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 between disciplines. The ACADIA conference serves as evidence of such awareness and collaboration, creating an interesting conversation between architecture, biology, fashion, software programming and structural and mechanical engineering. Such collaboration has presented an amazing opportunity to understand the content, processes and intentions of their work and research.

My experience at ACADIA has allowed me to meet different people from all walks of life, gain deep-rooted knowledge of other people's cultures, as well as share my own. Coming from Egypt, the richness of the country’s cultural background and the existence of such numerous outstanding historical civilizations have infused in me the love of art, thus enabling me to choose architecture as my major of studies. Upon graduation, I held several positions in the fields of architecture, urban design, and interior design, where I was exposed both to practical and academic functions through MSc Architecture research back in Egypt. Along with my teaching experience in architectural design at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, I have also ventured into private practice for an online interior design business, which is considered one of the first online interior design services to make design accessible to all people. Creating built environments that promote, empower, and sustain health and wellbeing is my deepest aspiration, resolving the relationship between the physical environment and human wellbeing.

Egypt, like any other developing country, is overwhelmed by socio-economic problems such as poverty, uncontrolled population growth and an unfair distribution of healthy conditions. These are merely a selected number of the challenges that are currently affecting not only developing countries across the world, but also diverse minorities worldwide. My craving for knowledge, as well as the aforementioned conditions of my homeland, are behind my continuing studies in material systems through The Master of Science in Architecture Design and Research at Taubman College. It is my firm belief that material systems, which are formed through complex feedback between matter, form, structure, energies, manufacturing processes, and the environment, have an immense effect on human wellbeing. Taubman and the University of Michigan possess outstanding resources, such as the FABLab, the Duderstadt Center with Motion Capture Lab and Immersive Virtual Environment, the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Lab, and the Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems which gave me the privilege to be exposed to one of the most advanced manufacturing facilities worldwide. The faculty, aware of the educational opportunities presented at the ACADIA conference, gave us the opportunity to choose one of seven workshops to join. My interest in wood material systems led me to join the interdisciplinary "Multi-Species Optimization of Long Span Wooden Structures" workshop, to explore the potential of such amazing material.

At the workshop, I was exposed to an innovative structural design to robotic fabrication workflow, involving optimizations for automation and multiple species of wood.

Why wood? The global demand for wood products is expected to double in the next 150 years, and the global wood industries are experiencing the highest growth since the 2008 economic crash. This growth is reflected in the International Building Code, which has recently adopted new terminology and protocols for height and material use, presenting new opportunities for the design of seismic and wind-resistive wood structures. Increasing demand for wood is in opposition to concerns over global deforestation. As designers, we are presented with new products and regulatory mechanisms for wood material systems, where new design methods and fabrication technologies are needed.

In the workshop, we explored new challenges and opportunities within the context of wood material systems, and learned that wood is an orthotropic—a material that exhibits has elastic properties in multiple directions. This behavior is perceived as a challenge for engineering design given the context of computational design, representing an opportunity for advanced structural performance optimization. In recent years, Additive Manufacturing (AM) and topological optimization techniques have aligned with the perceived demand for infinitely customizable cellular structures, ushering in new paradigms in AEC-related material and process research. These factors, when explored through the lens of computational workflows and robotic fabrication, present interesting and relatively under-explored opportunities.

The workshop expanded on the collaborative research efforts between The Virginia Tech Center for Design Research, Autodesk, and Walter P. Moore Engineering, where it utilized the newly developed integrated DynamoTM-to-Oasys GSA-to-Robotic Fabrication workflow while focusing on functional collaboration between academia, industry, and design practice. When asked about the value of this type of collaboration, industry technology leader Gustav Fagerstrom of Walter P. More Engineering stated that “because of the highly applied nature of the culture of building, the absolute most valuable research output is oftentimes achieved at the intersection of academia, industry, and design practice. We are neither an art, a science nor a vocational discipline, but we touch on these. Only when we can tap in to expertise from all fields in parallel streams that we can really affect meaningful societal impact and applied technological development through building.”

During the first day of the workshop, we were introduced to the visual scripting interface Dynamo—an open source, graphical algorithm editor that enables users to construct their own generative tools per their own specifications, in which we started to design a hybrid structure. The following day we learned to perform a nonlinear structural analysis in Oasys GSA using custom elastic-orthotropic material definitions. To facilitate this, the team developed an interoperability protocol between Autodesk Dynamo and the analysis application. Global shape optimization was obtained and stress distribution extracted. Following this Euler buckling, analysis was performed inside Dynamo for each member taking compressive loads, evaluating them for maximum allowable load and selecting the proper wood species automatically from a database, as well as updating the analysis graph iteratively after each member change. Because of this process, the final structure consists of an array of wood species, where each bar member has the best possible strength-to-weight ratio without varying the cross section. This data was then translated into fabrication, resulting in the robotic manufacturing of 300 custom nodes that will be used to assemble an optimized long-span wood structure on the Virginia Tech campus in the coming weeks.

The workshop was an immensely enriching experience, representing a real-world problem that one can face in practice, while at the same time creating our own design problem which provoked more questions for research. In order for architecture as a profession to have the full advantage of research from both the academic and practical perspective, there must be recognition of the value of overlaying interdisciplinary bodies of knowledge. This will establish a link between practice, academia and fabrication, which will help architecture regain authority not by divorcing itself from other disciplines, but by using them as a lens to view architecture.

Workshop leaders were: Gustav Fagerstrom and Steve Lewis of Walter P. Moore Engineering; Nick Cote from Autodesk; and Nathan King of the Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design, Center for Design Research. As a platinum ACADIA sponsor, Autodesk provided additional scholarships and awards including the Autodesk ACADIA Student Conference Travel Scholarships, and the Autodesk ACADIA Research Excellence Awards to support outstanding peer-reviewed papers and projects.

Listen to Archinect's podcast with ACADIA workshop co-directors Catie Newell and Wes McGee: