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Taubman College faculty members present recent work at 2014 ACADIA Conference

Taubman College faculty member will present recent work and chair a session at the upcoming ACADIA Conference in Los Angeles next week.

  • Assistant Professor Kathy Velikov and Associate Professor and Associate Dean fro Research Geoffrey Thün will present “PneuSystems: Cellular Pneumatic Envelope Assemblies”. PneuSystems is a prototype-based exploration of the performative, formal and aesthetic potentials for cellular pneumatic membrane-based assemblies towards deep, lightweight architectural skins imbued with environmental response, interaction and intelligence. The work is situated within the history and technology of pneumatic structures, the application of biological paradigms towards architectural innovation, performative geometries and the register and exchange of matter, energy and information. This research is pursued through a methodology that entails the study of specific principles from biological examples of pneus to inform the prototype-based development of physical analog models at an architectural scale. Parallel, feedback-based research is described and includes combinatory approaches for computational simulation, thermal modeling of pneumatic structures, physical prototyping techniques, and pneumatic control systems.
  • Assistant Professor Sean Ahlquist will present “Post-forming Composite Morphologies: Materialization and design methods for inducing form through textile material behavior”. A ‘textile hybrid’ system is based upon a structural logic that generates form in the relationship between an elastic textile surface and the bending resistance of fiber-reinforced composite material. Such structures are always discretized as the materials are born of highly specialized manufacturing processes: weaving or knitting for manufacturing textiles and pultrusion for the production of the particular fiber-reinforced composite elements typically utilized in textile hybrid structures. The research described in this paper embeds properties of both elastic textile and bending-resistant composites within a single material structure. This is accomplished through a composite forming process which utilizes pre-stressed textiles integrated with isolated regions of stiffened material. A series of studies depict the potential in forming complex 3D surface structures, and utilizing the ductile nature as reconfigurable material systems.
  • Associate Professor Matias del Campo will chair the session “Fabrication Agency“.  This session is predicated upon attention to the transformation in the language of architectural discourse through a shift in terminology and disciplinary prioitization from ‘building’ and ‘construction’ to ‘fabrication’, indicating a manifold of implications in the culture of architecture at large and blurring the boundaries between architects, engineers, material scientists and programmers. This ‘ecology’ of design thought oscillates between aspects of advanced geometry, the invention of novel tools (both computational and physical) and computational craft. Within this transformation exists an entire universe of opportunities inherent in computer controlled fabrication to serve as a precursor for an era of individualized production described as the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’. For a discipline so massively rooted in the manipulation of material, it is of paramount importance to understand how the Postdigital Age attends massive change in terms of architectural production and design, as well as how it might witness the production of a novel material culture at large.

The ACADIA2014: DESIGN AGENCY conference will be held in Los Angeles, California at the USC School of Architecture on October 23-25, 2014. For more information, see the ACADIA Conference website.

DESIGN AGENCY will bring together the spectrum of research and creative practice currently occurring within the ACADIA community through the combined support of the research networks of the University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles and Southern California Institute of Architecture. Questions the capacity for computation to inform or challenge traditional design processes; computation as design operation – the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power, and/or computation as design instrumentality – the design mechanism through which power is exerted or an end is achieved. ACADIA is an international network of digital design researchers and professionals. ACADIA supports critical investigations into the role of computation in architecture, planning, and building science, encouraging innovation in design creativity, sustainability, and education.