The Area.

The Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia is involved in a research project to transform the city of Barcelona in a Zero Emission city.

For that, an interactive model has to be fabricated, so design decisions can be made. In this tutorial, we will describe the step by step of how to send the 3D model of the barrios of Camp del’Arpa, La Sagrera, Congrés and Navas, to the milling machine so it could be milled.

After the model was printed in a high density foam, it was inserted in the model of the entire city of Barcelona. The scale of this model is 1/2000, and it will be used as a study model. A final interactive model will be built, and this will help in the design decision.

To view the step-by-step RhinoCam2 tutorial for this model, click on the link:

The Milling.

The Model.

The aim of this assignment was to create a foam model of our barrio using the CNC Milling machine. We first prepared a 2d rhino file of our barrio which had to be printed in the laser cutter at the scale of 1:5000 and on which we discussed and examined various issues concerning the 3d printing process and the way of union the different barrios (boarders, designing methods etc.). The file comprised the streets, the blocks and the buildings, all organized in one layer in order to be engraved. The boarders of the barrio were organized in a second layer determining the cutting lines.

We created the 3d rhino file using the required information from the web and we organized the buildings in layers, according to the number of floors of each building, giving finally the corresponding height. We added the 3 cm base of the model and the 2 mm height sidewalks and we changed the scale into 1:2000. We converted the polysurfaces into meshes and union them all together.

A barrio (Camp de l’ Arpa) that has not been previously allocated to any of the groups was added to ours a posteriori. Finally, the model was printed successfully in one piece. Because of the different height of the materials, we had to cut our piece through horizontally manually, in order to fit with the neighbor areas.

The digital design process

The fabrication process in CNC Milling machine & the final model

Assignment: Digital Fabrication, Laser cutting

For this assignment we created a bench based on designing a waffle structure and getting into the process of fabricate our model with a laser cutter machine. The bench is actually a part of group a furniture, in order to do that we had some restrictions, the size should not exceed of the given bounding box (500 x 500 x 350 mm) and we should keep the 2 outer sides in that way all the benches could be put it together. We design a bench that could be comfortable, like a resting sofa.

The first step was to design the bench in rhino. We selected the existing geometry surface and Contour in order to get the final 2 contour lines, then we Loft the 2 polylines and rebuild the surface with 20 control points we got a closed surface and were able to turn the control points on. We modify the surface till we like the design and the proportions of the bench. Offset surface, and made another surface inside the first one to get the thickness of the ribs. Using the command Contour we made contours along the x axis and y axis with these polylines we got the ribs for the bench. We made the intersections with pipes and subtract them and got all the ribs with the connections.

The second step was to print the file with all the pieces of the bench. We used for material 2 sheets of plywood of 3mm thick with dimensions of 2.50 x 1.22 m. And then printed on the laser cutter machine

The third step is the assembling part. First we start with the vertical pieces and intersected with the horizontal in the top and the horizontal in the bottom and in the end the 2 outer vertical pieces.

Assignment: 3d printing/ digital fabrication.

The inspiration for the 3d brick came from an Arabic pattern which we used to make the skin of the brick.

Since the pattern consisted lines and circles, we used that particular one to correspond to the shape of the brick which has flat surfaces and circled pipes. We started modeling the brick in Rhino, working on the separated surfaces which we made to be 3mm thick. We offset the lines of the pattern, joined all the lines, so we could have closed polylines in order to extrude them and make them solid. By Boolean difference we were able to make the desired holes in the 3mm surface.   Since the pattern is made to supplement itself, we used the basic one twice for the longer side and once for the shorter side. We copied the surfaces in order to make the whole skin of the brick. The circled geometric forms were designed to be where the pipes of the brick should have been, so we were able to use the form as a base of making the pipes.

Since this is a 3d printing model, we wanted to do something in the inside of the brick too. So using the places where the circles intersect the lines we made solid boxes connecting the circled surfaces inside the brick, from one side to the other but connecting the opposite points.

That way we got interesting structures inside the brick which can be seen throw-out the skin.

