Arguement Framework

I will be aggregating quotes and notes taken from my references into groups based on what question they are addressing. I will be using this to construct an argument map so I can coherently argue a main thesis from theses ideas.

Why am ‘I’ doing this?

Fabian Scheurer founder of designtoproduction consults on the digital production of complex architectural designs.(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 86)

“Finding an elegant, common definition for all the different details of a curved facade is even more difficult than solving the problem for just one, nicely orthogonal situation.”
“That finally means you have to know about geometry. All the mathematics, so comfortably hidden behind the CAD software’s buttons, suddenly has to be dealt with in the form of normal vectors, curvature measures and coordinate transformations.”(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 89-91)
Can be an argument for “why me?” I am knowledgeable about architectural form and geometry as it is represented in the computer. I am not as skilled in mathematics, but I do understand what goes on behind the scenes to an extend from my knowledge of grasshopper scripting and computer programming.

What will I do?

The underlying logic of computation strongly suggests such an alternative, in which the geometric rigour and simulation capability of computational modelling can be deployed to integrate manufacturing constraints, assembly logics and material characteristics in the definition of material and construction systems.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 199)

My script should adhere to this standard.

“Materiality and materialisation can become the starting points of an exploratory, open-ended design process, and thus serve, quite literally, as the raw materials for design research and architectural inquiry.”(Menges, “Material Computation”, 16)
Defense of my research method and starting point for this project.

“Materiality is usually conceptualised as a mere passive property assigned to geometrically defined elements, and materialisation is implicitly conceived as a secondary process of facilitating a scheme’s realisation within the physical world. Consequently, material information is understood as facilitative rather than generative.”(Menges, “Material Computation”, 17)
By understanding metal and the process of incremental deformation, I will be in a better place to design the system in which it is used.

“computational process that moves between virtual generation and physical materialisation”(Menges, “Material Computation”, 20)

“The algorithm is much easier to handle than the set of drawings – especially when it comes to changes”(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 91)
An argument for algorithms that can take in inputs, such as the component, and parametrically figure out the tooling and manufacturing process for that particular component. This requires abstraction of the problem to one which a computer program can solve.

“I have always been more interested in research as a tool to develop a particular design than in ‘abstract’ research, so perhaps a better title would be ‘research through fabrication’.”(Thornton, 101)

“Quantitative answers can be determined. Which radius is required? Which curvature can be accepted? An empirical approach, using a series of physical models, is applied to address such questions.”(Weinand, 107)
Much like Weinand and Hudert’s project, my research will include empirical tests to determine the bounds of metal deformation and how different tool-paths, tool-heads, and force directions affect the sheet.

“Geometrical and mechanical observations need to be collected. The deformation process creates a specific stress situation, which can be described as ‘initial stress’. Those parameters can be measured by means of computer simulation, where the deformation process is modelled. The initial stress situation can be established via measures taken directly on the physical prototype by stress-sensing elements. Once the initial stress situation is known, various load cases can be performed giving more insight into the structural performance of a given Timberfabric.”(Weinand, 107)
Specific experiments and methods for collecting data on a material.

Linear Addition vs Integrated Integrated Modules
Diamler/Chrysler “divides the car to be produced in constituent chunks, or modules. The car today only becomes whole at the end of the manufacturing process, in those minutes of final assembly. Each chunk is composed of many parts that are preassembled off the main assembly line”(Kieran and Timberlake, 17)
I’m thinking about my final output to be some modular assembly that is preassembled in chunks.

“Individual parts and modules are barcoded to enable instant tracking and to ensure that each part is installed in the proper module or vehicle.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 19)
Barcodes
I may need a similar system to this, much like how Mike and Jordan created QR codes to identify each piece.

“We need more information to enhance the speed and comprehensiveness of our conceptions. We need more information to locate all the pieces that make up the components of our buildings throughout the process of design, fabrication, and assembly. We need more information to know immediately when a component has been properly installed.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 51)
Tools, software, apps are available to aid in this. Maybe such a tool would be needed for my final assembly.

