I've done a deep research about this kind of.. lets call "parametric structures" mainly about "Deplyable Structures" ... bcz if you're looking for parametric detailing, you have too look for a non-traditional structures..
will re-comment on this thread later.. I have lots of infos
Don't materials always need to interact with physical space? Isn't the "promise" of parametrics that they do a better job than the traditional methods? This is my pet peeve-that at the end of the day you need traditional techniques to put those surfaces together-unless it has no real requirements-like the indoor structures shown here. Perhaps you need to start with the parametric joint to prove the system.
marc thanks for the links and that is really impressive work, but it's still traditional tectonics with regard to anchor connections, etc...from what I can tell. concrete forms have always had the opportunity to be anything and if the budget was there, for instance the Ennis House by FLW, you can customize. but looks like good sources for more review.
Zaina - "Deployable Structures" - that appears to be a possibility if parts are to be connected, otherwise it's same surface that becomes structure without joints and connections (working on this as a side project), which is a solution, but obviously eliminates the need for connection details.
in the first one do you have closer images of the details, the perpendicular connection? the second one appears to be monolithic or is the tensegrity structure used to support the unfolding envelope? If so, how does the structure connect to the envelope?
gruen - you are expressing one of my questions..
does parametric architecture have it's own tectonics?
txt - "Designed granulates are defined as particle systems with large numbers, in which the individual granule is synthetically made and geometrically defined. Defining the geometry of the individual grain turns the aggregate into programmable matter, which has properties that cannot be found in naturally occurring granulates such as sand or gravel. Synthetic granular systems are an emerging area of architectural design research."
says "no binding matrix", so this is probably just a pavilion and not yet really architecture?
The Mark West/CAST stuff is interesting because the formwork is just a roll of material placed in the simplest of frames. The form of the concrete takes shape based on how the roll material is folded. West claims that the structural performance differs from conventional approaches to form making. In some cases it is far more efficient.
I don't have a great deal of info on Menges, but he is on the lecture circuit and has published a great deal in AD. The fall issue may be of interest to you. It's got a lot of theoretical grounding and the aggregate pavilion.
If you look closely at his hygroscopic work, he is leveraging materials against environmental conditions to produce specific performance w/o motors. Yes, a lot of it is 3D printed, but the outcomes are based on performance. The larger pavilions reference natural system pattern to make fiberglass based structures with "minimal" material use and a fancy robot.
... you know you can be little more specific about what you're looking for and why, I can't simply spit everything I know.... btw, this is a very interesting thread, it can contribute to my research also :))
Yeah I have all the detailing.. wondering if I can send it to you as a pdf maybe?
Nov 22, 15 1:36 pm ·
·
ricardobarajas
I would like to connect with you so I can collaborate with references for my thesis
marc and zaina, thank you much, but what I'm finding is traditional "tectonics" is not appropriate or even applicable, the link Marc shared and I inquired about states this:
"A new understanding of the material in architecture is beginning to arise. No longer are we bound to conceive of the digital realm as separated from the physical world. Instead we can begin to explore computation as an intense interface to material and vice versa. Thus materiality no longer remains a fixed property and passive receptor of form, but it transforms into an active generator of design and an adaptive agent of architectural performance. Accordingly, and in contrast to linear and mechanistic modes of fabrication and construction, materialization now begins to coexist with design as explorative robotic processes. This presents a radical departure from both the trite modernist truth to materials and the dismissal of material altogether as emblematic for the previous generation of digital architecture."
Marc you reminded me of this man's work, Milgo-Bufkin produces it - Dr. Haresh Lalvani
wondering now, are Parametric details actually - analog performances of material, ultimately in structural foldability of inherent properties? (as noted above a side project of mine, things have slowed down and a former student and colleague has been doing interesting stuff with 3D printing and fabrics)
Despite the pattern making, much of what qualifies as detailing is still conventional (slot, stitch, nail, glue) at the joint. Perhaps this points to a need for a slightly more conservative or more strategic approach to these systems given some of the notable failures. The experiments being executed by Menge are interesting in this aspect given that he is trying to push material properly against performance requirements using scientific methodologies versus aesthetic hunches.
