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Exercise 7 Part II.

In this exercise, we intended to have two forms that worked together to form a juxtaposition of spatial elements.  The move linear and hard edged form, pictured above, was supposed to be next to a curvilinear form that warped around the vertical form.  One form represented a rigid spatial logic, while the other, one that bends and conforms to external elements.  When running the robot, the code generated for this bending form did not run properly, and resulted in the form not being able to be cut.  Another hardship endured during the process of this exercise was having the wrong consistency of concrete when casting the mold.  

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Atelier, shop, community of practice, cultures of design

A Cyborg Manifesto Reading Response #11

In Haraway’s critical writing focusing on the socialist-feminist ideal, Haraway discusses the cyborg as a creation of multiple pieces, taking characteristics from each form, but never having complete allegiance to one identity. Within the cyborg there is constant turmoil between these multiple identities.  Haraway uses the cyborg to describe what views feminism should project into society; views that assemble multiple identities into a collection that represents the equality that should be present within society.  The cyborg also projects the ideal of objectivity within society, representing a being as a pieced together form, with all the pieces contributing to whole, just as objectivity allows an individual to take only valid and proven information into their collected knowledge. 

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Affordance and Constraint, Props and Jigs

The Jig, the Nudge, and Local Ecology, Mathew Crawford

Agency Versus Autonomy, Matthew Crawford

Reading Response #10

     Both of Matthew Crawford’s writings discuss the topic of individual making, both as the making of meaningful objects and as a process of individual expression.  In Agency versus Autonomy, Crawford compares active engagement and distracted consumption, with distracted consumption characterized as people using objects that serve our temporal needs, attempting to reduce the amount of time we spend fiddling with things. In “The Jig”, Crawford describes the jig as both a tool for limiting degrees of freedom when creating an object, but also as a mental state used to regulate information consumption.   Is rhino a jig, allowing us to offload the limitations of physical creation and allowing us to produce iterations of space more freely?  Or is it just another tool that we hope will make life easier and only serving our blind consumption of architectural space?  The distinction is unclear, whether a thing is an object or a jig, when the machines rise up, and all that is left is consumption; and making is but a fleeting shadow.  

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Kinematics, Toolpaths, Effectors, Assemblies

Robot Technology, James Keramus

Reading Response #9

     James Keramus, in Robot Technology, discusses the future of robotic technology through the view-port of the 90’s.  Keramus talks about robotic technology as a way of enhancing automation in the industrial production process.  Included in the discussion of robotic automation are the categories of fixed, flexible and programmable.  Up to this point, robots have mainly been used to benefit the industrial production process, but robots have shown valuable benefits to one of production.  As the robot increases the efficiency of automated production process, and takes away from the value of the human worker, does another form of production rise to compete with the large industrial power. Can the robot give power to small customizable home shops that allow for individualized production?  Programmable robots can make the benefits and power of robotic technology accessible to individuals who are not confined to the limits of industrial ideologies. 

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Exercise 6 Part 2:

Kinematics and paths

     Since anything produced by the robotic arm would be flattened as the light passes through the lens of the camera, we sought to achieve forms the gave the sense of movement or depth.  To achieve a sense of motion, we used a jelly fish floating in water as a organic form that implies a very free-form movement.   The spline inscribed with a circle gives the illusion of a three dimensional light path.   

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Exercise 6: Part I

Taking a Line for a Walk Continued...

Inspired by Pablo Picasso, this line work was hand inscribed inside of a circle to give an expressionist movement and flow to the spline.  The generated spline creates the illusion of a 3D sphere with just the use of two dimensional line work.   The spline conforms to the circle, yet its edges do not form a perfect circle.  