“construction in progress serves as the mock-up”(Kieran and Timberlake, 55)
parts of new buildings should researched, prototyped, and mocked-up to allow for a sufficient understanding and wrinkling out of potential issues.

“The irony of modular assembly is that it places a premium on a complete understanding of the whole as a prerequisite to strategies for fragmentation.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 65)
In essence, the whole must be thoroughly understood for it to be modularized. Simulation is a necessary tool for this.

“joints ensure quality control through build in registers that render it impossible for parts to be misaligned”(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
a smart concept that I should apply to my assembly process.

Brick is easiest to stack. (Reminds me of Louis Kahns remark that “And it’s important, you see, that you honor the material that you use.” and that a brick wants to be in an arch)
Steel is easiest to weld.
Sheet Metal is easiest to deform.

Why is this worthwhile?

CAD/CAM is still mostly used as a “mere extension of well-rehearsed and established design processes.“(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 199)

Roboforming is not a well-rehearsed process and still has a lot of room for perfection.

Menges gives evidence that in the history of architecture, new materials were used in ways that previously known materials were constructed instead of using their own properties and logics to their advantage.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 198)

Sheet metal is not a new material at all. But we should always be looking for ways to incorporate the inherent properties of the materials in new ways, specific to sheet metal.

“Architecture, as a material practice, attains social, cultural and ecological relevance through the articulation of material arrangements and structures. Thus, the way we conceptualise these material interventions- and particularly the technology that enables their construction – presents a fundamental aspect in how we (re)think architecture.”(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 198)

This is a bold claim that I will call upon to defend the relevance of my thesis.

Whereas the nature of CAM enables difference to be achieved, it is currently used mainly as a means of increasing speed and precision in the production of variation.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 203)

CAM should be utilized to achieve differentiation among parts, not just speed and precision of the same part.

“architectural practice has more typically used CAD to increase the efficiency with which traditional two-dimensional visualisations are created.”(Callicott, 68)
This mirrors what Menges says about the initial adoption of CAD systems.

“it can be difficult to carry out physical research, as opposed to a desk study, because it takes time and money, even though the cost might be a small part of the project cost and should anyway be set against the reduction in risk and savings that arise from the research. Inevitably, without the reassurance of research, the design must be more cautious.”(Thornton, 101)
While research can be costly, the cost is usually offset by the monetary savings, risk mitigation, and the confidence to produce a bolder novel design.

“the best designers know how things work, how they are made, how materials behave and their qualities.”(Thornton, 101)
Knowing how materials behave can allow a designer to produce a simpler, more appropriate solution to design challenges.

“We joke about solutions looking for problems; however, new ideas often come from making new connections, and the wider our exposure to sources the bigger the data bank to draw upon.”(Thornton, 102)
New methods won’t solve a specific problem, but they are added to the “data bank” of methods and information so that designers can draw upon them later.

“you learn from the ‘failures’ perhaps more than from the successes because when it goes wrong, you find out why, yet when it goes right, you never really know how close you were to failing.”(Thornton, 102)

“We are probably not aware of all the inputs, or their importance, at the beginning; rather they come to light as we work”(Thornton, 103)

“The danger is that computer power triumphs over design and takes away the need to simplify, rationalise and understand the material.”(Thornton, 103)
This is why I will begin with empirical physical tests on sheet metal to understand the material and how it deforms.

Practical and material orientated academic research has become increasingly important for architectural practice, due to several factors.(Weinand, 104)

It contributes to contemporary concepts in architecture and improves their implementation.
1. It is the limitations in time and capacities that more often than not confound the realisation of such ambitions.
2. Academic research can fill this gap and provide architectural practices with the necessary resources.
Research has a duty to address how to achieve sustainable building.

