ne-
cessitates not only equal consideration of both, but
also careful scrutiny of the experiential conditions
that are created when physical and digital environ-
ments meet. One of the most exciting things about
the architectural profession is that it has always been
a multi-disciplinary practice. Just as architects have
learned to utilize other emergent technologies (e.g.
electricity, steel structures, the PC), so to must it learn
how to handle the inclusion of ubiquitous computing
systems into the built environment.
WHY UX METHODS FOR DESIGNING RE-
TAIL SPACES MATTERS
Retail environments may not always be the most
glamorous of examples from an architect's point
of view. However, because their architectural 'lan-
guage' is well defined (meaning, that their program-
ing is mature and well-understood) they serve as
a good launching pad for discussing how ambient
computing systems can be of value for understand-
ing how occupants experience a space, as well as in-
forming how it should be designed or reconfigured
at any point throughout its lifespan.
There are several reasons for claiming that re-
tail environments should be considered well defined.
First, the design problem statement is well under-
stood and widely applied. Retailers need a physical
location for consumers to visit, experience first hand
their inventory, and hopefully make a purchase. It
is the intention of the retailer to encourage as much
spending as possible. Secondly, the hierarchical pro-
grammatic language is well defined across specific
types of retail spaces. When you walk into a gro-
cery store you understand where the produce, deli,
or frozen sections should be relative to one another
and the point at which you entered the store. You
know how to navigate based on signage that indi-
cates what is kept in each aisle, familiar departmental
configurations, or that the primary point of sale (cash
register) is generally at the end of the intended pro-
cession.
 Physical instances of retail environments are
public spaces, and as such the UX methods for de-
signing them should be considered relevant to the
design of other environments that are also public in
nature.
While the design of space through UX methods
that employ ubiquitous computing systems can cer-
tainly inform the design of un-built iterations of a
similar space, it is important to understand that much
of the work happening in the retail space is used to in-
form the reconfiguration of a given space, as well as
other pre-existing spaces like it. This also relates to
other non-retail types of space, in that many of them
are already built but may have experienced changes
in how they are used over time.
John Habraken developed the Open Building
approach, which is rooted in the way an ordinary
built environment grows, regenerates, and achieves
wholeness over its lifespan [2]. Habraken suggests
that certain changes correspond to certain time
frames. For example, how the furniture is arranged in
a space may change every two to five years, techno-
logical/mechanical infrastructure may change every
25 years, a façade may be replaced every 50 years, a
building's structure lasts for 100 years, and so on (see
Figure 4).
Subscribing to the whole building approach
means that one understands:
• That occupants may make design decisions as
well as professionals
• That designing space is a process with multi-
ple participants also including different kinds
of professionals
• That the built environment is in constant
transformation and change must be recog-
nized and understood
• That built environments are the product of
an ongoing, never ending design process, in
which environment transforms part by part
Ubiquitous computing systems deployed to observe
behavior, respond and broker insights that inform
design decisions are capable of facilitating each one
654 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
of the above understandings by autonomously gath-
ering information about how occupants experience
a space differently over time, and converting that in-
formation into understanding how a space could be
improved.
Figure 4
John Habraken’s
Diagram of the
Principle of
Environmental
Levels [2]
THE IOT LAB
The IoT Lab is an innovation team within Sapient-
Nitro, a global digital agency. We support inter-
nal market research, including a specialized "Instru-
mented Intelligence" team that extends traditional
ethnographic research methods with sensors and
non-traditional data gathering techniques. The data
from this research allows us to broker actionable in-
sights that are then translated into design decisions
for the retail environment.
We have worked with retail clients to deploy
ubiquitous computing systems for observing cus-
tomer and sales associate behavior. Findings from
this research translate into new views of in-context
behavior and inform design decisions for the retail
environment. Because our research often extends
beyond the shell of the building - to understand the
larger context for a user's behavior - we work across
the various stages and roles a physical environment
plays. Our work has immediate impact as well as
longer term implications on the design and planning
of retail spaces.
We typically categorize physical environments
into a taxonomy of spaces. Categories that we're cur-
rently using to track our projects are:
 • Retail 'always on' and can collect data over very long peri-
• Home ods of time (months, years).
• Institutional The Grid-EYE is completely anonymous, low-
• Workplace impact technology we've developed to measure in-
• Entertainment door traffic. It can be used to calculate dwell times
• Travel (includes mode of transport and sup- and hot spots in a defined area, measure flow in and
porting spaces) out of a space, and trigger a responsive environment.
Retailers typically rely on observation (shop-
Within this framework we typically employ 14 types
alongs, manually watching security camera footage)
of observation techniques:
to study how people move through their stores. Grid-
• Atmospheric observation EYEs can support or replace this technique; data from
• Motion tracking these devices is processed in real time to reveal paths,
• Video analytics speed and direction of movement, dwell times, and
• BLE beacon tracking dwell location (see Figure 6). This technology is also
• Wi-Fi "sniffing" or tracking passive in nature, meaning it does not require people
• Geomagnetic field mapping to "opt-in" to use it. Additionally, the ability to look at
• Geofencing space over a long period of time without having to
• Geolocation tracking (GPS) significantly modify the technology makes conduct-
• Social data analysis ing longitudinal or A/B tests (of fixtures, floor plans,
• Large interactive displays merchandising, etc.) very easy.
• Digital activity logging
Figure 5 • Augmented/Virtual reality
How the Grid-EYE • NFC payments
detects people and • RFID tagging
movement
Many of the technologies we use could be consid-
ered "off the shelf" products or services, and the data
they produce can be accessed through public API's.
This data, along with any captured through our be-
spoke sensors, is stored in our backend. Once up-
loaded (or while streaming in real time), data is pro-
Figure 6 cessed through a series of custom analytics algo-
Examples of passive rithms to reduce its footprint. We then explore the
traffic analysis used processed data through various visualization tech-
to develop niques that allow us to glean new insights about
coefficients for what we are observing through the lens of our sen-
measuring retail sors.
fixture success Below, we present four case studies that employ We installed 60 grid-EYEs in a big-box retailer to mea-
some of these technologies for use in retail environ- sure the impact new mannequin displays and shelv-
ments. ing fixtures were having on shopper traffic along
Grideye Indoor Tracking. The Grid-EYE is an 8x8 the store's main aisle. We collected data for over 3
pixel (low resolution) thermal imaging camera - it dif- months, and found that dwell time, aisle conversions,
ferentiates between body heat / ambient tempera- and movement patterns at new fixtures was signifi-
ture to detect movement of people (see Figure 5). It's cantly different than at standard / non-innovation fix-

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 655

 tures throughout the store. Figure 7
Office tour app with
Office Tour. The Office Tour is designed to illustrate
location driven
the customer experience of hyper-local content de-
content delivery
livery via Bluetooth beacons, and the kind of data you
can collect from this type of interactive experience.
The tour is composed of a custom mobile application
run on a mobile smart device (in this case an iPod
Touch) and Bluetooth beacons (see Figure 7). Addi-
tional data (e.g. motion and ambient audio levels)
can also be collected by the mobile smart device's Figure 8
sensors. There are two types of Bluetooth beacons Path and motion
installed throughout several floors of our Toronto data produced by
and Chicago offices. 150 Kontakt BLE beacons were the Office Tour App
placed on a rough 15 ft x 15 ft grid; the tour app lis- capturing BLE
tens for their signals and triangulates the location of beacon data
your mobile smart device based on which it hears
and their known location within the space. Swirl bea-
cons are placed at each of the five tour stops and ac-
tivate specific content relevant to their location. Only
devices with the "office tour" app are tracked, and Figure 9
only when the app is open and "beacon tracking" is Foosball table
enabled. interface running
The two types of beacons we deployed perform on iPad web-app
do two different jobs. Kontakt beacons are simple to
deploy and manage because the batteries (long last-
ing!) are easy to change. Swirl beacons work with a
separate SDK and platform that are designed to de-
liver content, and have a good dashboard interface
for managing and updating content. Having sepa-
rate beacons for content delivery also makes relo-
cating, modifying signal range, or adding/removing
content-delivery beacons easy - without disturbing
the underlying path tracking / way-finding infrastruc-
Figure 10
ture.
International
This system can also be easily reversed - where
SapientNitro
beacons move around and receivers (in this example,
foosball Twitter
iPods) are stationary throughout the space.
feed
SapientNitro has deployed beacons in a Euro-
pean airport to provide a turn-by-turn way-finding
experience. We have also deployed Swirl beacons in
a grocery retailer to provide in-aisle coupons and en-
courage cross-category shopping, and to track high-
value products.

656 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

 International Sapient Foosball League. This is the
smartest foosball you've ever seen. It automatically
counts goals, logs player stats, tweets a photo of the
winning shot and the score (@Snfoos), and monitors
occupancy of the room. It has the ability to lure game
players by tweeting directly to people or calling out
when people are in the room but not playing.
This is a demonstration of blending physical and
digital in non-obvious ways, and to tell stories about
activity beyond the immediate (see Figures 9 and 10).
Because it tracks individual players, and because it's
capturing data about its context, we can know some-
thing about office culture and happiness. Because
there are similar tables in other offices, we can begin
to measure or compare these characteristics across
installations, or to measure success of the installation
based on context.
The table uses our backend to collect real time
goals, calculate player stats, and snap photos - and
share them immediately with the world through our
data streaming API. We've built proprietary models
of room occupancy based on simple environmental
data points - CO2 and noise level - gathered from an
off-the-shelf "internet of things" device (NetAtmo).
This project isn't about the foosball table or the
specific sensors used, but the idea that many kinds of
measurement tools can be combined to tell a story of
something abstract, like social-ness of a space.
Measuring abstract topics or complex interac-
tions takes a good chunk of "discovery" phase - ex-
perimentation to identify the key performance indi-
cators and it always helps to start with a theory or hy-
pothesis.
Figure 11 We instrumented several office spaces to under-
Study participant’s stand similarly abstract concepts: modes of occu-
path, pancy and when collaboration happens. Using a sim-
accelerometer, local ple set of discreet instruments, we built models of
light level, and collaboration and provided measurement platform
ambient sound data for evaluating the success of furniture configurations.
This became the foundation for a new product offer-
ing.
Measuring Engagement. This was an internal effort
to develop more reliable means of measuring the
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 657
nebulous concept of engagement - the positive ex-
perience of being engaged with a product, service,
place, or brand. Engagement is a central mechanism
of everyday life.
Our hypothesis is that we'll be able to more effec-
tively look at engagement as an outcome by having
first figured out how to see something measurable
in moments we agree are engaging. Having those
measures, we can look carefully at the conditions and
outcomes around those moments. We believe there
are ways of being inside a moment, ways that don't
involve self-recall, self-report, or multi-million dollar
fMRI machines. We've tested a wide range of inex-
pensive technologies (mostly "wearables") that pro-
vide a more or less continuous readout of different
behavior indicators. We settled on a handful of met-
rics that measure or are proxies for time, attention,
and effort.
We decided to study what seemed to be a well-
bounded activity - leaving the office for an afternoon
coffee with a co-worker - as an instance in which we
could delve into the usefulness of this instrumenta-
tion and our definitions of what might mark engage-
ment in everyday occurrences. Smartphone GPS
data provides the first layer; the participant's path
from office to coffee shop, as well as time and date
stamping the start and end of the trip. Accelerometer
data provides a count of steps - in this instance, just
under 1300 of them. Physical exertion is a compo-
nent of effort, which can be used to measure engage-
ment. Other experience related variables we tracked
include light level and ambient sound (see Figure 11).
We also captured continuous head orientation
through the multi-axis accelerometer in Google
Glass. In the rendering below you can see the par-
 ticipant's gaze direction (green) as he is leaving the Figure 12
building and crossing the street on the way to the Vectors
coffee shop (see Figure 12). representing head
Combining the indicators (including analysis of orientation and rate
the 1st person point of view still frames) led us to fo- of movement
cus on three possible moments that the participant
was actively engaged with something; focusing time
and attention on it (see Figure 13).
Even a 23-minute walk to a local coffee shop gen-
erates several million data points. The down-in-the-
weeds level of data that tell us when a head turn Figure 13
starts, or the degree of movement, or even the length Moments of
of time looking at a payment app or a text message. engagement along
And that's for one person. path: locating a
Constructs like "engaged" become useful when coworker, noticing
we can build models of them "in the wild". By care- a new food truck on
fully aligning data streams across types, we can even- the street, ordering
tually zero in on a configuration of event information coffee
that let's us say, confidently, "THAT was an engaging
Figure 14
moment!" If we do that, we'll eventually get to un-
1st person POV of
derstanding what the most conducive conditions are
the first detected
for engagement in all sorts of settings (not just coffee
moment of
shops).
engagement

CONCLUSION
User experience researchers have begun to employ
ubiquitous computing to observe behavior, respond
in real time, and broker insights that lead to changes
in retail building. It is a priority for all designers of
space to undertake the lessons required to under-
stand how occupants experience space, and how to
leverage tools like ubiquitous computing to under-
stand experiences and develop new insights to in-
form design decisions.
REFERENCES
McCullough, M 2005, Digital Ground, The MIT Press
Weiser, M 1994 'Creating the invisible interface', UIST
'94 Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Symposium on
User Interface Software and Technology
Weiser, M 1995 'The Computer for the 21st Century',
Readings in Human-Computer Interaction
[1] http://www.ubiq.com/weiser/testbeddevices.htm
[2] http://www.open-building.org/ob/concepts.html

658 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Productive Encounters
Children, Learning Spaces, and Piezoelectrics

Özde Özdal1 , Mine Özkar2

1,2
Istanbul Technical University
1
ozdeozdal@gmail.com 2 ozkar@itu.edu.tr

There is a strong relation between playful learning and the environment children
inhabit. An environment can easily turn into a medium for play while its patterns
and children's interactions with these patterns can turn into experiences of
learning. Developed upon findings from an analog pilot study and built with an
open source electronic platform and piezoelectric sensors, our prototype
translates children's physical actions into responses of an interactive device.
Experiments with children using the prototype support, in part, a unifying
approach to designing playful learning environments embedded with tangible
spatial interaction.

Keywords: Embodied interaction, Playful learning, Learning environments

INTRODUCTION putation, it is possible to enrich materials by us-

Children explore their surroundings without much
prejudice. In the process, they make sense of the
world and build up a perception of it. In the era of
digital natives, there is ample technology, grounds,
and need to expand the ways in which children in-
teract with their surrounding and situate themselves
in space. Play is ideally a time for children to try
ideas and advance in knowledge without being con-
trolled by grownups. In the absence of a limitation,
surrounding objects and the environment become
the proper medium in a child's imagination. As chil-
dren naturally acquire experiences through their ex-
plorations, there is an opportunity for the design of
enhanced spaces, materials and objects embodying
interaction for playful learning.
Technology is ubiquitous in our everyday sur-
roundings and has become an unfailing experience
(McCarthy & Wright, 2004). With the power of com-
ing embedded systems. This leads to spaces with
increased affordance for interaction, and a more
unified relation between the physical and the dig-
ital world. As children use their senses to interact
with the physical world, spaces of embodied interac-
tion can become their playful learning environments.
These ideas are already inherent in the notions of
Ubiquitous Computing (Weiser, 1991) and Tangible
Interaction (TI) design first introduced by Ishii and
Ullmer (1997). The initial idea of giving data a form
and locating it in the physical environment rather
than the computer screen has provided the potential
for human interactions through multiple senses.
Today, Tangible Embedded Interaction (TEI) re-
searchers do not only study the objects, but also
question, from a wider perspective, the expanding
limits of tangibility and spatial affordances in the case
of interactivity. Physicality in a real world interaction

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 659

 can be achieved through the embodied interaction
where interaction with and within the world is the
main focus (Hornecker, 2011). The design of inter-
active environments is founded on the idea of build-
ing knowledge through manipulation and transfor-
mation of interactions. In the embodied option, rea-
soning, knowledge and creativity rely on the spatial-
ity and affordances enabled by user behavior and in-
teractions.
The purpose of this study is to explore the po-
tentials of interactivity embodied in space and to de-
velop a model to support children in their natural
playful learning process with the help of technologi-
cally enhanced environments. Three key issues form
the basis for this study: the use of technology for
learning in free-play; interactive settings; space as a
technology embedded medium. These issues are ex-
amined through the design of a playground. An in-
teractive prototype is developed to test the poten-
tials and deficiencies of embodied interactivity for
learning through play. It defines the outputs for a set
of analog input, namely the movements of children
in the environment, and helps children to explore the
new affordances in this unified medium. Its objective
is to engage children in playful learning in a real en-
vironment with interactive systems and thus repre-
sents a possible space with features that challenge a
child's curiosity, encourages the manipulation, trans-
formation, and reconstruction of elements from the
environment.
This paper reports in two parts the contextual
and experimental aspects of the study. The first part
highlights the theoretical background whereas the
second part first introduces a pilot study, and then
depicts the prototype and the relevant experimental
study. The pilot study is conducted with the partici-
pation of two four-year-olds and documents, along-
side of observations and data collection, the discus-
sions between the two participants, their reaction to
the physical set-up and their ideas for the project.
Subsequently, the same children play with the inter-
active prototype as part of an investigation into the
affordances technologically enhanced environments
660 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
hold for playful learning.
LEARNING THROUGH PLAY
Playful Learning
Learning through play requires an interaction among
children, objects and the environment. Relevant lit-
erature maintains that play enhances motivational,
cognitive and psychological development. Piaget
(1962) provides a base for understanding children's
intellectual development and growing capability at
different levels with particular stages of develop-
ment. According to Piaget's theory, children have
their own way of thinking, different from adults,
possibly most suited to their circumstances (Acker-
mann, 2001). Through acting and physical interac-
tion within the world, they acquire tacit knowledge
of themselves and of their environment. In turn, ex-
ternalized ideas get tangible and enable further in-
ferences and feedback. The environment they play
in through interactions becomes a space of play. Pat-
terns that emerge translate to what they come to
know about that interaction. There is still a growing a
need for more studies on individual differences, their
variables, and cultural aspects rather than on general
approaches to spatial interactions.
Tangible, embodied and spatial interaction
Technology is evolving fast both in software abilities
and in physical capacities. Research on Ubiquitous
Computing has influenced numerous pervasive tech-
nologies, ambient mediums and tangible computa-
tion technologies added to the physical world of our
daily life. Weiser's observation that "even the most
powerful notebook computer, with access to a world-
wide information network, still focuses attention on a
single box" (1991) is now put to test with the growing
application areas of ubiquitous computing. Hiroshi
Ishii and the Tangible Media Group (Ishii & Ullmer,
1997) are among the pioneers in developing the idea
of unified form and computation in the field of hu-
man computer interaction and the effects are spread-
ing to spatial interactions.
The idea of incorporating the potential of phys-
ical interaction to the digital realms is current and
common. Instead of "window, icon, menu, pointing
device" (WIMP) interactions, there is a growing inter-
est in post-WIMP interactions with and within the real
world. Embedded computings offer new and holis-
tic ways of interacting with everyday environments.
A new generation of tools such as Kinect and Wii ac-
cord with this unified approach and change the way
we see our environments and computing. Children's
playing habits, their bodily movements in their envi-
ronments, and their perception of the world as well
as what they learn from this interactive play evolve
accordingly.
In tangible interaction, the main idea has been
materialising digital information (Ishii & Ullmer,
1997). The premise is that the users can make better
use of their reasoning capacity through direct manip-
ulation and transformation of their movement, any
object and space. In digital systems with tangible
interfaces, people's move in space is represented as
abstract, often digital, data. Within embodied sys-
tems, both the physical and the digital mediums be-
come partners in the ruling. The size of the physical
features of a tangible interface, especially that they
are perceived easily, matter in the quality of the in-
teraction. When technology is embedded in space
rather than presented in a singular object, users are
expected to move in space to interact. One's move-
ment in the environment with and within these in-
teractive spaces is again a tangible interaction (Ciolfi,
2004).
It is often observed in all levels of academia that
students today, generationally described as digital
natives, did not see a world without ubiquitous elec-
tronics and "are no longer the people our educational
system was designed to teach" (Prensky, 2005, p. 98).
Humans continuously change, improve, evolve, and
the environment they exist is affected and restruc-
tured in parallel. The engaging power of play poses
an advantage for interactive learning processes that
may take place in embedded environments. In the
near future, the relationship between responsive en-
vironments and the learners will be bidirectional as
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 661
digital natives will reciprocally play a role in how the
features of the spaces they inhabit evolve as well.
METHODOLOGY
The study presented in this paper is a technical and
conceptual framework for an interactive learning en-
vironment proposal and is conducted in two main
phases. In the first phase, a pilot study tests the
scope and concepts of basic interactions hereby in-
terpreted as learning through play (Figure 1). In that
preliminary work, a large walkable area covered with
paper is defined as the initial playground. Two 4-
year-old children are invited to participate in free play
with colour markers and paint to observe their own
traces and game patterns on the paper. Inferences
from these trials are defined as routes with attributes
including the information of velocity, weight and po-
sitions all to be used respectively in the second phase
with the microcontroller and visualisations through a
screen.
The second phase involves an interactive object
that serves as a prototype for the concepts of the de-
sired environment. The movement taken from the
environment is used as data transformed into an in-
terface featuring colour, zoning and scale. The same
children from the pilot study participate in a second
experiment to play with the developed prototype. In
the prototype, an interactive element detects certain
movements of children, and in response, transforms
this data into patterns that can contribute to the chil-
dren's learning of relational thinking along with ba-
sic shapes and colours. Through a programmed in-
terface of control, light fixtures embedded in the en-
vironment simultaneously visualise the movement of
children as colour, position, or any intended informa-
tion to be passed onto children.
THE PLAYGROUND - A PRELIMINARY
SETUP
To better understand how children interact and play
in a limited set-up, and to define sample parameters
of playful interaction, we experimented with an ana-
log set-up that consisted of a playground and two

