SmartStructuresLab2014 test

Shown as part of the Sydney Design Festival 2014, 16 – 24 August 2014, the SmartStructuresLab2014 investigate the complex geometries of hypar surfaces. This studio was led by Dr Dagmar Reinhardt from the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, inn collaboration with Eduardo De Oliviera Barata, UFOSydney, Rob Beson, AR_MA and Alexander Jung, reinhardt_jung|architecture and design. Departing from engineering precedents as a springboard for design, this lab rethinks the legacy of Frei Otto, Eladio Dieste, Buckminster Fuller, and Felix Candela the studio tests the boundaries of interdisciplinary design strategies. While the emergence of phenomena and behaviour of form can be embedded in analog, self-forming systems such as catenary chains or tensile membranes, in current computational design processes other modes of embedding rule-based design in a mathematical logic becomes affordable. The lab reveals an approach to engineering architecture in process; as a dialogue between analogue design models, computational design series, engineered analysis and optimisations, 1:1 plywood prototypes, 1:20 skeleton structures and a multiplicity of 3D printed form studies. A highpoint of the studio has been the collaboration with ArtinThreads, and a mul.ti-intredisciplinary exhibition and fashion show at the brandX space in April 2014 (http://www.artinthreads.com). SmartStructuresLab2014 produces complex hypar forms, derives design iterations, and optimizes the spatial and structural performance in the advanced and seamless environments of McNeel Rhino, Grasshopper and karamba, in a workshop session with Clemens Preisinger, Matthew Tam and Sascha Bohnenberger (Bollinger-Grohmann-Schneider (Frankfurt, Vienna, Melbourne,www.bollinger-grohmann.com/). This cutting edge software application is fully embedded in the parametric environment of Grasshopper, one of the plug-ins for the 3d modeling tool Rhino (McNeel Rhinoceros). This makes it easy to combine parameterized geometric models, finite element calculations and optimization algorithms. karamba provides accurate analysis of spatial trusses and frames, and is easy to use for non-experts, tailored to the needs of architects, specifically, in the early design phase. Through structural analysis and simulation software fully-embedded in the parametric environment of Grasshopper (one of the plug-ins for the 3D modeling tool Rhino/McNeel Rhinoceros), we explored fully integrated, design iterations, structural behaviour and material affordances. As a consequence, the architecture design models on display combine parameterized geometry, finite element calculations and optimized algorithms (http://www.karamba3d.com/brand-x-smart-structures-lab/). Discover first-hand how the lab produces complex hypar forms, derives design iterations, and optimizes the spatial and structural performance in the advanced and seamless design environments through cutting edge computational software.