“Standard software is currently not able to simulate material behaviour such as elastic deformation, but the development of software that can do so is an essential step in connecting the Textile Module with digital planning and production. Inputs from mathematics and mechanical engineering are necessary to successfully execute this part of the work.”(Weinand, 104)
Developing new software tools to simulate and predict material behavior in sheet metal will be necessary to accomplish the goal of a streamlined production process.

“Architectural production over the past decade has been marked by a strong affection for the image. The seductive aesthetics of digital architectural modelling and visualisation have often dominated over attention towards materiality and building construction. There appears to be something remarkable in the interaction of the material and the formal qualities that produces a distinguished quality of design. It is perhaps the elevation of materiality to a level of prominence in design and design research that can explain this intellectual resonance and its implications for architecture as a material practice.”(Weinand, 107)
More arguments for incorporating research of material behavior into the architectural design process.

“We must overcome an industrywide aversion to research and experimentation”(Kieran and Timberlake, 23)

Buildings vs Architecture

“Ironically, by narrowing its realm of significant interest to appearance only, architecture sacrificed control of its one remaining stronghold: appearance.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 29)

“Materials, the stuff we build with, give physical substance to this shape and to the idea that animates it”(Kieran and Timberlake, 31)

“The architect has allowed the means and methods of building to move outside the sphere of architecture. The splintering of architecture into segregated specialties has been disastrous.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 31)

“A central tactic of Boeing in this initiative is the use of new materials that allow the formation of one part from what, in the past, would have been many”(Kieran and Timberlake, 37)

New materials and methods have enabled meteoric changes in architectural design
“The introduction of steel and the elevator allowed the tall building to develop”(Kieran and Timberlake, 119)
“the balloon frame-a new method of assembly, not a new material-transformed residential architecture in the United States.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 119)

What is Roboforming?

Menges looks towards natural systems which operate similarly to architecture, in that they must reconcile both internal physical constraints and external influences in their material structure.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 198)

Roboforming will have to reconcile the internal constraints of sheet metal with the external forces applied by the robots

Currently, architectural form emerges from processes concerned primarily with shape.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 198)

Roboforming only allows for certain forms to be created. So inevitably whatever is created must adhere and utilize the constraints applied to the process.

How will I be contributing to Roboforming?

Feedback loops between computational design, advanced simulation and robotic fabrication will enable a complex performative structure from a simple system.(Menges, “Material Computation”, 17)

Why is Roboforming good for architecture?

Incremental Sheet Forming has not really caught on in the automobile and aviation manufacturing because they tend to produce the same part over an over again. Their products have no site specificity, and so do not need to adapt to their environments with variations among their components. In architecture, there is a growing need to come up with new processes for producing the variation in components across a building facade. Roboforming provides the opportunity for a fast, material and labor efficient method for producing this variation. With the introduction of this process in architecture, and architectural education, the field can be pushed further towards the goal of mass-customization of facades specific to placement on the building.

Currently, architectural form emerges from processes concerned primarily with shape.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 198)

Roboforming only allows for certain forms to be created. So inevitably whatever is created must adhere and utilize the constraints applied to the process.

This is a bold claim that I will call upon to defend the relevance of my thesis.

Sheet metal is not a new material at all. But we should always be looking for ways to incorporate the inherent properties of the materials in new ways, specific to sheet metal.

Symptomatic for preserving the facilitative character of manufacturing and its related protocols is the term ‘mass customisation’ Flourishing due to the reintroduction of affordable variation, ‘mass customisation’ nevertheless remains an extension of well known and long-established design processes embracing the still dominant hierarchy of prioritised shape-definition and subsequent, purely facilitative manufacturing.

At this point, the highly specific restrictions and possibilities of manufacturing hardware and controlling software can become generative drivers embedded in the setup and development of the computational framework.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 203)

Menges criticizes ‘mass-customisation’ for still being a slave to form once shape is defined. Form should be defined by the constraints of the material and process.

