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Oxman Rivka 2012 Informed Tectonics in M
Oxman Rivka 2012 Informed Tectonics in M
Oxman Rivka 2012 Informed Tectonics in M
design
Rivka Oxman, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion IIT
Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel
T
he development of digital technologies is enabling new processes of de-
sign collaboration and a growing inter-relationship between technology
and design. We are currently witnessing a transition within the digital
design process. The growing affinity between the interest in the role of mate-
rials in design and in the relationship to tectonics has produced a “new mate-
riality”. The emerging new synthesis of material in design is resulting in the
formulation of conceptual principles of the formal, structural and material
in new digital orders. Furthermore, the logic of these structural and material
principles is recently becoming integrated within the rationale of emerging fab-
rication technologies, thus enriching the possibility of the potential integration
of design with fabrication and production.
The origin of current fabrication technologies can be traced back to the evo-
lution of computer technologies associated with automation and production
of the final stages of design and to the first CAD/CAM systems (Schodek,
Bechthold, Griggs, Kao, & Steinberg, 2004). Today with advances in the inte-
gration of digital design and fabrication, the designer has become directly in-
rivkao@gmail.com, volved with materialization technologies in both design conception and design
rivkao@tx.technion. production stages (Kolarevic, 2003; Kolarevic & Klinger, 2008). Processes of
ac.il rapid prototyping (RP) employing fabrication technologies are an integral
www.elsevier.com/locate/destud
0142-694X $ - see front matter Design Studies 33 (2012) 427e455
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.05.005 427
! 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
component in design and were being recognized as a significant technology
that supports the full spectrum of digital design as a paperless process integrat-
ing computational models of generation and manufacturing in a single process
(Sass & Oxman, 2006; Shea & Cagan, 1999). As a result, the architect and
other design professions are regaining an important degree of knowledge
and control of material and material processes in their designs.
In a prior pilot research, first reported in the journal Architectural Design un-
der the title, The New Structuralism (Oxman & Oxman, 2010b) a collection of
a seminal body of theoretical papers and design works was documented and
presented. The current research builds upon the earlier work and attempts
comparative analysis of the case studies as a corpus of significant cases of
material-based design selected from leading research-oriented design practices
both in architecture and structural engineering.
In the following sections we first introduce and the concept of the tectonic. A
review of historical references and relevant concepts is presented and dis-
cussed. The second section introduces the concept of informed tectonics and
discusses its importance as a theoretical foundation of material-based design.
The third section presents a selection of case studies that illustrates principles
and different models of informed tectonics. The description and demonstra-
tion of derived knowledge, including the development of novel models of in-
tegrative material-based design is presented in the fourth section. Finally,
summary and conclusions are discussed with respect to the significance of in-
formed tectonics in material-based design.
Historic usage adapted the term tectonics to transform the concept from that
of the builder to that of an integrated building system, particularly in 19th C.
interpretations of Classical architecture. Gottfried Semper (1803e1879) re-
ferred to tectonics as a phenomenon that defined the use of different materials
in architecture as a cultural phenomenon thus introducing an early cultural in-
terpretation of tectonics. He was referring to an explicit re-ordering of the
physical relationships of structure and material, and the case of Semper is rel-
evant to the tectonic re-ordering that currently occurring.
The interpretation of tectonics as the active role of structural form in the de-
velopment of architectural form (Frampton, 1995) transcended the purely vi-
sual, or experiential, content of tectonics. This position considered tectonics as
an essential element in the development of modern architectural form. Framp-
ton thus emphasized a more proactive role for structure and construction in
achieving a potential “poetics of construction” as a foundation of modern
architecture.
The term digital tectonics was first introduced by William Mitchell (Mitchell,
1998). He proposed the term, virtual materiality, to describe a virtual compu-
tational space that accommodates the representation of materiality. This was
seen as a counter-position to that of Frampton (Frampton, 1995). In defining
the possibility and potential of a digital tectonics, Mitchell also superseded the
‘earthwork’ that Gottfried Semper (Semper, 1989) identified as one of the four
elements of architecture.
Various theoretical approaches to the term digital tectonics have been pro-
posed as a characterization of the influence of emerging digital media and
technologies upon the exploration and modification of conventional con-
ceptions of tectonics in architectural practice. Liu and Lim (2006) have
identified digital tectonics with dynamic factors of motion, information,
generation and fabrication. These studies analyzed changes in traditional
construction and presented the relationship between design and digital tech-
nologies, for example, the design of responsive envelopes. The role of digital
tectonics is thus seen also to be formative in the exploration and production
of new constructional technologies. Along with emerging technologies,
there is a growing interest in motion, adaptive-responsive systems, and in-
formation embedding in building systems, all of which are dynamic charac-
teristics. Here, digital tectonics relates to media that support design
processes of four-dimensional capability, that is, the time-based and respon-
sive dimensions.
