DIGITAL DESIGN + FABRICATION SM1, 2016 M3 JOURNAL - HEART PROTECTOR Hui Yuan Koh - Zhiyin Wang 799168 - 736938 Matt - 4G
Introduction PERSONAL SPACE MAP + M2 Final design This project is about creating a second skin that explore our personal space. Our ultimate aim for the second skin is to create a space for introvert female users who had unfortunate past to feel comfortable around people at different kind of situation. Our M2 final design concept is to create a personal space which can be transformed based on the situation the user is in. The other idea is using different colour of material to achieve the camouflaging effect during day and night time.
extreme personal very personal This image illustrate each stage of expandable hoods for our M2 final design at different kind of scenario. The black one is used at night to blend into the dark and it’s bigger because people usually feel more insecure at night, especially female. The white one is smaller and able to used in crowded place such as during the ride on public transports. When the user is in a relax mode, for example when she is in a park alone during day time, the hoods will not be expanded at all.
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personal safe distance
FEEDBACK + REVIEW In response to our feedback for M2 final design, we have a few problems to solved. 1) Our design lack the variation of the panel and fold system as it only has one consistent fold. 2) The design needs to sit structurally on the user’s body without additional elements outside our selected material system. 3) The design is lack of transparency causing the user unable to move around easily when the hoods are fully enclosed. Therefore, we decided to go back to our first design and develop from it from square one.
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Design development
Starting from the beginning, we want to carry one the concept of expandable hood.
Sketches made to explore the possible designs.
Design development + fabrication of Prototype V.2
Making of Rhino digital model and using Paneling tools to stimulate the variaiton of pyramid shapes.
Isometric view
Front elevation view
Plan view
Right elevation view
Left elevation view
Reading Response Week 6 ARCHITECTURE IN THE DIGITAL AGE - DESIGN + MANUFACTURING /BRANKO KOLAREVIC, SPON PRESS, LONDON c2003
The construction of continuous, highly curvilinear surfaces which feature in many contemporary architecture in the recent decades is the reason why digital fabrication was introduced in architecture. There is various kind of digital fabrication processes available today. Firstly, Two-dimensional fabrication such as plasma-arc, laser-beam and water-jet cutting, involve two-axis motion of the sheet material relative to the cutting head, and are implemented as a moving cutting head, a moving bed or a combination of the two. The differences between these cutting technologies is the maximum thicknesses and types of materials that could be cut. Next, the subtractive fabrication involves the removal of a specified volume of material from solids using electro-, chemically- or mechanically-reductive (multi-axis milling processes. The milling can be axially, surface or volume constrained. The drill bits that are inserted into the cutting heads are different in sizes depending of the stage of the process. Moreover, milling can also be done in different rotational speeds based on the hardness or other properties of the material that is milled. Recent years in the building industry, CNC milling has been implemented in producing formwork for off-site and on-site casting of concrete elements with double curved geometry. The few examples are Frank Gehry’s office buildings in Dusseldorf, Germany and Bernard Franken’s “Bubble” BMW pavilion. Lastly, additive fabrication involves incremental forming by adding material in a layer-bylayer fashion, it’s a process which is the converse of milling. The principle behind this type of fabrication is that the digital model is sliced into two-dimensional layers and the information of each layer is then transferred to the processing head of the manufacturing machine to produce the physical product. In our second skin design, digital fabrication is implemented when we were producing our 3-dimensional pyramid elements that are join together to form a self-supporting form. The design we made in Rhinoceros is unrolled into 2-dimensional form, which then cut and scored using laser-beam cutting. This fabrication method can produce accurate 3-dimensional measure for each of the pyramid element that we design in Rhinoceros.