colours of paint (Figure 1). The set up offered a lim-
ited simulated functionality and allowed for some ba-
sic interactions with visual and haptic feedbacks. A
open area of 3m by 3m was covered with paper fixed
to the ground. Children were provided with trays of
blue and red paint and two pairs of footwear easily at-
tachable to the bottom of their shoes. They were not
instructed but freely stepped in the trays with their
attached footwear and then onto the planar surface
covered with paper. The two children are twins at age
4, one girl and one boy (from here on referred to as N
and D, respectively).
The pilot study enabled the identification of
three categories that defined play for the children in
the experiment: 1) approach and engage, 2) explore
and play, 3) interact and socialise (Figure 2).
Approach and Engage
From the beginning, the children took comfort in
the fact that they were together with their twins
and were not shy. They were very curious about
the setup. At first they visually explored it from a
distance and later continued to familiarise with it
through touch before starting to bodily engage with
the setup.
Explore and Play
D was the first to explore the playground. Right after
applying paint to the bottom of his shoes, he made
a big run reaching the limits of the playground, and
when his shoes run out of paint, he stopped to see
the totality of the traces he made. On the other hand,
662 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
Figure 1
The set-up and the
anticipated tactile
exploration of the
preliminary study
N, having seen this, started within a smaller circle,
continually examining the traces her shoes left, and
only after that she started to wander around more
freely.
Both participants, N more than D, were inter-
ested in leaving visual traces that allowed them to
observing their own movements. Perceiving these
as helpful tools, they accepted the environment and
played extensively to experience and explore more in
the next 30 minutes.
Interact and Socialise
Apart from the children's focused physical playful ac-
tivity within the environment, we observed that they
influenced the actions of one another. Many be-
haviours emerged during play, such as influencing
the other one, suggesting alternative ways, collabo-
rative building, and synchronised movement.
After their first individual explorations, they
switched their attention to see what the other one
was doing. They started looking at the traces of the
other to see what he or she did. Later on, for a short
period, they played tag, introducing a pattern that
they know prior to their experience on this surface.
As a result, they left similar traces. Soon to the end of
the play, N suggested that they can hold hand hands
and together they tried synchronous movement.
A Case for Playful Learning
Playing in an enhanced environment, analog and
much similar to the "activities" N and D referred to
in their conversation, had a positive impact on their
Figure 2
a. First attempts b.
Exploring the
canvas c.
Collaborating on a
task d.
Reconfiguring the
performance

level of understanding, engagement and motivation.
The environment gave visual clues to them regarding
the expected performances, yet their performance
depended on their imagination. The main idea of this
interactive playground has been to encourage chil-
dren in playful learning. We observed that allowing
the children to act and explore on their own naturally
motivated them for interaction and active experienc-
ing.
The paint traces served as the output devices of
the input from the children's movements. We carry
these relations on to the second phase of our study
where we develop an electronically enhanced set-up
(Figure 3). Embedding the input and the output into
the environment opens up new possibilities in space.
By embedding, new relations and ways of interac-
tions emerge between the children and the environ-
ment, defining the grounds for the children's play.
A PROTOTYPE WITH PIEZOELECTRIC SEN-
itations. The output of that is visualised through a
screen. The screen is a mockup feature that we re-
verted to within the limits of this study whereas the
initial design features interactive piezoelectrically ca-
pacitated floor boards previously simulated as the
walkable area of the first phase.
A code continuously reads the value from the
potentiometer and writes the interrelated value to
change the variables on the screen with the read data
of the movement. Users simultaneously perceive the
current state of other players, their locations and pro-
ceed accordingly. With interrelated values, chang-
ing features are to be realised as learning material
via making inferences and reasoning. The set-up re-
quires the conversion of data. In this case the conver-
sion is achieved through Arduino boards that trans-
late the analog input to the output in the form of ba-
sic shapes of colour to be subsequently visualised on
the screen. The variables for the shapes are scaled
size, position and colour.

Figure 3 SORS AND A SCREEN

The framework for The second part of our study introduces an interac-
the proposed tive object rather than a playground. Despite being a
environment table-top box, this prototype is designed to mimic an
environment embodying kinesthetic and visual inter-
actions. In the set-up, kinesthetic refers to pressure
and movement while visual refers to color. To visu-
alise any real-time response from the movement, the
module contains piezoelectric sensors. Piezoelec-
tric sensors harvest energy from the users through
movements and convert it into electrical energy so
that when programmed, the learning environment
can operate autonomously in its own systematic lim-

Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 663

 Figure 4
The mapped data

Furthermore, players can build their own games with Figure 5

the data provided from their constant movements. Testing the visual
They can figure out the expressive patterns of the vi- outputs in an earlier
sualisations and explore what other patterns that can model of the
emerge. This opens up further possibilities for pa- prototype
rameters such as brightness, zoning, and colour dif-
ferentiation on a planar surface rather than one point
indicators, and in return, enriches the expression and
meaning of the movement during play.
The two children from the previous phase of our
study interacted with the prototype. Differently, it
was necessary this time to demonstrate to them how
the prototype works from the beginning. Both chil-
dren were interested in the device even at first sight Figure 6
and continued this interest as they were given de- The prototype
scriptions of how the prototype works. In their in-
teractions later on, following some blind runs, they
started to try new ideas.
The main difference between the preliminary
analog experience and this trial was the shift in how
children approached the set-ups. In the first one,
the children were focused on the idea faster whereas
in the second one they spent more time on figur-
ing out the mapping and relations. Attesting Acker-
mann's statement that interactive objects challenge
one's mindset on how things work (2005), unfamiliar
features embedded in the object or the environment
captured their attention and they sought its simple
logic.

664 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2

Figure 7
N and D (age: 4)
exploring different
insights via
prototype
The prototype stands for a playground with the en-
hanced features. It serves as the medium where
children can explore, experience and form chang-
ing interactions with and within the play environ-
ment. Additionally children are able to interpret the
results of their movements and build basic reason-
ing. With the embedded interaction provided in this
case, children have had the freedom of manipulat-
ing and transforming the data and explore the results
of their movements as scale, position and colour.
We observed that, as a result, they have developed
some basic reasoning skills through active play. To
encourage children in interpreting the system in an
explorative way in technologically enhanced envi-
ronments, we propose to establish a connection be-
tween the input and the output, digital and the phys-
ical, the user and the environment.
DISCUSSION
We have introduced a technical framework and a
developing prototype for an interactive playground
that engages children in playful learning. In our stud-
ies up to this point, children were engaged and moti-
Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 665
vated to explore and experience movement, colour,
and size of shapes when they got responses from the
environment as a result of their actions. Further re-
sponses to their continued actions motivated them
even more. The experienced aspects of the interac-
tive environments in the two phases of our study de-
fined the type of interactions that took place. These
included children's interaction not only with the en-
vironment but also with each other similar to what
happens in many other forms of play.
The interactivity in both of our set-ups has made
it possible for the children to experience and ex-
plore. From the beginning of the pilot study, the
children were very much engaged and enthusiastic
about exploring and experiencing the set-ups pro-
vided for them. This shows that even the most prim-
itive setups hold the potential to encourage children
in play and supports the premise that a unified physi-
cal and digital environment they inhabit can simulta-
neously serve as an interaction medium. Embedding
features of reasoning in the interactive environment
has served as the driving force for playful learning
within the real world. Because free play does not hold
 meaning from the beginning and not restrict their
use, they present novel, and not predesigned inter-
actions and outcomes. As a result, the children could
have the freedom of reconfiguring any environment
as their playground. Children's imagination and en-
gagement may result in unexpected outcomes in en-
hanced environments.
Further research is necessary to rigorously eval-
uate designs and reveal new relations between the
design, the user behaviour and the user's cognitive
process to fully explain the effects of interaction and
learning patterns. Ideally, further research should
be interdisciplinary and systematically consider vari-
ables across the fields of education, psychology, ar-
chitecture and media technologies. Designs can then
be tested with more children of different ages, gen-
ders, cultural backgrounds and over varied time seg-
ments.
As stated in the text, the prototype mimics the
conceptual framework for an interactive environ-
ment but is physically insufficient in the study with
the two children. In the pilot study, the participants
had the chance of free physical activity, while in the
second, they were limited with the interactive space
of the prototype, which was small. As a result, the
enthusiasm in the physical activity changed. Explo-
ration and collaborative work also decreased with the
lack of space to act on their own. It is obvious that the
prototype and playing at this scale would be insuffi-
cient for larger groups as well. Future studies would
benefit from the application of piezoelectric materi-
als to 1:1 scale in the form of a surface that children
can walk on similar to the set-up in the pilot study.
When people move in real space, their data can
be mapped and represented in the digital realm.
Within embodied systems, both the digital and the
physical mediums merge and turn into a unified sys-
tem. In our case, using Arduino enabled the trans-
formation between the physical world and the digital
world and created unique ways for bidirectional spa-
tial interaction. In the pilot study, children needed to
move in space to interact with the set-up and used
their bodies as the origin of their perception of how
666 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Concepts - Volume 2
they relate to it. This tangible experience strengthens
the relation between the children and the perceived.
Despite the 3D spaces in virtual realities, technology
in the physical realm can enrich the perceived space
better than a window and a pointer device.
Designing a learning space that supports the
child's curiosity and playfulness involves envision-
ing it as an interactive medium which unifies digital
and physical features in fostering the possibility of
their manipulation, transformation and reconstruc-
tion right then and there.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is partially funded by Istanbul Technical
University Project No. 38395.
REFERENCES
Ackermann, E 2001, 'Piaget’s constructivism, Papert’s
constructionism: What’s the difference', Future of
learning group publication, 5(3), p. 438
Ackermann, E 2005 'Playthings that do things: a young
kid‘s incredibles!', Proceedings of Interaction Design
and Children '05, pp. 1-8
Ciolfi, L 2004, 'Understanding spaces as places: extend-
ing interaction design paradigms', Cognition, Tech-
nology & Work, 6(1), pp. 37-40
Hornecker, E 2011, 'The role of physicality in tangible and
embodied interactions', Interactions, 18(2), pp. 19-
23
Ishii, H and Ullmer, B 1997 'Tangible bits: towards seam-
less interfaces between people, bits and atoms', Pro-
ceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human fac-
tors in computing systems, pp. 234-241
McCarthy, J and Wright, P 2004, Technology as experience,
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Piaget, J 1962, Play, dreams and imitation in childhood,
Norton, New York
Prensky, M 2005, 'Computer games and learning: Digital
game-based learning', in Raessens, J and Goldstein,
JH (eds) 2005, Handbook of computer game studies,
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 97-122
Weiser, M 1991, 'The computer for the 21st century', Sci-
entific American, 265(3), pp. 94-104
Smart and Responsive Design -
Applied
Real-Time Multi-Zone Building Performance Impacts of
Occupant Interaction with Dynamic Façade Systems
Bess Krietemeyer1 , Kurt Rogler2
1,2
Syracuse University School of Architecture
1,2
{eakriete|kkrogler}@syr.edu

Recent developments in responsive electroactive materials are increasing the rate

at which next-generation façade technologies can respond to environmental
conditions, building energy demands, and the actions of building occupants.
Simulating the real-time performance of dynamic façade systems is critical for
understanding the impacts that occupant response will have on whole-building
energy performance and architectural design. This paper describes a method for
real-time analysis of the multi-zone building performance impacts of occupant
interaction with a dynamic façade system, the Electroactive Dynamic Display
System (EDDS). The objective is to optimize EDDS implementation and define
system limitations, incorporate EDDS as a dynamic factor in multi-zone building
energy analyses, and provide real-time feedback of building performance data
based on environmental conditions and occupant interactions. Preliminary
results of parametric simulation methods demonstrate the ability of dynamic
façade systems to consider real-time occupant interaction in the analysis of
daylighting and thermal performance of buildings.

Keywords: Responsive facade systems, Occupant simulation, Whole-building

analysis, Behavioral modeling, Real-time adaptation

INTRODUCTION Godlewski, 2012). Maintaining some degree of vari-

Many contemporary dynamic shading systems for
building facades are driven by pre-set schedules set
to optimize their dynamic movement for the reduc-
tion of heat gain and diffusion of glare. Building fa-
cades examples such as the New York Times Build-
ing and the Syracuse Center of Excellence each im-
plement electronically controlled blinds that assume
an optimized tilt based on solar geometry; how-
ever they do not necessarily allow a range of over-
rides to accommodate the comfort preferences of
their individual office inhabitants (Krietemeyer and
ability is essential for both occupant comfort and
for diurnal and seasonal modulation of solar en-
ergy. Motivated by studies demonstrating possible
undesirable effects that automated environmentally-
responsive systems have on occupant comfort, dy-
namic building envelope systems are being to em-
bed greater aesthetic variability and manual user
overrides into responsive behaviors, but not without
recognizing the need to assess the potential risks and
trade-offs associated with increased occupant con-
trol (Cole et al., 2012; Krietemeyer et al., 2015).

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 669

 Advancements in responsive façades
Next-generation dynamic facade systems have the
potential to respond to multiple stimuli with vary-
ing visual and thermal results. The recent trans-
fer of electroactive materials to architectural applica-
tions is increasing the resolution and rate at which
next-generation façade technologies can respond to
fluctuating environmental conditions, building en-
ergy demands, and the unpredictable preferences
and actions of building occupants. Examples of cur-
rent design research in these areas include the Mate-
rial Dynamics Lab, which experiments with electro-
responsive smart materials for adaptive shading and
daylight harvesting façades (Decker, 2013). Re-
search at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
is exploring organic kinetics in architectural applica-
tions to generate responsive architectural environ-
ments (Kretzer, 2013). The Sabin Design Lab at Cor-
nell investigates the integration of passive materi-
als, sensors, and imagers into responsive building
skins (Sabin, 2015). The Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti-
tute's (RPI) Center for Architecture Science and Ecol-
ogy (CASE) is developing Electroactive Dynamic Dis-
play Systems (EDDS) for solar- and human-responsive
building facades (Dyson et al., 2013). Heavily fo-
cused on the negotiation between bioclimatic and
biological, or human-interactivity, the EDDS is de-
signed to simultaneously minimize solar heat gain,
promote the passage of usable daylight, mitigate
glare, and offer a range of aesthetic visual effects,
views, and privacy screens for its occupants. Current
research on the EDDS is pushing for greater adapt-
ability for solar control and user interaction by in-
vestigating micro to nanoscale implications through
both physical material experiments (Thomas et al.,
2015) and interactive computational simulations (Kri-
etemeyer et al., 2015). Regardless of the specific ma-
terial assemblies being developed across various re-
search teams, the diverse approaches to the integra-
tion of new materials for high-performance facades
are each focused on embedding multifunctional per-
formance capabilities within these dynamic systems
based on design criteria that includes architectural
670 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
effects, environmental performance, and occupant
control. Simulating the performance trade-offs of
these new multifunctional systems at multiple archi-
tectural scales and according to various inputs is es-
sential for supporting their prototype testing and in-
tegration within the built environment.
Methods for simulating dynamic systems
Simulating the real-time performance of dynamic
façade systems such as the EDDS is critical for un-
derstanding the impacts that various degrees of
occupant-response will have on multi-zone building
energy performance and architectural design. Fur-
ther, real-time simulations are essential for develop-
ing the parameters for designing the control systems
for physical material prototypes as well as for under-
standing the limitations of the system when scaled
up to building applications. However, current meth-
ods for real-time analysis of the relationship between
complex dynamic systems-energy flows, building de-
mands and occupant desires-within a single build-
ing model remain limited as commercial software
tools do not yet provide a seamless feedback loop
between these complex inputs at multiple scales of
application.
Typical architectural modeling tools utilize a lin-
ear workflow whereby a single instance of a build-
ing is modeled in one 3d modeling program, such
as Rhinoceros, SketchUp, or AutoCAD, with fixed pa-
rameters. The model is then exported and then an-
alyzed in a separate analysis program, such as Eco-
tect, Vasari, or EnergyPlus (Lagios, et al., 2010). The
linear and often disjointed workflow limits real-time
information sharing between software. Further, the
lack of a feedback loop of information can make for
a tedious and time consuming process when testing
the environmental and architectural effects of multi-
ple states of dynamic systems, requiring the designer
to manually manipulate the original geometries and
parameters, export the model, and analyze the de-
sign repeatedly to test for building energy impacts.
The development of parametric simulation tools
has begun to bridge the gap between design and
 analysis workflow. Jakubiec and Reinhart outline a
method for basic daylighting analysis and simula-
tion that builds on the linear workflow of exporting
a model to analysis software through the develop-
ment of DIVA 2.0 (Jakubiec & Reinhart, 2011). This
method is comprised of three main components: In-
puts, model, and analysis. Inputs for traditional build-
ing analysis can be broken down into four areas: 1)
The scene, which includes geometries, landscape,
shading devices and material properties; 2) The area
of interest, which is a user-defined area of a build-
ing to analyze, defined by sensor points and analy-
sis grids; 3) Space usage which includes all of the set
schedules for occupant, lighting, heating and cool-
ing loads throughout the analysis period; 4) The cli-
mate data and time(s) of day to analyze. These four
inputs are combined into one model that can then
be exported to a simulation engine, such as DAYSIM,
RADIANCE, EnergyPlus, Vasari, or Ecotect. Results
may be numerical data sets, or a simulation visu-
alization depending on the software used. While
this parametric simulation workflow significantly en-
hances the design and analysis process in terms of
time and variable results, it still faces challenges.
It is mostly limited to basic predefined inputs and
does not always accommodate analysis on a multi-
zone or whole-building scale. Furthermore, it lacks
real-time capabilities for analyzing the behaviors of
complex dynamic systems. This is crucial for under-
standing how dynamic architectural systems nego-
tiate their response according to fluctuating envi-
ronmental flows and variable occupant preferences,
which can often pose conflicts with regards to desires
for views, privacy, daylight, and the need to mitigate
solar heat gain.
EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY
In addressing the challenges with the design and
analysis workflow relative to the real-time, multi-

Figure 1
A simulation
workflow
supporting a
reiterative design
and analysis
feedback loop for
analyzing the
multi-zone building
energy
performance of
occupant
interaction with
dynamic façade
systems.