Given that building materials have physical limits, it becomes conventional (slot, stitch, nail, glue) eventually. Bu does that matter for a parametric facade or is it the system assembly that is more important.
Calling this parametric is part of the problem. These are really experiments in material properties and simulating material properties digitally. The form is materially driven and the details should come from the material and the feedback.
aah.. so you basically want to eliminate the use of traditional joint and connections! does pneumatic structures count? origami structures (the Japanese folding art)? also check evolo magazine I promise you'll find sthg there Lol.. Lazy Olaf :p
Lebbues Woods was the century's Da venci ........ :p
if your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
no matter what kind of fancy ass stuff you can build in the computer some engineer is going to nut n bolt it with a bunch of traditional fasteners from home depot - unless we invent something better - Calatrava sucks - but that guy invents all sorts of custom awesome cast steel connections - large scale shit. Same with Renzo.
I guess the larger question is what the hell is a "parametric detail"? a connection that can exist in an infinite different number of configurations? Not sure - part of our problem as an academic field is using these words in the wrong context, inappropriately. Everybody has their own definition making it confusing as hell.
a screw is a standard size. you order like a million of them and have them show up on the job site in boxes. when the workers need a screw, they can just grab one, and if they lose a couple in the air space behind the brick, it's no big loss.
a custom screw tailor fabricated for your parametric joint is a very bad idea. not saying custom screws are the only option, just that if you're designing a joint that is repeated hundreds of times, but needs one little thing different every time, you'll have problems with fabrication, distribution, sorting on the job site to get everything laid out in the right order, sequencing labor to have the joints assembled in the right order. it's just not worth it.
just saying, that's why engineers design stuff around things like bolts. it doesn't make sense not to. worth considering when coming up with new parametric joints.
marc i think your point about pushing materials is the most interesting. perhaps that is the "parametric tectonics"? now "parametric details" maybe that is too broad of a term....i almost feel like a lot of this cutting edge stuff is to eliminate traditional details altogether, so maybe thats why I can't wrap my head around it.
not yet marc not yet. your links were like shortcuts to where i will probably conclude, I think, but i am seeing a historical transition perhaps via form making - the fold (diller scofidio, denari, lynn, etc...) so this almost "anti-tectonic" development appears to have a historical basis in design. and if you go philosophy you get Bernard Cache (who had Deleuze as a prof) as a predecessor... tectonics is also more of a meta view of detailing, so this anti meta level of details is my challenge I think.....this discussion should continue a bit though.
we know Lynn absolutely was a breaking point and he was technically developing behind it, starting first in Eisenmans office, and French philosophy seems to have been everywhere back then (Derrida, Deleuze). to your point 1 - I think the computer helped greatly in Representing the impossible as possibly real and then people chased it. the links you sent use a robot to continuously spew plastic to make the objects and nearly all of Ivorykeyboards examples are continous material. concluding on point 2..........leading to point 3 for those chasing honesty in materials with this new freedom - analog calculations indicate the extremes of a materials behavior.......wait that's it Marc - behavior verses tectonic composition. as noted above,its about 'performance' now and not honesty in material composition. so the Adolf Loos equivalent is someone who looks for the materials best possible and efficient behavior to do a design. detailing is avoided if possible because that means a change in materials, and the question is can the material in use behavior accomodate the entire design concept.
i love the amanda levit one, but at some point there needs to be support for the seat looking part. there is some connection where the fins meet the beam at the top. there's a raceway to run power. there are all sorts of architectural details that are not being expressed or celebrated in that image. some of which probably involve very mundane non-parametric stuff like screws, and were designed by people are trying to turn an unrealistic 3d model into something that can be built.
unless i'm mistaken, "parametricism" made the form, but the details were worked out in a pretty conventional manner.
it looks like a ceramic tile floor? what is the seat/fin thing made of?
Material performance becomes the measure for for honesty. Still, performance is driven by a set of relations and is rarely if ever homogeneous, even in the case of the fluid conditions seen above. So it would seem to me that connections, or the gap between "homogeneous conditions" if a very important part of tectonics logic in parametric.
