Computational Material Culture

Computation offers considerable possibilities for architecture, going well beyond the conventional sphere of design that focuses on the generation of complex geometries. Achim Menges , a regular contributor and guest-editor to 2, and Founding Director of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, is renowned for his pioneering approach to computation and materials. He describes how computation is enabling a convergence of the processes of form generation and materialisation, hailing in new areas of architectural speculation and experimentation, as demonstrated by the ICD/ITKE pavilions illustrated here.     

Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design

Though parametricism has its roots in the digital animation techniques of the mid-1990s, it has only fully emerged in recent years with the development of advanced parametric design systems. Patrik Schumacher explains why parametricism has become the dominant, single style for avant-garde practice today and why it is particularly suited to large-scale urbanism as exemplified by a series of competition-winning masterplans by Zaha Hadid Architects. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012: Coreless Filament Winding Based on the Morphological Principles of an Arthropod Exoskeleton

Advanced design, simulation and fabrication technologies facilitate the exploration and transferring of the morphological principles of fibrous systems from biology to technology. The ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012 pioneered such an approach for architecture. Jan Knippers, Riccardo La Magna, Achim Menges, Steffen Reichert, Tobias Schwinn and Frédéric Waimer of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart describe how they approached the design of the pavilion, which is located on the school's campus.     

To a Curator of Beautiful and Healthy Lives: A Note to Myself

How might architectural thinking and processes shift over the next 35 years? How might the architect's role be redefined with shifting ethical values? Could the architect be viewed as less of a design professional and more of a curator engaged in the development of healthy holistic environments, catering for all of society's needs? DaeWha Kang , an architect from 2050, writes to his earlier self, critiquing the work that he undertook in independent practice and as a design director at Zaha Hadid Architects in the mid-2010s. He describes how his design methodologies have evolved in the intervening years.     

一种污水处理构筑物泄压抗浮措施及其应用

构筑物抗浮是构筑物的基本要求之一,考虑不周会对构筑物造成破坏,因此必须对构筑物的整体抗浮、局部抗浮进行详细设计计算。构筑物的抗浮措施很多,泄压抗浮措施是其中之一,由于投资省,管理方便,通常用于临时抗浮措施。本文结合实例对这种抗浮技术进行分析介绍,希望为类似工程提供参考。     

从汶川地震的建筑震害谈结构概念设计的重要性

通过对汶川5.12地震部分灾区的初步考察,本文从建筑震害的现象分析入手,强调了结构抗震概念设计的重要性,并对此进行了思考,希望引起建筑界同仁的重视,切实做好建筑物的抗震防灾工作。     

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014–15: Fibre Placement on a Pneumatic Body Based on a Water Spider Web

Process-based biomimetics focuses on the transfer of biological principles to architectural construction. To realise the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2014 -15, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Valentin Koslowski, Achim Menges, Marshall Prado, Gundula Schieber and Lauren Vasey of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, sensor-driven robotic fabrication was combined with advanced design computation and simulation. This enabled the construction of an architectural fibre structure on a pneumatic mould, drawing on the complex design of the web of a water spider.     

Fibrous Tectonics

Living nature is characterised by ubiquitous and all-pervading diversity. Over the course of evolution, highly differentiated and infinitely varied systems have emerged in biology. Given the vast range of natural variation, it may come as a surprise that almost all load-bearing biological structures are fibrous composites. Guest-Editor Achim Menges , Director of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD), and Jan Knippers , Director of the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), both at the University of Stuttgart, have conducted several research projects exploring how the principles of biological fibre systems can be transferred to architecture. Based on advanced design computation, simulation and robotic fabrication, these explorations not only open up a new approach to fibre-reinforced composite structures, but also enable the discovery of novel fibrous tectonics.     