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 671

 scalar analysis of dynamic facades systems and their
response to environmental flows and variable oc-
cupant preferences, a simulation workflow is pre-
sented that utilizes a parametric base for analysis
and simulation plugins within an easily manipulat-
able model. Using the EDDS as a dynamic façade
system testbed, the objective is to provide a reiter-
ative design and analysis feedback loop for analyz-
ing the multi-zone building performance impacts of
occupant interaction with dynamic façade systems.
In order to achieve this, the workflow incorporates a
series of fixed and dynamic inputs into a parametric
model that is linked to a range of analysis and simu-
lation tools (Figure 1).
Using the Rhinoceros algorithmic modeling tool
Grasshopper, the parametric model is linked to anal-
ysis software through the use of multiple plugins,
which constantly share data between the model and
multiple analysis software. Not only does this circum-
vent the challenge of exporting a model to a separate
program, but it allows for multiple analyses to be run
within one script. For example, the workflow allows
the designer to run a constantly updating DIVA day-
lighting analysis on any zone of a building while si-
multaneously taking into account the thermal energy
loads of the entire building.
The parametric workflow supports the real-time
simulation of complex dynamic systems on three lev-
els. First, it simulates the dynamic response of the
EDDS as it automatically adjusts to both the changing
solar positions and the resulting daylight and thermal
analysis of the interior. Second, it builds on the solar
672 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
response feedback loop by simulating the dynamic
response of the EDDS as it automatically adjusts to
occupant proximity with the EDDS by either opening
or closing for customizable views or privacy screens.
The daylighting and thermal results of the combined
solar- and occupant-response of the EDDS are ana-
lyzed within a single-zone model. Third, the daylight-
ing and thermal results of the combined solar- and
occupant-response of the EDDS are analyzed within
a multi-zone model for the integration of solar- and
occupant-response--a method that can also be ap-
plied to a whole-building energy model. By con-
tinuously feeding the analysis results produced by
the simulation plugins as dynamic inputs back into
the parametric model, a reiterative real-time feed-
back loop is achieved that simultaneously integrates
occupant preferences for views and façade system
response into a multiscalar daylighting and thermal
analysis.
Dynamic façade system parameters
The EDDS presents an ideal dynamic façade system
testbed for the methodology due to its ability to
rapidly switch states to accommodate both fluctu-
ating environmental conditions and occupant pref-
erences for views or privacy. Comprised of multi-
ple rolled metalized polymers adhered to the interior
surfaces of an insulated glazing unit (IGU), each met-
alized polymer behaves like a miniature rolled shut-
ter, individually controlled by an electric charge (Fig-
ure 2). When applied in an array to surfaces two and
three of the IGU, double layers of individual shutters
Figure 2
The EDDS
embedded with a
vertical floor to
ceiling IGU (left),
the material
assembly layers
(middle), and the
individual
metalized
polymeric rolled
shutter (right).
Figure 3
Two states of the
EDDS with a
viewing portal
show the resulting
sunlight
penetration
through a
double-layered
system in a fixed
non-solar tracking
position (left) and a
double-layered
system in the solar
tracking state
(right).
can each be programmed to roll up or down, thereby the open shutters (Figure 3).
blocking or admitting direct incoming solar radiation
for the mitigation of heat gain, daylight, and views Occupant interaction parameters
(Dyson et al, 2013). Within the presented workflow, occupant interac-
In modeling the dynamic façade system param- tion with the EDDS can range from a single person
eters in this workflow, a simplified EDDS material or multiple people approaching an EDDS window
assembly is used with the objective to incorporate to look out through a viewing portal, to create pri-
more detailed material spectral properties in future vacy screens, as well as to displaying media, adver-
work. The properties of the EDDS are modeled para- tisements and information. In modeling occupant
metrically using Grasshopper, and the EDDS shutters interaction, the workflow accounts for the position
are defined as black 100% opaque surfaces that sim- and proximity of a single person or multiple people
ulate the rolling and unrolling of shutters. Two lay- through the use of attractor points in Grasshopper,
ers of EDDS shutters, sized at 1 inch square with a .5 which act as dynamic inputs to the response of the
inch air gap, are used for the experimental simula- EDDS. Each attractor point, or 'person', can trigger an
tions, and each shutter is its own entity that can re- infinite range of customized pixilated graphics or ef-
spond to incoming data by rolling up or down. The fects across the EDDS facade. For the purposes of
degree of rolling of individual shutters is defined by simplified experimentation in this paper, occupant
dynamic inputs, such as the angle of the sun, the re- interaction is defined by a preference for a viewing
sulting daylight on the interior, or the proximity of a portal in the shape of either a circle or square of vari-
simulated person. When the EDDS shutters are dy- ous dimensions (Figure 4).
namically responding to the altitude and azimuth an-
gles of the sun, the shutters are programmed to posi- Systematic compensation
tion themselves in their solar tracking state, with dual Another modification to the traditional building anal-
layers of shutters staggered to intercept direct solar ysis method takes advantage of the real-time aspect
rays using minimal coverage. This allows the EDDS to of responding to various stimuli. Because Grasshop-
block direct solar heat gain and glare while maintain- per allows for a constant transfer of data between
ing diffused daylight penetration and views through the parametric model, analysis plugins and analysis

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 673


software, the analysis results can inform how the dy-
namic system performs. This constant feedback loop
of information allows for systematic compensation;
that is to say that the dynamic facade system does
not only respond to external stimuli, but it can also
respond to the analyzed data produced by its own
response to external stimuli. Systematic compensa-
tion solves the problem of occupant interference. For
example, an occupant might interact with an EDDS
façade by creating a personalized viewing portal, in-
advertently allowing a rise in unwanted solar heat
gain for that interior zone. The constantly updat-
ing building analysis provided in this workflow rec-
ognizes the deviation from an optimal performance
value for heat gain and triggers the EDDS to compen-
sate by adjusting its shutter densities elsewhere on
the façade in order to meet the performance goals
for heat gain (Figure 5).
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
The experimental simulations utilized a generic New
York City office tower as a building model testbed.
The 41-story rectangular office tower was situated at
a 29-degree angle clockwise from true east-west (to
674 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 4
Occupant
interaction with the
EDDS can be
defined by viewing
portals of various
shapes and
dimensions that are
triggered by the
position and
proximity of a
match the Manhattan street grid), had a central core
single person or
with a typical floor plate of 130 ft. by 180 ft., floor-
multiple people.
to-ceiling double-glazed facades, and occupant and
lighting schedules based on the standard office pro-
gram. The simulations were divided into two cate-
gories: the single zone simulation which analyzed
daylighting levels throughout an interior open space,
and the multi-zonal energy simulation which ana-
lyzed the impacts of the façades on energy loads and
temperature levels.
Single-zone energy simulation
The single-zone simulation analyzed the daylighting
infiltration on a single-floor zone of the angled of-
fice tower facing both southeast and southwest (45
ft. wide by 25 ft. deep by 12 ft. high). Parame-
ters for the single-zone daylighting infiltration simu-
lation included clear sky conditions, material proper-
ties from an existing Radiance library (generic interior
wall, generic floor, generic ceiling, double-pane low- Figure 5
E glazing), a high resolution semi-transparent EDDS When the EDDS is
facade (dual layers of ½ inch square shutters at 50% in its default solar
transparent 50% opaque non-responsive baseline), tracking state (left)
and four occupants with varying preferences for por- and an occupant
tal sizes to interact with the EDDS. interaction requires
In a series of single-zone simulations, four sep- a viewing portal to
arate glazing conditions were analyzed: 1) no EDDS ‘interrupt’ the EDDS
(clear double-paned system); 2) non-responsive (middle), the EDDS
EDDS (double layered EDDS with no response); 3) to compensate by
EDDS with occupant response only (double layered adjusting its shutter
EDDS with viewing portals); 4) EDDS with system- densities elsewhere
atic compensation (double layered EDDS with occu- on the façade
pant and environmental response). The first of four (right) to meet
performance goals
for heat gain.
simulations (condition 1) was a control test to deter-
mine the daylighting infiltration (%) without EDDS.
Results from this DIVA-based analysis included values
for daylighting autonomy, illuminance levels, and so-
lar irradiation. In this case, the daylighting factor was
a percentage result representing the amount of di-
rect sunlight each point on the analysis grid (floor)
received over the course of a year. For the single
zone without EDDS, an average 7.49% of the space
was flooded with daylight. After introducing a simple
50% transparent 50% opaque EDDS non-responsive
baseline pattern (condition 2), average daylighting
infiltration dropped down to 4.60%, blocking out ex-
cess direct sunlight which reduces glare and solar
heat gains within the space. Occupant interaction
was introduced to the analysis (condition 3), in this
case with the use of viewing portals. Each occupant
was 'tracked' throughout the space, and as he/she
approached the 50/50 EDDS façade pattern, a portal
opened up to allow for views out. This form of inter-
action unwelcomingly created a rift within the space,
as the average daylighting infiltration increased, in
the example shown, to 5.98%. To compensate, the
script utilized the cyclical feedback loop of informa-
tion from the previous analysis results. In this case
the 4.60% baseline number from the non-responsive
EDDS was set as a goal, and the EDDS façade sur-
rounding the viewing portals compensated until the
analysis results were closer to the baseline number
(condition 4). In this case, the daylighting infiltration
percentage of the single zone with EDDS responding
to and compensating for occupant interaction was
successfully reduced to 4.46% (Figure 6).
Multi-zone energy simulation
The multi-zone simulation analyzed the façade im-
pacts on energy loads and temperature levels of
eight stories of the same New York City office tower,
including the entire floor plate with facades that
were oriented southeast, southwest, northeast and
northwest. While it is possible to analyze the
whole-building impacts of the entire 41-story office
tower through this simulation workflow, it requires
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 675
more advanced computational processing power
than what was used in the preliminary experiments.
Therefore, an eight-story portion of the tower was
used for the multi-zone simulation feedback loop
with the same environmental, EDDS, and occupant
inputs that were used in the single-zone simulations.
The same four glazing conditions were analyzed
in a series of multi-zone simulations to determine the
facade impacts on thermal energy requirements, in-
door air temperature, mean radiant temperature, and
zonal energy flux. First, the control test without EDDS
(condition 1) gave expected results: the thermal en-
ergy requirements to cool the eight-story zone of the
building were highest in the corner zone which faces
the southeast and southwest, while the mean radi-
ant temperature was also the highest in these zones.
There was little variation in energy transfer (flux) be-
tween zones because there was not a drastic differ-
ence between how much sunlight penetrated each
zone. The second analysis applied a baseline 50%
opaque 50% transparent EDDS pattern to all of the
zones (condition 2), which immediately reduced in-
terior air temperature and mean radiant temperature
by an average of 2°C and 3°C respectively. When four
occupant interactions with EDDS were introduced to
the model in the same manner as the single zone
analysis (condition 3), viewing portals opened up
across the building's façade, thus increasing the inte-
rior air temperature and mean radiant temperature.
At this point, there was an increase in zonal energy
flux variation due to the different daylighting infil-
trations of each zone. Lastly, systematic compensa-
tion was employed to fill in the EDDS façade areas
surrounding the viewing portals (condition 4) until
the baseline goal was met. In this case, the goals
for compensation matched the results from the non-
responsive 50% opaque 50% transparent EDDS pat-
tern. However, it was not necessary to set zonal en-
ergy flux as a goal in this case, as it will always be
higher if certain zones contain viewing portals while
other zones are compensating for these openings
(Figure 7).

DISCUSSION
The experimental workflow presented in this paper
provides significant opportunities for combining the
design and analysis process to support the integra-
tion of next-generation dynamic façade systems that
have the potential to respond and adapt to multiple
stimuli. The simulation results suggest methods for
optimizing EDDS implementation for a particular of-
fice program and according to a certain number of
occupants, and it also begins to inform system lim-
itations, such as the extent to which the EDDS can
compensate when faced with conflicts between de-
sires for large viewing portals and the need to reduce
solar heat gain levels. The ability to support real-
time analysis of complex facade building systems in
the design phase reduces the risk of blind imple-
mentation that could lead to inefficiency or miscon-
ceptions about occupant control. It encourages in-
676 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 6
Single zone
daylighting
analyses with four
different glazing
conditions: 1) no
EDDS; 2)
non-responsive
EDDS; 3) EDDS with
occupant response;
4) EDDS with
systematic
compensation
vestment into multifunctional building systems that
promote participatory occupant engagement while
offering a wide range of architectural design possi-
bilities.The current workflow simulates occupant in-
teraction using basic parameters for proximity and
a limited number of interaction and portal types;
however, the possibilities of generating a range of
dynamic visual and informational effects using vari-
ous sensing modalities based on simultaneous solar-
and occupant-responsiveness makes this workflow a
powerful tool for exploring the environmental, archi-
tectural, and social implications of any number of re-
sponsive architectural systems.
CONCLUSION
The experimental methodology demonstrated a real-
time simulation feedback loop for single- and multi-
Figure 7
Partial view of the
multi zone analyses
results (showing
four stories at the
southeast and
southwest corner)
with four different
glazing conditions:
1) no EDDS; 2)
non-responsive
EDDS; 3) EDDS with
occupant response;
4) EDDS with
systematic
compensation

zone building performance analyses of basic occu-
pant interactions with an emerging dynamic façade
system, the Electroactive Dynamic Display System
(EDDS). The parametric simulation workflow exam-
ined how highly responsive façade systems can re-
duce a building's energy consumption while simul-
taneously responding to occupant interactions, pref-
erences, or overrides. Preliminary analysis results
demonstrated that systemic compensation for occu-
pant interaction with the EDDS had positive impacts
on the single- and multi-zone daylighting and ther-
mal performance of a building. While a single-zone
and multi-zone analysis provided significant results
with regards to the ability of a dynamic façade sys-
tem to respond to both environmental and occupant
demands, analyzing the whole-building impacts is
a critical next step; however, with increased com-
putational processing power, this simulation work-
flow makes it possible to analyze the whole-building
energy impacts of solar- and occupant-responsive
façade systems.
REFERENCES
Cole, RJ, Bild, A and Matheus, E 2012, 'Automated
and human intelligence: direct and indirect conse-
quences', Intelligent Buildings International, 4, pp. 4-
14
Decker, M 2013, 'New Material Compositions', in Ng, R
and Patel, S (eds) 2013, Performative Materials in Ar-
chitecture and Design, Intellect, Chicago, pp. 61-79
Dyson, AH, Krietemeyer, B and Stark, PRH 2013, 'Elec-
troactive Dynamic Display Systems (EDDS)', in
Lorenzo-Eiroa, P and Sprecher, A (eds) 2013, Archi-
tecture in Formation: On the Nature of Information in
Digital Architecture, Routledge, New York, pp. 150-
155
Jakubiec, JA and Reinhart, C 2011 'DIVA 2.0: Integrating
Daylight and Thermal Simulations Using Rhinoceros

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 677

 3D, DAYSIM, and EnergyPlus', Proceedings of Building
Simulation, 12thConference of International Building
Performance Simulation Association, Sidney
Kretzer, M 2013, 'Shape_Shift', in Ng, R and Patel, S (eds)
2013, Performative Materials in Architecture and De-
sign, Intellect, Chicago, p. 213
Krietemeyer, B, Andow, B and Dyson, A 2015, 'A Com-
putational Design Framework Supporting Human
Interaction with Environmentally-responsive Build-
ing Envelopes', International Journal of Architectural
Computing (IJAC), 1(13), pp. 1-24
Krietemeyer, B and Godlewski, J 2012, 'The Interior Ex-
perience of Daylighting Technologies: Histories and
Potential Futures', Interiors: Design, Architecture and
Culture, 3(1-2), pp. 59-84
Lagios, K, Niemasz, J and Reinhart, C 2010 'Ani-
mated building performance simulation (ABPS) –
Linking Rhinoceros/Grasshopper with Radiance/-
Daysim', Proc. IBPSA-USA SimBuild
Sabin, J 2015, 'Transformative Research Practice: Archi-
tectural Affordances and Crisis', Journal of Architec-
tural Education, 69(1), p. 67
Thomas, AV, Andow, BC, Suresh, S, Dyson, AH and Ko-
ratkar, N 2015, 'Controlled Crumpling of Graphene
Oxide Films for Tunable Optical Transmittance', Ad-
vanced Materials, 27(21), p. 3256–3265

678 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

 Beyond Smart Remote Controls
Developing a More Integrated and Customizable Implementation of
Automation in a Building by Utilizing Tools and Concepts from Makers

Werner Lonsing1
1
Independent researcher
1
ecaade2015@lonsing.com

"Home Automation" describes the connecting of electronic household appliances

to a centralized control unit like e.g. an app on a smart phone or some control
panel. The overall goal of these efforts is to provide a general remote control for
existing devices. By comparison a concept of home automation as part of a
building design process has yet not come into shape.

Keywords: Physical Computing, Arduino, Home automation

INTRODUCTION timate goal of every home automation system (illus-

As technical term "Home Automation" describes trated in figure 1).
homes in which electrical devices are connected and
Figure 1 can be accessed and controlled without direct phys-
Possible concept of ical interactions. Devices range from single-switch
a home automation devices, like lights and electrical outlets over isolated
system programmable devices, like thermostats and sprin-
klers, and household appliances to complete heating
and cooling systems. In addition home security sys-
tems can be integrated. This includes an alarm sys-
tems and all the sensors that are linked to it. Mag-
netic sensors for doors and windows, smoke detec-
tors, surveillance cameras, motion and light sensors,
locks etc. formerly only used to trigger an alarm, are
to be transformed into major input sources. All de- OVERVIEW
vices and sub-systems are linked to a network, which Common home automation systems consist of about
is accessible and controllable to some sort of central- four fields of applications: Lighting and home appli-
ized control unit like a dedicated control panel and, ances, climate control combined with energy man-
most important, provides an interface to the Internet. agement, security systems with remote locks and
Based on this remotely controllable network users sensors and entertainment systems with both Au-
with mobile devices anywhere in the world could dio and Video. Besides that, singular devices like
manage the local environment in their homes, the ul- smart outlets and switches are introduced. All these
devices are well known. In conjunction software

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 679

 companies are developing packages or kits to pro-
vide access to these devices. All major operating
systems of smart-phones have already some kind
of home automation integrated. Apple includes
its 'HomeKit' directly into iOS. Google has acquired
'Nest' and integrates it into Android. Since May 2015
they are proposing a reduced version of their op-
erating system named 'brillo' for embedded plat-
forms[7]. Microsoft is working with its acquired
"Insteon"-solution on both the mobile and gaming
platform. 'SmartThings', another startup dedicated
to an open platform has now become a division of
Samsung. This are only the big companies. There
are still more drawbacks: To become Apple's per-
mission to use devices on their Homekit-platform,
only certain chips are allowed, the devices are tested
and certified by Apple and yet an application needs
to be written. As consequence we already see an
amount of dedicated apps for singular devices, all go-
ing through Apple's cloud and maybe the vendor's
as well, while the hardware is not available for some
reason. On the other hand integrated solution are
being develop, either based, as wired solution, on
special bus-systems, or wirelessly based on Z-Wave, a
low frequency below 900 MHz and different to many
countries[5]. Integrated systems cover the most of
the common scope of applications as drop-in solu-
tion like plug-in outlets and lightbulbs and specifi-
cally designed special purpose applications like a cli-
mate control system. Although the systems itself are
well integrated, they usually fail when it comes to de-
vices from other vendors. Furthermore such an in-
tegrated systems may bound customers to a specific
vendor with no alternatives.
Missing standards
The name-dropping of brands points directly to-
wards another issue: There is an emerging market
with no defined standards generating a wealth of
technically different concepts. Physically there are
wired and wireless solutions. The different types of
wired connections are either dedicated lines like se-
rial cables or piggyback communication on power-
680 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
lines. Wireless solutions are mainly differentiated by
there frequency and based on them by designated
protocols. Here in short higher frequencies resolves
into higher bit-rates. Wifi, Bluetooth or specially as-
signed radio frequencies are not only physical differ-
ent, they are also additionally split into several stan-
dards and protocols like e.g. 'Zigbee', 'Z-Wave' or 'In-
steon' for the radio frequencies. The overall situa-
tion is chaotic and results in technical constraints, be-
cause simply a direct connection between devices
featuring different standards is impossible, no mat-
ter what benefits a particular standard might present.
There is only one point to consider: Wifi and Blue-
tooth might be favorited because these standards are
wireless and available on mobile devices, which ren-
der their availability almost ubiqutious.
Clouds and privacy
As already mentioned, the ultimate goal of home au-
tomation is a mobile app controlling the system. Be-
cause such an app involves the Internet, hence re-
quests some servers, dedicate cloud-services are es-
tablished to channel the traffic and render it secure
to the outside. As with all clouds, this applies only to
the outside, not the inner side of the cloud. As con-
sequence all interactions with the system are stored
in data as actions with timestamps, when you enter
your home, open a window, turn on the TV, the mi-
crowave or the light and flush the toilet. Without
some sort of agreement all privacy is gone for good.
As it appears, maybe not to only one cloud, but, like in
the case of Apple's HomeKit, to two or more clouds.
Privacy is still an underestimated point of home
automation. The only solution to resolve it is in-
stalling a cloud server under own control.
Mobile devices
Almost every home device on the market has an app
both on iOS and Android to show its progressive sta-
tus. There seems to be no future for home appli-
ances without apps. As result mobile device as multi-
purpose tools carry a lot of different apps control-
ling the wealth of accessible devices from elsewhere.
There is an app for the mood lamp, for the security
system, the fridge and so on.
Handling an app on a mobile device enforce spe-
cial attention, a moment of concentration and fo-
cus either as eye-guided finger actions as defined
touches or voice control. By comparison tapping on
a switch on the wall while passing by seems just sim-
ple, even though it is a hand-eye coordinated action.
However, this action is fast and for most people a no-
brainer. Voice control solves this problem only at first
glance. Speaking requires special attention as well
and in addition it occupies a major channel of social
interaction, the human speech.
Controlling the installations of a building only by
handling a mobile device is not feasible. A general
purpose remote control on a device that by design
is a personal belonging has its constraints and lim-
itations. Apps should be regarded as valuable op-
tion, especially when it comes to complex functions
like controlling a mood lamp. Other concepts based
on sensing of environmental data or natural require-
ments should be considered. Only local available ac-
cess should be at least a feature.
At this point a strategy to customize potentially
all parts of home automation is needed. The tech-
nologies, some of them are presented here as exam-
ple, are evolving from the maker culture.
Integration
In architecture the layout of devices such as switches
and light fittings and their associated electrical wiring
is commonly integrated into the building's structure.
This is usually not a first priority. Commonly a
standardized pattern based on some building codes
is installed. This wired installation is fixed into the
building's structure. The location of wall switches,
outlets etc. are not about to be changed. As conse-
quence clutter from power strips and extension co-
ords on floors and behind desks has become a known
phenomenon, if not to say problem, which might be-
come dangerous as well.
The available remote switches are dealing with
this situation. A typical remote outlet switch provides
a plug that fits into the wall socket, then a volume like
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 681
a small box as enclosure for the necessary electroni-
cally parts and a socket on the opposite side of the
plug to simulate a wall socket.
The purpose is evident: the electrical wiring of
the building remains untouched while the appear-
ance of the socket is slightly changed in order to pro-
vide the additional functionality. This design gives
the illusion that the installation is unaltered. As im-
mediate consequence the clutter as mentioned re-
mains unaddressed.
Obviously the issue that chunks are added onto
the wall is not important. However what is supposed
to be a flat surface with some sockets as minor holes
is ruined with these devices, hence at some points
their usage contradicts the architectural design.
The integration of smart devices into a building's
structure like a traditional electrical installation re-
quires for other techniques. By now this kind of cus-
tomization is not available off the shelf.
MAKER CULTURE
The maker culture is a technology driven DIY-culture
(Do-it-yourself ) based on "electronics, robotics, 3D-
printing , and the use of CNC tools, as well as more tra-
ditional activities such as metalworking, woodwork-
ing, and traditional arts and craft."[1]. It has a dedi-
cate hands-on approach.
In the case of home automation the scope is re-
duced to electronics combined with some robotics
and handcrafting and/or 3D-printing.
Physical computing
Physical computing has become widespread since
the introduction of the Arduino and similar boards.
Based on micro-controllers these tools can be used
to take inputs from a variety of sources and control a
wealth of physical outputs. They can both act as stan-
dalone computer or can interact with other comput-
ers. The platform is already explored and is especially
well suited for rapid prototyping. A lot of people cre-
ate individual projects with goals like to get an email
sent once an egg is cooked. Even artistic concepts are
emerging around this platform.
 SIMPLE EXAMPLE of only few, if not the only one, way to create and
Electronics in architecture, in contrast to concrete, evaluate samples of different concepts and ideas in a
bricks and mortar, is an alien matter. In a standard timely, flexible and affordable manner. To move from
building only outlets, wall plates and light switches a white LED to a RGB-LED on a breadboard the hard-
are taken care off. Architects are not accustomed to ware is partially ripped apart, exchanged and com-
deal with circuits and resistors or tiny chips as small plemented in a jiffy, while adding some few more
computers. However, there is nothing to be afraid lines of code may add some minutes as well. Adding
of. A simple example, a reactive light, should demon- a servo-motor is slightly more complicated.
strate the concepts and techniques. Limitations are the number of pins on the mi-
cro controller, which simply limits the total amount
Concept of a reactive light of hardware, and the mere computational power.
A reactive light is a light that goes on when it is trig-
gered by another light. It consists of a photocell as Figure 2
input source, an LED as output source, a battery as Breadboards with
power source and a micro controller as processing reactive lights, on
unit. To complete the circuit, some resistors are in- the left with
serted to protect the LED, the photocell and the mi- programmer, on the
cro controller. Using these parts often feels like ap- right standalone
plying a grammar. An LED cannot be used without a with battery.
resistor, because otherwise it get burned and is lost.
A photocell needs a potential divider. Almost all of
the numberless tutorials are covering those basic is-
sues like what pins to use, the choice of appropriate
resistors etc. Once the basic concepts are covered,
the real making process starts: Turn the light on only
if it is dark and a decent threshold is hit, or more so-
phisticated, after a morse code is sent with the flash- Figure 3
light. RGB-LED mounted
on a
Experimental workflow pan-tilt-bracket
Experimenting with small and inexpensive parts is with 2 servos and
part of the workflow. After the start with a basic idea connected to an
the hardware is assembled on a breadboard (figure 2) Arduino-board. The
and the some coding applied to the micro controller. light can assume all
After evaluating hard- and software both may be- colors while
come more sophisticated while new ideas, like more covering an
colors, need some attention (figure 3). hemi-spherical area.
Once a concept can be finalized, a more theoret-
ical and schematic layout (figure 4) can be created,
mostly for documentation and distribution. These
diagrams then may be presented on some websites
[1,2,3].
However, the process of making should not be
marginalized. In case of home automation it is one

