Pedagogical Explorations of an Open- Source Architecture Paradigm in Emerging Design Technologies

Open-Source Architecture is an emerging paradigm advocating peer-to-peer collectivity, inclusiveness and participatory culture in architectural design. These conditions support a broad interest at the intersection of education, research and practice in emerging design technologies exploring formal complexity, performance, biomimicry and responsiveness. In the last decade, rich participatory, open-source communities, open-source software, and open-source hardware, created by and designed for the fields of parametric and algorithmic design, visual programming, and physical computing have emerged with resulting opportunities for change in architectural education. We discuss pedagogical approaches that introduce pathways for open-source cultures in architectural design and personal learning networks for professional development.

Visioning Energy: Environmental Simulation, Visualization and the Instrumental Nature of Energy

A glance at the recent history of the evolving conceptual relationship between energy and building related disciplines, reveals the coextensive emergence of tools and crisis. Whether economic, environmental, technological or cultural, these conditions are shadowed by an analogous — and exponential — leap in the power of computing along with a reciprocal decline in its cost (Figure1). Moreover, it is not a coincidence that the progressive growth of computation based tools used in the evaluation of interior atmospheres is paralleled by similar historic benchmarks in twentieth-century environmentalism. First adopted in 1965, the ASHRAE Standard 55 (Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy), for example, established a metric for indoor thermal comfort, and arrived during an era which saw the first energy crisis and also began to consider the impact of buildings within ecologies.

Digitally-driven Fabrication of Fiber-reinforced Composite Panels for Complex Shaped Envelopes

Composite materials have been explored in architecture for their high performance characteristics that allow customization of functional properties of lightness, strength, stiffness and fracture toughness. Particularly, engineering advancements and better understanding of fiber composites have resulted in growing applications for architectural structures and envelopes. As most new developments in material fabrication start outside the realm of architecture such as in automobile and aeronautical industries, there is need to advance knowledge in architectural design to take advantage of new fabrication technologies. The authors introduce results of new digitally driven fabrication methods for fiber-reinforced composite sandwich panels for complex shaped buildings. This presentation discussed the material properties, manufacturing methods and fabrication techniques needed to develop a proof of concept system using off-the-shelf production technology that ultimately can be packaged into a mobile containerized facility for on-site panel production. The researchers conducted experiments focusing on developing a digitally controlled deformable mold to create composite relief structures for highly customized geometrical façade components. Research findings of production materials, fabrication methods and assembly techniques, are discussed to offer insights into novel opportunities for architectural composite panel fabrication and commercialization.

The Future of Architectural Design in the Post-Digital Era

Our presentation at the 2016 AIA Intersections Symposium described a multi-disciplinary research agenda that ponders where architecture, as a discipline and a practice, sits with respect to the age of ubiquitous data. That presentation and the synopsis that follows is focused on our on-going development of novel tools and frameworks to advance decision support for building design and construction in this context. A propos to the workshop theme, Innovative Technologies in Design and Delivery, our work is motivated by emerging technologies in computational and data science that may revolutionize the way the built environment is conceived and produced and, consequently, what that means for the Future of Design in a Post-Digital Era.

Optimizing Early Design Process Decision Making Through Effective Problem Framing

Building design and delivery activities, from programming to commissioning, draw on different strengths of architects including a unique form of problem solving that appears mysterious and personal. More common early in the design process, an intuitive approach, and a paucity of arguments connected to the financial interests of owners, masks the capacity of architects to provide valued adding integral sustainable design solutions which others can effectively provide. An inclination toward intuition, and simulating early phase design problem solving, is consistent with how architecture schools teach, supplementing core studio curriculum with course work structured to introduce detailed knowledge. Within schools, this division is supported by the perception that numerical, and technical considerations, inhibit creativity and fluid output.