CD or AD?

Here's a few sample sheets from our set of construction drawings. Unlike the typical 2D construction document set you would find on a conventional building site, our drawings relate more to an IKEA flat-pack assembly diagram, with 2D views identifying an array of individual pre-fabricated components, and a series of procedural 3D views detailing how to orient and assemble them.

There are three main categories for components, all of which are pre-fabricated and delivered to site:

1. Steel
2. Fibre-C
3. EPDM Rubber Gaskets (joints)

All drawings have been produced exclusively in Rhino 4's drawing layout functions, with some help from the Technical Drawing Plug-in.

Additionally, the 1:10 physical model has been taken down to the site, and is being used as a live "construction reference" during the assembly process.

bench in progress...

more revisions to the bench profiles. the original competition entry had the profiles revolving with the geometry of the bench, however this poses problems with how we slot the bench profiles with the deck underneath. now, we are continuing the primary profiles of the roof and floor into the bench. for the cross-members we are looking at taking the sections in one direction for the vertical surfaces of the bench (horizontal sections) and another for the horizontal (seating) surfaces of the bench. we still need to work on the density and spacing of the profiles, but i think we now have the principle in place.

as the deadline approaches and the complexity of joints is exposed, we are basing many decisions on the infamous "KISS Principle".

however, as usual, all sections are completely planar, but never parrallel...

more from theverymany...

here's a few more images from Marc Fornes of theverymany, and his entry into the DRL10 pavilion competition. Marc is doing some fascinating generative geometries in RhinoScript. This entry explores the use of a Danzer Tile, which is an aperiodic tiling system. Check out his site for more. As seen in previous posts, Marc has generously been supplying us with coding support to help us automate the process of producing the documentation for our pavilion.

more joint options

work in progress...

the bench profiles are slowly beginning to take shape....here are some screen shots from today's progress...

moving towards mock-ups...

A few options on joint details. We have a range of 30° on the angle of intersection for each joint. We are proposing that there are then 6 details, each of which can acommodate a variation of 5°. Rieder is confident that their material is strong enough, and their fabrication process acurate enough, that we could do a concrete on concrete joint, with no gaskets or fixings. AKT is not confident about this approach. Not only do they want the gasket, but they also want a mechanical or adhesive fixing. Above is a range of options showing a range of 6 variations each on a gasket-less variable notch detail, and two rubber gasket details.

AKT is also proposing a series of details, which we will post later.

All of the details will be tested through AKT.

In parrallel, we are producing a 1:1 scale plywood mock-up to test fitting and assembly. Here's some images of the 3D model of this mock-up. Yosuke will be coordinating a team of the current DRL phase one students to fabricate and assemble this mock up.


Once again, special thanks to Marc Fornes of theverymany for his assistance with providing the Rhino scripting tools to notch and unroll these surfaces!!

the 58 unrolled profiles for the mock up, notched and ready to be cut...

crease angle plug-in for rhino...

here's some screenshots from today's progress....

we have begun laying out the standard 3.6m x 1.2m fibre-c sheets against our geometry. the lenght of each section is determined by this sheet size. at the moment, we are going with the 3.6m length, as it makes for a lighter element that can be handled by hand. however, AKT is suggesting that we move to the 5m sheet...that means we would require a crane for assembly, as the weight of each individual profile would be over 25kg, which is the legal limit in the UK for builders to lift by hand...BUT it offers greater structural optimization as we would greatly reduce the number of splices required in joining discontinuous members....
we have also created an intersection network for AKT to analyze, as well as documenting all of the angles of intersection for all of the planes (thanks to the crease angle plugin for Rhino). as you can see below, no two angles are the same...although many are within very close range to one another.


we'll have more on some ideas regarding how we can deal with these angle variations soon...AKT has a few options they would like to explore, and we are developing a couple as well...

have a seat...

Lately the focus has been on tectonics, as we have been looking at the joints and the section profiles. These are major issues we need to develop with AKT so that they can get a proper structural analysis to us. In order to move ahead, we have been focused on the roof canopy. This weekend, we have looked at some geometry refinement on the bench, and incorporated a revised more controlled version of the bench into the new roof shell. we still need to define the section profiles of the bench, and more importantly, how those profiles will splice into those of the roof. in the meantime...here's a few screenshots of the latest bench 3D....more to come.

geometry refinement....

here's a few screen shots of the current exercises:

1. refining & rationalising the shell geometry
2. refining & rationalising the section planes