682 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 4
Schematic layout of
a reactive light.
HARDWARE
Connecting some boards may overcome these limi-
tations. By creating some relatively autonomous de-
vices and interconnect them a type of meshed net-
work can be established. The open-source Arduino-
platform allows for all types of connections, wired
with Ethernet or serial connection, wireless with WiFi,
Bluetooth and cellular networks(GSM), and in addi-
tion Z-Wave.
The design of the Arduino board with its stack-
able shields allows for all types of connections. As
results specifically designed shields are available for
almost all of them (figure 5).
Figure 5
Arduino boards wih
Ethernet shield on
the right and
GSM-shield (on a
mega) on the left.
This concept delivers some degree of freedom be-
tween the connection on one side and the hardware
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 683
layout combined with the specific code on the other
side. The reactive light can be wired to both the
board with the Ethernet-shield and the board with
the GSM-shield, though in this case here the GSM-
shield is not stackable, hence a mega-board is used
and different pins are applied to the hardware. Just
an implementation detail, but a common one.
More modern concept are the lately introduced
Particle-devices. These are little Wi-Fi development
board based on the Arduino which can be used to
connect the hardware to the Internet. In general it
follows a cloud concept: Every device has a unique
ID and every user a single access-token. Once a user
matches a core, in their language, a user has claimed
a core, this core can be used for developing. All de-
velopments are done, this is kind of unique, in the
cloud. A website is provided with an editor, access to
documentation and libraries. The code is then com-
piled on their servers and as firmware transferred to
the core, it is then flashed. As long as access is gained
through device-ID and access-token a core could be
anywhere as long as it is connected to the Internet
through Wifi. However, for development a core can
be accessed through a serial interface via USB, simi-
lar to the common Arduino developing style.
At first the concept of coding on a web page,
compiling in the cloud and flashing the code at first
feels uncomfortable and seems to be out of control,
but once results are coming back those feelings are
vanishing.
In technically terms a core can more or less all
things an Arduino could do. All important libraries
are already imported into the cloud's developing sys-
tem. If not, they can be simply imported.
In addition 4 different functions can be called,
with one single string as parameter. Assigned vari-
ables can be accessed directly through the cloud, or
they can be published as based on HTTP as events.
The latter is very useful for sensing devices like a tem-
perature sensor, if those data needs to be broad-
casted.
 Future hardware
In the nearby future two new boards, a GSM-core and
a board with Bluetooth will be available. They are
already developed and funded through Kickstarter.
They are expected in October 2015. With then 3
different kind of integrated wireless communication
ports (out of 4) this platform uses the same code and
hardware layout for all different types of connections
depending on what type of device is used. Besides
that the small footprint is really an asset.
Cloud and local cloud
As with others Particle provides a global cloud ser-
vice on its own, hosted on servers by a big Internet-
seller. They also provide a local cloud service. The
software can be installed on all major platforms like
Windows, Linux or Mac OSX and all local cores can be
directly connected to this service. All devices would
then connect to the local cloud and all network traf-
fic remains inside the local network. No Internet traf-
fic is generated, no uplink is needed. Unless there
is a need to control some devices remotely the lo-
cal cloud may stay in isolation. Nevertheless the re-
sponse times should be short.
By now the concept of a local cloud is the only
feasible concept to obtain some privacy, or to regain
it. Although it is opened source the only known work-
ing solution by now is the local cloud from Particle.
HAND CRAFTED HOME AUTOMATION
After introducing the overall concepts some projects
are presented which can demonstrate how a maker's
approach transforms home automation into a flexi-
ble and affordable tinkering process.
Lighting
Lighting in electronics is a special case, while LED are
used. They can be addressed directly. This makes it
very easy to work with, but limits the overall bright-
ness.
684 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
LED-ring
It has become some common practice that some pre-
fabricated devices are available for training and test-
ing purposes. One of them is the so called 'Internet
button' a ring of 11 LEDs, 12 with the one provided by
the core, 4 buttons, a gyroscope and an accelerome-
ter (figure 6).
Spark, now Particle, distributed them for a hack-
ing marathon in November 2014.
Here the ring is used to establish a user-interface
on an iOS-device to demonstrate how a mobile de-
vice can be used to control 12 lights, and furthermore
to control a group of these buttons simultaneously.
Figure 7 shows the results.
It should be mentioned, that both connection
the cloud and direct UDP-connection are tested.
While the cloud's transmission usually results in de-
lays of one to 2 seconds, the direct transmission
was very fast. At some point three color flashing
rings could be synchronized to less than 1/10 second.
Dealing with large amounts of LEDs, like as part of a
wall, pixel based illuminations of all different kind can
be imagined. A mood lamp would be the simplest
one.
Figure 6
The Internet Button,
11 LEDs, 4 buttons
and some sensors
wit a core in its
center
Figure 7 except for the high voltage and a dedicated socket
iOS-device with for the micro-controller.
user interface and The controller itself can be exchanged. The
the real LEDs with shield is only bound to a specific pin layout, but not
mtaching colors on to a special hardware itself.
the right. In fact this provides two options: The type of
hardware can be modified, but also the implemented
software on the controller simply be replacing it with
an identical chip with different software.
Modifying and uploading software on micro-
controllers is repeatable pattern of the workflow.
Usually the same controller is used and enhanced. In
case of home automation an update of the software
Figure 8 can be like a simple replacement, if the really shield,
Outlet spider: 4 once installed inside a building's structure, remains
outlets wired to a maintainable.
relais shield inside a
junction box. Wiring
All wires are connected to the screw terminal connec-
tors on the relays shield inside the junction box and
to the outlets (figures 7, 8). The main problem was
a junction big enough to for all components and an
additional outlet for the transformer of the shield.
Figure 9
Outlet spider:
Detailed view of the
relais shield with
WiFi-enabled Outlet spider
microcontroller This is our first project dealing with high voltage. The
[Particle Core]. outlet spider is a power strip with extension coords
(figure 8). It should avoid spacing conflicts on the
strip by providing some flexibility. In its center is a
junction box containing the connectors and the de-
vices of the home automation.

Relay shields
No micro controller can control high voltage on its
own circuits. Instead relays are needed to trigger a
Usage
switch for the high power devices, the single purpose
Because a ready made shield is used, where the core
of a relay (figure 9).
simply plugs in its socket, no further hardware com-
For micro controllers special relay shields have
posing is done, and the related software remains un-
been designed. They provide some relays with screw
altered. Particle provides a simple app to control all
connectors, power regulation for the complete board

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 685

 pins of a core. By now this app is sufficient. A relays REFERENCES
just switches buy a push of a button, and because it Chan, K. W., Teymourzadeh, R., Ahmed, S.A. and Hoong,
is on the Internet, the switch could be triggered from M.V. 2013 'Smart GSM Based Home Automation Sys-
elsewhere. tem', 2013 IEEE Conference on Systems, Process & Con-
trol (ICSPC2013), Chicago
There should be no doubts, that some pins of the
Garnet, H. 2011 'Arduino Microcontrollers and The
controller are still open and some sensors like a pho- Queen’s Hamlet: Utilitarian and Hedonized DIY Prac-
tocell or a temperature sensor can be added. There is tices in Contemporary Electronic Culture', Proceed-
a lot of room left for customization both in hard- and ings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Association
in software. for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA),
Banff (Alberta), pp. pp. 44-47
Lonsing, W. 2013 'Introducing a Workshop to build an Af-
CONCLUSION fordable 3D-Scanner: Presenting a Variety of Com-
Although they do not demonstrate a complete home putational Concepts to Novice Students of Archi-
automation project the presented examples give an tecture', Proceedings of the 17th Conference of the
insight of possible realization concepts. The outlet Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (SIGraDi
2013), Valparaíso, Chile, pp. pp. 475 - 478
spider is at first an architectural or design project. It
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture
replaces a power strip with all its clutter with access [2] http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage
points at extended lines to provide 4 power outlets [3] http://www.instructables.com/
freely inside the radius of the extension coords. [4] https://particle.hackster.io/
The LED-rings demonstrate fast switching and [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Wave
changing light arrangements, the servo-contoled [6] http://gizmodo.com/get-ready-for-google-brillo-
the-new-operating-system-f-1706783821
LEDs show a more sophisticated light concept. The
[7] https://developers.google.com/brillo/
brightness and intensity of LEDs directly connected
to micro-controller is still not really useful for lighting
purposes. The provided power and voltage is sim-
ply too low. It is however only a technical shortcom-
ing, which may be overcome once the necessity of
enhanced controlling becomes evident.
By conquering and adapting to methods of the
makers' culture the simple usage of devices from
mass production can be overcome. One of the key
benefits of products of makers is the transfer from se-
rial production to batch or even job production. It
correlates with the architectural design process as a
typical job production but almost never a serial pro-
duction process.
If the architectural design raises the claim as an
creative process to establish a building, and if home
automation becomes an integrative part of the pro-
cess, and there are no doubts about it will, then the
tools and techniques from the makers' culture should
be at least considered when it comes to the design of
a building with an integrated home automation sys-
tem.

686 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

Biomimetic-Computational Design for Double Facades in
Hot Climates
A Porous Folded Façade for Office Buildings

Salma El Ahmar1 , Antonio Fioravanti2

1,2
Sapienza University of Rome
1,2
{salma.elahmar|antonio.fioravanti}@uniroma1.it

Biomimetic design is an approach that is gaining momentum among architects

and designers. Computational design and performance simulation software
represent powerful tools that help in applying biomimetic ideas in architectural
design and in understanding how such proposals would behave. This paper
addresses the challenge of reducing cooling loads while trying to maintain
daylight needs of office buildings in hot climatic regions. Specifically, it focuses
on double skin facades whose application in hot climates is somewhat
controversial. Ideas from nature serve as inspiration in designing a porous,
folded double façade for an existing building, aiming at increasing heat lost by
convection in the façade cavity as well as reducing heat gained by radiation. The
cooling loads and daylight autonomy of an office room are compared before and
after the proposed design to evaluate its performance.

Keywords: Biomimicry, Parametric design, Double facades, Performance

simulation

INTRODUCTION fact the bigger the temperature differences the bet-

Cooling loads represent around 20% of building en-
ergy consumption in Egypt (Attia, et al., 2012) and is
becoming one of major reasons of power shortages
especially during the summer months. The building
skin plays a critical role in determining the amount
of heat gain in buildings and is therefore the focus of
this study.
Most investigations about double facades were
done in temperate climates, aiming at increasing
buoyancy-driven not wind-driven natural ventilation
and the difference between cavity and ambient tem-
peratures could reach 20°C (Barbosa & Ip, 2014). In
ter the buoyancy effect and natural ventilation. How-
ever, having such a great increase in cavity tempera-
ture will not be favourable in hot climates where am-
bient temperatures are relatively higher. Therefore
their application in hot climatic areas is controversial
and still needs investigation.
An overview of current techniques for naturally
ventilating double skin façades was needed to under-
stand how airflow would generally behave and what
the factors that affect it are. An interesting review pa-
per by Barbosa and Ip (2014) identifies the main pa-
rameters influencing the thermal and energy perfor-

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 687

 mance of such facades. They provide a set of guide-
lines for each design parameter which were impor-
tant to take into consideration. Some of these guide-
lines are suitable for hot climatic areas. For example
preferred cavity depth should be between 0.7 and 1.2
m, the multi-storey and shaft type structures have a
stronger stack effect increasing ventilation rates, im-
portance of using double glazing, bigger air open-
ings that aid in extracting warm air out of the cav-
ity, and that decrease in cavity temperature does not
vary in a linear way with opening sizes.
Hamza (2008) compared a single façade and a
double façade with three possible glazing options;
transparent, tinted and reflective. The single façade
acts as a benchmark base case representing a typical
office building in Cairo. Results indicate that careful
material choice is critical to the thermal performance
of the double façade, as reflective glazing provides
the most reduction in cooling loads. The façade had
air openings at the top and bottom. The use of shad-
ing devices was not addressed.
Another study was conducted by Radhi et al.
(2013) in the United Arab Emirates. They compared
an east-facing double façade system that had open-
ings at top, bottom and at each floor, with a classic
single façade system. The upper cavity opening in-
duced the stack effect causing upper floor to expe-
rience more heat gain, but at the same time it was
responsible for removing the heat out of the cavity.
They estimated a 17% reduction in cooling energy on
a typical summer day due to the performance of the
double façade.
An interesting study done in central Italy by
Baldinelli (2009) explored the use of an unconven-
tional double façade made of L-shaped movable
glass and aluminium shading panels that could ro-
tate using hydraulic jacks to take one of two posi-
tions; an open state for summer and a close state for
winter. Cooling loads were 10.3 KWh/m2 for the pro-
posed design, 151 KWh/m2 for a fully glazed single
façade and 77 KWh/m2 for 50% glazed single façade,
which shows that double facades could be used in
warm climates if certain design aspects were taken
688 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
into consideration.
Studies regarding double facades usually con-
sider the outer façade layer a as a flat vertical sur-
face with not much geometrical complexity, and the
daylight performance resulting from the presence of
these double facades has been rarely addressed in
correlation with their thermal performance. In the
search for new ideas for buildings skins in hot cli-
mates, the researchers turn to biomimetic design to
explore possible solutions.
AIM AND METHODOLOGY
In a previous paper (El Ahmar and Fioravanti, 2014)
we defined a number of possible biomimetic inspira-
tions and categorised them based on the heat trans-
fer methods; radiation, conduction, convection and
phase change. One inspiration related to decreasing
gain through radiation was chosen (which was fold-
ing strategies) as a starting point and was applied
in the design of a shading screen for a typical office
room.
This paper builds upon previous work and
widens the scope to study the reduction of heat gain
by convection as well as radiation. The biological in-
spiration addressed in this case is termite mound be-
haviour in natural ventilation. The main design chal-
lenge is decreasing heat gained by radiation and in-
creasing heat lost by convection in the cavity of a
proposed double facade, with the aim of decreasing
cooling loads and improving thermal comfort. An-
other important aim is to study visual comfort simul-
taneously, so that decreasing cooling loads would
not be at the expense of reducing daylight perfor-
mance.
The design is developed using computational
parametric software, together with real-time envi-
ronmental analyses which provide instant feedback
as the design progresses. These tools proved to be
particularly useful especially when there are conflict-
ing design needs at hand. The performance of the
proposed skin is evaluated by comparing the simu-
lated cooling loads and daylight performance of an
office room in an existing building in Cairo before and
 after the skin is placed. Figure 1 describes the overall
applied biomimetic-computational design method-
ology applied in this research.
Figure 1
General
research/design
methodology.
Scope of this paper
is in bold.
BIOLOGICAL INSPIRATION
Termite mounds are one of the famous biomimetic
examples known for natural ventilation strategies.
Macrotermes michaelseni termite mounds are found
in sub-Saharan Africa, they are closed cone-shaped
mounds that could extend several meters in height,
with a porous skin and an underground nest with a
diameter of 1.5 to 2 meters (Turner, 2001). Turner and
Soar (2008) highlight some misconceptions often as-
sociated with these ventilation mechanisms and offer
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 689
a more accurate explanation of how the ventilation
system actually works.
They explain that airflow in termite mounds is
more complex than the two previously assumed
airflow models; the thermosiphon model in closed
mounds and the induced flow model in open
mounds. The famous Eastgate building although
succussful, is based upon these models that were
found not be entirely accurate. Rather, the system
is closer to a 'tidal' ventilation model in which air
flow depends on temporal variations of the wind.
Air in the the middle of the chimney, is under the
effect of natural/free convection (buoyancy) push-
ing upwards, and forced convection pushing either
up or down depending on the wind. In the end,
air is in constant movement up and down in rough
synchrony with wind conditions outside the mound.
Wind is usually the dominant force.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to fully ex-
plain how the ventilation system works, however one
of its important features is addressed here serving as
the main inspiration for the architectural proposal.
The porous mound surface plays an important role as
air enters through it to a network of surface conduits
that extend all around the mound. So regardless of
wind direction, air could enter from one side of the
mound and reach the other through the surface con-
duits. Air movement in this network is always due to
wind. Then it passes through a reticulum of tunnels
till it reaches the chimney causing the air to move ei-
ther up or down depending on the resultant force as
explained. The porous surface and the surface con-
duits act as a buffering layer protecting the interior
of the mound from turbulent winds and enable the
use of wind regardless of its direction
Analogy in architecture
As mentioned earlier, ventilation in termite mounds
is a complex process. Therefore just a couple of im-
portant features serve as the main inspiration here.
These features are simplified and abstracted to be
able to apply them in an architectural context. Figure
2 explains the addressed features of the mound ven-
 tilation system and the corresponding architectural
analogy.
Design objectives of the analogy
• To design a double façade with a porous sur-
face that mimics an aspect of the ventilation
behaviour in termite mounds
• Air flow in the cavity would be in constant
movement and is a result of both wind and
buoyancy forces either reinforcing or oppos-
ing each other, thus attempting to increase
convective heat loss
• To design a folded surface that reduces heat
gained by solar radiation due to self-shading
• Maintain visual comfort in the office space at
least as it was before the folded façade, if not
improved
Other buildings inspired by termite mound ventila-
tion such as the Eastgate building in Harare, Zim-
babwe, and the Davis Alpine House at Kew Gardens,
usually apply the analogy on a whole building scale,
by designing a central atrium within the building
along with other features (Pawlyn, 2011). However in
this research the scope is focused only façade design
for an existing building and therefore the biomimetic
inspiration is applied only to the façade to see its con-
690 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
tribution alone in decreasing cooling loads.
Regarding the desired self-shading effect, many
folding patterns can achieve this requirement. Aes-
thetic aspects are also important when deciding Figure 2
which pattern to choose. For this design proposal the Inspiration from
triangular pinwheel pattern is chosen (Figure 3), it is termite mound
seen as aesthetically pleasing and also all folded sur- ventilation system
faces would be triangular and therefore flat, making and the
it relatively easy to construct as opposed to double- corresponding
curved surfaces. analogy in an
architectural
context for
COMPUTATION AND ANALYSIS designing a double
This section describes how the biomimetic concept
façade.
was translated to a double-skin façade system. Pre-
liminary sketches were transformed into a digital
parametric model. Software used include Grasshop-
per visual programming language for Rhino 3D mod-
eller, Octopus plugin which performs multi-objective
optimization of design requirements using evolu-
tionary algorithms, ArchSim Plugin which performs
simulations in EnergyPlus v.8.2, and finally DIVA for
daylight simulations.
Digital model of existing room
Only one office room from an existing building is as-
sessed in this optimization process, representing a
typical mid-floor space in the South Eastern façade
with the dimensions of 5 m in width, 8 m deep,
and 4.1 m high. This orientation was chosen as a
start as it is one of the most challenging for ther-
moregulation of this building. The construction ma-
terials assigned are the same as those in the exist-
ing building; most importantly the façade has non-
operable double-glazed tinted curtain wall panels
(with light transmittance of 37%) and aluminium
cladding. The technical specification of these materi-
als have been requested and obtained by interviews
and correspondence with the building owner/archi-
tect. The simulated annual cooling loads of this room
are 139KWhm−2 . This is in close accordance with
actual readings of the building which indicated that
average annual consumption is 113 KWhm−2 .
The Daylight Autonomy (300 lux, for half of oc-
 cupied time) is achieved for 51% of the room area,
however 37.5% of this area is over-lit, receiving more
than 3000 lux in more than half of the occupied time.
Daylight Factor minimum (which is a value of 2) was
achieved in 36% of the room area. This fact is only
important for later comparison of optimization re-
sults, as Daylight Factor calculations are much faster
so they are used in the optimization process as an in-
dication. Daylight Autonomy will be calculated only
for the selected result for accurate comparison with
the existing room.
Digital model of double façade
The triangular pinwheel is an iterative pattern that
takes an input triangle and divides it in a certain way,
then applies the same division logic again to the re-
sulting triangles and so on. To have a folded surface
made from this pattern, a certain point in input tri-
angle is moved perpendicularly to its surface (Figure
3). The moved distance of this point controls the fold
depth of each iteration. When applied to the double
façade, the first iteration was extracted to act as the
main structural elements that would bear the load of
the façade. They also serve another function as they
contain a network of small 2x2 cm perforations. This
network extends throughout the façade to create the
intended porous effect. Figure 4 demonstrates the
composition of the proposed double façade.
Figure 3
Left: Hierarchy of 3
iterations of the
triangular pattern.
Right: adding a
third dimension to
the pattern to
create a folding
effect. Each
iteration could have
a different fold
depth that could be
positive (outwards)
or negative
(inwards).
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 691
The main input in the grasshopper script is a 'base'
vertical rectangular surface placed in front of the of-
fice room, exceeding the width of the room from
both sides by 2 m. It starts at the first floor level till 1
m above the third (and last) floor. The folding logic
is applied to this base surface. The double façade
also has bigger openings at the very top at the height
above the existing building to promote either wind
catching and/or getting rid of hot air rising up.
Performance criteria. According to the required de-
sign goals, a number of performance criteria were
chosen to represent the behaviour of the proposed
idea. They include cavity operative temperature, cav-
ity air flow measured in air changes per hour (ach)
and Daylight Factor (DF) in the office space. They
represent the 'fitness' in the evolutionary algorithmic
solver Octopus which attempts to optimize design
variables to reach the solution that achieves the best
balance or trade-off between these criteria.
EnergyPlus simulations of the double façade
take place on just one day that represents a typical
hot summer day in Cairo (2nd of July) in which aver-
age ambient temperature is 32°C, average site wind
speed is 4.9 m/s with a North West direction meaning
that the façade at hand is in the leeward side of the
building. This was due to the large computation time
needed to run annual energy simulations for this rela-
tively complex model with a huge number of small air
openings. When a solution is selected, cooling loads
for the month of July will be compared to those of the
existing room.
Design variables. A number of design variables con-
trol the double façade morphology and therefore its
behaviour. Table 1 describes each variable, the crite-
ria that it influences and its search range in the evo-
lutionary solver.
Preliminary testing of variables. The variables are
numerous and simultaneously affect performance
criteria. At the beginning all variables were given
a default fixed value (mentioned in Table 1), and
then each one is tested individually to see its ef-
fect on performance criteria and assign a suitable
search range accordingly. Default values have the fol-
 Figure 4
Diagram illustrating
digital model of the
studied room and
the proposed
folded porous
façade.