Reading applied to design Digitally manipulated building skins brought new aesthetic qualities, tectonic and geometric complexities in architecture. Using a geometrically complex envelope, the structure of the building is then incorporated into the skin as it absorbs all or most of the stresses. Hence, the concept of combining two elements in one create a self-supporting form that open up more possibilities in the material and design aspect of architecture. This reading made us realise that by manipulating the surface of the second skin design, we actually able to make the skin self-support itself without using any external support system such as wireframe. Using NURBS isoparms the curvilinear surfaces on the structural skin are produced by triangulation or by the conversion of doubledcurve into ruled surface. During our redesign process, we faced the problem of fabricating doubly-curved surfaces. We tried using this method but the triangulation of a single pyramid element, especially those with hollowed surfaces are too complex when we unroll them in Rhinoceros.
VERSION 1
Pyramid element with hollow surface and doubly curved
Triangulation
The previous non self-supporting and overly complex design leads us to slight change of design and also the sequence of adding hollow surfaces in our pyramid elements. Another fabrication process that affect our second skin project is the length of the tabs attached to each panel. We found out that the longer the tabs, the more rigid the structure will be.
Unrolled surface. 2D shape becomes very complex and it is difficult to add tabs for folding.
Reading Response Week 7 DIGITAL FABRICATION: ARCHITECTURAL + MATERIAL TECHNIQUES /LISA IWAMOTO, NEW YORK: PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS c2009
“Digital fabrication opens onto a sea of possibilities.” From this week’s reading, we understand that digital production is a generative medium that comes with its own host of restraints and possibilities. Digital practices have the potential to narrow the gap between representation and building, affording a hypothetically seamless connection between design and making. Digital fabrication which falls under computer aided and manufacturing category has long been use in the engineering and manufacture industries. They enable the industries to produce accurate physical models and prototypes quickly from computerised data. This technology which has been incoorporated into architecture in the recent years had brought many advantages in this field because using computerised process, architects are able work more efficiently and directly between design and construction. Folding is materially economical, visual appealing, and effective at multiple scales. Using digital fabrication, folding turns flat surface into a three dimensional one because material gain stiffness and rigidity after creating a complex geometrical structure. The skin can span distance, and came often be self supporting. Folding has a long history in craft-based practices and product design, for instance the Japanese origami that started in the early seventh century. It is in this context that digital tools are bridging a traditionally object-oriented practice and architecturally scaled work.
Process of making Digital Origami by Chris Bosse, 2007
Reading applied to design In this week’s lecture, we were particularly inspired by the video about the Catenary Catalyst project done by the students at the University of Minnesota College of Design. Even with last week’s reading, we are still sceptical about self-supporting skin. Seeing how the students in the video made the project had convinced me that the structure will be flimsy during the making process but becomes rigid once everything is put together. During the lecture we were also prompt to think why does our pyramid elements varies at different location. What makes our design unique from others? In terms digital fabrication, the lecture showed instead of going through 2D drawing representations to make the products, architects can now directly create a product using the the digital information transformed from the 3D models. For us, the straightforward method is learned in this subject by implementing 3D modeling program like Rhinoceros and Paneling Tool plug-in. We were able to produce accurate models in short amount of time. By labeling the unrolled surfaces and locating the parts in Rhinoceros, we were able assemble the print out parts relatively easy compare to traditional hand drawn method.
Prototype development While making our second prototype, we faced the problem of not able to connect the hood with the second skin around the body. We thought of many solution but they did not work because they seems to be forced together instead of being one integrated structure. Therefore, we change our design once again, this time, thinking how to connect them together with gradual change of shape and size. HOOD-BODY SKIN CONNECTION In this development, the structure at back part of the body skin is made of rectangular panel with side connected to the triangular edge of the pyramid so that the size of the modular elements have similar height. The hood is then join together at the top part of the rectangular panel near the neck. The hood which is also made of rectangular panel then could be blend with the body skin structure.
We also use different shape of hood to test which one connect the best with the body structure.
Connection of the hood and body skin structure near the neck
Pyramid edge connect to the rectangular panel to form a prism shape
Digital and physical model of the hood and body structure connection.
