On Visual-Mechanical Synthesis in Shell Structures

Abstract

While form-finding and optimization methods in shell structures have been widely advanced, discourses regarding an ideation process of how a designer or engineer may synthesize a precedent into novel designs have been less explored, as such ideation mainly relies on his/her intuition in representing structural problems. In this paper, we present a computational method to synthesize shell designs through the interplay between mechanical idealization and visual computation using traditional craft as a reference. Examples of how to generate a folding structure from weaving and tensegrity structure from folding show not only the way to convert craft logic from one type to another in shell structures but also the method to explicitly interpret the designer's ideation process in generating a certain structural design.

Parametric, grammatical, and perceptual iterations on structural design synthesis

“…The list now consists of { E [1( F 0, F 1)], S [1(ΣLn)]}, which changes the tensegrity module into two faces connected with all lines as a hinge support. Applying x → Σ t ( x ) to this module will return a folding configuration (see folding example in Jackson, 2011, and extended iteration in Muslimin, 2016, 2017)…”

“…As a result, we have a new function f 5 ( x ) to convert the folding module into a tensegrity module. Figure 7 demonstrates this new function by using the Miura fold as the initial sample (Miura, 1985; Muslimin, 2016). A typical folding input is annotated with mountain creases ( C M ) and valley creases ( C V ), which indicates a series of hinge support ( S ) between faces on a 2D paper, such that {S[ C v (prt( x ) I ), C m (prt( x ) II )]}; x ∈ U 12 .…”