Design Economies of Surface: Can Architects Learn from the Manufacturing Process of Industry-Driven Projects like Auto-Cross Racing?

Abstract

This paper discusses an in-house manufactured race-car body for the annual Formula SAE® Series competition.The driving parameters for the design and fabrication process are examined with regards to the assignment's 'format' as a joint study between architecture and engineering students.Traditionally there has been an inhibition concerning communication between architects and engineers, that is perhaps successfully exemplified through Peter Rice's example of the "Iago mentality" (Rice, 1998) where the Shakespearean confrontation between Othello and Iago is viewed as an analogy to this communication: "In the dialogue of Architecture and Engineering, the engineer is the voice of rationality and reason i ." Unless dictated by construction necessities, research between these two disciplines is not sought as regularly as we would hope for; we are therefore, interested to assess the analog and computational techniques used from a design perspective, and, by understanding the implications of working among two different but similarly geared backgrounds, describe possible improvements on real-size projects that require both technical and design input, thereby affirming Rice's belief for creative inter-disciplinary discourse. Finally, the project is a reminder of the common ground between architectural and automotive design, by examining the notion of surface from a cross-disciplinary premise.