This makes me think about the fabric experiments that are out there, and how the relationship between material and tool limits are balanced are balanced against software, and performance.
No details? Airspace Tokyo was covered in Detail Magazine!
There are compelling tectonic relationships with all the previously posted images, except for maybe the examples using milled corian. I wouldn't so quickly write off projects because of their formal language.
Marc, what project is that? Ivory your example and the mention of Corian only further substantiates this anti-tectonic tectonics........see this definition within the first paragraph
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/78804
curt, there obviously are details as you note and the project you are discussing does hide them versus the one ivory shows. .........lets take this definition from above link - tectonics - "It is concerned with the modeling of material to bring the material into presence: from the physical into the meta-physical world."........i almost think in performance based material experiments you are putting the material up against conceptual forms, in a way forcing the virtual on the physical until a material performs accordingly......which makes a material like Corian awesome to a degree.
I will echo something I said in one of the Schumacher clusterfuck threads - our capacity to design and visualize complex geometry is far, far ahead of our ability to manipulate matter. Most all of the details and underlying tectonics are done in traditional ways. It will be this way as long as manipulating matter in specific and custom ways remains expensive.
We need huge advances in 3D printing to the point that they are more like Star Trek's replicators before we can truly implement a "parametric" design to fabrication and assembly workflow.
Related reading, Plea for Euclid, Bernard Cache (Appeared in Projectiles)
It's an experiment I found here while unsuccessfully trying to find another example that is a more complete thought (a doubly curved surface?). That said, here are two more examples that are truly engineered with performance in mind.
I have associated the arup detail with ornament, but agree that it also points to the problem of tectonics in parametric details. It's very responsive- to a point- and then gives way to a more conventional logic based on bolts, welds and the standard material on the other end.
the form of the steel node from ARUP is created from a performance driven genetic algorithm optimizing usage the of material (but ignoring surface area because it's using additive manufacturing) - so, ornamental by necessity.
i think it's all monolithic materials? or materials that can be heat welded or something like that, where multiple pieces can become a single material.
Industrial scale 3D printers already exist. We need cash to use them.
And I understand the arup node. My point is that it is engineered to meet precise demands- tne really is no ornament, just expression. It calls into question whether or not conventional connections have (really bland) ornament built into them based on standardization.
The Mark West stuff is as anti-parametric as you can get, and proudly so. He was one of my profs and I took courses with him - that stuff you see is cast from geotextiles, cut by hand. He literally doesn't use a computer - he had a huge blackboard wall instead (seriously).
I digress.
parametric details?
looking for examples of joints, nodes, connections, and details developed from the parametric process.
most of what I am finding are very traditional methods for connecting the members of the overall created form.
would love to see some details.
you know that liquid metal in terminator 2?
for instance these count as traditional details
how about this product ? from 4-5 years ago, vaguely remember the magnet details, looking for it, i think those tabs visible on outside are magnetic.
seeyond
ok that one might count, although magnets are not totally unique, but folding shape and stabilizing with magnets might be
http://blog.archpaper.com/2011/06/seeyonds-parametric-building-system/#.VlEPrr-mlpU
greg lynn's blob wall is really just a jig saw puzzle, will keep looking
Here you go.
And another.
i guess you're saying a 3D printout, but that's not parametric at all.
The 2nd link looks like traditional detailing.
looking for tectonics of parametrics perhaps?
ICD/ITKE research pavilions and Hygroscopic Material Systems?
Emtech (AA) / ETH Pavilions
"Analogs"
Mark West/ C.A.S.T. Concrete forms
Computers? We ain't got no stinkin' computers. We don't need no stinkin' computers!
You're looking for something like this?
or this?
I've done a deep research about this kind of.. lets call "parametric structures" mainly about "Deplyable Structures" ... bcz if you're looking for parametric detailing, you have too look for a non-traditional structures..
will re-comment on this thread later.. I have lots of infos
marc thanks for the links and that is really impressive work, but it's still traditional tectonics with regard to anchor connections, etc...from what I can tell. concrete forms have always had the opportunity to be anything and if the budget was there, for instance the Ennis House by FLW, you can customize. but looks like good sources for more review.
