Lattice Shell Methodologies: Material Values, Digital Parameters
Lattice shells combine an elegance of form with the efficiency of structure driven by the material constraints of straight lath members that can be bent into shape. While formally expressive, the form is the result of an explicit methodology combining for
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Abstract Lattice shells combine an elegance of form with the efficiency of structure driven by the material constraints of straight lath members that can be bent into shape. While formally expressive, the form is the result of an explicit methodology combining form-finding, material constraints, and construction logistics. As the boundary curve establishes the constraints of the system, it is the boundary curve, not the surface, which gives the designer discretion over form. From this boundary constraint, the form is developed through the forces applied in the form-finding process such as a vertical load vector (pushing) and/or surface relaxation (stretching or equalizing). Although these values can be adjusted by the designer, they are only meaningful when calibrated by material constraints. Through physical testing realtime material feedback can be embedded into the parametric system. In combination with form-finding, the use of geodesics constrains fits lath members to the compound curved shell such that it can be constructed from straight lath members. As an elegant response to how material can inform form, by integrating these processes into a parametric workflow, further attention can be applied to other design criteria including spatial development and environmental response while maintaining the elegance and structural economy of shell structures. Keywords Lattice shells · Gridshells · Form-finding · Geodesics Digital fabrication
1 Introduction The tension between form and material is neither a new one, nor is it necessarily a digital matter. As early as 1934, Henri Focillon suggests that matter imposes its own M. Cabrinha (B) California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. Testolini · B. Korman d2bdesign, Cayucos, CA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 F. Bianconi and M. Filippucci (eds.), Digital Wood Design, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03676-8_6
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form upon form (Focillon 1934). With today’s digital fabrication tools, material is all too often seen as a homogenous substrate with the outputs of digital fabrication tools essentially creating physical representations of digitally derived form. Useful and at times inspiring, yet clearly this matter does not impose its own form upon form. Said another way, there is not an inherent material feedback loop in the digital design process. Contemporary digital fabrication tools are not simply about material output of preconceived digital form, but can be used as a means to extend the material capacity, complexity, and variation of a material system. The potentials for a bottom-up, material centric design approach have strong philosophical, conceptual, and even ethical values. Manual DeLanda, like Focillon, has been critical of the philosophical indifference to material that is often prevalent today. This Platonic indifference suggests that ideas are simply actualized by the addition of matter—a view that matter is an inert receptacle of e
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