Archinect - News

A University of Arkansas researcher's quest to create stronger and lighter structures using kirigami-based design

2024-05-08T12:28:00-04:00

By making a series of cuts and folds in a sheet of paper, Baker found she could produce two planes connected by a complex set of thin strips. Without the need for any adhesive like glue or tape, this pattern created a surface that was thick but lightweight. Baker named her creation Spin-Valence. Structural tests later showed that an individual tile made this way, and rendered in steel, can bear more than a thousand times its own weight.

MIT Technology Review highlights the digital fabrication work of Emily Baker, an architect and assistant professor at the University of Arkansas' Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Baker began her research into lightweight and sturdy Spin-Valence structures as an architecture graduate student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

A concept for a shade structure in rural Arkansas following this design principle by Baker and collaborators Vincent Edwards, Edmund Harriss, Isabel Moreira de Oliveira, Eduardo Sosa, and Reilly Dickens-Hoffman also recently won the 2024 Forge Prize for innovation in steel architecture.

Columbia GSAPP seeks a Director of Making Studio to lead their digital fabrication activities

2023-06-07T12:40:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for an Intermediate Architectural Designer at Seed the North, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for the Director of Making Studio at Columbia University.

Reporting to the Dean of Columbia GSAPP, the role calls for an individual who will promote the GSAPP’s pedagogy and student engagement in digital fabrication. Among the responsibilities for the role are to “manage fabrication activities from small-scale massing models to full-scale building details” in the school’s Fabrication Shop, to guide and advise students on project execution in the shop, and to oversee student use of a wide variety of materials including wood, plastic, and metal.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Columbia GSAPP offers us the opportunity to look back at some of the recent develop...

NYIT's Robotics Fabrication Laboratory is looking for a manager to support the school's 'culture of experimental making'

2022-12-14T11:49:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for an Unreal Engine Rendering Artist at PHNTM, we are using our Job Highlights series this week to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Robotics Fabrication Lab Manager at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT).

The position, located within NYIT’s School of Architecture and Design, will lead the daily operations of the school’s analog and digital fabrication shop at its Long Island campus. Responsibilities will include serving as the primary technician for the Robotics Lab and Advanced 3D printing Lab, administrating safety procedures, and researching and experimenting with the capabilities of traditional wood shop tools, digital tools, and other fabrication methods.

The role calls for an individual with a Bachelor’s degree in architecture or a related field, with significant experience in fabrication in an academic and/or professional setting.

Archinect Feature: Architecture as Caregiver: NYIT School of Architecture and Desig...

Anyone can build a model, but can you craft an exhibition-quality model? If so, BIG may need your help

2022-04-06T08:27:00-04:00

The technological complexity behind one of the most fundamental parts of the design process has evolved progressively beyond paper and other rudimentary, hand skills-based ways of form-making to include 3D printing, laser-cutting, and even AR systems as the new and constantly improving tools that go into architectural modeling.

As part of our recurring job highlights series, we recently showcased an opportunity to work as a Signage & Wayfinding Project Manager at the iconic graphic design agency Pentagram or as an exhibition design professional at the biggest and most influential art museum in the United States. This week, we're profiling an industry heavyweight as it searches for the right person to play an important part in this crucial step essential to its philosophical underpinnings and pursuit of new business.

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is now hiring a full-time Model Shop Assistant to work alongside its Model Shop Manager running the day-to-day operations at the firm’s Brookly...

Modular bridge reconnects critical route for Louisiana community hit by Hurricane Ida

2021-12-22T15:59:00-05:00

An international bridge engineering and supply company by the name of Acrow has recently supplied a modular steel bridge to temporarily replace a bridge that was destroyed during Hurricane Ida in Louisiana.

When the hurricane hit the country on August 29th, the Category 4 storm caused widespread damage to infrastructure across the northern Gulf Coast and beyond, including a vital bridge that provided passage between the communities of Lafitte and Barataria in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.