“The idea of just sending a 3-D model to the fabricator and receiving a few containers full of mass-customised components some days later is downright utopian. The mass-customisation system that translates the design input into production data has to be developed first.”(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 93)
Mass Customisation as a common practice is not yet realized. I believe new tools are required that simplify the generation of a customized part and reduce the time from file-to-factory. This quote speaks to the idea of digital craft, where a new project requires new methods of construction and does not rely on age-old reliable manufacturing methods. New processes need to be developed, and each new process leads to undetermined risks, which is what craft is all about.

“Computational design enables architects to integrate ever more multifaceted and complex design information, while the industrial logics of conventional building construction are eroding rapidly in a context of increasingly ubiquitous computer-controlled manufacturing and fabrication.”(Menges, “Material Computation”, 16)
The architectural industry is being radically altered by computational design and fabrication. CNC manufacturing is increasingly predominate in the construction of architectural components.

Feedback loops between computational design, advanced simulation and robotic fabrication will enable a complex performative structure from a simple system.(Menges, “Material Computation”, 17)

Skylar Tibbets identifies a “fundamental lack of finesse in contemporary modes of construction when compared to the increasing sophistication of combined design computation and digital fabrication”(Menges, “Material Computation”, 20)

Cristiano Ceccato “explains the work of Zaha Hadid Architects on reconciling advanced forms of digital design that exist within a multidimensional envelope of material performance, production capabilities, logistics and cost, with today’s comparatively archaic methods of procurement, fabrication and construction.”(Menges, “Material Computation”, 21)
Roboforming has the opportunity to close this gap between complex forms generated by computational methods, such as those by Zaha, and the constraints of manufacturing.

“‘It has resonated among some in the development community, where monetary carrying costs can be the difference between doing a project and shelving it.'”(Woudhuysen, 49)
If Roboforming can bring costs down, then it should increase the likelyhood of clients approving complex geometric forms that may be better suited for the site.

Corb “praised grain silos because their pure form had been shaped by economic rules of production. Engineers, unlike architects, are not guided by preconception about appearance. Instead they possess a single-minded focus on purpose and economy.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 5-7)
I propose a combining of the engineer and architect, into one which is concerned with appearance, purpose, and economy. In the right context, Roboforming can meet the requirements of all three.

“Framing is entirely gravity based. The frame must be present before anything else can be placed. It is a precondition.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 57)
The word “precondition” reminds me of its use in Computer Science, where a precondition is a type of ‘contract’ that an input must satisfy for the program to ‘ensure’ (a postcondition) that the function works as intended.

Quilting is used as analogy as a system that “can be fabricated in any order”(Kieran and Timberlake, 57)

Craft

Roboforming can bring craft back to architecture.

“there is a dimension to our knowledge and activity as designers that is, by definition, unspeakable. These are abilities that cannot be easily translated to another individual except through a prolonged process of practice and learning.”(Callicott, 66)
“I am convinced that a consideration of this tacit dimension is a necessary step in the re-creation of our identity as architects.”(Callicott, 67)

“Since architecture has been definable as a profession, the conventional drawing has comprised one of the essential protocols that separate the maker
from the architect, a device of status and demarcation”(Callicott, 67)

Capturing the Tacit

Record/Playback system developed by GE in 1947 (Callicott, 67)
- sought to capture and translate the tacit component of making into a numerical transcription.
- recorded actions of a machinist operating a modified machine tool
- the uniqueness of the event is enlisted to realise the repetition of standardisation.
- It was an attempt, to capture the skill of the individual and translate it into a repeatable, permanent and geometric event.
- system’s key weakness as a continued reliance on a skilled workforce, since a skilled craftsman was required for the initial input for each part
- this reliance also embedded a further technical weakness in that the complexity and geometry of the objects was fundamentally limited by human dexterity.
Computer Numerical Control (Callicott, 67-68)
- resulted from research in the aircraft industry and later at MIT
- conceived as a system by which complete separation from the tacit dimension of making could be achieved
- each of the operations of a manufacturing process could be described through an original scripting, rather than through a replication of a moment past.
- one of the most significant changes in production radically redefining the professional demarcations by which the physical world is brought into being
- began a transformation of mass production into mass customization

Record/playback “creates a representational mode that suggests a direct equivalence between description and object never before attained within conventional graphical modes of description.”(Callicott, 67)
Before, you had to draw to tell someone what to do, record/playback changes that paradigm as one that can be directly applied.

