Appealing to the Masses, or Serious Play with Blocks

With a certain budget and limited access to a ComputerNumerically-Controlled mill, fourth year architecture students were charged with the problem of designing a full-scale architectural space that could be assembled and re-assembled in various contexts and configurations. As the constraints for the design studio, an economy of capital ($150 per student) and an economy of means were developed to create and produce over 600 units of a flexible architectural component, and many variations, into a building system that could be assembled to create multiple formal and spatial configurations pushing the concept of Mass-Customization towards MASS-Appeal. After choosing a unit-multiple method as the most practical parti for designing a space which can be disassembled and reassembled in multiple configurations and contexts, the students developed the economy of their block unit based on a maximization of blocks per sheet of 4’x 4’ Medium Density Fiberboard. 4’ x 4’ was the maximum size that could be cut on the CNC mill at the school of architecture. The cut sheet was developed such that less than 3% of the board ACADIA: Surface and Form Generation