As stated in Acrow’s press releases, the 400 residents of Barataria became isolated as their only vehicular bridge to the mainland was destroyed. In response, the Louisiana National Guard installed a temporary floating bridge to enable access for first responders and residents, however, it could only support a single lane of traffic. A larger, longer-term temporary bridge was needed to meet the needs of the community’s residents.

Previously on Archinect: Mayhem in New York City and across the Nort...

ETH Zurich unveils robotically-assembled sculpture inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

2021-11-23T16:59:00-05:00

Researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have offered an insight into the design and fabrication of a new architectural sculpture, built with the help of artificial intelligence and four robots. The structure, standing 22.5 meters (74 feet) in height, will consist of five geometrically-complex wooden pods all slightly offset from each other and supported by eight thin steel pillars.

Image: Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zürich

Titled "Semiramis" after the Babylonian queen associated in folklore with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the sculpture is currently being manufactured at ETH Zurich’s Robotic Fabrication Laboratory. In what the team describes as a “delicate dance for the highest precision,” the wooden pods are being assembled by four suspended robotic arms, each collecting wooden panels and placing them in accordance with a computer-generated design.

Image: Pascal Bach / Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

Once the robotic arms have placed four panels next to each other, cra...

San Francisco-based studio Gemmiti Model Art celebrates the importance of architectural model making

2021-09-17T18:04:00-04:00

Who doesn't love architecture models? These small-scaled versions of structures are revered treasures of the industry. While 3D modeling software and VR/AR have transformed the idea of the model, it's still safe to say the craft of model making will always play a key role in understanding structures within a space.

The skill and precision behind architecture models continue to be a beloved tool for showcasing a new project. Firms like MAD Architects, for example, continue to stun design professionals and architecture enthusiasts with their mesmerizing models. To learn more about the art of architecture models, we focus on San Francisco-based model-making practice Gemmiti Model Art. Their work and passion for model-making have positioned them as one of the top model-making practices for over 30 years.

California Pacific Model Medical Center at Cathedral Hill. (3/32"=1' scale) Image © Gemmiti Model Art

Founded by Lisa Gemmiti in 1999, Gemmiti Model Art has worked with Apple, NASA, Ado...

Specialize in fabrication and construction? Check out 13 architecture employment opportunities currently featured on Archinect Jobs

2021-06-24T14:51:00-04:00

Are you an architect or designer with a background in fabrication and construction? Firms are looking to expand their teams with design professionals interested in projects that push the design-build process in professional practice and academia.

This week's weekly curated jobs round-up Archinect highlights eight firms whose specialties range in facade design, installations, custom fabrication projects, and residential design. We've also included two schools of architecture that are looking for individuals with design fabrication experience to help lead studios.

For even more opportunities, visit the Archinect job board and browse our active community of architecture students and professionals, firms, and schools.

Casa per Amici (Santa Monica, CA) by Kovac Design Studio. Photo: Jeremy Bittermann Photography.

Kovac Design Studio seeks an Experienced Technical Architect and Architect/Designer

Firm Details: The studio is an award-winning, multidisciplinary architecture and product desi...

New additive manufacturing company aims to leverage 3D printing technology by transforming the way architects and designers can use wood waste

2021-05-18T16:20:00-04:00

3D print applications have revolutionized industries from architecture, construction, furniture design, and fashion. Last year, 3D print fabrication aided in provided medical professionals, patients, and facilities with PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. As fabrication continues to develop and expand, a company based in Burlington, MA, has found a way to turn upcycled wood byproducts into a promising new avenue for additive manufacturing.

"With the power of high-speed, high-resolution 3D printing, Forust is giving a new life to a discarded resource - creating strong, beautiful and carbon-friendly wood products from wood waste. For each tree saved, we reduce the CO2 footprint by a metric ton over the tree’s life." Image and text courtesy of Forust

Forust, an exclusively owned subsidiary of 3D printing and rapid prototyping Massachusetts-based company Desktop Metal creates "high-volume additive manufacturing of end-use wood parts possible." Launched in 2021, Forust's system "upcycles wo...