“When we use CAM software to create a time-based simulation that reveals the sequence of subtraction or addition by which form is realised, we are in a sense neither making nor drawing, but are engaged only in an active reading of an authored function that differentiates surplus matter from our unique form. Making, therefore, has become dependent on the author, object (architecture) and observer existing within a cybernetic condition, within which a continuous and changing dialogue between form and observer is maintained.”(Callicott, 68)

Architecture can be art or a commodity.(Kieran and Timberlake, 3)
Commodity: “an artifact of use to be bought and sold in accordance with prevailing principles of economic exchange.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 3)

Commodity was once the tollgate to art, the test of optimum fitness. Does it pass “all tests of a minimum expedtiture of resources to effect maximum gain”?(Kieran and Timberlake, 3)
“Craft itself was the web of knowledge about putting things together that one negotiated on the way to economy.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 3)

“Making by hand was the only way we had of fabricating artifacts for most of our history. The designer was often one and the same with the maker.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 5)
Here, the robot is the maker, but the designer must also design the process by which the artifact is made.

Machine-craft was a “dream of modernist thought. The goal was to make some architecture, especially housing, into a commodity for consumption by the masses.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 5)

“Commodity today is generally seen as anti-art. It is possible, however, to see commodity instead as the crucible of art.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 7)
The art is in the designing of the process of making. This process is often beautiful, elegant, and amazing. Just watch “How It’s Made”.

“Current architecture excludes the architect from participation in the ‘means and methods” of making.'”(Kieran and Timberlake, 7)
If architects was to regain their relevance, I think we have to start thinking about how are designs are made, down the components and up to the final assembly.

“The single most devastating consequence of modernism has been the embrace of a process that segregates designers from makers.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 13)
A strong statement, but one which I hope to help prove.

Why Mass-Customization and Modules?

Menges criticizes ‘mass-customisation’ for still being a slave to form once shape is defined. Form should be defined by the constraints of the material and process.

“‘The more one attempts to undertake at the point of assembly,’ the authors note, ‘the more difficult it is to control quality’.”(Woudhuysen, 49)
Prefabrication and preassembled parts decreases unknowns and time on site.

“Bentley cars. They are truly bespoke – we love that word – and so clearly represent mass customisation. … Bentley cars were an example of customisation without the preface ‘mass’”(Woudhuysen, 50)
Are automobiles an example of mass production or mass customisation? Even Bently cars don’t seem to fit the word.

Kieran and Timberlake abondon “mass production as ‘the ideal of the early twentieth century’. They assert that mass customisation ‘is the recently emerged reality of the twenty-first century,’”(Woudhuysen, 50)

Personalisation vs. Customisation?
Personalisation = Mass Customisation?(Woudhuysen, 50)

The “advances in the design and fabrication of automobiles, airplanes, and ships” have decreased manufacturing times, waste, and cost, while “quality has increased exponentially.”(xi)
In contrast, architecture has become even more “wasteful, disposable, splintered, and specialized.”(Kieran and Timberlake, xi)

“Mass customization is a hybrid” between mass production and customization. “It proposes new processes to build using automated production, but with the ability to differentiate each artifact from those that re fabricated before and after.”(Kieran and Timberlake, xii-xiii)

Quality * Scope = Cost * Time
“The way to attain a certain combination of higher quality and greater scope is to spend some combination of more time and more money.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 9)
Ideally we could get greater quality and scope for less cost and time. Of course, the inverse usually holds.