Optimising design decision-making for steel structures in fire using a hybrid analysis technique

Steel structures can be protected against the effects of fully-developed fires by the use of sprayed on materials, board systems and intumescent paints, etc. or by using sufficiently large unprotected elements. This paper presents how optimum decisions for the protection of steel structures in fires can be achieved in a performance-based design environment, given conflicting structural fire design decision criteria and multidisciplinary fire design stakeholder views. In particular, a novel hybrid analysis approach is proposed for combining stakeholder views on the different fire protection options and the numerical outcomes of structural fire analysis. As for the stakeholder views, reference is made to benefits and costs criteria priorities for assessing competing options resulting from a previous study from the same authors. The fire protection structural performance is numerically and probabilistically assessed according to a parametric study. The proposed approach is exemplified by making reference to a limit state structural fire design of single steel elements. A synthesis and ranking technique is then applied to integrate the qualitative results obtained in terms of benefits and costs priority scores; and the quantitative measures of failure probabilities and costs for the different fire protection options. The results show that the ranking technique accounts for multidimensionality in synthesising the structural fire design decision problem. The results also show that intumescent paints and board systems are the most cost-effective options in different stakeholder influence scenarios, given a general selection of steel structural fire protection. The hybrid technique is proposed to support an optimal and cost-effective structural fire design decision-making for buildings in a performance-based design environment.     

Material Behaviour: Embedding Physical Properties in Computational Design Processes

Material behaviour computes form. In the physical world, material form is always inseparably connected to internal constraints and external forces; in the virtual space of digital design, though, form and force are usually treated as separate entities – divided into processes of geometric form generation and subsequent engineering simulation. Using the example of the interdisciplinary ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion, constructed at the University of Stuttgart in 2010, Moritz Fleischmann, Jan Knippers, Julian Lienhard, Achim Menges and Simon Schleicher explain how feedback between computational design, advanced simulation and robotic fabrication expands the design space towards previously unexplored architectural possibilities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fabrication Agency: Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall

Advances in computation challenge established design approaches in architecture through a much deeper integration of form generation and materialisation. Tobias Schwinn , Research Associate at the Institute for Computational Design (ICD), University of Stuttgart, and Guest-Editor Achim Menges , Director of the ICD, introduce how the potentials and constraints of robotic fabrication can now be explored as generative drivers in agent-based design. This enables architectural innovation in unison with fabricability, structural capacity and spatial performance, as demonstrated by the Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall in Schwäbisch Gmu"nd, Germany, the world's first building with a robotically fabricated segmented timber shell as its primary structure.     

Breeding the Future

For Zbigniew Oksiuta energy from the sun offers the greatest potential for architecture, as the essential life-giving force for all living things. Here he urges a future of architecture that is biological, as demonstrated by his own featured bioforms that investigate the cultivation of new types of organisms and living biological products outside the confines of natural evolution. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14: Modular Coreless Filament Winding Based on Beetle Elytra

The ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14, presented here by Moritz Doerstelmann, Jan Knippers, Achim Menges, Stefana Parascho, Marshall Prado and Tobias Schwinn of the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) research team at the University of Stuttgart, is based on biological lightweight construction principles. It demonstrates how the development of integrative processes of design computation, simulation and robotic fabrication enable the simultaneous exploration of novel design possibilities, constructional effectiveness and robustness through the expression of material characteristics.     

Membrane Morphologies: Heterogeneous Forces and Articulated Material Form

Material behaviour is induced at the moment a structure, with its accompanying system of energies, is assembled. The research introduced here by Sean Ahlquist , Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, in textile manufacturing and membrane structures challenges the concept of assembly in an architectural context, where form emanates not only from the integration of forces and differentiated materials, but also through the pervasive influence of structural action at the moment of fibre construction and composition.     