Tiny 3D Printing: A laser-activated 3D printing technique pushes the limits of speed, size, and precision

2020-02-25T18:45:00-05:00

In recent years, 3D printing has become the go-to technology for designers looking to prototype and deploy new designs and products.

Researchers from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have made a great (tiny) leap forward in the technology by creating a groundbreaking printing method that uses translucent liquid and a spinning container to produce tiny 3D prints.

According to a press statement by EPFL, "The new technique draws on the principles of tomography, a method used mainly in medical imaging to build a model of an object based on surface scans. The printer works by sending a laser through the translucent gel – either a biological gel or liquid plastic, as required."

Image still courtesy of EPFL.

As one can imagine, this new micro 3D-printing system has potential applications in a range of fields, including architecture.

3D printing company Readily3D is already in the process of creating a version of this print system that will be available for the market. The tr...

Engineered quartz countertops pose hazards for material fabricators

2019-12-02T18:47:00-05:00

workers have gotten sick, and even died, after cutting this engineered stone and breathing in its dangerous dust, public health officials say. Overseas, some are even calling for a ban on selling engineered quartz for countertops.

NPR takes an investigative look at some of the workplace safety issues that have arisen amid explosive growth in the engineered quartz industry over recent decades.

The report looks into the incidence of silicosis—a debilitating and progressive lung disease caused when someone inhales silica dust in large and regular quantities—among engineered quartz workers. Silica is a major component of many engineered stone varieties, including in Cosentino's Stone System and Silestone product lines, which are highlighted in the report. The report delves into the company's hit-and-miss efforts to reduce and eliminate the creation of the toxic dust particles that cause the disease by replacing "dry cutting" and "dry grinding" processing operations with water-mediated techniques.

The University of Maine sets three world records by 3D printing a 25-foot-long boat

2019-10-21T19:20:00-04:00

The possibilities of 3D printing and fabrication have propelled design by pushing the limitations of digital computation and construction. Earlier this month, the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center used the world's largest 3D-printer to break a whopping three world records by producing a 25-foot-long, 5,000-pound ship. Named the 3Dirigo, the 3D printed dream boat won three Guinness World Records for the World's Largest Prototype Polymer 3D Printer, the Largest Solid 3D-Printed Object, and the Largest 3D-Printed Boat.

The success of the project was not only due to the size of the 3D print, but also because of the materials used to accomplish it, wood. Yes, wood. The pivotal detail within the project is the implementation of using bio-based materials like wood as an alternative building material for large scale constructions that use metal.

Besides the accolades and recognition, the project helped realize a design alternative for manufacturing infrastru...

Architects in the UK reconsider their relationship with manufacturers and mass standardization

2019-07-12T13:49:00-04:00

It is now almost 80 years since the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act enabled the construction of the post-war prefab, but controversies and concerns about building a home in a factory have run deep ever since. While practically every other item we buy rolls off a production line, housebuilding’s transition to the factory remains, for many reasons, problematic.

With the rise of automation and advances in building manufacturing, architects have considered if machines can replace the profession. However, makes the job so rewarding is thinking of new and creative ways to execute ideas. This level of creativity and design distinction is something architects argue towards replacement by automation alone. However, in the UK, architects are learning to reassess their relationships with manufacturers and understand the silver lining in mass standardization. In 1944 the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act was passed by the British Parliament as a response to providing families with homes after World War II. Several decades later, the housing market is forcing architects to acquire new perspectives when it comes to manufacturing and how new relationships could foster better results.

According to Josephine Smit of the RIBA Journal, "with a skills shortage, a push from government and impetus from the build to rent sector, manufacturers and offsite s...