Other works (Kolarevic & Klinger, 2008) discussed the change in traditional
methods of construction and the growing importance of the relationship be-
tween digital methods of design and their implications for production in com-
putationally controlled fabrication technologies.
Adaptive buildings are associated today with the field of “smart materials”
(Addington & Schodek, 2005). Adaptive behaviour is replacing mechanical
principles with behavioural properties of smart materials introducing novel
characteristics in responsive-adaptive architectural systems (Kennedy, 2011).
The designer in such systems becomes responsible to design an adaptive mate-
rial system as a set of desired affects produced by the system performance of
materials with minimum material and energy.
Design by the digital and the material is becoming a process in which the synthe-
sis of architect, engineer and fabricator again controls the responsibility for the
total processes of conceptualization and materialization (R. Oxman, 2011). This
change provides a reconciliation of digital tectonics with the arguments of
Frampton (1995) and Semper (1989). The changing definition of tectonic rela-
tionship may be considered one of the formative effects of the emergence of dig-
ital tectonics.
In fact, in many respects, materiality is frequently the basis for design concep-
tualization. Fabrication is therefore not merely a modelling technique, but
a change in the generation and making of designs. The current impact of ma-
terialization concepts upon form has become one of the main influences in con-
temporary design.
Through the analysis of the case studies, we have attempted to formulate novel
models of design and, in particular, to explore how the structuring, encoding,
and fabricating of material systems have begun to contribute to the formation
The research underlying this publication placed an emphasis upon the impact
of engineering design and emerging technologies on the design process. The
original intention was to base the research upon a sample of the leading prac-
tices in design engineering that had also been prominent in theoretical dis-
course and publication with respect to emerging technologies. The process
of sample selection was undertaken through a literature survey in the fields
of recent research and theoretical studies in design engineering and material
technologies. The selection process attempted to identify a body of work rep-
resentative and comprehensive enough to foreground emerging theories and
design models. The final selection included eight participants in design engi-
neering and seven in material technologies. The latter group was diverse in-
cluding architectural researchers in academic contexts, experimental
practices, new professional specializations, etc. Virtually all of the fifteen par-
ticipants have some form of academic involvement.
What are the re-ordering of priorities in the relationships among form, struc-
ture, and material in material-based design and how they are achieved?
The cases studies presented in the next section were selected as significant
examples of diverse models of informed tectonics in material-based design.
Each of the cases was selected and was comparatively analysed by the concepts
presented above. Each case demonstrates a unique informed tectonic model
that is based on digital informing processes.
The VOxEL project (Bollinger et al., 2010) illustrates both the structural and the
organizational principles in a conceptual model of a square-edged sponge config-
uration. A finite-element-method analysed the structural behaviour was based on
the logic of interconnected elements that presented a new typology. As character-
istic of complex structural designs, the system properties are not defined by indi-
vidual elements, but by sets of elements. The behaviour of the interdependent sets
of elements emerges from intricately informed evolutionary computational pro-
cesses without any top-down control. A finite-element-method that analysed the
structural behaviour based on the logic of interconnected elements of an irregular
“sponge” organization. The structural performance of the configuration becomes
the fitness criteria in the evolutionary process that provides a close interlocking of
the same elements for spatial and structural organization (see Figure 2).
Example: Nine Bridges Golf Resort Yeoju; South Korea; Shigeru Ban, Blumer-
Lehmann AG SJB Kempter-Fitze & Cr"eation Holz; consultation by Fabian
Scheurer, designtoproduction, ZuricheStuttgart.
Two planar interbreeding timber panels and the usage of particular techniques
of assembly related to given material properties, have produced a structurally
efficient construct by employing digital processes. Software that simulates ma-
terial behaviour such as elastic deformation has been developed to integrate
a textile module with digital design and material fabrication.
In this experiment the basic unit of a textile module is essential to the structural
development of the timber fabric. This process is generic and can be applied to
other materials and applications. Integrated tectonic qualities at different
scales can be developed in material construction and contribute to unique tec-
tonic properties. The application of textile principles in the context of timber
construction demonstrates intrinsic contrasting physical conditions (Weinand
& Hudert, 2010). The ability of a structure to adapt to a load is a significant
property, when exposed to an increasing load, the elasticity of the wood enable
deformation instead of destruction (see Figure 5).
The design model in this approach is based on automatic generative code that
is changing the mode of design generation from top-down to bottom-up
processes.
From shape to material production: parametric shape models are driving the
production of a variable sheet metal surface.
