Digital Brain // Analog Heart
a collaboration with Laura Liu
as part of ARCH 544c: Material Ecologies with Prof. Joe Dahmen
What happens when found form meets digital processes? How can architects leverage new tools to better utilize salvaged materials? Where do lowly craft and high-minded design meet?
This project was a means to explore how the inherent form of tree joints might best be utilized in conjunction with standardized wood products. Using consumer-grade 3d scanning, digital twins were created to place non-standard elements into a computer model of a compression arch. The form resulted from the interplay of a physics engine in grasshopper, optimized to fit each individual tree joint while minimizing discrepancies between ideal and inherent angles. The resulting 1/3 structure hints at a working methodology that could be expanded with greater inventories of materials, as well as more precise tools for digitally fabricating the individual components.
This project was greatly influenced by the project “LIMB”, by University of Michigan researchers Stephen Mankouche, Peter von Buelow, and Kasey Vliet , as well as the “Tree Fork Truss,” by AA student Zachary Mollica.
Found Form, Inherent Strength
Ten branches were scavenged from around the UBC campus from various tree trimmings, dead-fall, and detritus. Each piece was scanned to create a digital twin, and subsequently analyzed to find the angles of each branch relative to the next. An initial form was found using a dynamic relaxation physics engine within grasshopper, which was then further optimized to match the angles of the found tree parts with the angles of the digital model.
The project resulted in a structure informed by digital processes, natural forms, and the limits of hand tools when dealing with such complexity. Further refinement to the process would enable greater agency when working with such a limited inventory of material, which speaks to the challenges architects must overcome when attempting to design (re)using non-standard components.