Honey, I Shrunk the Objects: MIT researchers develop system for shrinking objects to nanoscale

2018-12-19T14:07:00-05:00

Researchers at MIT have developed a way to shrink objects to nanoscale. Using a technology called implosion fabrication, the method allows objects to be 3D printed at a scale smaller than what one can see with a microscope. "It’s a way of putting nearly any kind of material into a 3-D pattern with nanoscale precision,” explains neurotechnology professor and lead researcher Edward Boyden.

The technology has far-reaching implications and has potential applications in many fields, from optics to medicine to robotics. For example, researchers are hoping to use this technique to make smaller and better specialized lenses for cameras, cell phones, microscopes and so on.

The way it works is "a bit like film photography," describes Daniel Oran, a graduate student and one of the paper's lead authors. First, a latent image is formed by exposing a sensitive material in a gel to light, says Oran. Then, by attaching materials such as metal or DNA to the structure, researchers are able to shrink...

9 Fabrication, Rendering, and Graphic Design job opportunities

2018-11-29T11:50:00-05:00

It's important to have a diverse team when it comes to seeing a project come to life. Whether it be fabrication, 3D modeling, renderings, or even graphic design it's these details that help give projects an extra element of possibility. This week we've curated employment opportunities for those seeking to use their digital talents with great firms.

Knotel is seeking an Environmental Graphic Designer in San Francisco
Working within the Launch Department, the Environmental Graphic Designer will be charged with designing unique environmental experiences in our San Francisco spaces. S/he will develop creative and strategic solutions to enhance the brand experience of our physical spaces. The Designer must have a passion for developing exceptional graphic, industrial, and experiential design, both static and dynamic. They must have a strong understanding of how size, scale, color, proportion, materiality, and finish are appropriate for a variety of interior and exterior environmental so...

The trials and tribulations of the 3D printer

2018-11-21T17:26:00-05:00

For one, there is no such thing as a 3D printer that doesn’t emit concerning microparticles into the air. Even industrial models that appear sealed, complete with fans and filters, put out measurable particulates.

Ask any architecture student, 3D printing can be one of the best and worst things about the design studio. Architectural drawings and renderings are necessary, but in order for the concept to really come to life 3D scale models have acted as catalysts for translating the vision. Physical scale models go hand in hand with architecture. However, just as architecture has developed over time so has the technology.

3D printers have changed the way architects and architecture students alike have communicated their ideas. Ranging in size and capacity, 3D printers can be found in almost every university, institute, and studio. Sci-Arc EDGE student, Laure Michelon, states printers are running "24/7. Everyday. Pretty much everyone has one. There are about 10 printers in our studio." Besides it taking up space, the trials and tribulations of getting the machine set and ready is a whole other ordeal. However, besides the tedious fabrication process, does the 3D printer pose a different kind of...

Zaha Hadid Architects' pays homage to Spanish-Mexican architect Félix Candela

2018-11-02T14:25:00-04:00

Showcasing their first exhibition in Latin America, Zaha Hadid Architects creates a dazzling structural form honoring architect and engineer Félix Candela. The Spanish-Mexican architect made several major contributions in shaping and developing Mexican architecture. One of his most notable contributions was the creation of thin, shell like structures made out of reinforced concrete called cascarones. In true Zaha Hadid fashion, the team was inspired by these structures and developed KnitCandela.

Los Manantiales, 1958 by Félix Candela Image © Gallery 400

KnitCandela Image © Juan Pablo Allegre

Constructed at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City, the process consisted of the introduction of new computational design methods and an innovative KnitCrete fabrication. Never failing to skimp on details, the structures overall form was inspired by the the colorful and fluid forms of traditional dresses of Mexico. The combination of soft and hard materials are marrie...

knowhow shop design offers a new approach to office construction

2018-10-15T15:24:00-04:00

In the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, architects Kagan Taylor and Justin Rice of knowhow shop have designed and built a new office for their design studio in their backyard. Named ‘Lighthouse’, the project is a micro-building that is a place for work and also a physical example of the studio’s thinking and practice

Diverting from traditional construction processes, the founders of knowhow shop, focus on the possibility of constructing an office testing their skills as craftsmen while challenging their understanding of spatial perception.

