Assignment 5 flowlines

the working process of flowline!

Monica Reading Response 003: Models, Prototypes, and Archetypes

Mark Burry’s essay on “Models, Prototypes, and Archetypes” explores the relationship of the model to the fast-growing field of digital technology and fabrication. He mentions “file-to-factory” as a term used by aeronautical designers to describe projects that are fabricated directly from their CAD files. This process is finding its way into architecture, and many predict that digital fabrication technologies will speed up the design process and cut out many steps between design and final form. However, Burry uses the example of the building of the Sagrada Familia Church to argue that these processes do not necessarily speed up design, but instead change it and its components.

                In order to understand Burry’s argument, it’s important to understand the distinction he makes between the terms “model”, “prototype”, and “archetype”. Models are representations to demonstrate form or construction, but can have varying degrees of similarity to the final object. Prototypes are like models, but are meant to be true to the final form, so that other parts can be built and modelled off of it. Archetypes are prototypes that define a new style or building concept, and can be used as the original prototype for many other projects.

                Digital fabrication allows for models to be made at scales and out of materials that are similar to the final object. The columns at Sagrada Familia were created as models in polystyrene using a CNC machine, but then used as prototypes for the real columns. Burry argued that these columns could also become archetypes, since other archetypes for the style used at Sagrada Familia do not exist.

This creation of unique parts is common to the way that digital fabrication is used in architecture. Although fabricated models can be used as prototypes and archetypes, many of them are unique to each project and cannot be used as archetypes for the future. Because of this, Burry points out that digital fabrication does not cut out the stages of design, but instead changes their form. In the case of the Sagrada Familia columns, the fabrication was a relatively simple task, but the creation of the complex geometry required a good deal of design using models, math, and programming. In other words, the design process is still very present, but takes a somewhat different form than before. Similarly, the model, the prototype, and the archetype are still present, but are used differently due to their changing design and fabrication methods.

Lena Pfeiffer_Reading 003_Models Prototypes and Architypes

“Models, Prototypes and Archetypes”, by Mark Burry discusses the issues of the introduction of technology to extend traditional practice and how this may force us to reconsider the meaning and use of the model, the prototype, and the archetype. Burry describes the model as "a representation, generally in miniature, to show the construction or appearance of something.  This is different from the prototype which is the "original or model on which something is based or formed". Lastly, the archetype is "the original pattern of model form which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype."  This article discusses the use of these tools in the architectural practice and how with the introduction of new technology to the field, these tools have shifted.  He discusses his work for Sagrada Familia and how that has lead him to new discoveries within the design world concerning models. He discusses how his research on Gaudi's unfinished Sagrada Familília Church project is based completely on the prototype model and not the missing drawings that would typically have been the main tool for the research. By introducing these new technological tools, we have increased the complexity within the design possibilities, and allowed for the emergence of entirely new models, prototypes and archetypes that fit our current time.  This "file to factory" process has become the norm within mainstream architecture and design.  3D printers are becoming more and more common and laser cutters are a basic tool found in most architecture schools.  Using software and machines offers economical opportunities for products to be created and replicated easily.  Burry ask, what comes next? Have we transcended form "relatively straightforward design exploration, resolution, development and representation to a new state without really noticing?"

Michaels Reading Response: Models, Prototypes and Archetypes

The reading this week, "Models, Prototypes and Archetypes" examines the role of the model within the digital age. Author Mark Burry expands upon this idea relating it to his progressive work on Antoni Gaudi's famed Sagrada Familia. The intricacies of Gaudi's work, specifically referring to the Passion Facade Portal, provides a strong basis for the use of digital fabrication for both small scale representation and 1:1 prototyping. Burry integrates the laborious practice of traditional stone cutting with the 5-axis robot, drastically reducing the time and effort used to produce models. With the implementation of digital fabrication the design becomes a process, thus allowing for responsive design and full scale rapid prototyping. This new process of prototyping ultimately led to a better understanding of Gaudi's original design intentions.