lowing performance: cavity temperature=35.2°C, air- flow=7.7 ach (due to infiltration only as no air open- Table 1
Design variables,
their description
and affected
performance
criteria. The search
range of each
variable is set after
preliminary testing
of a wider range for
each variable alone
to understand its
influence.

692 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

ings are assigned in default state), DF=17% of the
room area.
The effect of some of them is clear. For example
increasing glazing area increases cavity temperature
(up to 35.6°C) and daylight value (up to 30% of space)
as expected with slight increase in airflow. Air open-
ings increase air changes per hour (up to 106 ach) as
they increase, and decrease temperature (to 34.0°C).
As fold depths increase inwards (negative value)
they slightly decrease temperature as insolation on
each face decreases, and also daylight decreases, but
airflow increases. For the folds of the second and
third iteration, temperature slightly decrease even if
they are folded outwards (positive value) due to the
shading they create. Cavity depth had different ef-
fects on each criterion. As it increases, it slightly de-
creases temperature, clearly decreases airflow, and
increases daylight as it approached 1.5 m then af-
ter that value daylight decreases. For fold and cav-
ity depths specifically, their effect changes a lot with
different default values of other variables, and with
different combinations of each other.
An important observation is that an increase in
airflow does not necessarily mean a decrease in tem-
perature. This was true only to certain limit of air
changes per hour (around 60 ach), after that limit the
increase in airflow had no effect in decreasing tem-
perature. This was important to understand; as it im-
plies that airflow should not be assigned as an objec-
tive in the evolutionary solver because it would just
try to increase it as much as possible. It would do that
not understanding that it shouldn't try to increase it
after this limit especially if this increase is at the ex-
pense of another objective being optimized in the
same time. Therefore, optimizing the air-openings
will take place in a separate process aiming to opti-
mize temperature only without daylight as well, since
daylight isn't affected by them.
Optimizing temperature and daylight
The search range for each variable has been modified
based on these preliminary results, to avoid wasting
time in trying solutions that will not produce good re-
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 693
sults. The assigned objectives are minimizing cavity
temperature and maximizing daylight, and the vari-
ables are the first five of those listed in Table 1.
Best results (shown in Figure 5) for cavity temper-
ature were obtained in many cases, but usually when
first and second fold depths were at opposite ex-
tremes, and the third fold depth was always at max-
imum positive (folded outwards). Values near zero
(complete flatness) for all three folds depths were al-
ways avoided. There was no clear preferred range for
cavity depth. Best results for daylight did not show a
clear preferred variable range as well. It was noticed
that only the first fold depth tended to have a positive
value (folded outwards) rather than a negative one.
Many different combinations produced the same re-
sults.
A solution achieving a trade-off between cavity
temperature and room daylight was selected (Figure
6) in which cavity temperature decreased to 34.7°C,
and DF=23% of space. The DF is much better than
the default case but still less than the performance of
the existing room.
Optimizing temperature and airflow
The selected solution went through a final single-
optimization process in which the variables assigned
were the distance between porous openings and
cavity top opening scale factor to see the effect of the
porous surface and consequently convective heat
loss on the cavity temperature and airflow. The fit-
ness is set to minimize cavity temperature.
Results show that the presence of this network of
perforations in addition to openings at the top had a
big effect in increasing the airflow rate to an average
of 60 ach and decreasing the cavity temperature to
an average of 33.7°C after an average of 34.7°C with-
out them. The difference between cavity and ambi-
ent temperatures is within the range of 1.7°C which
implies that overheating is prevented at least in the
specified typical day in which simulations were calcu-
lated. This shows the importance of increasing heat
loss by convection in the thermoregulation of the
double façade. Airflow is due to both natural and
 Figure 5
Visualising design
variables that
produced a
trade-off between
temperature and
daylight. Image
produced by
'Pollination'
web-based
application [1].

forced convection (wind), but forced convection is Figure 6

dominating. All solutions produced very similar re- Selected solution;
sults with a temperature range of 33.7°C. This is prob- max. scale factor for
ably due to the narrowed search range that was as- glazing=0.99
signed based on the results of the preliminary testing (values inversely
in the beginning. The chosen solution had openings proportional to
at the top with total area of 7.2 m2 , and total area of insolation on each
perforations=1.48 m2 (each is 2x2 cm2 , 0.19 m apart) face), cavity depth=
and the cavity volume=237.6 m3 . 1.8m, 1st fold
depth=0.5m,
2nd=0.24m, 3rd=
0.15m , scale factor
of upper air
openings= 0.9,
distance between
the small
perforations=
0.19m.

694 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 7
Chart illustrating
the performance of
the cavity (its
temperature and air
changes per hour)
with changing
ambient conditions
throughout the
month of July. Wind
direction is usually
NW except for the
1st day and last
week of the month
when it is S/SE.

Figure 8 ifications need to be done to improve daylight, such

Daily cooling loads as using light shelves and more importantly using a
in July of the office glass type with higher visual transmittance than the
room before and one already used in the existing room, and then cool-
after placing the ing loads should be re-calculated for evaluation and
double facade design modification. Figure 8 shows a comparison of
the daily cooling loads of the room with and without
the double façade.

Table 2
Comparison of EVALUATING SELECTED SOLUTION
daylight and Simulations have been repeated for the whole month
cooling loads of the of July. Figure 7 shows that cavity temperature is al-
office room before ways around 1.7 to 2.0°C above ambient temperature
and after the even with changing wind speed and direction. This is
placement of quite important so that the proposed design would
double façade. not be always dependent on a specific wind direc-
tion, increasing its efficiency. Cavity airflow through-
out the month closely follows wind speed and had a Software limitations
minimum of 24 ach when wind speed was 2.7 m/s. It is important to point out the limitation of Ener-
Table 2 summarizes the performance of the room gyPlus in modelling double facades, as the Airflow
before and after the double façade. The presence Network model it uses assumes that each thermal
of this façade had a positive effect on cooling loads zone has a uniform temperature distribution, and it
as they decreased by 15%. However, it had a neg- does not take into consideration the cavity airflow
ative result on Daylight Autonomy which decreased pattern (EnergyPlus, 2014). Several studies (Zhang,
to 45.2% of the space. This means that further mod- et al., 2013; Sabooni, et al., 2012; Kim & Park, 2011)

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 695

 attempted to test the appropriateness of the Airflow
Network model for simulating double facades, and
concluded with the recommendation of coupling En-
ergyplus with a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
tool to complement each other's limitations.
CONCLUSION
The study demonstrates the potential of coupling
biomimetic design and computational tools in de-
signing a double façade for hot climates. It aimed at
reducing heat gain by radiation by using a folded sur-
face for self-shading, and increasing heat loss by con-
vection by using small perforations inspired by the
porosity of termite mound surface. Computational
software played an important role in the develop-
ment and analysis of the proposed design and un-
derstanding its performance to make modifications
in early design stages when decisions are most im-
portant. All design variables affected performance
criteria in different ways, the evolutionary optimiza-
tion process proved useful in finding a trade-off be-
tween different conflicting objectives.
The proposed design was capable of reducing
cooling loads, however its performance regarding
daylight still needs improvement. It gives a positive
indication that double facades can be used in hot cli-
mates if well shaded and ventilated. This paper is a
part of an on-going research in which the following
step is to repeat the same experiment in other façade
orientations. This would be followed by CFD simula-
tions of the double façade to get more accurate re-
sults regarding cavity temperature and airflow. This
is important in order to know whether the results of
EnergyPlus could be relied on to give an indication of
the performance of complex double façades in early
design phases in which the use of CFD tools is not
practical.
REFERENCES
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Radhi, H., Sharples, S. and Fikiry, F. 2013, 'Will multi-
facade systems reduce cooling energy in fully glazed
buildings? A scoping study of UAE buildings', Energy
and Buildings, 56, pp. 179-188
Sabooni, M.A., Vaseti, H.M., Maerefat, M. and Azimi, A.
2012 'Development of the capability of Energyplus
software to simulation of building double-skin fa-
cade', International Symposium on Sustainable En-
ergy in Buildings and Urban Areas (ICHMT), Kusadasi
Turner, J.S. 2001, 'On the Mound of Macrotermes
michaelseni as an Organ of Respiratory Gas Ex-
change', Physiological and Biochemical Zoology,
74(6), pp. 798-822
Turner, J.S. and Soar, R.C. 2008 'Beyond biomimicry:
What termites can tell us about realizing the liv-
ing building', Proceedings of the First International
Conference on Industrialized, Intelligent Construction
(I3CON), Loughborough
Zhang, R.L., Yao, S.C. and Zhang, Y. 2013, 'Coupled En-
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[1] http://mostapharoudsari.github.io/Honeybee/Poll
ination
SolSeduction
A Phyto-Solar Dance-Floor

Bernhard Sommer1 , Galo Moncayo2 , Malgorzata Sommer-Nawara3 ,

Ulrich Pont4
1,2
Universität für Angewandte Kunst 3 EXIKON skins 4 TU Wien
1,2
{bernhard.sommer|galo.moncayo}@uni-ak.ac.at
3
nawara@exikon.at 4 ulrich.pont@tuwien.ac.at

As climate and society change, customizing buildings towards specific usage

patterns and local weather conditions that might be obsolete within a few years,
does not seem to be the smartest approach to building design. Facing the end of
readily available highly efficient energy sources, such as oil and gas, we want to
re-think the architectural environment towards a symbiotic habitat. The role of
energy thus is not seen as a question of supply, but as one parameter among
others that shapes the environment. A habitat relies on the physical, chemical and
social interaction of different elements and organisms.The authors together with
their students pursued a design research re-thinking the architectural
environment towards a symbiotic habitat.Full-scale spatial prototypes as elements
of such a habitat have been developed focussing on the interfaces between
climate, people and other organisms, such as plankton, algae and flowers.

Keywords: Real-time interaction, Biologic architecture, Adaptability,

Evolutionary algorithm

INTRODUCTION ence on buildings rendering static concepts invalid.

This paper discusses the outcome of a seminar at En-
ergy Design, a department of the Institute of Architec-
ture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. With the
support of our Rector, Dr. Gerald Bast, within the last
two years, the department could research in-depth
into specific design questions related to energy and
architecture, including the engineering of prototypi-
cal architectural models or fragments of architectural
elements.
These two years of intense activities in teachings
and (design) research were dedicated to understand
the role of environmental forces as time-based influ-
We are convinced that in the architectural design
practice this aspect of change is massively under-
rated. Our goal was to explicitly investigate the de-
sign options yielded by an architectural design that
is more conscious about the ever-changing physical
and social reality. In art history a relation between ar-
chitecture and music often has been discussed, being
the notion of time versus space the strongest differ-
ence between the two disciplines. Some aphorism
such as "Architektur ist erstarrte Musik" (Friedrich Wil-
helm Joseph von Schelling), "Architektur ist steinge-
wordene Musik" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), "Ar-