Image © Stephen Schauer

The office's unique shape and construction materials were custom designed by the founders themselves. A project, whose intricacies add to the stylistic beauty of the structure, "could not have been easily done by a contractor" claims the studio. Each facet of the structure used mitered SIPs and shop fabricated materials to accomplish the craft like aesthetic. Its overall form exhibits clear use of aperture to allow for natural light to enter the space.

Image © Stephen Schauer

Appropriately named Lighthouse, this custom micro-office reflects several elements of importance to the knowhow shop team. "Lighthouse is an office for our business, a showcase of our craft, and an example of the huge potential within rethinking the way we design a...

Morphosis announces opening of new flagship location for Kolon Group in Seoul

2018-08-28T16:12:00-04:00

Morphosis recently announced the opening of a new flagship research and design facility for The Kolon Group, a leading manufacturing company based in South Korea. The 820,000-square-foot facility is located in Magok, an emerging tech hub in Seoul.

Kolon Group facility by Morphosis, located in Seoul. Image: Jasmine Park, courtesy of Morphosis.

The design for the new facility features flexible laboratory facilities, administrative offices, and active social spaces to encourage interaction and exchange across the company departments.

Kolon Group facility by Morphosis, located in Seoul. Image: Jasmine Park, courtesy of Morphosis.

The façade consists of interconnected sunshades made from fiber reinforced polymer using one of The Kolon Group's own high-tech fabrics, Aramid, to increase the material’...

Watch these robots build a timber house structure in Switzerland

2018-03-30T14:57:00-04:00

A team of researchers from Swiss university ETH Zurich is to use robots to help assemble prefabricated timber modules into a 100 sq m, three-storey house. [...] The robots use information from a CAD model to cut and arrange the beams, then drill holes and connect them. Human workers bolt the beams together.

Photo: NCCR Digital Fabrication / Roman Keller

The Spatial Timber Assemblies robotic research project, with support from Switzerland's National Centre of Competence in Research Digital Fabrication, is the first large-scale architectural application for the construction robots at the new Robotic Fabrication Laboratory at the ETH Zurich.

Photo: NCCR Digital Fabrication / Roman Keller

"Unlike traditional timber frame construction, Spatial Timber Assemblies can manage without reinforcement plates because the required rigidity and load-bearing result from the geometric structure," the NCCR project description explains.

Photo: NCCR Digital Fabrication / Roman Keller

"Not only does this save material; it also opens up new creative possibilities. A total of six spatial, geometrically unique timber modules will be prefabricated in this way for the first time. Lorries will then transport them to the DFAB HOUSE construction site at the NEST in Dübendorf, where they will be joined to build a two-...

From concrete to composites, Designing Material Innovation exhibit at CCA addresses questions about our past, present, and possible futures

2017-10-24T17:58:00-04:00

From glass fiber reinforced concrete to upcycled waste foam, the building blocks of the future are being developed in the research labs of today and a current exhibit at the California College of Arts in San Francisco is putting some of these new methods and techniques on display. Curated by Jonathan Massey—the new Dean of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning—and designed by Clark Thenhaus of Endemic, Designing Material Innovation features five full-scale prototypes that conjoin form and material in fresh ways.

Located on the school's Back Lot, the five pieces "explore the functional and experiential dimensions of architecture generated at the intersection of formal and material research." All products of experimentation in and around North American architecture schools, the prototypes exemplify great technical capacities in concrete and composites. In showing advanced design and fabrication techniques, they demonstrate how "architectural research addresses...

