Digital graft : towards a non-homogeneous materiality

Abstract

(cont.) and form development. Through this approach, space can be perceived not as distributed geometries, but rather as a composite graft responding locally to flows of programmatic and environmental parameters.

Digital methodologies have radically shifted our conception of the design process, as well as our understanding of geometry in terms of flexible relationships instead of finite positions in space. However, the material tectonic that digital means imply has not yet been explored on the basis of the new possibilities disclosed by these very same tools. Tectonic investigations have almost exclusively focused on construction techniques and primarily on the optimisation of methods that preceded the appearance of digital tools. I would argue, that computer generated architecture might imply a new understanding of matter and mass. So far, the materialization of formal expressions instigated by such processes are primarily based on techniques of assembly, which do not negotiate the advanced levels of material complexity that the tools put forward. This thesis lies on the premise of investigating modes to address an emergent rather than imposed materiality of distributions, instigated by computer-generated processes. Methodologically, this thesis has a twofold task. The former is to interrogate an alternate prism of construction history, which does not shed emphasis on geometry, but rather on mass and matter, paraphrasing Michel Serres. The atter task is to launch design experiments that respond to an alternate, emerging perception of material densities, constellations and coagulations. Through a series of digital case studies it becomes both a "theoretical" and "technical" probe of a materiality with local differences exploring non-homogeneous ways of distributing matter in space. Three material strategies--thread, component and substance--will be presented in an attempt to address modes of interrogating a reciprocal relationship between material