T. C.

BAHÇEŞEHİR UNIVERSITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES

ARC5407 – New Technologies and Digital Approaches in Architecture

Project 2- Article discussion paper

Designing and Manufacturing Architecture in the Digital Age

Student: MARIAM KOUZAYHA- 2105734

Instructor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Belinda Torus

İSTANBUL, NOVEMBER 2021

Keywords
Design Construction
Architecture Topological
Technology Space
Production Designer

Introduction
The beginning of the 1990s was marked by the advent of digital tools employed in the
architectural design process, which are more appropriate for intensive study on modern
mathematical theories of space in architectural creative activity, because of the shift in
philosophical framework.

Furthermore, the use of digital tools has radically impacted the methods in which architectural
projects are presented, but it has also had an impact on architects' visual abilities, such that
software use has changed the design approach itself in the architectural design process.

In addition, digital fabrication provides architects with new tools to control architecture
application and introduce innovative technics or tools.

Digital Architecture
Topological space (topological architecture)

Mario Carpo outlines the new architectural avant-garde known as topological around the turn of
the century, which was thought to be an architectural response to the new digital technologies
that were thriving at the time (Carpo, 2011, p.84).

Transformations provide topological geometry, which may be understood as continuous

adjustments that maintain geometric qualities, as if it were a flexible and dynamic system
capable of bending, folding, and twisting. To put it another way, topology refers to spatial
features that are unaffected by form and size changes (Aguiar, n.d.; Emmer, 2005).
 Figure 1: Peter B. Lewis Residence: Design Process Model Designed by Frank O. Gehry, 1992

Isomorphic surfaces (isomorphic architecture)

Isomorphic poly-surfaces, also known as blobs or meta-balls, are amorphous structures made up
of composed assembles of similar parametric objects with inner-mass and attraction fields
(Kolarevic, 2001).

Korean Presbyterian Church, The new church New York, 1999:

In general, the technique of forming Meta blobs is the most common. "Meta Blobs" are specially
positioned nodes that interact according to their allocated gravitational force zones. The nodes
develop and merge into new nodes as the computer calculates the criteria of balance, until they
reach a state of equilibrium.

Figure 2: The interaction of Metablobs, Korean Presbyterian Church, The new church New York, 1999
Motion kinematics and dynamics (animate architectures)

Create an animated design is defined using motion and force in the formal conceptualization.
Initially, force alters an environment, affecting the motion and the specific form of inflections.
Architecture may be modeled as a participant in the dynamical flow of information. The design
context transforms into an active abstract space that leads form within a current of forces that
may be recorded as information in the form's shape. (Kolarevic, 2003).

Port Authority Gateway by Greg Lynn:

This project included the design of a protective canopy and lighting arrangement for the
underside of the bus ramps leading into the Port Authority Bus Terminal. They used geometric
particles that changed their location in response to the forces to figure out the form of this unseen
field of attraction. They were able to create a series of phase pictures of the movement cycles
across time using the particle investigations.

Figure 3: Port Authority Gateway by Greg Lynn Key-shape animation

(metamorphic architectures)

The principle of metamorphic architecture is to start with a simple shape and then modify it
using transformation modifiers like bending, torsion, lattice box, morphing, and so on
(Kolarevic, 2003).

Simple modifiers, such as twisting and bending, are very useful for generating alternatives. The
fundamental prismatic shape of the Ostra Office Building in Hanover bends in the direction of a
nearby open park space.
Figure 4: Gehry's Ostra Office Building in Hanover, Germany (1999)

Genetic algorithms (evolutionary architectures)

Genetic algorithms were created in an attempt to explain natural systems' adaptation processes
and to construct artificial systems based on these natural systems.

Computer science, design, and evolutionary biology all have origins in evolutionary design. It's a
type of evolutionary computation that integrates and extends CAD and analytic tools while
borrowing principles from natural evolution (Kolarevic, 2003).

Digital Fabrication
Fabrication using digital technology CNC (computer numerical control) is a method of
automating machine tool control with software placed on a microcomputer linked to the tool.
The machine control unit (MCU), a microcontroller connected to the machine, stores, and
executes a custom computer program for each product to be manufactured, which is often written
in G-code, an international standard language. The program provides the machine tool's
instructions and characteristics, including the material feed rate and the placement and speed of
the tool's components.

Mass Customization
On the other hand, the construction sector is moving toward mass-customization manufacture of
custom items on a big scale, with streamlined processes and light pre-fabrication equipment.
This word refers to the personalization of goods, which, while acknowledging the needs for
every single work, doesn’t rule out the creation of cheap technologies. As a result, items are
produced to measure for every architectural work instead of a regular manufacturing for public
forecasting.

As in Zaha Hadid Innsbruck stations, because the skin had to be wrapped entirely around parallel
steel ribs, the canopies were fashioned out of a series of inflexible panels that resembled aircraft
wings. Several glass panes (12mm thick) served as the fundamental material for the production
process. In addition, a strip of polyethylene (93mm-thick) was fastened around the on the rib’s
edges, after being pre-formed by CNC to the exact roundness of every glass panel.

Figure 5: Zaha Hadid Innsbruck station with double curved glass and steel envelope

Conclusion
It is evident that modern manufacturing methods are not meant to completely replace
conventional manufacturing processes, which are required for appropriate feasibility work for
 specific materials and machining circumstances. However, it's possible that the site will become
a less precise place for project building, particularly when it comes to dry and industrial items.

In this era of transition, the construction sector must reconsider the roles of many actors.
Traditional contractual positions are giving way to less defined roles with a variety of specific
talents at various stages of the building process.

References

[1] Branko Kolarevic, Architecture in the digital age: Design and manufacturing, 2003.
[2] Branko Kolarevic, Designing and Manufacturing Architecture in the Digital Age, Architectural
Information Management [19th eCAADeConference Proceedings] Helsinki (Finland) 29-31
August 2001.
[3] M. Carpo, The Alphabet and The Algorithm, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2011.