New approaches to material, fabrication, and design on display at CCA's "Designing Material Innovation"

2017-09-27T19:18:00-04:00

Beginning tomorrow, the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, will host Designing Material Innovation, an exhibition being held on the College's Back Lot—soon to be converted into their new campus by Studio Gang—which will put on display new approaches to material, fabrication, and design. Created through collaborations between architects and industry partners, the works combine technological innovation in materials research and fabrication with aesthetic and ethical approaches to form and appearance.

"Confetti Urbanism" by Clark Thenhaus.

"Thinness" by Aptum Architecture.

The exhibition, and accompanying symposium, has been organized by Taubman's new dean Jonathan Massey and will feature five full-scale architectural prototypes and pavilions by CCA Digital Craft Lab, APTUM Architecture, Matter Design with M.I.T. Architecture, and T+E+A+M. Design of the exhibition has been carried out by Clark Thenhaus of Endemic Architecture and features a “confetti urbanism” that rearrang...

MIT's DCP robot can quickly print large-scale structures completely made of local materials

2017-05-10T15:02:00-04:00

[The] Digital Construction Platform (DCP) [is] a four-ton solar powered robot arm on tank tracks. And yet, it’s a working proof-of-concept that a machine can build a lot like a tree does, sourcing local energy and adapting to local conditions to construct a building out of local materials–anything ranging from dirt, to ice, to moon dust...The tip of the arm is fit with a nozzle that can mix and spray mud, foam, or concrete–basically any viscous building material you could imagine.

Designed by the MIT Mediated Matter group, the DCP robot is an “experimental enabling technology for large-scale digital manufacturing” that has shown impressive results in printing with various media, including light printing, excavation, welded-chain construction, and additive fabrication with the Print-in-Place process.

The DCP can potentially be used in the design and construction industries, but the lab is diving deeper into how to take their DCP technology to the next level — like constructing ice structures on the Moon or printing “living buildings” made of animal proteins and other microorganisms.

See the DCP in action below.

ACADIA's 'Floating Megalith' workshop challenges architecture's obsession with surface over volume

2016-11-04T14:24:00-04:00

Last Wednesday afternoon, traffic briefly stopped at the main entrance to the University of Michigan’s North Campus as 12 of us hauled a stark white blob the size of a jet ski up hills and across intersections. Curious and confused onlookers watched us as we carried what must have seemed like an unidentifiable object towards the small pond located behind the School of Music. Despite the cold and the rain, the workshop group prepared the form for its maiden voyage, and watched as its water ballast was filled, allowing the foam blob to slowly position itself into a floating megalith. Throughout this trek the workshop’s leader, MIT Assistant Professor Brandon Clifford, walked alongside answering questions. For Brandon, this procession towards the water was not just a familiar aspect of his research in megalithic constructions, but instead an essential element of the history and significance of volumetric design.

Two days earlier, Brandon began his ACADIA workshop session by telling the ...

ACADIA's 'Wooden Structures' workshop takes a hack at automated fabrication of multi-species structures

2016-11-02T13:26:00-04:00

There is a misleading myth that “architecture is just architecture”, that assumes that architecture is a form of knowledge that neither research definitions, nor processes applied in other disciplines, can be applied to architecture research. It is a myth that has been used enduringly as an excuse to avoid further forms of research, claiming that other disciplines do not have the capacity to comprehend the nature of the field and the kind of work it entails. While part of these claims might be true, these claims have led to the severance between architecture and other disciplines, thus marginalizing architecture. Furthermore, it has made architecture seek authority from other disciplines such as art and science.

In the last decade there has been a tremendous change in the way architecture is perceived, which came along with the growing awareness of the importance of research in architecture, initiating interdisciplinary research, and removing all the intellectual paradigm boundaries ...

One-to-One #42 with ACADIA workshop co-chairs Catie Newell and Wes McGee

2016-10-17T17:25:00-04:00

Aside from their role as workshop co-chairs for the ACADIA conference, this week's One-to-One guests are both architects who work and teach at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Their focus on fabrication led them to their roles at ACADIA, with McGee directing Taubman's FABLab and Newell serving as Director of the Master of Science in Material Systems and Digital Technologies.