Zaina - "Deployable Structures" - that appears to be a possibility if parts are to be connected, otherwise it's same surface that becomes structure without joints and connections (working on this as a side project), which is a solution, but obviously eliminates the need for connection details.
in the first one do you have closer images of the details, the perpendicular connection? the second one appears to be monolithic or is the tensegrity structure used to support the unfolding envelope? If so, how does the structure connect to the envelope?
gruen - you are expressing one of my questions..
does parametric architecture have it's own tectonics?
marc this one maybe? ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2015
txt - "Designed granulates are defined as particle systems with large numbers, in which the individual granule is synthetically made and geometrically defined. Defining the geometry of the individual grain turns the aggregate into programmable matter, which has properties that cannot be found in naturally occurring granulates such as sand or gravel. Synthetic granular systems are an emerging area of architectural design research."
says "no binding matrix", so this is probably just a pavilion and not yet really architecture?
marc you have more info on this one? - Composite Morphology and Fibrous Tectonics
still looks like 3d printing plastic though...
The Mark West/CAST stuff is interesting because the formwork is just a roll of material placed in the simplest of frames. The form of the concrete takes shape based on how the roll material is folded. West claims that the structural performance differs from conventional approaches to form making. In some cases it is far more efficient.
I don't have a great deal of info on Menges, but he is on the lecture circuit and has published a great deal in AD. The fall issue may be of interest to you. It's got a lot of theoretical grounding and the aggregate pavilion.
If you look closely at his hygroscopic work, he is leveraging materials against environmental conditions to produce specific performance w/o motors. Yes, a lot of it is 3D printed, but the outcomes are based on performance. The larger pavilions reference natural system pattern to make fiberglass based structures with "minimal" material use and a fancy robot.
Olaf- like the bennet mechanism? google "Over-constrained mechanism"
or maybe you're looking for sthg like this?
how about this?
search on this websites you'll find a lot of examples
http://www.achimmenges.net/
.. does this count?
...?
...?
... you know you can be little more specific about what you're looking for and why, I can't simply spit everything I know.... btw, this is a very interesting thread, it can contribute to my research also :))
Yeah I have all the detailing.. wondering if I can send it to you as a pdf maybe?
I would like to connect with you so I can collaborate with references for my thesis
this is exactly like the shading system used on Al-Bahar towers in Abu Dhabi..
I found this by simply googling..
and again over-constrained mechanism..
wow.. really interesting, thank you for contributing to my research!
marc and zaina, thank you much, but what I'm finding is traditional "tectonics" is not appropriate or even applicable, the link Marc shared and I inquired about states this:
"A new understanding of the material in architecture is beginning to arise. No longer are we bound to conceive of the digital realm as separated from the physical world. Instead we can begin to explore computation as an intense interface to material and vice versa. Thus materiality no longer remains a fixed property and passive receptor of form, but it transforms into an active generator of design and an adaptive agent of architectural performance. Accordingly, and in contrast to linear and mechanistic modes of fabrication and construction, materialization now begins to coexist with design as explorative robotic processes. This presents a radical departure from both the trite modernist truth to materials and the dismissal of material altogether as emblematic for the previous generation of digital architecture."
Marc you reminded me of this man's work, Milgo-Bufkin produces it - Dr. Haresh Lalvani
some kid at Columbia, trying to find him.
which reminds me of Daniel Libeskind and Lebbeus woods on Analog Calculating machines
wondering now, are Parametric details actually - analog performances of material, ultimately in structural foldability of inherent properties? (as noted above a side project of mine, things have slowed down and a former student and colleague has been doing interesting stuff with 3D printing and fabrics)
Get with it already. Shoemuncher's parametrics is beyond passe. Quantum Matrices is where it's at.
Olaf, good points.