Digital fabrication practices have become a standard method for the production of representation, leading Burry to question the role of the model and prototype in architecture. The digital age has found numerous ways of blurring the notion of the model as a form of representation, becoming more about the complex process of production. Referring back to the stone cutting process, we can see this as a method for blurring the definition of model and prototype. Through digital fabrication the large stone model becomes the representation of process, the development "how it was created" and how it can be geometrically realized. The prototype acts as the final representation, a culmination of the modeling process, proving the feasibility of the architectural model. Blurring the lines between model and prototype can be seen through the mainstream use of digital fabrication, ultimately shifting the role of the architectural model.  

Hillary Davlin 003: Models, Prototypes and Archetypes

“Models, Prototypes and Archetypes”, written by Mark Burry, explores the role that digital fabrication plays in blurring the line between model, prototype and archetype. In this article, Mark Burry reflects on his time working on the Sagrada Familia, framing it as an example of how digital fabrication has altered the designer’s view. As new technology emerged, five-axis robots replaced the role of a stonecutter, allowing stonecutters to finish the stone to perfection and significantly reduce the time of production. In this sense, the design went straight from the software on the computer to the software controlling the robot (a process Burry terms as “file to factory”). Burry argues that this has not only eased the responsibility of the designer, but it has also changed the function of the physical model. The model, while it is still a physical representation of a design concept, is also a prototype.  This stone cut model represents the digital process and production that went on behind the scenes. With the emergence of new innovation, digital fabrication has blurred the line between model and prototype, thus changing the role for the new archetype.

            Mark Burry makes a very concise and accurate argument. As students begin to use digital fabrication to produce their final models in studio, the model no longer is solely a physical representation of design. The curiosity of the model changes from what are you representing, to how did you make that?? In this sense, the model produces a duality between model and prototype, changing its archetype. While we are still uncertain if the connotation associated with this is positive or negative, digital fabrication has surely shifted the paradigm of the architectural model.

Flowlines

Generating flowlines for drawing on a vacuum formed surface. 

The total length of the path is 4891mm.

Robo Highfive!

Modelscope!

In this Assignment the objective was to create a model fly through using an endoscope camera tool mounted to the robot. 

Time Lapse Video

Music credit: AEONS - DRAG [EDM.COM EXCLUSIVE]

Model Fly Through 

Music Credit: Big Black Delta - Money Rain Down

BMO P4 part 1 flythru

Hillary Davlin 002: Digital Design and Manufacturing

This article, “Digital Design and Manufacturing”, looks into manufacturing design and systems that are implemented in different shops.  Taking the typology of different manufacturing and production plants, the article informs and distinguishes the difference between job shops (small production shops), project shops (medium production shops where parts are made elsewhere) and flow shops (high production shops).  Another large component of these shops, which resonates with our class, are industrial robots. Robots in a manufacturing setting are typically used in settings were the tasks are dangerous, very repetitive or require extreme precision (like in an automotive or technological production plant). These robots have similar components to the Kuka robots, including basic arm assembly, end effectors, programmable controllers, feedback and sensory input devices, a drive unit and associated servomechanisms. The Effectors and work envelope (which is the robot’s spatial volume limit) typically define the Industrial Robot from other robots. Robots, in addition to different manufacturing approaches and systems, help define productivity and the “quality” of output.

            This article, while it is oriented towards production and manufacturing systems, is also applicable to robotic fabrication used in an architectural setting. Taking into consideration the different systems that are used in a production plant, we can intuitively apply the same techniques when deemed appropriate. When we, as architecture students, need to produce a model, which requires very monotonous production movements, we may consider using a robot to speed up productivity and perhaps our aesthetic of “quality”.  By considering the Kuka robot like an industrial robot, we may be able to create quick, iterative products that help us reconsider our design and production processes.

Monica Reading Response 002: Manufacturing Systems and Strategies

Chapter 17 of Digital Design and Manufacturing delves into the different fabrication methods used in the production of goods, and the way that these methods differ depending on the work flow or business model.