ACADIA stands for the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture, and this year's conference, "Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers and Cognitive Machines" (October 27-29) attests to the extreme collaborative depths humans and machines have come to in architecture. I spoke with Catie and Wes about what they have planned for the conference workshops, taking place October 24-26, and just how close architects are to achieving the singularity.

You can see our coverage of prior ACADIA conferences here.

Listen to One-to-One #42 with Catie Newell and Wes McGee:

iT...

Fabricated robot installation at the V&A unveiled as part of their first Engineering Season

2016-05-18T12:00:00-04:00

To mark the beginning of it's first ever Engineering Season, the V&A has revealed a new large-scale installation in the John Madjeski Garden; Elytra Filament Pavilion.

The pavilion's components have been fabricated by a robot at the University of Stuttgart and then assembled on site. Utilsing biomimicry principles the structure is inspired by lightweight construction principles found in nature, specifically the fibrous structures of the forewing shells of flying beetles known as elytra.

This is the first public commission in the UK for experimental architect Achim Menges who has teamed up with Moritz Dörstelmann, structural engineer Jan Knippers and climate engineer Thomas Auer.

Achim Menges said: “Advances in the technologies of making have always been a catalyst for design innovation, which is nowhere more evident than at the V&A. With Elytra Filament Pavilion we aim to celebrate a truly contemporary and integrative approach to design, engineering and production, resulting in a dist...

Students branch out with algorithms and natural forms for AA Summer DLAB::WHITE

2015-01-07T20:04:00-05:00

Resembling the surrounding tree trunks in London's Hooke Park forest, the Callipod installation was created by a group of 18 students who participated in the AA School of Architecture's Summer DLAB::WHITE at AA London and AA Hooke Parke for nearly three weeks last summer. Students in the yearly summer workshop explore algorithmic/generative design methodologies fused with large-scale digital fabrication tools that aim to enhance architectural design. Following the Summer DLAB's color-based agenda, WHITE focused on investigating organic formation processes and reinventing them through architectonic structures.

In the first phase of the workshop, students designed their own proposals that had to include an algorithmic process with a logical approach in the design in addition to illustrating how each concept will be fabricated at a certain scale. The concepts that students developed were then applied in the second phase of realizing the paleolithic-looking Callipod in a span of one week...

3-D printing market predicted to grow to $16.2 billion by 2018

2014-04-08T19:05:00-04:00

The size of the [3-D printing] market ... is expected to grow to $3.8 billion this year and soar to $16.2 billion globally by 2018. [...] "This is a market with enormous growth potential now that the main barriers to up-take are being addressed," Shepherd said. "As it matures, there is clear and substantial potential across numerous sectors, such as engineering and architecture, aerospace and defense, and medical ... for 3-D printing to have a dramatic impact within five years."

Editor's Picks #350

2014-01-14T13:15:00-05:00

The latest edition of ShowCase highlights CRAB Studio’s Abedian School of Architecture in Queensland, Australia.

Plus, the fourth installment in Screen/Print (Archinect’s experimentation in translation across media) features "fruity labors" from the quarterly journal MAS Context's 20th issue, Narrative.

News
Architect Magazine reported the American Folk Art Museum will be razed for a Diller Scofidio + Renfro's designed MoMA expansion.

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg Editorial Manager for Archinect, went to the trouble of gathering "a slew of responses to the proposal, both indignant and accepting, from Archinect contributors and beyond".

HotelSphinx thought the excuses/reasons given for demolition were ironic "DS+R is a firm that made a building out of fog for the Expo in Yverdon-les-Bains in 2002. Yes, fog. But aligning floor plates is too difficult? They have got to be joking me".

Meanwhile, Mason White of Lateral Office was perplexed.

"Architects revolt about 2 high-society architecture firms in...