Soft Tolerance: An Approach for Additive Construction on Site

Malé-Alemany, Marta; Portell, J.

doi:10.1002/ad.1711

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…A common definition of ‘tolerance’ refers to a permissible limit of variation in a physical dimension or the physical properties of a material, a manufactured object or a system. 24 Allowances are distinct from tolerances in a manufacturing environment as an allowance is a planned deviation from a desired planned form. In contrast, tolerance is an unplanned but expected deviation.…”

Section: Tolerance Versus Precisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital soil: Robotically 3D-printed granular bio-composites

Mitterberger¹,

Derme

2020

International Journal of Architectural Computing

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Organic granular materials offer a valid alternative for non-biodegradable composites widely adopted in building construction and digital fabrication. Despite the need to find alternatives to fuel-based solutions, current material research in architecture mostly supports strategies that favour predictable, durable and homogeneous solutions. Materials such as soil, due to their physical properties and volatile nature, present new challenges and potentials to change the way we manufacture, built and integrate material systems and environmental factors into the design process. This article proposes a novel fabrication framework that combines high-resolution three-dimensional-printed biodegradable materials with a novel robotic-additive manufacturing process for soil structures. Furthermore, the research reflects on concepts such as affordance and tolerance within the field of digital fabrication, especially in regards to bio-materials and robotic fabrication. Soil as a building material has a long tradition. New developments in earth construction show how earthen buildings can create novel, adaptive and sustainable structures. Nevertheless, existing large-scale earthen construction methods can only produce highly simplified shapes with rough geometrical articulations. This research proposes to use a robotic binder-jetting process that creates novel organic bio-composites to overcome such limitations of common earth constructions. In addition, this article shows how biological polymers, such as polysaccharides-based hydrogels, can be used as sustainable, biodegradable binding agents for soil aggregates. This article is divided into four main sections: architecture and affordance; tolerance versus precision; water-based binders; and robotic fabrication parameters. Digital Soil envisions a shift in the design practice and digital fabrication that builds on methods for tolerance handling. In this context, material and geometrical properties such as material porosity, hydraulic conductivity and natural evaporation rate affect the architectural resolution, introducing a design process driven by matter. Digital Soil shows the potential of a fully reversible biodegradable manufacturing process for load-bearing architectural elements, opening up new fields of application for sustainable material systems that can enhance the ecological potential of architectural construction.

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Section: Tolerance Versus Precisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital soil: Robotically 3D-printed granular bio-composites

Mitterberger¹,

Derme

2020

International Journal of Architectural Computing

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“…The ability to dynamically act and react, presenting a certain quotient of intelligence, make such systems sensitive to variations due to the interaction between the different actors and components involved in the overall process, such as the anisotropy of the materials used. This therefore progresses from a hard system of standard industrial processes, to a soft one governed by an intelligent responsiveness: combining the customization of tools, use of sensors and computational capabilities (Alemany and Portel 2014;Vasey et al 2015;Brugnaro et al 2016). Such adaptive relationships are defined by Achim Menges as "Cyber Physical Making" (2015) and described as follows: "In behaviour-based making, data is continuously gathered and feedback to the system, which means that new information is gained on the run and new insights can be had; or in other words, design can evolve in the process of making".…”

Section: Dynamic Blueprints and Cyber Physical Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiated Materialization: Design Approaches Integrating Wood Heterogeneity Through Advanced Robotic Fabrication

Brugnaro¹,

Figliola

Dubor

2019

Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering

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Whilst robots are predictable, repetitive, predefined and constant, natural materials present unpredictable complexity. Over the past few centuries, materials have been standardized to fit industrial processes, in an attempt to defy this unpredictability. Thanks to new advances in sensing technologies and computational design, today we have the opportunity to reintegrate the intrinsic properties of natural materials in their full complexity. What is the potential of a synthesis between the particularity of each specific material element-specific properties and parameters-informing the fabrication process? Digital and Robotic Fabrication are based on the use of flexible machines that open the possibility to mass-customize the production process. Combined with sensors and computational analysis, they allow to work with "soft systems", both adaptable and continuously evolving, whose dynamism is constantly fed by a flow of information. How can the designer integrate this uncertainty and complexity in the design process? In this paper the authors specifically discuss the management of structural and material tolerance inherent to large scale construction and anisotropic materials, such as wood. A series of projects developed and built at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and the Bartlett School of Architecture are used as case studies to investigate tolerance management in Digital Fabrication with different kinds of wood.

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“…Numerous examples of extrusion-based systems using multi-axis robotic apparatuses have demonstrated the potential utility offered by modeling toolpaths for 3D printing [3], [14][15][16]. Designing continuous toolpaths have several advantages, such as the optimization of material deposition (laying the footprint to take advantage of empty spaces that will reduce the weight of the module) and the reduction of time required for fabrication, two key factors related to the implementation of large-scale fabrication.…”

Section: Toolpath and Shell-like Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Super-Details: Integrated Patterns from 3D Printing Processes to Performance-Based Design

Leblanc

2015

Communications in Computer and Information Science

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Abstract. Performance-based architecture has predominately been influenced by computational advances in simulating complex organizations. The advent of 3D printing, however, has introduced a new approach to generate complex forms, which is redirecting focus from shape-centric design to material design, namely, innovative structures and properties generated by the process itself. This article investigated the multiscale approach potential to design using extrusionbased 3D printing techniques that offer novel geometric organizations that conform to desired performance. It was found that 3D printed toolpaths adapted to extrusion-based systems render an anisotropic behavior to the architectural object that is best optimized by designing tessellated surfaces as the primary structural shape from which small-scale periodic surfaces can be embedded within a larger geometric system.

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Soft Tolerance: An Approach for Additive Construction on Site

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Digital soil: Robotically 3D-printed granular bio-composites

Digital soil: Robotically 3D-printed granular bio-composites

Negotiated Materialization: Design Approaches Integrating Wood Heterogeneity Through Advanced Robotic Fabrication

Super-Details: Integrated Patterns from 3D Printing Processes to Performance-Based Design

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