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 697

 chitektur ist gefrorene Musik" (Arthur Schopenhauer)
show the strange desire to link these arts. However,
besides some very formalized concepts such as the
Avenue of the Sphinx in Luxor, where the position
and the movement of the spectator was strictly given
during religious rituals, architecture always failed to
deliver the linear and composed experience music
can provide. In 1928 Henrik Neugeboren proposes
a Monument to Bach, a 3-dimensional system of mu-
sical notion. Figure 1 shows the desperate, not to
say monumental, attempt to realize 4 measures from
Bach´s fugue in E-flat minor. (Neugeboren, H. 1929)
698 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
An early attempt to use the transformation of a build-
ing to meet environmental forces is the Rotating Alu-
minium House in Snow Creek, Palms Springs, erected
by aerospace engineer Floyd D'Angelo, depicted in
Figure 2. This project is for its time especially men-
tionable, as "In order to rotate the home [...] D'Angelo
adapted a device from his product company that was
made to open and close aluminum loovers. Originally,
D'Angelo powered the mechanical equipment through
a photovoltaic cell on the roof which powered the sys-
tem's rotation arc." [1]
The concepts of interactive architecture, as de-
fined by Kas Oosterhuis (Oosterhuis, K. 2013) and his
Hyperbody research institution so far had the clearest Figure 1
emphasize on time-based transformation as an archi- Henrik
tectural design driver. Neugeboren,
The department of Energy Design was aimed at Monument to Bach,
going one step further and investigate the meaning from: Meyer, H.
of interactive, transformable architecture in the con- (Ed.) 1929 Bauhaus.
text of climate, comfort and behavior. At the Insi- Zeitschrift für Ge-
tute of Architecture, thus two seminars have been set staltung no. 1, Jahr-
up that clearly pointed out our interest in ecologic gang 3. Dessau
strategies on the one hand and the conscious orches- Bauhaus, Jan. 1929
tration of time-based change on the other hand.
Figure 2
Floyd D´Angelo,
Revolving
Aluminium House,
from:
http://modernhomesla.
blogspot.co.at/2012/11/
the-dangelo-
house-futuristic-
desert.html,
accessed
The first program was called Ecological Ballet. Fully 2014-06-14
functioning interactive models of scaled architec-
tural projects were shown at the MAK - Austrian Mu-
seum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, in
October 2013. SolSeduction - A Phyto-Solar Dance-
Floor was the second program, showing full scale in-
teractive prototypes and one scaled model at Heili-
genkreuzer Hof , a show room of the University of
Applied Arts. The programs were framed by sev-
eral guest lectures, such as Philippe Rahm, Francois
Roche and Marco Poletto and Claudia Pasquero from
ecoLogicStudio. Further, a workshop with guest crit-
ics Marco Poletto and Claudia Pasquero was held in
the beginning of the second programme and a sym-
posion on time, energy and architecture was orga-
nized as a final event, having Francois Roche and
Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero and Brian Cody on
the panel.
METHODOLOGY
There has to be a kind of disclaimer at the beginning
of this paper: no energy balances have been calcu-
lated. Thus we fail to answer questions such as if
the energy demand for transformation would not ex-
ceed what is gained by adaption. The seminar did
not follow a strict scientific methodology as it should
be expected in natural sciences. The context of the
department of Energy Design is that of an architec-
ture school at an art university. The methodology
is what is discussed in the field of architecture un-
der the term Design Research or Research by Design,
a term specifically brought up in the context of archi-
tecture by Michael Hensel and the collaborative and
interdisciplinary network he founded: OCEAN Design
Research Association, a not-for-profit association fo-
cusing on research by design in architecture and ur-
ban design [2]. Of course, the methodology behind
this term is still vague. David Leatherbarrow, profes-
sor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania
School of Design in Philadelphia , traces the modern
approach to design research back to the 17th century
and later to Le Corbusier and his atelier de la recher-
ché patiente. He admits, that it seems odd to suggest
that research could be undertaken in a [...] workshop,
yet he points out the fact that scientific advances in our
time often occur outside university settings. He finally
concludes that design practice can be understood as a
form of scientific research when both are seen as pro-
jective activities. Project making, so Leatherbarrow, re-
quires a movement away from its own techniques to-
ward conditions that are not of its own making, an ec-
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 699
centric procedure dedicated to the unseen potential of
the world it seeks to remake (Hensel, M. 2013). It is
this procedure we were after: the unseen potential
of the world the projects seek to remake, the sym-
biotic habitat, that became the brief to our students.
However, there is a less cloudy definition of what de-
sign research could be, at least as it is discussed in
the field of Industrial Design. Trygve Fast and Haakon
Faste state that design research is not a "kind" of re-
search. Rather, research is a practice, and it is part
of design practice. They find four categories of de-
sign research: Design of Research, Design through Re-
search, Research on Design and Research through De-
sign. In this context, our attempts were to follow the
category Research through Design, a design activity
that operates as research-whether intentionally or not
(Faste, T., Faste, H. 2012).
TECHNOLOGY
The programs relied on different software and
hardware components. Students were trained in
Grasshopper, a graphical algorithm editor integrated
with Rhino 's 3-D modeling tools. The Grasshopper
plug-in Ladybug was used to analyze environmen-
tal data, the plug-in Firefly was used to link scripts
to Arduino micro-controllers. Fritzing was used to
understand and plan the configuration of the Ar-
duino boards, the Arduino Software was used to fi-
nally program the micro-controllers. All software,
besides Rhino 3D are open source software. The
micro-controllers were equipped with a variety of
sensors, depending on each individual approach. In
the same manner the micro-controller was driving all
the physical outputs, the students had to learn how
to connect and control stepper motors, electromag-
netic valves, servo and dc motors, bimetal, lights and
sound. This approach to technology was a combina-
tion of content and aesthetics, as well as coding and
hardware design for the development of working in-
teractive prototypes.
 SOL SEDUCTION - A PHYTO-SOLAR
DANCE-FLOOR
The projects of Ecologic Ballet have been presented
and discussed at the 10th European Conference
on Product & Process Modeling in September 2014
(Sommer, B. et.al. 2014). One conclusion was that fu-
ture work should address the realization of such con-
cepts in 1:1 mock-ups. With SolSeduction a few mock-
ups could be realized and were presented in an exhi-
bition in November 2014 at the Heiligenkreuzer Hof in
Vienna. The conceptual approach and task was deep-
ened for this follow-up seminar.
The idea of buildings producing more energy
as they need is widely discussed and projects are
being realized, usually under the label Plus-Energie-
Gebäude. However, this concept is problematic, if
seen as a fundamental solution for the energy de-
700 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
mand of buildings: North of the tropical and sub-
tropical zones, where most developed countries are
located and the total energy demand is highest, the
production of solar electrical energy is more or less
limited to the summer period, where demand e.g.
for lighting is much higher in the winter season (Lei-
bundgut, H. 2011). One alternative and further de-
velopment could be the production of biomass as a
way of chemically storing energy and transforming it
to electricity and heat, when needed. The biomass
production could be integrated in the building skin.
A building with an algae bioreactor facade has first
been developed to realization by the Austrian archi-
tecture office Splitterwerk in cooperation with Arup
(Blaschitz, M. et.al. 2014). Taking up this approach,
we want to re-think the architectural environment to-
wards a symbiotic habitat. The role of energy thus is
Figure 3
Task diagram me by
Bernhard Sommer.
 not seen as a question of supply, but as one param-
eter among others that shapes the environment. A
habitat, in our definition, relies on the physical, chem-
ical and social interaction of different elements and
organisms. Full-scale spatial prototypes, as elements
of such a habitat, have been developed focussing on
these interfaces between climate, people and other
Figure 4 organisms, such as plankton and algae.
Screenshot from The prototypes were presented in the above
video, taped by mentioned exhibition. Each prototype was equipped
Raumfilm, Mathias with different sensors to enable them to interact with
Widter. visitors and the physical conditions on site, re-acting
and adapting in real-time. An exemplary responsive
system loop as a guideline for the students to design
the prototypes can be seen in Fig. 3.
Luminiscent.Tracings.
Studets: Ola Mnich, Marko Margeta, Banafsheh
Fahimipour, Nina Soltani, James Park
This habitat provides an artificial day zone and an
artificial night zone. Bioluminescent organisms - py-
rocystis lunula - help to orient in the darkness and ac-
company the visitors in the night zone providing an
almost surreal atmosphere of water reflections and
blue specular plankton light. The artificial vessels for
the plankton are a combination of panels that pro-
vide the framework for clear cushion full with the
mixture of water and nutrients and a kinetic hanging
system that provides the motion for their transition
from day to night. According to the movement of the
visitors under the cushions, locally placed activators
will produce the necessary turbulences to excite the
plankton to release its glow. The movement of the
visitor is traced by motion sensors that inform the re-
spective areas to glow. This gives the audience a feel-
ing of being followed by the light like one is followed
by a curios animal. As the plankton needs a 12 hour
cycles of daylight and darkness to be able to recharge
its luminance, two different populations trade places
every 12 hours. This change is driven by a mechanical
clock, that slowly lowers and respectively raises the
two sets of elements, so that the fluid with the plank-
ton can flow freely from one zone to another. This full
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 701
cycle occurs on 24 hours cycles making it barely visi-
ble for the visitors. The same mechanical clock also
provides the a secondary motion tilting the panels
gently back and forward to crete a wave like effect to
enhance the light reflections created by the habitat.
(Fig. 4)
Oxy.Clmn.
Students: Noemi Polo, Moritz Hanshans, Artur
Stashkevitsh, Arpapan Chantanakajornfung
Vessels of algae - chlorella vulgaris - , spread over
the walls towards the ceiling. This algae vessels are
interconnected with an air supply structure, a net-
work of tubes and valves resembling a circulatory sys-
tem. Interpolated with the algae there are also air
reservoirs that inflate and deflate giving the a sense
of breathing. The air supply system is mediated by
several electromagnetic valves that will control the
air circulation in the system. The algae consumes
the CO2 that the visitors exhale giving back oxygen
to the exhibition space. Using CO2 sensors the sys-
tem is triggered by comparing the existing level in
the room to de desire value. When this point is sur-
passed the system uses an air compressor to start the
circulation of air form the room into to PVC inflatable
reservoirs that will regulate the amount of air flowing
into the algae vessels. When the air reservoirs reach
the desire pressures, electromagnetic air valves will
open the flow of air into the algae vessels, for them
to process the CO2 and produce Oxygen in return.
The organism also works as a new kind of ornament
rich in detail and designed for the exhibition space.
 This new type of ornamentation not only provides
the space with clean air, but also gives the viewers
a visual and musical performance. The sounds pro-
duces by the system are a combination electromag-
netic valves clicking and clacking, the deep sound of
the compresor serves as a humming musical base, on
the other hand the bumbling sound of the air, being
release in to the vessels containing the algae, adds
to the orchestration a less mechanical sound. More-
over, for the exhibition, an array of light sensors were
implemented to the system to facilitate the interac-
tion between the visitors and the system. (Fig. 5)
702 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
Dark.Matter.
Student:Francois Gandon, Miro Straka, Venetia Alia,
Jiaxing Lu, Annamaria Dobai
A kinetic wall four meters long by two meters
high, made of twenty rotating vertical elements, fol-
lows the viewer and shivers as they approach and
move in front of it. The elements are sharp points
witch rotate and face the viewers as they move closer
and closer. When the points are rotated to they max-
imum being the closest to the viewer the start to
shiver as if it was a fear reaction. At this moment the
wall will release scents of various plants depending
on the position of the expectation. This whole chore-
ography of events creates an illusion of fear and self Figure 5
defense. The shivering also creates a kind of natu- Screenshot from
ral hissing, resembling the sound of reed in the wind, video, taped by
giving a voice to the installation. (Fig. 6) Raumfilm, Mathias
Widter.
Drone.Synthesis.
Student: Christian Anich, Daniel Rhomberg
This project is an instrument that is ruled by slime
mould. Four satellite stations distributed in the ex-
hibition space around the slime mould, house loud-
speakers and ultrasonic proximity sensors. The activ- Figure 6
ity of the sensor is visualized by a fading blue glow- Screenshot from
ing light. The slime mould lives in a habitat, trying video, taped by
to reach nutrition, yet, avoiding light. LEDs in the Raumfilm, Mathias
mould habitat glow according to the activity and dis- Widter.
tribution of the people in the room. The activity is
fed into a synthesizer, creating an ambient electronic
sound. The slime mould can conduct electricity and
is connected with the synthesizer. As it changes its
growth pattern due to the LEDs, the slime mould start
to modify the outcome of the musical composition. Figure 7
(Fig. 7) Screenshot from
video, taped by
3R.House. Raumfilm, Mathias
Student: Rangel Karaivanov Widter.
This is the only scaled model in the exhibition. It
involves a biomimetic principle rather than biologic
organism. The model rotates around three axis, fol-
lowing a fitness goal of maximizing or minimizing
the impact of solar radiation as well as redefining its
 spaces according to space usage. This movement exhibition opening was accompanied by a sympo-
shows the continuous dance between the house it- sion on time, energy and architecture.
self finding its optimal position for its interaction with
Figure 8 the environment and the user and his or hers us-
Screenshot from age needs. This scale model of the house is kinet-
video, taped by ically driven by a network or custom design gears
Raumfilm, Mathias and three steeper motor to provide the necessary
Widter accuracy for the graceful movement of the house.
Weather data, as well local sensors can be streamed
real-time into a Grasshopper script. As we see the
3d model reconfigure itself in front of us, the virtual
3d model is shown in a screen next to it. The dig-
ital model is represented in the script and the so-
lar radiation levels on its surface are evaluated and
Figure 9 described by a color gradient to visually illustrate
Kick-Off workshop; the phenomenon. The best inclination and rota-
results at the roof tion angle of each axis is then calculated nearly in
top at University of real-time by an evolutionary algorithm (Galapagos
applied Arts, for Grasshopper). (Fig. 8)
Vienna; Photo:
Malgorzata SEMINAR PROGRAMME OF SOLSEDUC-
Sommer-Nawara TION
The seminar started with an introduction and train-
ing of specific software skills. After four half-day train-
ing sessions, an intense workshop phase started with
a concept storming day. These concepts were pre-
sented to guest critics Claudia Pasquero and Marco
Poletto. Within three days, first prototypes were pro-
duced, one already involving pyrocystis lunula, one
using chlorella vulgaris, another one using air move-
ment as actuating force, Fig. 9.
In the following phase, -besides further re-
search, conceptual drawings and the developement
of structural details - functional schemes of each
prototype were sketched. Exemplary, for luminis-
cant.tracings. one such diagramme is shown in Fig.
10.
A final flow chart of the actual built prototype is
shown for oxy.clm. in Fig. 11. All projects were set
up within five days at the exhibition venue. Build-
ing components were printed on site with a Witbox
3D-PLA-printer or lasercut, where 2D-elements were
needed. The vessels were made of welded PVC. The

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 703

 Figure 10
Diagramme by Ola
Mnich, Marko
Margeta, Banafsheh
Fahimipour, Nina
Soltani, James Park.

Figure 11
Diagramme by Galo
Moncayo.

704 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

CONCLUSIONS Oosterhuis, K (eds) 2013, Hyperbody – the first decade of
A wide variety of design options and new aesthetic interactive architecture, JapSamBooks, Rotterdam
experiences can be obtain by taking up new sus- Sommer, B, Moncayo, G and Pont, U 2014 'Ecological
ballet – a design research towards environmental-
tainable technical strategies. This potential lies com-
reactive, adaptive architectural design.', eWork and
pletely open and architects should learn to use these eBusiness in Architecture, Engineering and Construc-
new strategies as design drivers. From the present tion, pp. 215-220
work, most promising seems the project oxy.clmn., [1] http://modernhomesla.blogspot.co.at/2012/11/the
as the algae significantly reproduced after two weeks -dangelo-house-futuristic-desert.html
of exhibition, although the exhibition room was not [2] http://www.ocean-designresearch.net
very well lit and although the exhibition took place
in November. Compared with the realized The Algae
House, from Splitterwerk / Arup, the project shows at
least two steps forward: it combines the production
of biomass with the cleaning of the indoor air and the
algae does not need to be heated in winter.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The projects were made possible by extra funding
from the rector of the University of Applied Arts Vi-
enna, Gerald Bast. The developement of the pro-
totypes was accompanied by visiting critics Claudia
Pasquero and Marco Poletto from UCL Bartlett / eco-
LogicStudio.
The students inolved showed committment that
exceeded what you can expect by far.

LINKS
Videos from the prototypes can be accessed online:
energy-design.tumblr.com

REFERENCES
Blaschitz, M, Wurm, J, Hemmrich, E, Arup, - and Splitter-
werk, - 2014, Das Algenhaus / The Algae House, Niggli
Verlag, Zürich
Faste, T and Faste, H 2012 'Demystifying “design re-
search”: Design is not research, research is design.',
Proceedings of the IDSA
Hensel, MU (eds) 2013, Design innovation for the built en-
vironment: Research by design and the renovation of
practice, Routledge
Leibundgut, H 2011, .: LowEx building design: für eine Ze-
roEmission Architecture, vdf Hochschulverlag AG
Neugeboren, H 1929, 'eine bach-fuge im bild', Bauhaus.
Zeitschrift für Gestaltung no. 1, 1(3), pp. 16-18

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 705

Prepared Music Field: Interactive Spatial Music
Performances
Eric Sauda1 , Trevor Hess2 , Evan Danchenka3 , Scott Christian4 ,
Chris Beorkrem5
1,2,3,5
School of Architecture, UNC Charlotte 4 West Virginia University
1,2,3,5
{ejsauda|ahess5|edanchen|CBeorkrem}@uncc.edu
4
schristian1@wvstateu.edu

As part of ongoing research, the Digital Arts Center at UNC Charlotte has
commissioned of a new music composition by Andy Akiho, a fellow at the
American Academy in Rome. The presentation of this piece will begin with a
premiere in Charlotte, followed by performances in Rome, New York ,Cleveland
and Charleston. This collaboration focuses on responsive architecture (an
interweaving of space and digital media as a critical element in contemporary
architecrue) and expanded musical performance venues (an engaging, inclusive
and unique atmosphere for both performers and audience). To accomplish these
goals, we have created a "prepared music field" that will allow the audience to
move through the space using their smart phones to engage both with live
performers and digitally delivered augmented compositional elements. Audience
members will have a unique listening experience depending upon their position
and movement during the performance. In this work, we reconnect music with its
temporal dimension by using digital methods to create a real time experience.

Keywords: Experimental music, Site specific, Augmented reality, Sound

installation, Smartphone art

The electric light is pure information. It is a medium
without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell
out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of
all media, means that the "content" of any medium is
always another medium. (McCluhan 1967)
As a matter of facts on the ground, environments
at all levels are being flooded with information. The
wide proliferation of smart phones and communica-
tion networks has altered the manner in which peo-
ple understand and experience space. (Castells 2000,
Graham 1998) One pressing question for architects
and other designers of space is how to conceptualize
this mixed environment, how to integrate the flow of
information with the spatial settings in which it is re-
ceived.
Real time has already arrived. The pressing ques-
tion is how it will transform the shape and role of ex-
isting cultural practice.
Our group of researchers at the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte has been exploring the
manner in which interactivity and computation can
transform music performance space. Our group in-

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 707

 cludes Scott Christian of the contemporary classical
music group Fresh Ink & West Virginia State University
and Professors Eric Sauda and Chris Beorkrem and
researchers Trevor Hess and Evan Danchenka of the
Digital Arts Center at the College of Arts + Architec-
ture.
Our group has previously collaborated on two
performances, both of which featured the role of
a specific space and technology in musical presen-
tation. As part of a "Digital Spaces" exhibit at the
Prospective Eye gallery, Fresh Ink presented two per-
cussion works accompanied by digital projection on
screens above the performers triggered by the sound
levels of the instruments. A more ambitious installa-
tion, "Crippled Symmetry" presented a work by Mil-
ton Freidman accompanied by projection on the ceil-
ing of a large atrium space viewed from 200 lounge
chairs. The projection and the alignments in space
were matched to the intentions and methods of Feld-
man's music. [3]
Our current project involves the commission of a
work by Andy Akiho, a contemporary classical com-
poser who has been recognized with awards includ-
ing the 2014-15 Luciano Berio Rome Prize, the 2015
Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, a 2014 Fromm Foun-
dation Commission from Harvard University and the
2014 American Composers Orchestra Underwood
Emerging Composers Commission. He has previ-
ously worked with one member of our group (Scott
Christian) and has incorporated concepts of technol-
ogy in his work. [2]
Akiho's work is composed to be performed in a
"Prepared Music Field" at a selected number of mu-
seums and public settings.The spatial setting informs
the prepared music field both through the diffuse
spacing of the musicians and by the configuration
of performances in multiple settings using topolog-
ical instruction. The movement through the space
affords a new method of spatial engagement for the
audience. [1]
The "Prepared Music Field" that will allow the au-
dience to move through the space using their smart
phones to engage both with live performers and dig-
708 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
itally delivered augmented sound. Each member of
the audience will have a unique listening experience
depending on their position and movement. While
there has been work on incorporating computation
into musical performance (Jordà 2007, Winkler 2001,
Kirke et al. 2013), our effort is unique in combing a
commissioned work with an interactive performance
in specific spatial settings.
The historical constellation of music engages the
prepared music field by developing the range of in-
strumental, found, and manufactured sounds as me-
dia for the piece. This project fits within a tradition of
innovation and inclusion that stretches back at least
a century.
The technological matrix provides a new
medium of engagement with the prepared music
field through the use of smart phone technology to
provide precise location information and to supple-
ment or alter the live acoustics. This project uses
technology to actively prepare and interact with the
space.
The presentation of this piece will begin with a
premiere in Charlotte, following by performances at
sites in Rome, New York, Charleston and Cleveland.
Complete documentation of this project is available
on line at ejsauda.wix.com/prepared-music-field.
SPATIAL SETTING
To understand the role that space might play in this
project, we traced the role of the performance venue
in the history of music. The slow pace and sin-
gle musical line of Gregorian chants are acoustically
matched to the long reverberation time of medieval
cathedrals. The polyphonic Baroque work of Bach
and Vivaldi coincides with musical performance mi-
grating into smaller, harder surface rooms with more
limited reverberation times (see Figures 1, 2). An
even more direct connection between space and per-
formance was struck by Wagner, who wrote Parsifal
specifically for the Festspeilhaus in Bayreuth and by
the Requiem of Berlioz, intended for performance in
Les Invalides. (Beranek 2004)
Figure 1 ence. The ability to record and manipulate sound has
Frederick the Great become more and more sophisticated with the use
in Baroque of digital processing, but at the cost of disengaging
perfromance space. from a spatial setting.
One of the intentions of this project, then, is to
re-engage the space of the performance as an active
part of the composition, not as a return to histori-
cal settings of music, but as once again an important
part of a composer's intentions.
For our project, the engagement with space has
two aspects. First, players will be distributed in space
such that the audience can move freely amongst the
players, rather than being fixed in a rigid dialectic.
Figure 2 This generates a variable and individualized perfor-
Salisbury Cathedral, mance, depending on the position of listeners and on
gothic space. the nature of the digital manipulations.
The project engages space not only at the level
of the individual listener, but also with the venue of
the music performance. After considering a variety
of settings, we chose the museum, for while it is not
configured as a conventional performance space (al-
though musical performances at museums are not
at all uncommon) it still retains presence as a venue
in which particular and framed attention is paid to
whatever is within. The audience will see and hear
whatever occurs with heightened expectations.
Second, we have redefined the museum as a spa-
tial matrix (see Figure 3), which affords a fresh inter-
Figure 3
pretation in each venue. Individual players are posi-
Musician location in
tioned based on a set of instructions that describe the
Mint Museum,
topological relationship of each player to the next in
Charlotte.
the form of a recursive rule set:

• Player A will be able to see Player B

• Player B will be able to see Player C
• Player A will not be able to see Player C
• Etc.
• Player A will not be able to hear Player B
• Player B will be able to hear Player C
• Etc.
While the acoustical setting of concert halls and other
musical performance spaces is still relevant, the ad-
This idea of space is also found in the work of the
vent of audio recording has altered the relationship
painter and sculptor Sol Lewitt. His wall drawings
between music performance and audience experi-
are presented as a series of instructions with a set

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 709

 of drawing operations. Lewitt chose not to execute
these drawings himself, leaving the actual drawings
to other artists. His descriptions are clear, but leave
room for interpretation, not unlike the score of a
piece of music. (Lewitt et al. 2016)
710 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
HISTORICAL CONSTELLATION
To better place our project in an historical context, we
have created a model for interpreting experimental
music works in the last 100 years, all of which vary
in terms of historical merit, intention, performance,
and use of technology (see Figure 4). First, we distin-
guish between three basic understandings of experi-
Figure 4
Map of
compositional
approaches.
 mental music: 1) Traditional Instrumentation, charac-
terized by acoustic orchestration for conventional in-
struments; 2) Electronic/Manufactured Sounds, char-
acterized by electronically generated and manipu-
lated sounds that do not naturally occur; and 3)
Natural/Found Sounds, characterized by observed or
recorded sounds (noises) in their natural state.
We then position precedent works on the result-
ing 3-point field. Some works strongly favor one spe-
cific idea of experimental music, while most fall be-
tween 2 or 3 categories. For example, the 2009 per-
formance of Henry Brant's Orbits at the Guggenheim-
involving a spatial arrangement of 80 trombonists,
sopranos, and an organist-is firmly placed under
Traditional Instrumentation. However, the 1995
performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter
Streichquartett-which involved a live quartet inside
four flying helicopters while video streaming to a
concert hall-is halfway between Traditional Instru-
mentation and Natural/Found Sounds.
Most centrally positioned, Edgar Varese's 1958
Poeme Electronique-an abstract combination of syn-
thetic music, found sounds, and instrumentation all
presented through 200-plus speakers with accom-
panying video projections-demonstrates parts of all
three categories.
Next, we layer in 5 accompanying elements that
reflect additional information on each piece: Audi-
ence Participation, Human Computer Interaction, Vi-
sual Merged Media, Spatial Augmentation, and Ab-
Figure 5
Historical
constellation of
experimental
music.
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 711
stracted Musical Score. We find that 3 of the Tradi-
tional Instrumentation pieces have abstracted musi-
cal scores while only 1 piece outside of that category
does. Like-wise, all works noted for Visual Merged
Media seem to be influenced by Electronic/Manufac-
tured Sounds.
Another data layer shows a loose interpretation
of "compositional styles" or the intent of the com-
poser. We see that orchestral music is centered
about Traditional Instrumentation, and Sound Art
stems from Natural/Found Sounds. Technology is
a common theme that flows through most of the
chart but barely touches Traditional Instrumenta-
tion. Most fascinatingly, Musique Concréte-the the-
ory that both found sounds and technologically ma-
nipulated sounds can be combined to create a new
music synthesis-moves across the chart in malleable
fashion.
We also organize the precedents on a timeline so
as to follow the lineage of different experimental mu-
sic theories, technologies and historical events affect-
ing music (see Figure 5). We begin with the Italian
Futurist, Luigi Russolo's Macchina Tipographica (Rus-
solo et al. 1967), which was one of the first works for
noise generators, sound recordings, and live perfor-
mance. Russolo's manifesto The Art of Noise exten-
sively categorized types of sounds and included in-
structions on how they should be mechanically gen-
erated as well as combined and utilized for future or-
chestration. Russolo concludes, "...one day we will
 be able to distinguish among ten, twenty, or thirty
thousand different noises. We will not have to imitate
these noises but rather to combine them according
to our artistic fantasy."
Next, we map the loose overlap of composi-
tional approaches. We find a close correlation be-
tween technology and sound art while orchestra-
tion only makes the occasional leap into a different
field. Musique Concréte almost disappears after the
invention of the Moog synthesizer and other sound-
generating technology, but returns in the 2000's.
Most interestingly, all music forms deviate, split, and
overlap wildly within the last decade.
On both diagrams, we also include a past Digital
Arts collaboration, and an Andy Akiho piece. In 2013,
the Fresh Ink Music Series and our Digital Arts Cen-
ter prepared a merged-media performance of Mor-
ton Feldman's Crippled Symmetry in the Storrs Hall
salon. Audience members reclined on beach chairs
on either side of the centered musicians while watch-
ing manipulated visuals projected onto the length of
the salon ceiling. Akiho's Stop Speaking for solo snare
is performed in time with a sophisticated manipula-
tion of the Mac computer voice "Vicki".
The current collaboration with composer Andy
Akiho aims for the center of the 3-point spectrum and
for most, if not all, of the defined accompanying ele-
ments. The project acknowledges a century of exper-
imental music works from Russolo's Art of Noise man-
ifesto to today's current technological implication in
music and performance.
of a prepared music field, we need to know both
the technical possibilities and the relationship to mu-
sic performance. While locational aware applications
immediately call to mind Geographic Positioning Sys-
tems, GPS becomes widely inaccurate and unreliable
indoors because of the affects of buildings materials
on the signal. Systems to calculate indoor position
are a current research field in computer science and
there are a number of possibilities that are feasible for
this project.
Bluetooth Beacons
Bluetooth beacons are a simple way to emulate the
characteristics of GPS. Acting like a single satellite,
they allow individuals to know their rough proximity
to the beacon (close, medium or far). This allows two
types of interaction. When a phone is within range
of the signal we can have an on/off effect, or we can
modulate an effect based on the phones proximity to
the beacon. (see Figure 6)
Figure 6
Musicians and
bluetooth.