Despite the pattern making, much of what qualifies as detailing is still conventional (slot, stitch, nail, glue) at the joint. Perhaps this points to a need for a slightly more conservative or more strategic approach to these systems given some of the notable failures. The experiments being executed by Menge are interesting in this aspect given that he is trying to push material properly against performance requirements using scientific methodologies versus aesthetic hunches.
Given that building materials have physical limits, it becomes conventional (slot, stitch, nail, glue) eventually. Bu does that matter for a parametric facade or is it the system assembly that is more important.
aah.. so you basically want to eliminate the use of traditional joint and connections! does pneumatic structures count? origami structures (the Japanese folding art)? also check evolo magazine I promise you'll find sthg there Lol.. Lazy Olaf :p
Lebbues Woods was the century's Da venci ........ :p
if your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
no matter what kind of fancy ass stuff you can build in the computer some engineer is going to nut n bolt it with a bunch of traditional fasteners from home depot - unless we invent something better - Calatrava sucks - but that guy invents all sorts of custom awesome cast steel connections - large scale shit. Same with Renzo.
I guess the larger question is what the hell is a "parametric detail"? a connection that can exist in an infinite different number of configurations? Not sure - part of our problem as an academic field is using these words in the wrong context, inappropriately. Everybody has their own definition making it confusing as hell.
a screw is a standard size. you order like a million of them and have them show up on the job site in boxes. when the workers need a screw, they can just grab one, and if they lose a couple in the air space behind the brick, it's no big loss.
a custom screw tailor fabricated for your parametric joint is a very bad idea. not saying custom screws are the only option, just that if you're designing a joint that is repeated hundreds of times, but needs one little thing different every time, you'll have problems with fabrication, distribution, sorting on the job site to get everything laid out in the right order, sequencing labor to have the joints assembled in the right order. it's just not worth it.
just saying, that's why engineers design stuff around things like bolts. it doesn't make sense not to. worth considering when coming up with new parametric joints.
marc i think your point about pushing materials is the most interesting. perhaps that is the "parametric tectonics"? now "parametric details" maybe that is too broad of a term....i almost feel like a lot of this cutting edge stuff is to eliminate traditional details altogether, so maybe thats why I can't wrap my head around it.
ooh ooh sorry im late! this is my jam
iwamotoscott
marc fornes + ammar elouieni
marc fornes
thom faulders
amanda levete
thank you much....no tectonics and barely any details (traditonal) i see where this is heading
Have you reached a conclusion? Do tell Olaf.
not yet marc not yet. your links were like shortcuts to where i will probably conclude, I think, but i am seeing a historical transition perhaps via form making - the fold (diller scofidio, denari, lynn, etc...) so this almost "anti-tectonic" development appears to have a historical basis in design. and if you go philosophy you get Bernard Cache (who had Deleuze as a prof) as a predecessor... tectonics is also more of a meta view of detailing, so this anti meta level of details is my challenge I think.....this discussion should continue a bit though.
Olaf, if I follow you correctly you are saying that DSR(?), Denari, Lynnn, etc. were breaking point in how detailing is considered?
If so, is this based on-
1. how they used representation to manage (or obfuscate) material connections.
2. the concurrent emergence of technologies both large and small that enabled those representation to become more vialbe?
we know Lynn absolutely was a breaking point and he was technically developing behind it, starting first in Eisenmans office, and French philosophy seems to have been everywhere back then (Derrida, Deleuze). to your point 1 - I think the computer helped greatly in Representing the impossible as possibly real and then people chased it. the links you sent use a robot to continuously spew plastic to make the objects and nearly all of Ivorykeyboards examples are continous material. concluding on point 2..........leading to point 3 for those chasing honesty in materials with this new freedom - analog calculations indicate the extremes of a materials behavior.......wait that's it Marc - behavior verses tectonic composition. as noted above,its about 'performance' now and not honesty in material composition. so the Adolf Loos equivalent is someone who looks for the materials best possible and efficient behavior to do a design. detailing is avoided if possible because that means a change in materials, and the question is can the material in use behavior accomodate the entire design concept.
i love the amanda levit one, but at some point there needs to be support for the seat looking part. there is some connection where the fins meet the beam at the top. there's a raceway to run power. there are all sorts of architectural details that are not being expressed or celebrated in that image. some of which probably involve very mundane non-parametric stuff like screws, and were designed by people are trying to turn an unrealistic 3d model into something that can be built.
unless i'm mistaken, "parametricism" made the form, but the details were worked out in a pretty conventional manner.
it looks like a ceramic tile floor? what is the seat/fin thing made of?
