Inter-connected frameworks

Building on a general aim from our previous project, this study investigates a discrete design system for inter-connected spatial structures.

Most discrete design systems are based on periodic patterns (eg. orthogonal grids) and therefore allow for structures with its parts automatically forming closed cells, usually densely packed:

Daniel Köhler, Mereology, WanderYards, Genmao Li, Chen Chen and Xixuan Wang, RC17, MArch Urban Design, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, 2017.

Other bottom-up aggregations from identical parts are often branching out into disconnected chains of parts. Apart from the bifurcation point, those “branches” don’t touch, describing an L-system with open ends similar to a tree:

Philip F. Yuan, Lucia Phinney, Chao Yan, Matter Aggregation: A Design Studio at UVA (University of Virginia), 2020

Such structures allow for design flexibility, but form weak constructions when materialized. In this study design methods for modular systems are tested, that form emergent cells and thus are inter-connected constructions.

As in Branch Formations, in our previous research the discrete design tool WASP is used to generate aggregations in Grasshopper/Rhino3D.
Fox, another discrete tool for the same modeling environment, allows for realtime-feedback: When parts are being changed, the overall aggregation changes simultaneously, however the underlying algorithm is based on an L-system with limited control options. Based on Gediminas Kirdeikis’ video tutorial, an aggregation system with transformable y-shaped parts is created with the aim to find a configuration with cross-connections.

Translation into WASP with transformed part.

Emergent cell in aggregation with a single part type.

As indicated in the aggregation sequence graph (red lines), cells occur occasionally (marked in magenta), but only locally without further cross connections.

Continue with the next study…