Research Projects

Architecture with Flexible Materials: Discovering New Possibilities

Flexible materials stimulate architectural creativity through their inherent physical properties and capacity for transformation. In traditional vernacular architecture, materials such as bamboo and earth have been utilized to create adaptive, flexible structures that respond to local environmental conditions and needs. Contemporary architecture reinterprets this flexibility by experimenting with high-performance composite materials. LiteTex, the material used in this project, is a continuous fiber composite that begins as a flat sheet and holds potential for transformation into three-dimensional forms. This material simultaneously offers elasticity and rigidity, maximizing portability and storage while enabling the creation of complex structures on-site. By applying two-dimensional patterning techniques from the garment industry, this approach enables the transformation of flexible, flat materials into three-dimensional forms, simplifying the fabrication process and ensuring cost-effectiveness. LiteTex represents more than a material experiment; it expands the possibilities of architectural design. This material is not only suitable for spatial requirements such as movable structures, temporary buildings, and pavilions, but it is also recognized for its environmental sustainability.

Designing Change: Process-Oriented Design and Fabrication

Designing change involves more than the creation of a final product; it requires the integration of the entire process by which that product is realized. This project focuses on the research of the design and fabrication process, investigating the physical properties and limitations of flexible materials through the integration of digital technologies and physical experimentation. The design process is divided into three distinct phases. The first phase involves basic form experiments using scale models to analyze the relationships between the material’s physical properties and the design variables. The second phase combines digital simulations with physical testing to assess the material’s behavior in real-world conditions. Finally, full-scale mock-ups are constructed to identify potential issues in the assembly process and derive solutions. By considering factors such as the material’s bending radius, self-weight, and assembly sequence from the early design stages, it is possible to achieve not only three-dimensional forms but also structural stability and spatial efficiency. This approach enhances the overall quality of the final product while minimizing errors during fabrication. 

Integration with Digital Technology: Employing New Design Tools

Digital technology plays an essential role in effectively integrating the design and fabrication processes. In this project, a digital twin was constructed to measure the gap between the virtual model and physical reality, allowing for simulations of changes throughout the entire design and fabrication phases. Digital simulations were utilized as a tool to validate the design’s efficiency before creating physical mockups. Factors such as bending strength and deformation limits were analyzed in advance, enabling the identification of potential errors prior to fabrication. These simulations facilitated collaboration among architects, engineers, and material specialists, and helped integrate data from multiple disciplines. Physical experiments served to verify the outcomes of digital designs and test the performance and assembly feasibility of the materials. The complementary relationship between digital simulations and physical testing improved the reliability of the design and further extended the potential of new materials and technologies.

 This course aims to investigate the continuing advancement of computational processes in architecture in practice. The topics are presented as both a technical and intellectual exploration of formal, spatial, construction, and ecological potentials. The primary role of the workshop is the theoretical and practical development of generative computational design processes during both the conceptual design and construction phases, allowing for the integral use of computer-controlled manufacturing processes in this design system.

 The latter part of this course is critically review computational design towards a more challenging and self-demanding commitment to physical and environmental constraints as a fabrication stage. The first half of the course integrates theory and practical exercises on the relationship between architecture, the environment, and environmental data-driven form-finding optimization in the digital environment. In the latter part of the course, students apply this knowledge to design on actual sites and progress with facade-related design through simulation and physical model fabrication.

  Design process in general, and particularly in architecture, is a complex process that involves a combination of knowledge, skills, experiences, practices, etc. In recent decades, digital design emerges as an unstoppable trend, which adds to all the aforementioned factors the use of digital tools. The techniques cover this issue with computational and algorithmic design systems, the so called parametric design. It is already vividly present in the first half of the twentieth century in the automotive sector (geometric design), and finally impact on architectural design which represents a new step that has led to a new type of Architecture. The workshop is to re-envision the role of Architects as system maker from thinking strategy to fabricator.

  This course aims to investigate the continuing advancement of computational processes in architecture in their practice. The topics are exposed as both a technical and intellectual venture of formal, spatial, construction and ecological potentials. The primary role of the workshop is the theoretical and practical development of generative computational design process on both conceptual design and construction phase, allowing for the integral use of computer-controlled manufacturing process in this design system. The later of this course will reach to critically review computational design towards a more challenging and self-demanding commitment to physical and environmental constraints as a fabrication stage.