Creation in architecture embodies both destruction and preservation. A routine architectural solutions of significant landmark; consider to be extremely preserved, gain its value based on routine valuation system. The objection here points toward to the safe act of just going “categorical process of mechanism that evaluates perceptive cultivation process”. Architect establishes the average perceptive effect as if it is true for everyone. The deductive, heteronymous, and homogenous logic and codes that has served architects well, thus creating a land-mark that does not trace the time of the past event, but it is just revolving around an empty static effect bearing symbolic ideology in public place. Deviated horizon for landmark architecture is imminent.

I-all cave simultaneously embodies an effect (architecture=sign Big?, language that carry out standard average expectation) and conditions that generate unpredictable effects. (Statement of understanding, definition, and potential of its use have been left for its user) This forcibly adds anomaly to authoritative aspects of landmark architecture thus creating “operational landmarks” rather. Operational landmark creates byproduct which, functionally disrupts and further juxtapose individualistic Elysium. This will aggressively reveal actualization of its stasis.

I-all cave consists of two individual operating system environments. In first environment, I-all cave serves all landmark during Olympic promotions and game itself as needed inherent rational functionality. In second environment; after the Olympic mass, it balances symbolic Olympic landmark while maintaining galore or negative balancing. It embodies unpredictable properties towards to operational structure…weather it represents collective or individual thoughts and consciousness. In addition; in local, by its open nature, it provides unlimited programmatic potentials for local people. It is a museum, a dance club, a church, a temple, a theatre, a concert hall, etc. It is public place where people encounter, stroll, rest and be mused by enjoying other people’s exclusive thoughts and feelings. I-All Cave does not imply or imitate any statement, any direction, or anything. It is virtual, physical extension of the people that co-evolves with participant’s desire. It is strange loop that has founded and will surve within personal, public, economic, social, political sphere.

Volatile architecture. As for the urban dynamics, due to the complexities in urban conditions, prototypes, as liminal bodies, have been devised for tracing and interweaving urban textures based on their operational processing. To deal with the ever changing urban fluxes, instant reactions in various scales are empowered to resonate with the pulses from outside which leads to an architecture of responsive volatility. Being volatile requires that the artificial construction adapts itself from being static to dynamic as an responsive system connecting the multiple layers of human environments. Appropriate technologies are implemented to improve the interaction between the earth and the artificial landscape. Therefore, fluxes of original pattern are reconfigured and a new landscape contour may emerge based on responsive adjustments from the lower level.



Self-sustainable housing. As we know, Hong Kong as a vertical city, it is aggregated with highly dense fluxes of human consumptions. Meanwhile, the complicated networks within the city amplify the damage caused by human consumption at all levels, scales and chain reactions, if inappropriate channels are linked. By shifting within systems, all the pollution and waste can easily spread and do more damage. To stop the propagation, the thresholds within city systems are introduced as gateways to control the movement of consumption flows. Thereby, the consumption flow becomes manageable, and further potential resources if appropriate channels are connected.

The urban rhizome. The plant sustains itself from the surrounding energy. The plant contains various tissues interwoven with all kinds of environmental resources. Within the plant exchange systems, the resources are recycled by the living of the plant, the Urban Rhizome produces shoots upward and roots downward in between existing urban networks. The Urban Rhizome scavenges for potential sources and puts them into the earth and reorganizes the texture map. Thus, the Urban Rhizome reconnects the human dwelling to natural environments as part of the artificial landscape.

The texture map. Through the Urban Rhizome, a new resource network is linked. The texture map includes electricity from fuel cells and plastic solar cells; water is recycled from rain for necessary services and building temperature control; composting from kitchen refuse and garden waste is used to amend the soil, and its by-product methane, from which fuel cells can extract H2 as an energy source; vibrations as the energy source for ubiquitous computing senses the micro-environmental shift, which helps the building adjust its condition to its surroundings. The human consumptions floes are restrained by the thresholds and interwoven with other resource cycles using the rhizome as hybrid of the Nature-and-Human texture map.