TECHNOLOGICAL MATRIX
Our group is currently developing the smart phone
application for use in the Prepared Music Field. This
application will be for both iOS and Android, and
will be available for download at each performance
venue. The application is being designed collabora-
tively with the composer and the musicians, and is in-
To further emulate GPS, we can combine three of
tended both to meet the needs of this particular com-
these beacons to find an approximate location in
position as well as being made available as a platform
space by identifying which the proximal zone for
for other, future composers and projects.
each beacon (far, close, far). This allows us to do one
If mobile computing applications are to be part
of two things: we can either have three different ef-

712 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 7
Beta version of
smart phone
interaction.
fects that are modulated simultaneously, or we can
have a complex effect that has several different vari-
able qualities we can adjust.
Smartphone Accelerometers & Gyroscopes
Accelerometer and gyroscopes are prominent fea-
tures of nearly all smartphones. While bluetooth bea-
cons work with the last few generations of phones,
these sensors will work on every smartphone starting
with the first generation. Using measurements from
these sensors we can track people's relative move-
ment within a space and could be used to make small
adjustments to the sounds people are hearing. They
can form a backup system in case the beacons' sig-
nal is intermittent. Accelerometers can modify the
sounds people hear within a proximal zone (such as
"far") so that small movements will impact the music
along with large movements.
Creating Mobile Effects for the Audience
There are two options available to us when thinking
about effects we can give the audience through a
mobile app (see Figure 7). First, we can program a
MIDI controller in the app to create sounds, or use
prerecorded music that will be layered on top of the
live sounds. Secondly, we can use the built-in micro-
phone to record the live sound and modify it using ef-
fects on the phone. The advantage to modifying live
sound is that it will always be synchronized. Synchro-
nization with a MIDI controller is discussed in the next
section, but should not be any more complicated.
When using prerecorded sounds, the two op-
tions are including the sounds in the app, or connect-
ing to a central server over WiFi to stream or down-
load the music. While not incredibly hard, streaming
presents the most risk for complication since it relies
on the quality of the existing wireless at the exhibi-
tion location.
Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 713
Synchronizing Musicians & Mobile Sounds
To synchronize all of the music in the exhibition
when using a MIDI controller, we have decided to
include the metronome in the mobile app. When
the audience loads the app, they will be unaware
of the option unless they browse through the set-
tings. For musicians, they will simply go to the op-
tions and flip a switch so that they hear a metronome
instead. By linking the metronome to the clock on
each smartphone, we can easily synchronize each
musician spread across the exhibition space without
the need for visual or auditory contact.
The use of prerecorded or streaming music with
the option to synchronize as an alternative to a
metronome is also part of the interface.
Visualization
To the audience, the existence of sensors and trig-
gers that can change sound is largely irrelevant. They
do not need to know, or it should not be completely
evident to them how the project is technically im-
plemented. The audience will, however, want to
have some control or ability to predict changes to
the sounds as they move through the physical space.
Presently, this can be thought of as a visualization
of the abstract space of the beacons and sound ef-
fects. Naively this could be a simple map of the space
with the sensing areas around each beacon. From
an artistic perspective, however, a map is not a good
visualization. We are developing an abstraction of a
map, or the fields involved in sound generation and
changes. This visualization will recognize that we will
not always know the position of the audience mem-
ber (such as when they are outside of a beacon's sens-
ing area) and will not fully predict changes to the
sound in order to preserve a sense of discoverability
inside the system.
 REFERENCES
Beranek, L 2004, Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music,
Acoustics, and Architecture., Springer
Castells, M 2000, The Information Age: Economy, Society
and Culture. Volume 1: The Rise of the Network Soci-
ety, Blackwell
Graham, S 1998, 'The end of geography or the explosion
of place? Conceptualizing space, place and informa-
tion technology.', Progress in Human Geography, 22,
pp. 165-185
Jordà, S 2007 'The reacTable: exploring the synergy be-
tween live music performance and tabletop tangi-
ble interfaces', Proceedings of the 1st international
conference on Tangible and embedded interaction.
Kirke, A and Miranda, E 2013, 'An overview of computer
systems for expressive music performance', in Kirke,
A and Miranda, E (eds) 2013, Guide to computing for
expressive music performance, Springer
Lewitt, S, Manni, M and Villirillo, G 2006, Sol Lewitt: Wall
Drawings Allo Studio, Damiani
McCluhan, M 1967, The medium is the message, 123
Russolo, L and Pratella, FB 1967, . The art of noise: futurist
manifesto, 1913, Something Else Press
Winkler, T 2001, Composing interactive music: techniques
and ideas using Max., MIT
[1] http://ejsauda.wix.com/prepared-music-field.
[2] https://vimeo.com/129259246.
[3] https://vimeo.com/57217119

714 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

A Design Framework and a Digital Toolset Supporting the
Early-Stage Explorations of Responsive Kinetic Building
Skin Concepts
Malgorzata A. Zboinska1 , Jan Cudzik2 , Robert Juchnevic3 ,
Kacper Radziszewski4
1
Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Architecture 2,3,4 Gdansk Uni-
versity of Technology, Faculty of Architecture
1
malgorzata.zboinska@wp.pl
2,3
{jan.cudzik|robertjuch}@gmail.com 4 dali_rad90@yahoo.pl

In this paper we present the first phase of our research on the development of a
framework for early-stage responsive kinetic building skin design. The aims of
this study were: to formulate a methodological and instrumental basis for the
construction of the framework, to conduct an initial pre-assessment of its
features, and finally to provide the first example of how the framework could be
applied in practice. Importantly, at this point our goal was not yet to indicate the
framework's effectiveness, but rather focus on formulating its foundations. A pilot
design experiment, aimed at the probing of the framework's characteristics,
suggests the emergence of its two noteworthy features. Firstly, it allows to freely
but at the same time also systematically explore six design aspects of responsive
architecture: form, functionality, performance, kinetic behaviors, system
mechanics and responsiveness. Secondly, it helps to explore these six aspects
using diverse means: parametric models, digital simulations, computational
analyses, physical models and interactive prototypes. These features suggest that
the framework could be a valid and useful means of supporting designers in the
complex task of creating architectural concepts of responsive kinetic structures.

Keywords: Responsive kinetic architecture, Hybrid digital toolsets, Parametric

design, Dynamic simulation, Performance analysis, Rapid prototyping

INTRODUCTION range of advanced digital tools. This inherent com-

Research premises and purpose
Due to the spatial and functional complexity of re-
sponsive kinetic building skins, their design process
is often a complex procedure, in which multiple de-
sign aspects need to be considered, using a diverse
plexity of the design process of responsive architec-
ture, especially in the earliest stages, when the design
goals tend to remain ill-defined, poses a great chal-
lenge for designers, right from the beginning of cre-
ation.

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 715

 Ideally, to guarantee that design efforts are not
wasted during such a complicated process, the ar-
chitect, before proceeding with the creative explo-
rations, should first organize and plan the frame
within which the search for the solution will take
place. An important factor will be to decide which
particular design aspects will be explored at the con-
cept stage, and which design tools will be used to in-
vestigate them. Obviously, making those decisions
requires taking focus off the actual design explo-
rations for a certain period of time in the conceptual
design timeline. Moreover, it is actually quite difficult
to make those decisions while the design goals are
still not yet precisely clear.
As a remedy to these issues, this study intro-
duces and examines a design framework and a dig-
ital toolset, which are meant to serve as a method-
ological and instrumental base, from which the early-
stage explorations of responsive architecture can be
launched.
Our proposal in light of the current state-of-
the-art
Given that responsive architecture promises to pos-
itively affect the sustainability of the built environ-
ment, it seems that developing design frameworks
which aid its complex design process is a well-
grounded goal. The need to develop such frame-
works has already been noticed by a number of re-
searchers active within the field. The works by Davis
et al. (2011), d'Estree Sterk (2003), Hu & Fox (2005),
Jeng (2009), Khoo et al. (2011), Pan & Jeng (2008), and
Salim et al. (2011) all introduce various proposals of
approaches, methods, workflows supporting the de-
sign processes of responsive structures.
Nonetheless, despite the important contribu-
tions that these works make to the design method-
ology of responsive architecture, we can notice that
in those studies the primary focus is not on the early
design stages, but rather on more advanced ones. In
other words, many of the present frameworks sup-
port the processes of obtaining finalized designs of
responsive structures. What is more, the majority of
716 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
these already existing frameworks are confined, aid-
ing the design processes of single and usually also
purely functional design issues of responsive struc-
tures, such as their shading performance (Beaman &
Bader, 2010), acoustics (Peters et al., 2011) or afford-
ability (Sharaidin & Salim, 2011).
Consequently, our proposal, by targeting the
early stages of the design process of responsive ar-
chitecture, and by aiming to support the explorations
of a wider variety of its design issues within one pro-
cess, is an attempt to make a fresh contribution to the
research results that have been developed so far.
Research aims and method of investigation
The aims of this study were: to formulate a method-
ological and instrumental basis for the construc-
tion of the framework, to conduct an initial pre-
assessment of its features, and to provide the first
example of how the framework could be applied
in practice. Importantly, at this point our goal was
not yet to indicate the framework's effectiveness, but
rather focus on formulating its foundations. The in-
sights gathered in this research phase set the stage
for our upcoming extensive experiments, aimed at
the verification of the framework's performance in a
much wider variety of design cases.
To reach the stated aims, we employed a mixed
research methodology, embracing qualitative the-
oretical analyses of general design process frame-
works, followed by practice-based experimentation.
Consequently, the framework's development pro-
cess consisted of a theoretical and an empirical
phase. The theoretical phase embraced an analysis
of the already existing general frameworks support-
ing the early-stage design processes. The analysis re-
sulted in finding a framework which seems especially
relevant in the context of early-stage design of re-
sponsive architecture. Using the found framework as
a basis, we then developed one of our own, accom-
panied by a selection of set of digital tools which we
considered suitable for the practical implementation
of that new framework.
The empirical research phase embraced a single
 controlled practice-based experiment, in which the istration of the design workflows and tasks, applied
design process of a responsive kinetic building skin digital tools, architectural design aspects considered,
was executed using the proposed framework and and finally a catalog of digital and physical artifacts
toolset. A pilot experiment on a single case was con- arising from the design process.
sidered by us as a necessary element of the investi-
gation, which can help us to identify the framework's A THEORETICAL BASIS FOR CONSTRUCT-
potentially-promising features, emerging when it is
ING THE NEW FRAMEWORK
being applied in the design process. While the goal of
At the end of the 1970s a structured framework for
the single experiment was not to prove the effective-
the early-stage design process was proposed, known
ness of the framework, it will be used by us as a basis
in design theory as the waterfall model (Figure 1a).
to design the future, much more extensive usability
This model postulated that the early-stage design
experiments, in which the actual performance of the
process should be organized into a set of consecu-
framework will be assessed. The pilot experiment at
tive actions, leading the designer towards the accom-
this point was accompanied by a protocol-based reg-
plishment of the design goals, which are well-defined
Figure 1
Existing frameworks
of the conceptual
design process: a.
The waterfall model
(adopted from
Horváth, 2000); b.
The pathfinder
model (adopted
from Horváth, 2000)

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 717

 before the design process is executed (Roth, 1979).
However, the main weakness of such a model was
that it required a presupposition of the design activ-
ities and their arrangement into a straightforwardly
cascading sequence. This stands in a certain oppo-
sition to the natural design routines observed in ev-
eryday practice (Horváth, 2000). Namely, at the be-
ginning of creation the particular design activities to
come are not clearly expressed. In the design process
itself, many of them are carried out simultaneously
and retrospectively, which frequently makes the ex-
act sequence of their execution impossible to plan in
advance.
In the particular case of architectural design, the
design problem is characteristically ill-defined ini-
tially, and it tends to evolve, together with its solu-
tions, over the course of the entire design process
(Dorst & Cross, 2001). Early-stage creation in archi-
tecture is therefore a complex enterprise, reaching far
beyond an orderly succession of the design acts, as
the waterfall model would anticipate. It contains de-
sign activities difficult to name and to schedule, often
connected by a tangled network of non-obvious re-
lationships (Lawson, 2005).
As an answer to the weaknesses of the water-
fall model, the pathfinder model of the conceptual
design process was proposed (Horváth, 2000). This
model intentionally has a loose structure (Figure 1b).
It acknowledges the fluctuating foci of the designer's
attention, accepts their overlaps, and it does not
specify any particular scenario for their execution.
According to the pathfinder model, it is the designer
who decides on the type, frequency and order of the
design activities, based on the particular needs of the
design assignment. The main advantage of such a
liberal model is that it permits creative process cus-
tomization and does not obstruct the thinking and
exploration cycles - the occurrences believed to be
necessary in successful creative design.
The relevance of the pathfinder model for the
conceptual design process of responsive building
skins seems high. The design of such structures is
necessarily multi-aspectual. The miscellaneous ac-
718 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
tivities must touch upon a variety of design issues,
which are often interconnected and which should be
explored in an un-prescribed order. Moreover, the
foci of interest in responsive architecture design may
vary from project to project, depending on the par-
ticular functions that the responsive system is meant
to play. Hence, flexibility, comprehensiveness and
adaptability to the changing design needs are all
the necessary qualities required for a universal early-
stage design framework for responsive skin design.
The pathfinder model promises to offer all of those
features within its flexible morphological structure
and its unimposing manner of operation.
A DESIGN FRAMEWORK AND A DIGITAL
TOOLSET SUPPORTING THE EARLY-STAGE
EXPLORATIONS OF RESPONSIVE KINETIC
BUILDING SKIN CONCEPTS
Our proposal for the framework supporting the early-
stage responsive kinetic building skin design (Fig-
ure 2a) is inspired by the pathfinder model. Our
framework is built around six main components, con-
nected by a network of feedback links. These six
components confine the focus of the designer to the
following design aspects of responsive architecture:
form, functionality, performance, kinetic behaviors,
system mechanics and responsiveness. What en-
ables the exploration of those aspects and their mu-
tual connection throughout the creation process is a
cycle of design analysis, synthesis, evaluation, modi-
fication and decision-making (Figure 2b), which is ex-
ecuted each time a certain design aspect or a set of
aspects is being considered.
To support the use of the framework, a hybrid
digital toolbox is also composed, containing a vari-
ety of architectural software and hardware. The me-
dia from the toolbox are assigned to each of the six
design aspects outlined in the framework (Figure 2a).
Altogether, the software and hardware gathered in
the toolset enable a variety of design activities re-
lated to creating concepts of responsive structures:
complex geometry creation, variation and editing
(Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, Weaverbird, Lunchbox),
Figure 2
The proposed
framework for
early-stage design
of responsive kinet-
ic architecture: a.
Framework scheme
with software and
hardware compo-
nents; b. A cycle of
design analysis,
synthesis, evalua-
tion, modification
and decision-
making, supporting
the framework’s
practical
implementation

Figure 3
Example scenarios
of the practical
implementation of
the proposed
framework, derived
from our pilot
experiment: a.
Various configura-
tions of interactions
between selected
framework
modules; b.
Detailed example of
the execution of the
analysis, synthesis,
evaluation,
modification and
decision-making
loop, for design
aspect configura-
tion from scheme I
of Figure 3a

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performance analysis (Diva, Karamba), dynamic be-
havior simulation (Kangaroo), performance-driven
optimization (Galapagos, Octopus), rapid creation of
physical prototypes (3d printing, laser cutting) and
interactive prototyping (Firefly and Arduino micro-
computer boards, sensors and actuators). Impor-
tantly, the entire software part of the hybrid digital
toolbox intentionally remains rooted within one en-
vironment, i.e. Rhinoceros and its visual program-
ming editor Grasshopper. This minimizes a number
of problems related to software interoperability, typ-
ically present during the implementation of hybrid
digital toolsets based on differing software environ-
ments (Zboinska, 2015).
The step-by-step application of the framework
and toolset proceeds as follows. Firstly, the designer
picks an elective number of design aspects out of the
six available ones, based on his/her individual prefer-
ences. This can be one aspect or more, in any con-
figuration (Figure 3a). Then, the designer explores
those aspects using the digital software and/or hard-
ware tools assigned to the aspects. He/she carries
out those explorations by entering a design loop,
embracing the phases of design analysis, synthesis,
evaluation, modification and decision-making. A de-
tailed example of how such a loop can be executed is
shown in Figure 3b, where we present it for one of the
phases of our design experiment. The loop is exited
once the concept developed at that point of the pro-
cess is satisfactory. At that point, another set of de-
sign aspects is being picked and the development of
the concept proceeds further. The newly-chosen as-
pects are considered using the assigned digital tools,
in a looped cycle of design analysis, synthesis, eval-
uation and modification. After deciding to terminate
that second loop, the designer selects yet another set
of aspects and then enters a new cycle. The entire
process continues and terminates once a satisfactory
720 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
Figure 4
Digital explorations
of the esthetic
qualities of initial
kinetic skin variants,
using Grasshopper
design concept is found.
and the physics
simulation engine
THE DESIGN FRAMEWORK IN ACTION: THE Kangaroo
RESPONSIVE KINETIC FAÇADE DESIGN EX-
PERIMENT
The pilot design experiment, aimed at the probing of
the features of the developed framework, began in
the 3d modeling environment Rhinoceros, using the
visual scripting editor Grasshopper, used as a tool to
parametrically define the initial form of the respon-
sive kinetic façade, and to explore its compositional
and esthetic qualities. Three versions of triangle-
based kinetic skin compositions were created and
represented in simplified form as zero-thickness sur-
faces. To investigate the changing visual properties
of those skins, the physics simulation engine Kanga-
roo was employed. It facilitated the explorations of
the esthetic aspects arising from the kinetic proper-
ties of the skin, such as the changing surface porosity
(Figure 4).
Figure 5
Digital
investigations in
Rhinoceros of two
different kinetic
component
assemblies, prior to
the rapid
prototyping of the
Based on these initial esthetic explorations, the
model using laser
preparation of more detailed versions of the kinetic
cutting
skin variants was done in Rhinoceros. This was aimed
at physical mechanical mockup model production,
using the rapid prototyping method of laser cutting.
The creation of these materialization-oriented digi-
tal 3d models has led to further concept develop-
ments. Namely, because at this stage also the prac-
Figure 6
Physical studies of
the esthetic, kinetic
and mechanical
properties of the
responsive skin
concept using the
laser-cut model

Figure 7
Assembly and
testing of the
mechanical and
dynamic properties
of the 3d printed
mockup of the
kinetic component
equipped with an
Arduino-controlled tical means of activating the structure were consid-
servo motor ered, and the servo motors were selected for this pur-
pose, the model needed to be adjusted to illustrate
the rotary manner of operation typical for the servos.
Consequently, the selected edges of the structure
were established as rotatable around certain joints,
while others were defined as fixed. Before the final
model materialization, two digital variants were used
as a means to cross-check the composition, esthetic
appearance as well as collision risks (Figure 5). Ulti-
mately, the model with the simpler linear arrange-
ment of components was selected for prototyping
and assembly.
The existence of the early physical laser-cut
model allowed to explore the architectural aspects of
the kinetic structure, such as its tectonics, the shad-
owing and lighting effects arising on its surface dur-
ing dynamic movement, and the general esthetic ap-
pearance of the entire composition of the elements.
Moreover, tampering with the model's movable ele-
ments has led to further useful discoveries, related to
kinetic behaviors and mechanical system dynamics.
These indicated that what was feasible in the digital
model may not necessarily work in a physical one. For
example, the problem of the instability of the kinetic
skin covers' mounting and risks of resultant cover col-
lisions were revealed (Figure 6). This information pro-
vided valuable clues for the next phase of concept
development.
The following design phase embraced the cre-
ation of an improved mechanical model of one basic
kinetic component. That digital model was prepared
with the 3d printing method in mind. This particular
rapid prototyping technique was selected because it
allowed for the production of a much more detailed
prototype, containing custom-designed joints and
connectors. The assembly and testing of the move-
ment behavior of the fabricated model revealed its
weaknesses in terms of the unstable servo motors'
mounting and loose connectivity of the rotatable
joints (Figure 7). These issues were later on corrected
in the digital model, which resulted in the 3d printed
mockup of two kinetic components, in which sup-
plementary stabilizing and mounting elements were
added.
In parallel to the explorations of the physical
component prototypes, the studies of their esthetic
and environmental properties were also performed,
in the digital space. The objective was to investi-
gate the consequences of applying the components

