MANUEL JIMÉNEZ GARCÍA AND GILLES RETSIN
DISCRETE METHODS
Context
volumes. Assembling the mass-customised parts also proves comparatively inefficient compared to the assembly of identical elements, since they require sorting, with specific parts needing to be located much like a giant puzzle. An example of this is Zaha Hadid Architects’ Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan (2012). The continuous surface wrapping the building is a result of the assembly of around 15,000 panels, each with an individually curved geometry, in various sizes up to a maximum of 1.5 m wide and 7 m long. This extensive panel differentiation is common in continuous double-curved surfaces. The software company Gehry Technologies used machine-learning algorithms to rationalise the façade of Fernando Romero’s Soumaya Museum in Mexico (2011). Developments in large-scale 3D printing are usually associated with the mechanical and material side of the fabrication process. These include Behrokh Khoshnevis’ Contour Crafting method, in which concrete is extruded from a nozzle mounted on a large gantry-like structure. In recent years, Shanghai-based practice WinSun has advanced a similar 3D-printing process that has produced various full-scale prototypes. Architects like Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello use commercially available 3D printers, such as Z Corp, to develop various printable materials, including ceramics. Their company, Emerging Objects, has also produced a series of large-scale architectural prototypes. In other cases, robots have been used as large 3D printers. Pioneering research by Marta Malé-Alemany at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) focused on robotic processes for additive manufacturing in an architectural context. Of equal significance is Gramazio Kohler’s research at the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) in Singapore, which introduced the process of spatial plastic extrusion with
The research for the project stemmed from a wider interest in architecture’s relationship with the digital condition. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Western European and North American architects, such as Greg Lynn, UNStudio and Zaha Hadid, based their digital designs on the premise of continuous space, as described by Mario Carpo: Designers using spline modelers 'model' reality by converting it into a strippeddown mathematical script, and the continuous lines and uniform surfaces they draw or make are ultimately only a material approximation of the mathematical functions that computers have calculated for them (Carpo 2014). The first use of 3D-modelling software in the design of architecture pursued the generation of a fluid space with floors that transition into walls and ceilings. Early examples of this concept include Fresh Water Pavilion by NOX Architecture (1997) and Foreign Office Architects’ Yokohama International Passenger Terminal (2002), which adopts fluidity between spaces on multiple levels. Using digital design software such as Form-Z and, more recently, Autodesk Maya, 3DS Max and Rhinoceros, these architects have generated complex structures and have then tried to post-rationalise their construction to realise them in physical space. In doing so, the continuous surfaces of the digital model are broken down into highly differentiated panels and custom-made structural elements. Digital fabrication tools are brought in as a second stage in the design process but prove more costly than traditional manufacturing methods when applied to the scale of large architectural
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