Form Finding Fabrication
From September 20th to 23rd the European Facade Network (efn) in cooperation with the Detmold School of Architecture and Interior Architecture (HS OWL) and the TU Delft have hosted the workshop 'Form Finding Fabrication' and the Symposium 'Digital Methods' at the glasstec 2016 trade fair in Düsseldorf. Workshop and symposium have been the semester kick-off for Detmold's new master students and have been led by Prof.i.V. Hans Sachs and Dipl.-Ing. David Lemberski.
More than 80 students in the field of architecture (Master Integrated Architectural Design - MIAD) and interior architecture (Master Innenarchitektur-Raumkunst - MIAR) developed a huge variety of digital and physical prototype wall and roof structures in an interdisciplinary and interactive design and modeling process. The focus of this experimental workshop has been on the interconnection of analogue and digital modeling and fabrication techniques by using 3D printers, two CNC laser cutters, a CNC wirebender and cutting plotters. Within this interdisciplinary setup our international and national 'newcomer students' interconnected greatly at an early stage of their studies and immediately learned to use and integrate innovative modeling and prototyping techniques in the design development process.
At the symposium "Digital Methods", which took place on September 21st at the EFN trade booth, eight expert speakers from various universities and companies presented their strategies, concepts and methods of design and development processes in a digital context. The symposium had a focus on future strategies, techniques and (working- and development-) methods that emerge from the application and interconnection of various kinds of arising digital tools. All speakers had a focus on digital techniques and working methods while coming from different disciplines such as architectural design, urban planning or from innovative digital (industrial) production processes (Industrie 4.0). Hereby a great variety of possible applications of digital tools and methods, not only in an architectural context but also at the intersection to other product related disciplines has been presented.
Workshop and symposium have been supported by the ALCOA Foundation through the project "efnMOBILE.Efficient Envelopes", by the glasstec fair and by internal grants of HS OWL. Susann Kreplin and her team designed and organized the fair booth.