PYRAMID ELEMENT CONNECTION In our previous prototype, we used 3mm tabs but it did not give us a firm structure, we changed them to 5mm ~ 10mm, varying at different areas. As we increase the length of the tab, we also have to think about the perforation of that pyramid element. If it is too long, it will be seen from outside through the holes.
REFINEMENT OF TAB’S RECESS MAGNITUDE
REFINEMENT OF TAB LENGTH
Pyramid element with developable surface.
Another aspect about the tab we refined is the recess magnitude. With a bigger recess, we will be able to fold and join the part easily without any crooked edge. The sides of the pyramid element are thenjoin together with a mixture of adhesive and staples from the inside to form a strong rigid structure.
Smaller recess
Crooked edge
Unrolled surface
3mm tabs bigger recess
10mm tabs
Good looking
Perforation is added later on the surface by offseting the panel’s edge one by one.
Prototype optimisation EFFECT PERFORATION VARIATION PYRAMID ELEMENTS SIZE VARIATION
Personal Space (Sight) decrease Version 1
Version 2
Comparing the digital model version 1 and verison 2, in version 2 we made size variotion of pyramid at different area. The size of the pyramid can be compare clearly at the shoulder area, where the right shoulder has taller pyramids compare to the left shoulder ones.
Personal Space (Distance) Red area indicate the personal space of the female user. Right shoulder has bigger personal space because right hand is the
Personal Space (Distance) decrease
Personal Space (Sight) Orange area indicate the least personal space of the female user. The female user do not like others to look at their breast as they are sensitive.
Our personal map analysis had improve over the period of designing. We think that personal space can be varies in 2 different ways, distance and sight. This is because some body parts, for example the shoulder are less sensitive when other people look at it but very sensitive when people touch it. A bigger shoulder can also helps the introvert and mentally weak user to be more confident and stronger.
MATERIAL CHOICE We have used different type of material to make our pyramid element. We were thinking of using clear prolypropylene to provide more transparency for the second skin but it was hard to connect the pyramid elements. Furthermore, with the see through characteristic, we will be able to see all our connection between the pyramids from the outside. With the variation of perforation, we will have enough transparency for the design. We also tried 2mm box board, The thicker and rougher material make the design looks less sophisticated. It is also very hard to fold the tabs because of the thickness. Therefore, we used 290gsm white ivory card because it is cheaper, easy to join and more refined finish. Left to right: Ivory card, Polypropylene, box board
Prototype optimisation FABRICATION + MATERIAL USAGE
This is the comparison of 2D shapes obtained after unrolling prototype 2 and final prototype. In prototype 2 because of the double curve we cannot use UnrollSrf command in Rhino so instead of that we used ptUnrollFaces. This command can only explode faces but it insert label automatically on each tab. Whereas, we were able to use UnrollSrf command because we solved the doubly curve problem using Mesh. UnrollSrf does not automatically insert labels so we have to use Text command to write down the label number one by one on the tab. This is time consuming compare to using ptUnrollFaces. On the other hand, we were able to save up lots of material, cutting time and printing money by unrolling surface into geometrical form as seen in the later version of laser cutting template. This is because the machine was able to cut lesser compare to cutting each of the exploded triangular shapes. During assembling the elements, the later version also save up significant of time
Version 1 fabrication process
Version 2 fabrication process
2nd Skin final design
PLAN VIEW
RIGHT ELEVATION VIEW ISOMETRIC VIEW
FRONT VIEW
LEFT ELEVATION VIEW
BACK VIEW
HEART PROTECTOR This second skin is design for introvert female users who was used to be bully victim. Its spiky design protect the user from her personal space’s intruders. The design also help her to be more confident and stronger to face the society once again. This design consist of two part, the expandable hood which block the eye contact and communication of the user from the surrounding people. The second part is the body skin structure which has varying perforated pyramid. The variation shows the changing of personal space at different part of the upper body. We hope that this can provide a sense of security to her, to her heart.
Fabrication Sequence
Assembly Drawing
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2nd Skin