WORKSHOP/SEMINAR
PARAMETRIC RAPID PROTOTYPING

EARL MARK . TU & TH 2 - 3:15 PM . CAMPBELL ROOM 105 . 3 CREDITS

DESCRIPTION Arch 544 is a workshop/seminar that explores methods of making architectural form through the scripting of geometrical models and their realization through fuse deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printing and other rapid prototyping techniques. Scripting geometry will be based primarily on Generative Components, relatively new parametrical design software, and distributed free to students in the seminar. The technologies of parametic scripting, 3D printing and 3D scanning will be closely examined.

The quantitative basis and invisible geometrical order of shapes found in nature and architecture may serve as a point of departure in design. A step-by-step computer scripted procedure can reduce to a simpler, more easily grasped and modified description of a complex form. Such a procedure can be harnessed to a three-dimensional printer to produce forms, in some cases with interoperable components, not easily arrived at by manual construction. We will explore the development of computer scripted procedures to construct two and three-dimensional geometrical compositions. Parameters used to drive these procedures may be based on fractal processes, such as found in cellular and crystalline forms, or based on other kinds of growth procedures that may describe trees, snowflakes, shells, radiolaria and other organic forms. Rapid prototyping the resulting forms provides a means for testing and analysis that can serve a designer's speculative imagination.

REQUIREMENTS Approximately six individually based exercises will lead cumulatively to a final term project. Students will be provided with Generative Components software, a dynamic and parametric tool that allows a designer to build flexible and rule driven geometrical models that lend themselves readily to CNC fabrication. This will form the primary focus of tutorials along with the technologies of 3D rapid prototyping (FDM Printer) and 3D scanning (Six Axis Scanner). Alternatively, other languages and modeling systems, such Maya (MEL), Microstation (VBA) or Rhino (VB Script) may be used at the discretion of individual participants to expand upon the basic instruction. The seminar will meet for hands-on discussion and tutorials in room Campbell 105 and occasionally in the CNC lab. Core instruction will be focused on writing procedures, varied rapid protyping techniques and a critical assessment of their use in design.

PREREQUISITES Arch 541, or Alar 502, or Permission of Instructor. **

* Image of Radiolaria from Christan Toche, Radiolaria Project, eCAADe 07 Conference Proceedings, Frankfurt, Germany, 10.2007 after plate from Ernst Haecke's  Kunstformen der (1904)
** Basic CAD experience, as provided by the two courses Arch 541 or Alar 502 will be helpful as background to the class. No specific software product experience is needed.