ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN最新文献

Architects and engineers have historically developed and reinvented concrete's technologies, formwork and aesthetics to suit the pragmatic and philosophical aims of their times. Architect and computational design researcher Norman Hack and his co-authors introduce a contemporary method for the fabrication of concrete structural elements using the Injection 3D Concrete Printing (I3DCP) process formulated at TU Braunschweig and discuss its benefits over other types of printed concrete.

Given the long history of columns in the languages and lexicons of architecture, they are the ideal building elements with which to experiment in the pursuit of 3D-printed concrete. Ana Anton and Benjamin Dillenburger of the Chair for Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich reveal how new technologies can produce sinuous filigree structures that are unachievable with conventional casting approaches, and also offer more advantages.

Earthen buildings are ubiquitous throughout most of the world, and are still being constructed today. However, in the wake of our greater understanding of climate change, this historic architectural material is being seen and used in a new light, augmented by 21st-century robotic dexterity. Guest-Editor of this AD David Jenny, and Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, co-founders of the architecture and design group Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH Zurich, discuss some of their recent achievements in this respect.

The vast majority of construction industry processes are labour intensive, and often fraught with errors due to non-exact assembly tolerances and dimensions. Digital fabrication can mitigate or remove the potential of these anomalies occurring by negating or reducing human site-participation. But there is another side to the digital fabrication coin – the transition to more automated processes will liberate humans to become more collaborative and creative with machines both virtual and actual. Daniela Mitterberger, an Assistant Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture, and Kathrin Dörfler, Assistant Professor of Digital Fabrication at the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Munich, highlight the evolving advantages of these new relationships.

The constant demand for new buildings means concrete continues to contribute to a large proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions. Italian architect and researcher Fabio Amicarelli, and Assistant Professor in Architecture and Guest-Editor of this AD Ena Lloret-Fritschi, discuss the Foldcast project being developed by the Fabrication and Material Aware Architecture (FMAA) group at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Mendrisio. Foldcast combines software and digital machines to produce non-standard, recyclable, paper-based moulds for casting structurally efficient concrete elements.

Is earth a bono fide alternative to concrete? Sasha Cisar believes in some cases it is. A trained architect who leads sustainability research at radicant, Switzerland's first digital sustainability bank, he shows us some recently constructed examples. The synthesis of digital technologies with these types of materiality and integrated construction techniques, and their full adoption in the building industry, could reap huge rewards and contribute to climate action.

It seems, in many quarters, that technology is viewed as bad for aspirations for a sustainable future. This Neo-Luddite narrative is hampering the way the advantages and disadvantages of digital technology are perceived. Mario Carpo, Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL), argues that new technologies succeed older ones because they perform tasks better and more efficiently, innovatively and faster, both changing and responding to changes in societal and urban realms.

Whilst reusable and sustainable, the age-old construction technique of rammed earth is also labour intensive in its compacting and tamping, and therefore expensive. The contemporary building industry consequently shies away from it. Tobias Bonwetsch, co-founder of Zurich-based sustainable construction start-up Rematter, and Tobias Huber of ZPF Ingenieure in Basel, describe their research into combining earth with locally sourced renewable timber and an automated manufacturing process to produce composite floor slabs that use the strengths and advantages of each material.