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Long View of Robotics

Glass Cage:Automation and Us, Nicholas Carr

Metals, Smith

Reading Response #8

     Both readings, Metals by Smith and Automation and Us by Carr, speak to the beauty of anti-automation, but perhaps, on different levels.  Smith analyzes the beauty in the metal objects created by craftsman, who personally crafted metal objects and who experimented to find new material properties by hand.  Carr on the other hand, speaks to the negative repercussions that automation has on the knowledge that we form.  Carr believes that automation complacency and automation bias have negative effects on human decision making in regards to automated machinery, as well as human memory and knowledge formation.  A similar tone can be seen in the Right to Repair movement, where small businesses and individuals are fighting to the right to repair products like iPhones or John Deer trackers.  Companies such as Apple own the exclusive rights to repair their products, creating a monopoly for repairing their own products.  Included in the idea of increased reliance and specialized businesses, is the concept that as machines, like car motors, become more intricate and efficient, the ability of an individual to repair it decreases.  A 1955 Chevrolet Truck is far more manageable to fix and maintain than a truck manufactured in 2016.  With this increased reliance on automation, the question of whether technology is beneficial to humanity appears, perhaps not in such a cynical manner, but as an act retrofitting of old design sensibilities.

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Exercise 5 Part 2

Michelle B, Haley C, Yasha S, Nathan F

Using the Grasshopper definition was relatively strait forward until it came to fixing the overlaps created by the definition and trying to layout the cut lines on the stock.  To make the cuts fit on one sheet we separated the form into 4 pieces.  We also removed the bottom so that we could easily place the cover over our milled surface.  When folding and gluing the pieces together, we found that it was difficult to glue all pieces together because some of the score marks were made on the wrong side.  So, we left the cracks on the cover to allow momentary glimpses of the milled surface beneath.  

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03.07.2017 Exercise 5 Part 1 Michelle Bonin, Haley Command, Nathan Fishstick

This week, we had to convert a surface into a solid. By using the digital programs Rhino, we were given a solid form that was then to be manipulated by the digital program Grasshopper. By moving the maximum angle of the curve, the surface of the solid began to change form. We chose this form because it was varying in elevation and angular distance. The milling process unexpectedly took about 6 hours from start to finish, due to file set up and machine malfunctions. For this reason, the digital file that showed the model in 3D did not exactly match up to the final product (some pieces were not cut out at all, resulting in shallower valleys). Moo

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Renderings showing the resulting geometry created from inputting a created surface into the grasshopper definition.  The top image is an unrolled elevation of the final geometry.  In adjusting the variables in the definition, we found that changing the max angle, max edge, and min edge with floating number sliders created the most change in the outcome.  Adjusting the Max angle changes the uniformity in geometry between sections; the smaller the max edge is, the smaller the sections will be.  Adding a number slider onto the subtraction node allows for the adjustment of the depth in which the segmented surfaces are extruded.  

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Projections, Unfoldings, Wrappings

Manufacturing Material Effects,  Kolarevic

Reading Response #7

Kolarevic discusses the relationship between craft and digital design processes.  The argument that Kolarevic is making is one that considers the iterative and cyclical process of digital design as a form of craftsmanship or workmanship. Kolarevic’s comments on craftsmanship as a byproduct of taking risk is what is most intriguing to me.  The act of taking risk within the design process allows for the potential to discover new techniques or material characteristics, but it also results in knowledge from failure in making.  Digital fabrication could be lacking in this important aspect of craftsmanship because the majority of the iterative process happens within the digital realm, removing risk from the work.  On the other hand, digital fabrication allows for the intricate modification of variables in design, that allows the project to be individually responsive to desired effect or outcome.  Digital Fabrication enable the designer to iterate and adjust design variable without having to risk precious time or material.

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Curves, Surfaces, Meshes

Digital Fabrications:  Architectural and Material Techniques, Lisa Iwamoto

Reading Response #6

     This reading focuses on the possibilities and innovations that digital design and production can have on the field of architecture.   The use of digital iterative design processes as a way of making can produce products and techniques that further the potentials of different material constructions.   Through the process of sectioning, two-dimensional sheet materials can be easily manufactured by way of CNC milling machines or laser cutters, and can be layered to create three dimensional objects.  As digital processes become more widespread, more and more architects are developing new techniques utilizing sectional capabilities.  With these new techniques and design processes, the gap between small scale model and full scale construction can be filled.  The filling of this gap enables architects to work in a space between these two different scales, altering the design process and logic used in generated architectural form.