                One important distinction to make in the fabrication process is the scale of production to be created. For very large scale production (50,000 to 100,000 units), machines are often very specialized and every part of the process is automated. In smaller scales of production, prototype shops or job shops are used. These shops have general purpose machines that must be programmed by highly skilled workers. They are more expensive per unit, but each unit can be more specialized and individual. The job shop process is much more similar to the process that we follow with Titey and Mitey; thousands of different tasks could potentially be accomplished by the robots, but each task requires thought and preparation.

                The article also delves into different types of industrial robots. The type of joint and arm movement (e.g. Cartesian, cylindrical, polar) creates robots that are more suited to different tasks. For example, articulated joints are slow but allow for a wider range of motion and precision than other configurations.

                The tools themselves are important parts of fabrication processes, but the workflow and production process itself is just as important. There are many different manufacturing strategies, aimed toward waste reduction, speed, efficiency, and integration of computers with machines. These manufacturing models require different types of machines and different assembly line setups.

                Throughout this chapter, there is an emphasis on the information systems associated with manufacturing, in addition to the machines themselves. In order to achieve efficient processes and quality products, it is important to consider factors such as the type of machine, the order that the process is completed in, and the interaction of workers, designers, programmers, and engineers. Although we are not working with any large scale production in our class, these lessons can be used as we begin to develop our design concepts. We should not only think of the end product, but also of the order in which each part will be completed, and which tasks should or should not be done with the robots.

Jeffrey's Reading Response #1

From this reading by Albert Smith introduces how machines, or small scale models has been pushing the limit of architecture and satisfy the curiosity to the world and reality.

Even at Gaudi's time we can see how his three-dimensional studies helps him to studies and understand the universe and thus the reality in order. Gaudi's hanging chains model was, to Gaudi, the search of the invisible things, God.

Proceeding to constructivism, both Tatlin and Lissitzky were looking for a new reference standard of the world order as Communism does not accept religion to explain the invisible things. Thus their models were to define and suggest what is communism. It was, however, Stalin later on "took control of the reference standard and tightly controlling its definition" because these machines suggest the new society with too many possibilities for the Communist Party (106). Tatlin's and Lissitzky's reference standard was then being taken over even though they "offered an important sense of measure and scale between man, technology, and the chaos of the unknown" (108).

While Kahn was hoping to find the underlying form of the world through the small-scale model machine, through the model he received unexpected representation from the model that questions his religious faith, which is also his reference standards. This scale model then led him to a new search of his own reference standard of the reality.

For Libeskind, the small-scaled study models were to destroy, to decompose architecture, and then recompose it. This is totally like how architectural students first go into architecture school to have their perception of architecture destroyed and then being rebuilt again.

In conclusion, machines in architecture are an agency to visualize the invisible things which help us understand the reality or the reference standard for architecture. It an attempt to understand, define, and measure. Without these models, these intangible ideas would become difficult to be conceptualized and new ideas would be more difficult to be developed. 

BMO_Lightpainting

vid of our lightpainting.

Early Testing.

.

Linear Moves 

Point to Point Moves

Spline Moves

Circ Moves Error

Hillary Davlin's Reading Response #1

" Pandora and the Modern Scale Model Machine" discusses the changing yet prevailing role of the scale model "machine" within architecture. The scale model machine is a device that goes beyond a literal model-it is a conceptual architecture model that creates experience and defines what is believed to be invisible. Beginning in the mid 18th century, scale model machines have been used as tool in order to fuel architectural feats from the Sagrada Familia to Liveskind's drawings. Intertwining art and technology, these machines are mechanisms that define concept and societal shifts. These machines thus try to make the intangible, tangible, projecting new designs and ideas into the future.

Gaudi, the architect of the Sagrada Familia, used infamous chain models to distinguish complex geometric arches and form. By using these mathematical chain models as a sort of scale model machine, Gaudi strove to represent the purity in religion, the inexplicable, invisible things, and God as a figure.

