Digital fabrication tools like CNC milling and laser cutting impose their own restrictions on production, such as what materials can used and what size objects can be processed. Additionally, in order to produce a 3D form using a 2D technique like laser cutting, some way must be found for translating 3D into 2D and back again.

Possible fabrication strategies

• Contouring and volumetric cross-sections (#1, #2, #3)
• Unfolding (for example using Lamina)
• Interlocking assembly (#1, #2)
• CNC-milled relief (#1, #2)

For a more complete list of strategies, look at this page from Ball State University. The PDF they link to contains a ton of great examples.

• Martin: Noeditions.com (generative clothes)
• Annina Witschi: SIAL FabHouse, Tom Kovac interview
• Roland: Gravitational Voronoi wall
• Konrad: Nichtstandardisierte Mauerwerksfassade, Reprap,
  Gramazio & Kohler - Architektur und Digitale Fabrikation - Lehre
• Philip: designtoproduction.com
• Klaus: Because We Can
• Moritz: Interactive Wall - more work from Sci-Arc students
• Daniel: Groningen Twister

MIT IAP RhinoScript workshop - Danzer Variations

While looking for RhinoScript resources for the Digital Architecture workshop at AHO I found a recent posting of the final projects from a RhinoScript workshop at MIT IAP. It features some very nice-looking work, including the Danzer tile forms shown above. It also provides the source code for most of the experiments, well worth checking out.

The resource page for a previous MIT workshop is still up, it has more scripts and some useful links: Computational Design Solutions Part 1.

I am teaching a 3-day workshop in Digital Architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture & Design (AHO) this week, as part of a course by Søren Sørensen. The workshop will give an introduction to Processing, with a focus on synthesis of spatial form. If time permits we’ll also look briefly at Rhinoscript.

Be sure to look at the page I have prepared with links related to computational architecture. Code will be uploaded to:
http://workshop.evolutionzone.com/workshops/080211_aho.

• Basic Processing syntax
• Simple animation
• Control structures: If / else, loops, keyPressed(), mousePressed()
• Transformations: translate(), scale(), rotate()
• Complex drawing: beginShape(), endShape()
• Data structures: Arrays, classes
• Polygon mesh generation
• Output: PDF, STL, DXF

• RhinoScript
• p5Sunflow, a radiosity rendering library for Processing