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Exercise 4.B: Developable Surfaces

The fabrication of these objects was tricky.  There were problems with the Zund when cutting near the edges of the material, causing the sheet to move and resulting in a few panels not being cut properly.  Putting together the surface was difficult as well because the tabs were a tight fit.  

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Algorithm, Parameters, Variations

Deleuze and the use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture, Manual DeLanda

The Alphabet and the Algorithm, Mario Carpo

Reading Response #5

      The writings of Mario Carpo and Manual DeLanda comment on the development and use of algorithms in architecture.  Manual DeLanda discusses the use of genetic algorithms as a way of producing architectural forms similar to how genetic evolution occurs, but these genetic architectural algorithms are only useful in the cases when the architect cannot foresee the outcomes.  As for Mario Carpo, he discusses the impact of identical architecture drawings and their relationship to the movement from the autographic to the allographic.  Carpo suggests that the reproduction of drawings shifted design thinking from the autographic to the allographic; but with the advent of algorithms, design thinking shifted back towards the autographic.  Both readings speak on the possibilities that algorithms can have on architectural design, but DeLanda’s piece focuses more on the algorithm as the generator with the architect only setting the parameters, while Carpo’s piece considers the algorithm more as an intimate tool for the architect to design with.  Architectural algorithms open up the possibility for architects to design spaces that are far more intricate, detailed, adaptive, and responsive than ever before. 

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Projections

The Projective Cast, Robin Evans Reading Response #4

     In this reading, Robin Evans discusses the challenges of describing space and the various forms of projection used to represent it.  The generation of form and space is an elegant dance between imagination, perception, perspective, and projection.  The design of space is influences by the perception of its three-dimensional existence and the perception of orthographic projection, coupled with perspective meandering between the two.  The complexity and infinite ways of perceiving space leads us to believe that there are infinite ways to imagine space.  In questioning the relationship between projective space and constructibility Evans says, “We need a rejoinder to the claims that mental construction is unlimited; otherwise, as Hamlet put it, we end up as kings of infinite space bounded in a nutshell.”  This quote is used to demonstrate that imagination is not infinite and boundless; that imagination is weighed and measured against all forms of projection and perception.  The job of the architect is to walk between perception, imagination, and projection to influence and create space that will be perceived, re-imagined and recast.  

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Exercise 4: Unrolling a Developable Surface

In this exercise, the grasshopper definition was provided to us, so it up to the geometry of the line and the quantities in the sliders to generate a design for a developable surface.  Here I experimented with increased complexity in the curve of the line, working from a simple spline to one with increased peaks and valleys.  The more complex geometry created a smoother and more sensual form that the form created with the more simple spline.  Next, I experimented with rendering the surfaces with different material.  The top image was rendered to show the qualities of vinyl and the bottom image was rendered to show the qualities of polystyrene.  

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Form, Model, Data

The Construction of a Problem: Architecture Modelling after Descartes, Burry

Reading Response #3

      Jane Burry describes the change in process and thinking that is associated with the new geometric design era.  The embracing of modern geometric production can lead to new techniques and ways of looking at form.  The tools used in modern geometrical thinking allow for dramatically faster iteration processes allowing for more minute details to be explored and optimized.  Advanced fabrication techniques also allow for complex geometry to be manufactured and tested faster.  The quickness in adjusting input variables and in fabricating test models creates a looped design process that is more responsive to current project conditions.  Challenges are faced when considering how to represent and visualize the constructs produced by these advanced geometric techniques.  I think that the classical approach to geometry and proportion should be implemented sometime in this complex design process to bring meaning and classical organization to the overall build fabric.