Lawrence Sass

The Instant House: A Model of Design Production with Digital Fabrication:

Through a novel design production system, we have developed the ability to produce highly customized wood framed buildings for rural communities in need of designed environments. A definitive need exists for a system that rapidly deploys small buildings such as schools, small hospitals and houses while tailored for a specific design within a community. This paper describes the relationship of digital fabrication to materials and rules for design and fabrication. By example, this paper presents a process of construction of a small house on-site from an initial computer model in sequential stages. Our case study in this paper will express possibilities with digital fabrication for building with designed variation.

A Palladian construction grammar—design reasoning with shape grammars and rapid prototyping

Presented is a production system that generates information for physical model manufacture with a 3D-printing device. Defined here as a construction grammar, rule sets based on 16th-century-masonry construction are used to generate a villa model as a 3D construct. The derivation of the grammar demonstrates a design process based on physical constraints as the primary means of grammar structuring. The paper claims that construction rules can be used to build villas in Palladios corpus, starting with a floor-plan drawing as the initial shape, with little need for an elevation drawing. This paper introduces unexplored issues of physical reasoning in the field of computing and design as part of the rule-building process. As a detailed example, a Palladian villa (the Villa Cornaro) is fabricated as a 3D-printed model (scale 1:120) from an eleven-part set of rules based on field analysis of Palladios constructed villas.

A wood frame grammar: A generative system for digital fabrication

A novel design system is presented that generates information for house construction exclusively from 3/4“plywood sheets. A shape grammar routine is employed to subdivide an initial solid shape into constructible components for desktop digital fabrication and design evaluation as a physical model. Once approved final construction can happen with components cut on a CNC wood router after the design has been validated by a laser cut model. Shape grammar rule format is used to design functions that build geometry later converted to a scripting language in CAD. Future goals for the grammar are to develop a complete CAD program that translates 3D designs to 2D drawings for flat digital fabrication. The ultimate goal of the program is to automate the translation of solid models to information for digital fabrication. Currently a manual process the translation allows the designer to focus on the visual aspects of evaluation at any scale with little concern for constructability.

Looks count: Computing and constructing visually expressive mass customized housing

Abstract This paper introduces new research that seeks to develop low-cost, high quality, mass customizable building assembly systems that provide visually rich design variations for housing or other small structures. The building systems are intended to be tailored for particular cultures and communities by incorporating vernacular decorative design into the assembly design. Two complementary research areas are brought together in this work: shape grammars and digital fabrication. The visual, aesthetic aspects of the research are explored through shape grammars. The physical design and manufacturing aspects are explored through advanced digital design and fabrication technologies, and in particular, build on recent work on monomaterial assemblies with interlocking components that can be fabricated with computer numerical control machines and assembled easily by hand. The long-term objective of this research is the development of formal, visual–physical grammars with rules that generate complete computer-assisted design/computer-assisted manufacturing data for fabrication of full-scale components for assembly design variations. This paper reports on the first phase of this research: pilot studies for prototype assembly systems that incorporate vernacular languages from different parts of the world. The results of these studies are very promising, and demonstrate a spectrum of strategies for embedding visual properties in structural systems. Important next steps in this research are outlined. If successful, this work will lead to new solutions for low-cost, easily manufactured housing, which is especially critical in developing countries and for postdisaster environments. These new housing solutions will not only provide shelter but also support important cultural values through the integration of familiar visual design features. Beyond the specific context of housing and building assemblies, the research has the potential to impact the design and manufacture of designed artifacts on many scales and in many domains, especially in domains where visual aesthetics need to be considered jointly with physical, structural, or material requirements, and where design customization and variation is important.

Wood Frame Grammar

This paper demonstrates a novel method to generate house designs completely from 3/4” plywood sheets. A shape grammar routine is employed to divide an initial solid shape into constructible components for fabrication by CNC wood routing. The paper demonstrates programmable functions that can be performed using CAD scripting. Future goals for the grammar are to develop CAD programs for digital fabrication using CNC routers. The programs will automate the fabrication process allowing the designer to focus on the visual aspect of design evaluation at any scale with little concern for constructability.

