INVESTIGATING THE CONSTRUCTION OF STRUCTURALLY OPTIMIZED COMPLEX DESIGNS WITH DIGITAL FABRICATION

Abstract

Comparing the labour costs of 1960 with relation to material costs to present day situations, we realize that labour costs in the 1960s were deemed to be significantly higher than material costs than it is today. This translates to an architecture that would be much easier to construct that utilizes minimal labour whilst at the same time with little consideration for material use or wastage. Facing the problem of depleting material resource today, the construction industry directs its efforts into more sustainable buildings that are energy and material efficient, amongst other green qualities. However, despite the intention to reduce material usage in the buildings construction, it is observed that most buildings today still appear to adopt conventional construction methods and the physical building form is still largely orthogonal. Given current advancement of CAD/CAM applications as well as the complement of FEA analyses and digital fabrication technologies such as CNC rapid prototyping tools, the architecture of today should present more diverse possibilities and greater structural resolution rather than stubborn reliance on rules of thumb. This research therefore looks specifically into the process of structural optimization and the contribution of digital fabrication in the architectural design of material efficient buildings today. In so doing we analyze the impact of structural analyses and fabrication technologies on the material efficiency, overall form-finding as well as construction process of the architecture.