While the intent of these machines varied as the years progressed, the scale model machine continued to propel new architecture designs into and throughout the 19th century. Tatlin, an artist by trade, created the Monument to the Third International as a small scale of utiliarian power. Shifting towards a communist, alchemist stance, this complex, twirling and dynamic model highlights that society (unlike Gaudi's days) is ran by the people, not God. Lisskitzky, much like Tatlin, tried to replicate a new and changing society through architecture model machines. Tatlin designed small, tentative models for the Five Year Plan. Through the dynamic, spatial relationships, these models not only deployed the new way of life, but they also destroyed the old, stringent ways in the process.

Architect, Louis Kahn, questioned the role of the scale model machine in society. Kahn believed that architecture is representation or model of consciousness and culture. Thus, instilling the ideology of the box of pandora, the scale model highlights the failures and uncontrollable elements within society. The model machine therefore becomes a measurement of perceived chaos and imbalance.

This chapter concludes with Libeskind and how he used the scale model machine to represent freedom from all limitations and chaos. Unlike Kahn who almost had a negative connotation with chaos, Libeskind uses his abstract drawings as a model which embraces chaos. Through a continual destructive, rebuilding and rewriting process,  Libenskind shows that the model machine is more important than the physical building of a city.

Monica Reading Response 001: Pandora and the Modern Scale Model Machine

                Pandora and the Modern Scale Model Machine discusses the imposition of a set of constraints over the architectural process by exploring the scale models of Gaudi, Tatlin, El Lissitzky, Kahn, and Liebeskind. Each architect can be seen to use the scale model as a way to set up reference standards for their own architecture and world view. The scale models could be used as prototypes against which to measure architecture and set up constraints to govern their own work.

                For Gaudi, scale models were used as way to generate new forms influenced by the geometry of nature.  As a pious Catholic, he lived his life by the rigid constraints of the church, and his architecture reflected his religion. He believed that the use of math and natural geometry would better allow his churches and buildings to glorify God. Gaudi’s hanging chain models allowed him to develop catenary curves in his buildings, and therefore to derive his forms from the forces of nature, which he defined as the forces of God.

                In contrast to Gaudi’s Catholic centered system of reference standards, El Lissitsky and Tatlin believed in Communism and worked within the constructivist movement. Tatlin’s tower, a centerpiece of the constructivist movement, served as a model of the new social order. The tower symbolized a fulcrum to be moved by the will of the masses, and the blank screens thoughout it were also meant to distill the will of the Soviet people and project it back to them. The tower also symbolized an ideal human, with spines, ribs, and moving inner organs. This tower, therefore, was created not as a geometrical model, but as an emotional or ideological model of what communist Russia could be. El Lissitzky, working under a similar reference standard, created sculptural objects called Prouns that symbolized the continual creation of the new. These Prouns emphasized order, rationality, and a constant movement forward.

                For Louis Kahn, in the design of the Memorial to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs in New York, the use of the scale model proved insufficient in the face of the social chaos that his project discovered. He began by creating a model of a glass structure, because of the unaccusing character of the material. However, he soon decided that the glass was too chaotic, and created steel edges to the structure in an attempt to define the space and create some sort of order in the face of the social ills that the Holocaust Memorial represented.

                Daniel Libeskind’s drawings represent examples of models that have been taken even further into chaos than Louis Kahn’s models. Unlike the architects mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, Libeskind rejects reference standards for his drawings, giving him total control but also opening up the possibility of total chaos. The author describes how Libeskind eventually moved from his drawings to the creation of machines to help read, remember, and write architecture. These machines were used to once again establish order and a set of reference standards, and were a refreshing contrast from the exhausting freedom of his conventionless drawings.

                The description of this varied array of architects helps to point out that rules, baselines, and standards are important tools in the creative process. Some sets of rules, whether imposed by a religion, a government, or pure geometry, are useful ways to direct creativity. When an architect has no rules, he or she must answer for every decision made. Total freedom without reference standards eschews order and invites chaos.

Assignment 002

Here's our group's attempt to maneuver the robot by ourselves:

And here we are running the program.

Lena Pfeiffer
Michael Paul
Hillary Davlin
Jeffrey Wong
Monica Griffin

Assignment001

Lena Pfeiffer
Michael Paul
Hillary Davlin
Jeffrey Wong
Monica Griffin