Yes Olaf,
Material performance becomes the measure for for honesty. Still, performance is driven by a set of relations and is rarely if ever homogeneous, even in the case of the fluid conditions seen above. So it would seem to me that connections, or the gap between "homogeneous conditions" if a very important part of tectonics logic in parametric.
This makes me think about the fabric experiments that are out there, and how the relationship between material and tool limits are balanced are balanced against software, and performance.
No details? Airspace Tokyo was covered in Detail Magazine!
There are compelling tectonic relationships with all the previously posted images, except for maybe the examples using milled corian. I wouldn't so quickly write off projects because of their formal language.
Marc, what project is that? Ivory your example and the mention of Corian only further substantiates this anti-tectonic tectonics........see this definition within the first paragraph http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/78804 curt, there obviously are details as you note and the project you are discussing does hide them versus the one ivory shows. .........lets take this definition from above link - tectonics - "It is concerned with the modeling of material to bring the material into presence: from the physical into the meta-physical world."........i almost think in performance based material experiments you are putting the material up against conceptual forms, in a way forcing the virtual on the physical until a material performs accordingly......which makes a material like Corian awesome to a degree.
I will echo something I said in one of the Schumacher clusterfuck threads - our capacity to design and visualize complex geometry is far, far ahead of our ability to manipulate matter. Most all of the details and underlying tectonics are done in traditional ways. It will be this way as long as manipulating matter in specific and custom ways remains expensive.
We need huge advances in 3D printing to the point that they are more like Star Trek's replicators before we can truly implement a "parametric" design to fabrication and assembly workflow.
Related reading, Plea for Euclid, Bernard Cache (Appeared in Projectiles)
Parametric details from Arup.
nice arup link
just want to point out I am only just now am listening to the archinect podcast....
archanonymous many thanks for link and book
that's very tectonic!
Olaf,
It's an experiment I found here while unsuccessfully trying to find another example that is a more complete thought (a doubly curved surface?). That said, here are two more examples that are truly engineered with performance in mind.
Ok- 3
archanonymous, nice image post.
I have associated the arup detail with ornament, but agree that it also points to the problem of tectonics in parametric details. It's very responsive- to a point- and then gives way to a more conventional logic based on bolts, welds and the standard material on the other end.
we need this at an industrial scale, with a non-resin based bath
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/carbon3d/
the form of the steel node from ARUP is created from a performance driven genetic algorithm optimizing usage the of material (but ignoring surface area because it's using additive manufacturing) - so, ornamental by necessity.
++ archanonymous
our capacity to design and visualize complex geometry is far, far ahead of our ability to manipulate matter
Or the intelligence we apply to our existing ability to manipulate matter.
what's the alternative to nuts, bolts, welds, slots, hinges, hooks, etc? adhesives? interweaving of multi-materials?
programming matter - neri oxman
i think it's all monolithic materials? or materials that can be heat welded or something like that, where multiple pieces can become a single material.
@ ivorykeyboard,
Industrial scale 3D printers already exist. We need cash to use them.
And I understand the arup node. My point is that it is engineered to meet precise demands- tne really is no ornament, just expression. It calls into question whether or not conventional connections have (really bland) ornament built into them based on standardization.
Developing a computer-programmed robotically-manufactured plastics-based future is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
Alright then- Cathryn Newell and Wes McGee
The Mark West stuff is as anti-parametric as you can get, and proudly so. He was one of my profs and I took courses with him - that stuff you see is cast from geotextiles, cut by hand. He literally doesn't use a computer - he had a huge blackboard wall instead (seriously). I digress.
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