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 721

 Figure 8
Digital studies in
Rhinoceros of the
kinetic component
assemblies’
geometric and
esthetic qualities,
arising from the
onto an entire building skin, as a kinetic daylight- that variant was performed, using the interactive pro-
changing porosity
regulating collective. The basic component was totyping tools. We employed the Arduino microcom-
of the kinetic
therefore replicated and arranged into two different puter, which we controlled using the Firefly program-
surface
compositional variants of façade shields. These mod- ming node. The servo motors and photocells were
els were used to verify the esthetic appearance of the then mounted onto the 3d printed physical mockup
façade compositions, in three circumstances: when model. The program let us couple the photocell read-
the assemblies are closed, partly open and fully open ings with the rotational movements of the servos
(Figure 8). (Figure 10). This interactive model provided further
In the next development phase, each fully open information on the structural stability of our kinetic
variant was analyzed computationally, using the Diva system, revealing that the designed configuration,
software. The detailed goal became to check how the despite the already made amendments of its struc-
two compositional variants perform in comparison to ture, still tends to be unstable.
each other, and in comparison with a low-emission
and electrochromic glazing, in terms of the UDI (use- Figure 9
ful daylight illuminance) parameter, for a radical loca- Computational
tion case: a south-facing façade of an office building analyses using Diva
in a climate with high summer temperatures (Hous- of the UDI (useful
ton, USA was the hypothetical location picked for daylight
the analysis). Through this, we wanted to confirm illuminance) for the
a claim that equipping the façade with our kinetic two variants of the
shading devices is more effective than using high- responsive kinetic
performance glazing, since the kinetic shield is able façade in the
to actively take advantage of daylight, hence reduc- fully-open state,
ing the need to use artificial lighting in the interior. indicating minute
The computational analysis which followed con- The above conclusions have led to the deci- differences (˜ 2%)
firmed that both kinetic variants perform better than sion to create another design option for the ki- between their
the low-emission glazing (the mean UDI ˜ 48%) and netic system, based on similar movement principles, performances
electrochromic glazing (the mean UDI ˜ 51%). More- but simplified spatially to eliminate the large num-
over, the analysis indicated that the two kinetic vari- ber of rotatable joints, which caused the previous
ants do not drastically differ in performance from model's instability. The concept development pro-
each other (Figure 9; for variant a the mean UDI was ˜ cess was again executed using the visual scripting
71% and for variant b ˜ 69%). This has led to the con- editor Grasshopper, which allowed us to create an
clusion that both kinetic variants are valid for further associative parameterized model, in which we could
development. Ultimately, variant a was chosen to be have precise geometric control over the kinetic com-
investigated, due to its greater structural simplicity. ponent assembly. This time, because the focus was
Next, the testing of the responsive behavior of primarily on the improvement of the mechanical as-

722 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2

Figure 10
Exploration of the
improved
3d-printed
interactive
prototype, using
Arduino,
servomotors and
photocells as tools
for obtaining pects of the system, the concept was prepared in a
real-time more specified form of a mechanical model. The digi-
conceptual design tal model was 3d-printed, assembled, equipped with
feedback on the servomotors, and activated, to verify its anticipated
kinetic, mechanical structural and mechanical properties (Figure 11). The
and responsive physical testing of the mockup confirmed that the
properties of the new treatment of the structural framework underly-
concept ing the kinetic system, together with the simplifica-
tion of some of its components, increased the stabil-
ity of the entire system.
At that point, we terminated the experiment,
since enough evidence was gathered for the pur-
pose of the study. Nonetheless, we could imag-
ine that the concept development process is con-
tinued further, using our framework and its hybrid
toolset. The next point of focus could be the im-
provement of the new system's esthetics. For exam-
ple, the visual appearance of the paneling elements,
joints and the underlying structural framework could
be fine-tuned, and the different ways of an elegant
embedding of the servo motors and daylight sensors
within the entire spatial system could be examined.
The daylight-transmitting properties of the geomet-
ric design could also be further calibrated, by using
perforations in the selected component panels as a
means to more efficiently regulate natural illumina-
tion of the interior shielded by our kinetic system. For
this purpose, a computational analysis-driven pro-
cess of component perforation distribution could be
employed, in which the daylight analysis results' from
Diva could drive the evolutionary optimization algo-
rithms in Galapagos or Octopus, and place various ar-
rangements of kinetic panel perforations in the most
favorable locations on the façade.
THE RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT
The analysis of the design workflows registered in
the design protocols of the experiment indicates that
when we applied the framework over the four main
phases of the development of our concept, we could
freely choose a number and type of design aspects
for our explorations, out of the available six ones.
In the first phase, a triad of form, kinetic behaviors
and system mechanics was investigated (Figure 3a,
scheme I); in the second phase, a duet of form and
system mechanics (Figure 3a, scheme II); in the third
phase a duet of form and performance (Figure 3a,
scheme III); and in the fourth phase, a triad of form,
system mechanics and responsive behaviors (Figure
3a, scheme IV). It was possible for us to tackle these

Figure 11
The 3d-printed
interactive
prototype of the
second, more stable
variant of the
kinetic system

Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 723

 aspects in the design analysis, synthesis, evaluation,
modification and decision-making loops, in any or-
der which we found suitable at a particular concept
development stage. We were also able to revisit each
aspect as often as needed. For example, form was re-
visited four times, system mechanics three times, and
the remaining aspects only once.
The hybrid digital toolset which we applied in
our design experiment enabled us to carry out a wide
variety of activities, supporting the exploration of
the responsive architecture's design aspects and the
gradual development of our concept. For instance,
thanks to the existence of the parametric modelling
tools (Grasshopper) and dynamic physics simulation
engine (Kangaroo), it was possible for us to conduct
explorations of kinetic behaviors of various alterna-
tives for our façade compositions already in the digi-
tal space, before producing the physical models (Fig-
ure 4). Owing to the computational analysis tools
(Diva), we were also able to compare the environ-
mental performance of the concept variants (Figure
9), which allowed us to make a conscious decision
regarding which variant is suitable for further de-
velopment. Due to the presence of the material-
ization tools (laser cutter, 3d printer and interactive
Arduino kit), we could also observe how our struc-
tures present themselves esthetically (Figure 6) and
how they behave in real time, within a dynamically-
changing daylight environment (Figure 10).
The analysis of the design content produced in
the experiment indicates that a considerable number
of artifacts was generated and explored, with a total
number of 18 objects, out of which 14 were digital
and 4 were physical. Those artifacts are diverse, i.e.
they have varying levels of abstraction (from general
to concrete) and miscellaneous explorative functions
(form explorations, esthetics, composition, environ-
mental performance analysis, kinetic behavior simu-
lation, system mechanics proofing).
CONCLUSIONS
The results of the pilot experiment suggest that the
framework has two features which could account for
724 | eCAADe 33 - Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2
its suitability to support the complex task of creat-
ing early-stage concepts of responsive kinetic struc-
tures. Firstly, the framework introduces specific de-
sign workflow organization conditions, which allow
to freely (i.e. in an elective order and in diverse con-
figurations) but at the same time also systematically
(i.e. within pre-established conceptual borders) ex-
plore six design aspects of responsive architecture:
form, functionality, performance, kinetic behaviors,
system mechanics and responsiveness. Our experi-
ment results indicate that the number, type and con-
figuration of aspects considered at a certain point of
the design process can vary from one design phase
to another, which leads us to believe that the frame-
work should also let other designers execute their
creative workflows individually and freely, depend-
ing on the particular needs. This makes us suspect
that the framework could be useful for a variety of de-
sign situations related to the creation of responsive
structures. In other words, we suspect that although
upon the application of the framework to different
design assignments the configurations of the six as-
pects explored by designers will differ, and therefore
the paths of exploring the concepts will also alter-
nate from project to project, the framework will still
remain a valid and useful guidance system support-
ing these explorations.
The second discovered feature of the framework
is that it introduces specific tooling conditions (i.e.
the hybrid toolkit of software and hardware), which
help to explore the six design aspects of responsive
kinetic architecture using diversified means: para-
metric models, digital simulations, computational
analyses, physical models and interactive prototypes.
Although this still requires full empirical verification
using a larger number of cases, in our pilot exper-
iment the varying character and a large number of
generated artifacts could perhaps point at the fact
that the framework's toolset could stimulate design-
ers to consider a design solution space which is
broader than usual. This in turn could lead towards
explorations of a larger number of interesting and
unplanned design alternatives.
 This promising initial pre-evidence on the frame-
work's properties will now form a springboard from
which we will seek to substantiate the abovemen-
tioned conclusions with a larger amount of empiri-
cal evidence. We will carry out further experiments,
aimed at: confirming the features of the framework,
assessing its performance in various design situa-
tions, determining its advantages and limitations and
obtaining clues on its future development paths.
Sharaidin, MK and Salim, F 2011 'Affordable, performa-
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d’Estrée Sterk, T 2003 'Using actuated tensegrity struc-
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ings of the 2003 Annual ACADIA Conference, pp. 85-93
Zboinska, MA 2015, 'Hybrid CAD/E platform supporting
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Design, 59, pp. 64-84

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Smart and Responsive Design - Applied - Volume 2 - eCAADe 33 | 725

Index of Authors
A Burnay, Diogo 1-403
Abdelmohsen, Sherif 2-71
Achten, Henri 2-25, 2-37, 2-127, C
2-623 Caffey, Stephen 2-233
Adilenidou, Yota 2-601 Casey Rehm, Michael 2-277
Agirbas, Asli 2-319 Cavazos, Jaime 2-169
Agkathidis, Asterios 1-395, 2-47 Cavieres, Andres 1-585
Aguiar, Rita 2-159 Chen, Kian Wee 1-251
Aitchison, Mathew 1-295 Cheng, Alexandra 2-427
Andraos, Sebastian 2-261 Choi, Joshua 1-685, 2-187
Angelova, Desislava 2-399 Choi, Yuri 2-467
Anton, Ana Maria 2-287 Christian, Scott 2-707
Araullo, Rebekah 2-251 Clemenson, Dane 1-55
Asanowicz, Aleksander 1-709 Coroado, Luís 1-125
Azambuja Varela, Pedro 2-361 Correia, Hugo 1-159
Cudzik, Jan 2-715
B Czarnobay Vannini, Virgínia 1-325
Baerlecken, Daniel 2-439
Balakrishnan, Bimal 2-225 D
Baquero, Pablo 2-169 D'Alpuim, Jorge 1-125
Barczik, Guenter 1-389 D'Uva, Domenico 1-381
Bard, Joshua D. 2-383 Daas, Mahesh 2-177
Barrera-Vera, Jose Antonio 2-29 Daher, Elie 2-541
Barros, Mário 1-427 Damiano, Ashley 2-371
Batliner, Curime 2-277 Danchenka, Evan 2-707
Baş Yıldırım, Miray 1-483 Daoud, Bassam 2-355
Beirão, José N. 1-351 Davis, Felecia 2-417
Beorkrem, Chris 2-707 De Meyer, Ronald 1-437
Beorkrem, Christopher 2-371 Decker, Martina 2-409
Bialkowski, Sebastian 1-261 Delvaux, Frederic 2-149
Bieg, Kory 1-277 Dengg, Ernst Alexander 1-101
Bier, Henriette 2-287 Dierichs, Karola 2-399
Blackwood, David 2-383 Do-Young, Kim 2-633
Blanchi, Yann 1-613 DoJin, Jang 2-633
Bodea, Serban 2-287 Doe, Robert 1-295
Bollinger, Klaus 2-573 Dokonal, Wolfgang 1-101
Bourdakis, Vassilis 1-701 Duarte, JoséPinto 1-107
Braumann, Johannes 2-33, 2-243 Dumitrescu, Delia 2-417
Brell-Cokcan, Sigrid 2-33, 2-243 Duro-Royo, Jorge 2-299

Authors - eCAADe 33 | 727

 H
E Haeusler, Matthias Hank 2-251
Economou, Athanassios 1-37, 1-445, 1-453 Hairstans, Robert 1-597
Edemskaya, Elizaveta 1-395 Halin, Gilles 2-541
El Ahmar, Salma 2-687 Hanna, Raid 1-169
Eloy, Sara 1-125, 1-341 Hansen, Kai 2-651
Erdine, Elif 1-179, 2-513 Hanzl, Malgorzata 1-361
Harald, Trapp 2-483
F Herneoja, Aulikki 2-61
Farzaneh, Ali 2-563 Hess, Trevor 2-707
Fernández, Angel J. 2-613 Hoeven, Franklinvander 1-553
Ferreira, Bruno 1-635 Hofmann, Arne 1-39
Fialho Teixeira, Frederico 2-551 Hornung, Philipp 2-33
Fioravanti, Antonio 1-137, 1-577, 2-687 Hosey, Shannon 2-371
Foged, Isak Worre 2-449 Hudson, Roland 1-403
Fonseca de Campos, Paulo 2-341 Hunter, Jessica 2-427
Forest, Neil 1-403
Forster, Julia 1-545 I
Freitas, João 1-341 Iki, Kazuhisa 1-647
Fricker, Pia 1-211 Imaizumi, Jun 1-665
Fritz, Sara 1-545 Ireland, Tim 2-581
Fukuda, Tomohiro 1-665
Furtado, Neander 1-619 J
Jackson, Ole Egholm 1-149
G Jacquot, Kevin 2-149
Gago, Ricardo 2-591 Jancart, Sylvie 2-149
Gallas, Mohamed-Anis 2-149 Janda, Marian 1-613
Gama, Sandra 1-107 Janssen, Patrick 1-225, 1-251
Garcia, Danilo 1-619 Jimenez Garcia, Manuel 2-331
Garcia, Sara 1-427 Johnson, Brian R. 1-45
Gardner, Nicole 2-251 Jorge, Joaquim 1-107
Gargaro, Silvia 1-137 Juchnevic, Robert 2-715
Gentry, Russell 1-567, 1-585 Junk, Stefan 2-103
Giannopoulou, Effimia 2-169
Giusti, Cecilia 2-233 K
Glaeser, Georg 2-33 Kalaouzis, Giorgos 1-701
Gokmen, Sabri 2-439 Kallegias, Alexandros 2-513
Gonçalves, Afonso 2-159 Kaushik, Vignesh 1-225
Greenstein, M.A. 1-55 Keles, Hacer Yalim 1-269
Gu, Ning 2-477 Kepczynska-Walczak, Anetta 1-261
Kieferle, Joachim 1-69

728 | eCAADe 33 - Authors

Kim, Hyoungsub 1-657 Marin, Philippe 1-613
Kim, Sun-Joong 2-467 Mark, Earl 1-217
Klemmt, Christoph 2-573 Markkanen, Piia 2-61
Knight, Michael W. 1-101 Markusiewicz, Jacek 2-83, 2-91
Kobayashi, Yoshihiro 1-191 Martins, Pedro Filipe 2-341, 2-361
Koch, Volker 1-77 Massoud, Passaint 2-71
Koenig, Reinhard 1-245 Matcha, Heike 2-143
Kontovourkis, Odysseas 2-389 Mateus, Daniel 1-107
Koszewski, Krzysztof 1-695, 2-91 Matt, Rebecca 2-103
Kowal, Slawomir 1-695 Matějovská, Dana 2-127
Kreutzberg, Anette 1-117 McCall, Marlena 2-371
Krietemeyer, Bess 2-669 McLeish, Thomas 2-651
Krobath, Reinhold 2-33 Meeus, Bruno 1-369
Kroeker, Richard 1-403 Menges, Achim 2-399
Kubicki, Sylvain 2-541 Meyboom, AnnaLisa 2-427
Kulcke, Matthias 1-415 Miltiadis, Constantinos 1-61
Kwieciński, Krystian 1-305 Mogas-Soldevila, Laia 2-299
Moleta, Tane 2-41
L Moncayo, Galo 2-697
Lange, Christian J. 2-493 Moorhouse, Jon 2-199
Langenhan, Christoph 1-237 Mori, Keisuke 1-665
Ledesma, Edna 2-233 Mostafavi, Sina 2-287
Lee, Ji-Hyun 2-467 Munkel, Georg 1-211
Leitão, António 1-159, 1-635
Ligler, Heather 1-445 N
Livingstone, Andrew 1-597 Nagakura, Takehiko 1-685
Long, Nels 1-55 Nakama, Yuki 1-647
Lonsing, Werner 2-679 Narahara, Taro 1-191
Lopes, João V. 1-351 Narvaez-Rodriguez, Roberto 2-29
Lopez, Rafael 2-371 Navarro, Diego 2-563
Lorenz, Wolfgang 1-415 Neumann, Oliver 2-427
Luhan, Gregory 2-233 Newsum, Michael Jake 2-277
Luusua, Anna 2-61 Nourian, Pirouz 1-553
Luyten, Laurens 2-119, 2-215 Nováková, Kateřina 2-37
Nunes, Luís 1-351
M Nunes, Sandra 2-341
Mahdavi, Ardeshir 1-25
Makki, Mohammed 2-563 O
Mamoli, Myrsini 1-463 Onishi, Yasunobu 1-647
Mania, Katerina 1-493 Oprean, Danielle 2-225
Marcos, Carlos L. 2-613 Orfanos, Yannis 1-315

Authors - eCAADe 33 | 729

 Ourique, Lázaro 1-341
Oxman, Neri 2-299 S
Oxman, Rivka 2-477 Sachs, Hans 2-269
Safarova, Bara 2-233
P Sakai, Yasushi 2-207
Paio, Alexandra 1-351 Sales Dias, Miguel 1-125, 1-341
Pak, Burak 1-369, 2-119 Sanchez, Jose 1-89
Papadopoulos, Dimitrios 1-315 Sariyildiz, Sevil 1-553
Papasarantou, Chrissa 1-701 Sauda, Eric 2-707
Park, James 1-453 Schaefer, Gavin 1-403
Parthenios, Panagiotis 1-493 Schaffranek, Richard 2-483
Pasold, Anke 2-449 Scherer, Raimar J. 2-21
Pasternak, Agata 1-305 Schleicher, Johannes 1-545
Patlakas, Panagiotis 1-597 Schlueter, Arno 1-251
Patt, Trevor 2-461 Seiler, Uwe Tobias 1-77
Pedersen, Jens Egholm 1-149 Sekhar, Nidhi 2-383
Pedro, Tiago 1-125, 1-341 Sharif, Shani 1-567
Pentazou, Ioulia 1-701 Shepherd, Paul 1-287
Peter, Herbert 2-199 Slyk, Jan 1-695
Petrovski, Stefan 1-493 Smith, Brian 2-383
Petzold, Frank 1-237 Sommer, Bernhard 2-697
Pihlajaniemi, Henrika 1-201, 2-61 Sommer-Nawara, Malgorzata 2-697
Pinho, Eliana Manuel 1-351 Sousa, Jose Pedro 1-717, 2-341, 2-361
Platzer, Bernhard 1-335 Sousa, Maurício 1-107
Pont, Ulrich 2-697 Stavrakantonaki, Marina 1-625
Popov, Nikolay 1-519 Stellingwerff, Martijn 2-57
Stouffs, Rudi 1-471
R Stoupine, Alexander 1-673
Rab, Nikolaus 1-545 Straßl, Benjamin 2-503
Radziszewski, Kacper 2-715 Strobbe, Tiemen 1-437
Rahmani Asl, Mohammad 1-657, 1-673 Strzała, Marcin 2-91
Resende, Ricardo 1-341 Sun-Young, Jang 1-529
Retsin, Gilles 2-331 Sung-Ah, Kim 1-529, 2-633
Rezvani, Samaneh 1-553 Symeonidou, Ioanna 2-135
Richens, Paul 1-287 Słyk, Jan 2-83
Roggema, Rob 1-519
Rogler, Kurt 2-669 T
Romão, Luís 2-591 Tannert, Thomas 2-427
Rosenberg, Eliot 2-251 Tauscher, Helga 2-21
Rosenberg, Moritz 2-503 Teng, Teng 1-45
Rossini, Francesco Livio 1-577 Thompson, Emine Mine 1-501

730 | eCAADe 33 - Authors

Trento, Armando 1-577 Zwerlein, Cory 1-315
Tryfonos, George 2-389
Tsai, Daniel 1-685 D
Tsunoda, Daisuke 2-207 de Azambuja Varela, Pedro 1-717
Tuncer, Bige 2-521 de Klerk, Rui 1-107
Turcienicz, Benamy 1-325
V
U von Both, Petra 1-77
Ultmann, Zita 1-217
Ç
V Çavuşoğlu, Ömer Halil 1-607
Vamvakidis, Simos 2-325 Çolakoğlu, Birgül 1-539
Van Campenhout, Jan 1-437
Velandia Rayo, D. Alejandro 2-531 Ö
Verbeke, Johan 2-25 Österlund, Toni 1-201, 2-61
Vinšová, Ivana 2-127 Özdal, Özde 2-659
Voordouw, Johan 2-355 Özkar, Mine 1-483, 2-659
Vrouwe, Ivo 2-119
Ü
W Üsküplü, Taner 1-539
Weissenböck, Renate 2-309
Wimmer, Michael 1-41
Wit, Andrew 2-177
Wit, Andrew John 2-643
Woessner, Uwe 1-69
Wortmann, Thomas 2-521
Wrona, Stefan 1-695
Wurzer, Gabriel 1-335

X
Xuereb Conti, Zack 1-287

Y
Yan, Wei 1-657, 1-673
Yazici, Sevil 2-111

Z
Zarrinmehr, Saied 1-673
Zarzycki, Andrzej 1-511
Zboinska, Malgorzata A. 2-715
Zupancic, Tadeja 2-25

Authors - eCAADe 33 | 731