The digital materiality model provides seamless integration of design and fab-
rication from conception to materialization processes by facilitating a genera-
tive process of shape and form related to structure and material that is
controlled by machine data.
Example: Sequential Wall, West Fest Pavilion; Fabio Gramazio and Matias
Kohle, ETH Zurich.
The “West Fest Pavilion” employs standard wooden battens forming columns
that are transformed into large cantilevers that support a roof. The robotic
fabrication allows modifying the dimensions of individual battens during the
production process. The columns constitute the spatial layout as well as the
carrying structure of the pavilion that satisfied the architectural organization,
the structural performance and the assembly process. The coding of the assem-
bly logic is essential in this approach. The “Sequential Wall” project presents
The following model defines the shift from a geometric-centric design to mate-
rial-based design in which digital materiality is encoded as a basis for design
with fabricated digital materials of heterogeneous behaviours. The following
work, models and processes in material-based design computation were in-
spired by nature and by biological materials (Oxman, 2009). In this approach,
the material system is informed by external performative environmental forces
that act upon it in a similar way to nature. In nature, structural bio-materials
form micro-structures engineered to adapt to external constraints during con-
tinuous growth throughout their life span. This is similar to bone structures
that are re-modelled under structural or mechanical load. In nature, the se-
quence formestructureematerial is inverted bottom-up. For example, in bones
and cellular structures shape is directly informed by the materials from which
they are made. In nature, in most cases, material comes first. This ability to
distribute material properties by way of locally optimizing regions of varied
external requirements, such as bone’s ability to remodel its material structure
under altering mechanical loads, or wood’s capacity to modify its shape by
way of containing moisture, is facilitating the variable property model.
Examples: Beast, Prototype for a customized chaise lounge; Carpal Skin, Pro-
totype for a customized carpel tunnel syndrome splint; Neri Oxman Media-
Lab MIT.
The design of the chaise lounge, Beast (N. Oxman, 2010) corresponds to struc-
tural, environmental, and performance criteria by adapting its thickness, pat-
tern, density and stiffness to load, curvature, and skin-pressured areas
respectively (Boston Museum of Science) (see Figure 8). In the chaise lounge,
a single continuous surface is acting both as structure and skin that is locally
modulated to provide for both support and comfort. The shape and stiffness
distribution are informed by the structural loading. Variable properties are di-
rectly informed and directly produced by fabrication.
Carpal Skin (N. Oxman, 2010) is a customized therapeutic device for individ-
ualized treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Boston Museum of Science)
(see Figure 9). The local thickness corresponds to strategic areas across the
surface area of the individual patient’s wrist in cushioning and protecting it
from stress.
Figure 9 Carpal skin, prototype for a customized carpel tunnel syndrome splint; Neri Oxman Media-Lab MIT
Among objectives of the case study analysis was to identify relevant bodies of
knowledge, models, concepts, and principles in the actual practices of
material-based design. The methodology consisted of the selection and analy-
sis of a case study sample of leading design practices and their application of
methods of material-based design. Through the analysis of the case studies, we
have explored how the structuring, encoding, and fabricating of material sys-
tems have begun to contribute to the formation of diverse models of informed
tectonics in material-based design.
The following is a summary of concepts and principles of models that are pro-
posed as representative emerging models of informed tectonics in material-
based design.
! Rationalization model
! Evolutionary model
This model presents negotiation processes between form and structure that
represents a certain design logic. In this case the logic emerges from given
! Robotic-fabrication model
In this model, form, structure and material play equal roles in performance-
based material design. They promote the application of material subsequent
to form. This model is a significant in the shift from a geometric-centric design
to a material-based design. Fabrication, in this case, 3D printing, becomes
design by fabrication shaping designs according to given specifications of any
desired material system and its desired properties.
To conclude, there currently exist the conditions for change in traditional de-
sign processes as well as the emergence of concepts, processes and media that
are contributing to the evolution of new forms of design. From the point of
view of the relationship between design and technology as well as from the
characterization of architecture as a material practice we are at a great
All three of the design components: formestructure and material, are now in-
volved at the earliest generative stage. This new paradigm of the early inclu-
sion of material factors in conceptual design is a profound historical
transition from the form-centric domination of the last century. These changes
also bring to the fore the design content of materialization by fabrication and
manufacturing technologies.
The control and the flow of digital information is now available to the designer as
a new form of guidance, or driver, of tectonic process in which formestructure
and material are mutually informed in the processes of design. These may inform
one another at all stages of design, from conception to fabrication and construc-
tion. It is the computationally ‘informed’ content of material-based design that
supports the explication of these complex tectonic relationships.
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