Available for Commissions Custom Fabrication from Concept to Physical Form
Digital Fabrication – Design – Custom 3d Fabricated Objects – Installations
Architectural design processes and workflows are traditionally driven by functional requirements and structural hierarchy of materials. Nature on the other hand, is impartial to the complex sequences of the synthesis of materials that integrate in a coherent process of morphogenesis.
Despite the revolution in computation aided design and interdisciplinary upgradations in the digital fabrication technologies, architectural design processes fail to acknowledge the machines, tools and processes used for fabrication. The realization of specific fabrication processes and their individual constraints often lead to amendments to an already established workflow by making desperate adjustments to rationalize the design.
Our goal is to introduce design processes which are based on the knowledge of the fabrication tools and to incorporate material properties, constraints, tolerances, machine limitations and interactivity. Those intentions are embedded inside the design workflow through as a series of algorithmic strategies for the simulation, optimization and digital fabrication of projects in 1:1 scale. Computational tools open new possibilities, demonstrating a precise construction logic from early design stages and having control of costs.
Research
Segmentation
Structures
3dp Shells
We specialize in developing generative design processes to discretize complex surfaces, build with flat materials with good cracking resistance, high bending fatigue life, light weight, good toughness. We work in the intersection between mesh relaxation processes, weighted meshGraph representations, and FE simulation for the fabrication and construction of light shell structures and branching topologies. Bio-inspired patterns are introduced as a construction logic. We use machine learning to predict an optimal pattern organization balancing structural and fabrication criteria.
We specialize on the design and construction of 1:1 scale pavilions and facade systems including connection system for assemble and disassemble. We explore the material usage of wood, aluminum profiles and ACPs as cladding and support structure.
Responding to the challenge to design for additive manufacturing rather than 3D print a design, the fabrication method and materiality establish the design constraints that inform the geometry. We specialize in designing and optimizing 3D objects together with their production system (tool path generation) to reduce printing time and material. This is applied from large scale thin shells and hollow structures to furnitures, lamps, interior walls and other 3d printing objects.
Workshops
We work as a platform for experimentation in the evolution of architectural education, computational design logic and construction.
During our workshops participants have the opportunity to sharpen their modelling and prototyping skills, to experiment with a range of digital production tools, and to design a unique set of components that negotiate a range of material gradients across a field condition. Through iteration, participants generate and assemble components (parts) to form a larger network (whole).
The goal is to combine technological precision and pedagogical creativity. Participants understand in early-stage concepts, design strategies, material constraints and machine limitations. Using parametric and programmable computing tools they transform complex 3D geometries and structures into construction elements obtaining a sense of fabrication time and material costs depending on complexity.
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Exhibitions
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Publications
- Giannopoulou E., Baquero P., Warang A. and Estévez A. T. (2019) “Stripe Segmentation for Branching Shell Structures – A Data Set Development as a Learning Process for Fabrication Efficiency and Structural Performance”, in J.P.Sousa, et al. (eds) Architecture in the Age of the 4th Industrial Revolution: Proceedings of the eCAADe+SIGraDi joint Conference 2019, Porto, Portugal, September 11-13, 2019.
- Giannopoulou E., Baquero P., Warang A. and Estévez A. T. (2020) “Machine Learning Approach For Biological Pattern Based Shell Structures”, chap. pp.79-83, in S. Bartolo et al. (eds.), Industry 4.0 – Shaping the Future of the Digital World, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton. London, 2021. eBook ISBN 9780367823085.
- Giannopoulou E., Baquero P., Warang A., Orciuoli A., Estévez A. T. and Brun-Usan M.A. (2019) “Biological pattern based on reaction-diffusion mechanism employed as fabrication strategy for a shell structure”, in IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 471 (9), IOP Publishing Ltd. doi:10.1088/1757 899X/471/10/102053 (Scopus) link