Heinz Isler's Infinite Spectrum: Form-Finding in Design

Heinz Isler (1926-2009), the Swiss designer renowned for his shell structures, was extraordinary for his innovative and exacting work. He directly produced physical models by hand in order to not only create design prototypes, but also to generate scaled-up measurements for construction. John Chilton describes how Isler successfully applied the principle of the inverted catenary arch, which was first pioneered by Robert Hooke in Sir Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral in the 17th century, to thin membrane structures in three dimensions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Return of the Future: A Second Go at Robotic Construction

The last few years have witnessed a robotic revival with a reinvigoration of interest in what the robot can offer the construction industry. Martin Bechthold looks back at the first robotic boom during the 1980s and 1990s when millions of Japanese yen were invested in developing robots that could address the shortage of construction labour. Bechthold further explores the similarities and dissimilarities of the current and previous periods of activity, as supported by his research at Harvard's Graduate School of Design (GSD). Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Einheit von Wissenschaft und Kunst im Brückenbau: Hellmut Homberg (1909–1990) – Sein Beitrag zur Theorie des Brückenbaus (Teil II)

Aus dem baustatischen Œuvre Homberg s ragt sein Beitrag zur Theorie hochgradig statisch unbestimmter Trägerroste hervor, der im Folgenden im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung im Brückenbau und der Baustatik von den 1930‐er bis in die 1960‐er Jahre herausgearbeitet wird. Harmony between science and art in bridge‐building: Hellmut Homberg (1909–1990) – his contribution to the theory of bridges (part II). The one theory of Hellmut Homberg that stands out from the rest of his contributions to the theory of structures is that concerning grillages with a high degree of static indeterminacy. This is described below in conjunction with the development of bridge‐building and theory of structures from the 1930s to the 1960s.     

Thinking with Matter

Mark West considers the qualities of the analogue against the digital in the context of his work at the Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology (CAST) at Manitoba. Unable to fault the computer's ability to provide complex calculations for the fabrication of forms, he insists that the fidelity and investigative potential that he has found in the reality of the physical model and hand-drafted drawing have yet to be surpassed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A method for reliability-based economic design of building structures

In limit states design codes for building structures, the load and resistance factors are derived based on a ‘;target’ reliability index, which is determined based on a code calibration process. It is not clear whether the target reliability index selected through the code calibration is optimal with respect to the cost, because through calibration the structural safety is achieved quantitatively while the economic aspects are only considered qualitatively. The intention of the present paper is to formulate a basic approach to reliability-based economic design, based on structural reliability theory. The focus of the paper is to derive an analytical solution to optimized reliability index. A parametric study is conducted for sensitivity analysis of the optimal reliability index to different variables. Finally, the application of the solution to design codes, i.e. determining load and resistance factors in design formulae, is outlined.

Dans les codes de conception d'états limite se rapportant à la construction des structures de bâtiments, la charge et les facteurs de résistance reposent au départ sur un index de fiabilitié ‘cible’, qui est basé sur un processus de calibrage de code. Il n'est pas possible de savoir si l'index de fiabilitié cible choisi par le calibrage de code est optimal en ce qui concerne le coût parce que lors du calibrage, la sécurité structurelle est évaluée de façon quantitative. L'objectif de cet article est de formuler une appréciation de référence sur la conception reposant sur la fiabilité économique, basée sur la théorie de fiabilité structurelle; le point fort de ce texte est de trouver une solution analytique afin d'optimiser l'index de fiabilité. Une étude paramétrique est conduite pour analyser la sensibilité de la fiabilitié optimale de l'index par rapport aux diffeérentes variables. Au total, est proposée une solution consistant à concevoir des codes, c'est-à-dire la détermination de la charge et des facteurs de résistance sous l'aspect de formules.     

Rationalist Practice

Max Dudler's buildings, conceived as apparently autonomous and self-referential objects, nonetheless demonstrate a reciprocal relationship with the city and have, over the past two decades, presented a consistent Rationalist approach. Born in 1949 in Switzerland, Max Dudler studied architecture in Frankfurt/Main and Berlin. From 1981 to 1986 he worked in the office of OM Ungers on the projects for the Frankfurt trade fair, and has run his own practice, with offices in Berlin, Frankfurt and Zurich, since 1992. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.