Aluminum sculpture TECHNOID TOWER

cardboardcompositeoutdoor

Workshop on digital design and fabrication in Architecture Technoid Tower is the working title of the workshop on digital design and fabrication in Architecture. It was organized and directed by Hans Sachs (responsive design studio) and Sebastian Bächer (Bächer& Bergmann GmbH). Students of architecture had the possibility to enhance their skills in digital fabrication within their training for the master’s degree in computational design and construction at the Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Detmold Germany. Digital manufacturing processes are rather related to the principles of crafts than industrial production as they emphasize the wide range of qualities of the materials used and provide higher flexibility and extensive opportunities during the development and production process. With the use of new, integrative digital design and fabrication tools‘ the boundaries between design development and production become increasingly blurred. During the workshop, students developed their concepts and prototypes of folded structures and towers with ALUCOBOND® and cardboard pipes. Thanks to a special definition of Grasshopper 3D (Visual programming for Rhino 3D) that was developed for the purpose of this workshop, the students could immediately realize first ideas as ‚real’ prototypes. Conclusions about material behaviour and properties during the manufacturing processes could be integrated into their digital models in a much faster and direct way. The software directly generates G-Codes (without CAM Software) for various CNC machines based on the 3D model data, which leads to a highly accelerated and tightly focused prototyping and development process.