Digital Detailing: Fall 2007

Class Wiki Resources

Handouts

• Readings
• DD Fall 2007 Project 1
• Geometry Platforms Chart
• DD Fall 2007 Project Deliverables
• DD Fall 2007 WaterJet Flow Info
• DD Fall 2007 Final Review Order

Lecture/Workshop Material

• Workshop 01: Modeling in Rhino
• Workshop 02: Solidworks Tutorial
  • Solidworks Example File
• Workshop 03: SquareOne Ecotect
• Workshop 04: Advanced Ecotect

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Digital Detailing Fall 2007 Signup

Syllabus

Instructors: Mark Collins / Toru Hasegawa

The continued advance of BIM, scripted processes, and computational design has opened new territories of work for architects. These opportunities reside not only in digital techniques for the fashioning and deployment of material, but also for the description and communication of these material relationships. The class attempts to operate within a series of digital and physical migrations: between different software and geometric platforms, between design and documentation and between extensive properties (weight, size, form) and intensive performances. Focusing on a digital workflow that can deliver true innovation in building systems, the work of the class is supplemented through the facilities of the Avery FabCon + Carlton Laboratories to develop proof-of-concept prototypes.

To this end, the class presents a framework for robust prototyping, using a plurality of software to encourage students’ proposals through multiple stages of design, prototyping, and simulation. Projects are encouraged to move towards a multi-modal operation in both materiality and scales of production; pluralism is seen as a framework in which a manifold of software, materials, and manufacturing processes can be brought into a productive nexus.

Under an umbrella of 'digital detailing' this semesters work will focus on testing and analysis - using software tools and field testing to interrogate the viability of material assemblage. Structural analysis, through FEA and a larger discussion of bio-mimetic and organic structural narratives, will be approached through class discussions and software demonstrations. We will also be introducing SquareOne ECOTECT, a software employed to simulate solar exposure, thermal gains, air-flow and other environmental performance scenarios. Through these means, we will be looking to seamlessly work through design and sustainability concerns.

This class is proposed as a three credit technical elective in the building technologies sequence, with a limited enrollment.

The class will consist of software demonstrations, lectures on digital making techniques and methodolgoies and both individual and public student project critiques.