climate

futures


On view at the Liberty Research Annex
October 17, 2024 - January 1, 2025


about
projects
  1. 22/26 Midwest
  2. Ambiguous Territory
  3. Annotation and Insulation
  4. Asutsuare Rebound
  5. Atlas of the Trans-Apocalypse
  6. Becoming Biomass
  7. Bespoke Ultra-Thin Layered 3D-printed Reusable Wood-Bio-Based Formwork for Casting Complex Concrete Geometries
  8. Branch Wall: Geometrically Informed Non-Planar Toolpath and Material Deposition
  9. Deploy 2.0
  10. Detroit Cultural Center
  11. Elephant in the Room, and Other Fables
  12. Fabric-Formed Unstabilized Poured Earth
  13. Frie(s/d)
  14. Functionally Graded Additive Manufacturing
  15. Guidance for Designing and Implementing Constitutionally Valid Local Plans and Regulations to Protect Landmarked Trees, Woodlands, and Tree Canopy in Michigan
  16. Heat and Housing: Co-producing Passive Cooling Strategies and Promoting Health in Informal and Precarious Settlements
  17. Hygroscopic Envelope: Building Enclosures for Climate Adaptation
  18. In My Backyard
  19. In-Svalbard: Cold Coast Atlas
  20. Land, Foodways, and Kinship: The Case of Palestinian Villages
  21. Light Forms
  22. MiCE Architecture: Design Strategies to Mitigate Michigan Coastal Erosion
  23. Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
  24. Myco-Composite Furniture
  25. Post Rock Post-Industrial Plastic Facade
  26. re:FE Reimagining Mining Waste from a Wounded Region
  27. Shell Wall: Coupling Non-Planar Robotic 3D Concrete Printing and Topology Optimization
  28. Solar Technology Integration on Building Facades
  29. The Canopy
  30. The Lifespan Project
  31. Unfolding Forms of Conveyance
  32. Urban Climate Law Series
  33. Vertical Wetlands





Branch Wall: Geometrically Informed Non-Planar Toolpath and Material Deposition
Mania Aghaei Meibodi                2024

08



This research developed a computation method that synergies the Geometrically Informed Non-Planar toolpath (GINP-toolpath) and Geometrically Informed Variable Material Deposition (GIV-Material Deposition) to produce ultra-lightweight topology optimized building elements. Additionally, several toolpath strategies, including lead-in and lead-out strategies, were developed for 3D printing a multi-branched concrete structure. A 1:1 scale load-bearing wall measuring 1.2 meters wide and 2 meters height was successfully designed and fabricated through the development of a robotic non-planar 3DCP process utilizing a one-component (1k) end-effector alongside. This method allowed the fabrication of a materially and structurally optimized complex form, Branch Wall, with improved overall structural performance and over 68% material reduction in comparison to traditional wood formwork casting, as well as genral 3DCP practice. The true potential of 3D Concrete Printing (3DCP) lies in the strategic placement of material only where it is needed, enabling material reduction and waste-free fabrication. However, real-world practice in 3DCP often involves excessive concrete consumption and little attention to material optimization. A handful of emerging research has focused on coupling 3DCP with topology optimization (TO), which is a method for material reduction that inherently produces geometrically complex features such as cantilevering branches. This research avoids the challenges associated with direct 3DCP of geometrically complex form by discretizing an element into small non-complex components, which are then post-assembly.