Fresh Press Modeler

For designers, digital manufacturing machines, such as laser cutters and CNC machines, support rapid prototyping of low-cost, low fidelity physical models. These machines can be used as an alternative to additive manufacturing. Unfortunately there are few CAD tools that provide access for fabrication of complex 3D geometries with these 2D fabrication machines. The literature contains a few novel systems that generate planar structures as models built of layered material or as interlocking planes with unique joining features. In this paper, a Fresh Press modeler is presented as a novel system that generates tailored geometry for ease of assembly. A major benefit of Fresh Press is the ability to produce fabrication data leading to a watertight planar structure. Assembly between planes is sustained by interlocking finger joints generated on each planar component of the model. The Fresh Press modeler parameterizes planar surfaces and interlocking features for user control and model quality. We end by demonstrating the system with examples of solid models and negative models used for mold making. Graphical abstractPlanar surfaces complete with finger joints at edges are generated by Fresh Press Modeler from a triangle mesh model.Display Omitted HighlightsAutomatic finger joint generation.Rapid prototyping of watertight structure.True representation of a 3D model based on laser cut parts.

Parametric Constructionist Kits: Physical Design and Delivery System for Rapid Prototyping Devices

In this paper we illustrate a design methodology based on constructionist learning principles with CAD modeling and rapid prototyping. The belief is that a constructionist approach to design development extends design possibilities beyond the visual aspects of rendering and animation to building construction by way of component-based parametric modeling. This is demonstrated by way of construction kits as a proposed system of physical design production, individually and in groups. Results of the system are data sets for model manufacturing, hand assembly and design feedback. The impact of this work is to teach physical modeling as a system of production that will allow a designer hands-on learning of building structure, material mechanics and building component behavior. Also design success is newly defined as a relationship between the visual and physical evaluation; not just the visual. The paper ends with examples of complex design models generated from elements in the construction kit and a physical design grammar used to guide element assembly. Although the examples in this paper satisfy model making for building structures we believe this system can be useful for anyone who needs to construct physical artifacts beyond traditional scales found in rapid prototyping.

Embodied prototyping: exploration of a design-fabrication framework for large-scale model manufacturing

ABSTRACTFor designers of large products such as boats, cars and houses, there have been few cost-effective machines or methods in support of one-to-one, large-scale physical prototyping. A novel physical production system is demonstrated, aiming at rapid prototyping of large-scale models. Research questions address possible ways that the system can support design prototyping as opposed to manufacturing. We present computational methods used to generate model data, principle of decomposition of a large model, and assembly of components to form 3D prototypes. The process of model making in this study revealed an extended use of human body. Our view on embodied cognition in relation to the development of the large-scale rapid prototyping system is discussed. We end with a projection of new possibilities for large-scale prototyping that engages the human body.

Designerly Pick and Place: Coding Physical Model Making to Inform Material-Based Robotic Interaction

To study how designers explore ideas when making physical models we ran an experiment in which architects and undergraduate students constructed a dream house made of blocks. We coded their interactions in terms of robotic pick and place actions: adding, subtracting, modifying and relocating blocks. Architects differed from students along three dimensions. First, architects were more controlled with the blocks; they used fewer blocks overall and fewer variations. Second, architects appear to think less about house features and more about spatial relationships and material constraints. Lastly, architects experiment with multiple block positions within the model more frequently, repeatedly testing block placements. Together these findings suggest that architects physically explore the design space more effectively than students by exploiting material interactions. This embodied know-how is something next generation robots will need to support. Implications for material-based robotic interaction are discussed.

Planar structures with automatically generated bevel joints

Abstract A generative method based on computer algorithms is proposed to automatically produce parts of planar structures ready for fabrication. The parts resemble surface patches of the digital model of a structure. Each part is generated with bevel joints on the edges so that part-to-part connection is enabled by friction of the joints. The shape of a bevel joint is determined by the interior angle between two parts, and is modelled by a number of parameters, including the thickness of a planar material in use. The bevel joints consist of slanted planes, and in principle when they are assembled, no gap exists on the surface of the physical structure. Due to the slanted planes, the joints cannot be fabricated by a laser cutter that can only produce vertical cuts. We experimented the fabrication with a three-axis CNC router and a 3D printer; both produced accurate and robust parts; however, there is limitation in using a CNC cutter, which is discussed in details.