M2 Journal - Jee Hong Ng

Digital Design - Module 02 Semester 1, 2018 Jee Hong Ng

898231 Siavash Malek - Studio 20

Week Three

Reading: Kolerevic B. 2003. Architecture in the Digital Age

Kolerevic described three fundamental type of fabrication techniques in the reading. Outline the three techniques and discuss the potential of Computer Numeric Controlled fabrication with parametric modelling. (150 words max)

The three fundamental types of fabrication techniques are additive fabrication, subtractive fabrication and formative fabrication. With the help of CNC fabrication, paramteric modelling can cope with the bespoke nature of the design industry. Using CNC fabrication, one-off iterative designs can be generated without additional cost of manufacturing formwork, moulds, equipment etc. This also allows designers to be more involved in the manufacturing process as designers can generate prototypes of their designs.

2

Week Three Surface Creation

1

2

3

4

I envisioned making a tower of some sort so I decided to use the maximum height possible to create my model. Based on that, I made a rectangle of 150W*150L and moved it up in the Z-axis direction by 150. To add some more variation I added a scale factor to the top curve so that I could add a taper to it. These two rectangles would then be the parameter for the vertices of my surfaces.(left: script used to generate panels, right: 4 different iterations of surfaces)

3

Week Four Panels & Waffle

The design of my panel is a simple square based pyramid that is extruded vertically upwards from one of the vertices of its base. After the surface had been panelised, the face of the p

The design of this waffle uses a quarter iso grid as contours for its fins.

The waffle is not joined together on one edge so that a clear front end is defined.

4

Week Four

Laser Cutting

These are the unrolled panels and fins used to create the model.

The red curves represent etch lines while the black curves represent cut lines.

Because the amount of material taken away by the laser beam of the laser cutter is very miniscule, similar edges (e.g. straight edges) can be butted up next to each other to reduce the toolpaths of the CNC laser cutter.

The curves are converted into Gcode and used to tell the machine where to move the toolhead. Thus, duplicate lines should be removed so that the toolhead will not waste time repeating the same cutting path.

The laser cutting service used for this model was provided by the FabLab of the University of Melbourne.

The panels were cut on 290 gsm ivory card whereas the waffle fins were cut out on 1mm mountboard.

5

Week Five

The element that I chose to use as a trimmer for my box is a hexagonal prism. After generating a grid of points within the 150*150*150 bounding box, I used a sphere to attract the hexagonal prisms towards its surface. After that I created and attractor point to scale the prisms based on their initial distance from the attractor point to provide some variation in the prisms. The other parameters that were involved were the size of sphere, grid number, sphere positioning etc.

6

Week Five

Isometric

Insert a brief description of your isometric here. Comment on the process of choosing which iteration to develop and 3D Print.

What are some of the spacial qualities of your model? How does it address porosity and permeability?

This is the iteration that I chose to develop and 3D print. The vertical walls are largely undisturbed and have various niches in them. At the region where the ground plane meets the wall, the floor is heavily terraced and the space almost resembles an amphitheatre.

7

Week Six Task 01 Matrix

While developing the waffle structure for my panels, I was considering making something else other than a simple square grid waffle.

I started experimenting with rotating the direction of the contours to generate a different waffle pattern.

By adding a third set of contours to the grid, it would create a stronger waffle structure to prevent the square grid from skewing and pivoting at its notches.

However, as I was designing the notches for the intersections of three sets of fins, I realised that an even distribution of spine widths would result in very weak joints.

The first solution I came up with was to simply increase the width of the fins. That would solve the problem however that would mess up the aesthetic proportions off the waffle structure.

8

Later on I tried offset-ing the Zcontour by half the contour height.

Because of this change, the fins no longer intersected at a single point.

The result is a quarter iso grid which is sturdier than the square grid waffle yet does not sacrifice spine strength through excessive intersections.

Week Six

vTask 02 Matrix

I experimented with different geometries to see how different shapes would generate different voids.

Among the iterations, I found out that the sphere produces very interesting results

Using a sphere, the tops and the sides of the void are relatively flat and do not have as much surface deviation as the slopes.

I realised that the reason behind this was because the geometries overlap each other at the sides and bottoms whereas the geometries on the slope spread out more. This causes more contouring on the slopes and creates alot more “steps�.

9

Week Six

Final Isometric Views

10

11