Quality * Scope > Cost * Time
“Cars ships, and planes must even move through space, while buildings, relatively static artifacts, are rooted in place. Ships are larger than most buildings and generally dynamic.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 11)
“There are lessons that can be examined and transferred from our sister industries to architecture about processes and materials developed over the past decade that have overturned the ancient equilibrium between expenditure of resources and acquisition of benefits.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 11)
“The answer lies first in the emergence of the process engineer, the designer of methods.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 11)
The “answer” to architecture’s contemporary problems can be found through the utilization of “process engineers” who can design new efficient methods of making.

“Each module comes to the main plant complete and ready to be attached quickly to the vehicle. The various modules that form a car are designed and produced in parallel. The time and total cost of labor required to install modules at the point of final assembly are dramatically reduced.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 21)
Architecture could be preassembled offsite in such chunks and the time required to actually construct the building and rent the equipment would be drastically shorter.

In contrast to Tesla, who seems to do most of the manufacturing in one factory.

Traditionally, the laying of the keel “marks the act of conception from which the rest of the ship evolves. The sequence of acts in the plays of shipbuilding and architecture have remained the same: foundation, frame, skin, systems, finish, equipment.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 71)

Modern shipbuilding utilizes ‘grand blocks’
Grand Blocks: “a completed 150 to 1,000 ton segment of a ship that includes all of the systems, structure, machinery, compartments, and finishes in a given segment of a ship.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 73)

Grand blocks mean the “construction process is no longer linear”, built from the bottom up. This allows for simultaneous production and shorter construction times.
Grand blocks are also built indoors, where “there are no weather stoppages and temperatures are relatively comfortable. Tools and equipment are nearby. Work space is less crowded. The quality of construction improves.”
Since grand blocks can be built faster, “the cost of labor declines.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 75)

Grand blocks are in turn built from smaller ‘miniblocks'(Kieran and Timberlake, 77)

Modular ‘smart elements’ that may have a shorter service life can be swapped out easily.(Kieran and Timberlake, 77)

Aggregating “many parts into fewer modules before the point of final assembly” achieves “higher quality, better features, less time to fabricate, and lower cost: more art and craft, not less.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 79-81)

“The more one attempts to undertake at the point of final assembly, the more difficult it is to control quality. Fewer joints in the final installation give rise to more precise tolerances”(Kieran and Timberlake, 87)
argument for preassembly

“when responsibility for the car is fragmented into modules, there are more entities assuming primary responsibility for this quality”(Kieran and Timberlake, 89)

“it is more difficult and takes more time to research and test redesigned parts than it does to redesign the process.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 97)
rather than change the part, change how the part is made to be more efficient. i.e. a facade panel created by conventional means.

“complex problem is made into a series of smaller, less complex ones”(Kieran and Timberlake, 97)

“The key to creating chunks or modules is that they must be able to exist as completed entities that can support themselves without any armature until the point of final assembly.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 98)
When do you know when your module is the appropriate size? When is the Russian doll at its outer most limit? How many sub-modules should make up a module?

“Labor killed in field construction is becoming an increasingly rare commodity throughout the developed world.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 123)
Reasons:

working conditions
safety concerns
weather conditions

These problems can be avoided by prefabricating inside

greater comfort
less strain
- bring task to worker
- fixed place to work with full array of tools
lower risk of chronic injuries
- from repetitive motions
- from working in awkward spaces
improved safety
- reduces aerial work
- use ladders
- bringing task to worker

“In this century we desire choice, expression, individuality. and the ability to change our minds at the last minute”(Kieran and Timberlake, 133)

“Why are we constantly forced to make design decisions on the basis of costs that result in less choice, less customization, more standardization, and less quality?”(Kieran and Timberlake, 135)

“we have found that mass customization offers real change for architecture and construction”(Kieran and Timberlake, 135)

Why Now?

Timberlake claims “‘Our communication software, our CAD abilities, and the supply-chain opportunities all exist to enable true mass customisation to occur'”(Woudhuysen, 50)

Timberlake “notes our point that, to uphold a true return to craft, construction needs to embrace new technologies and methods for making. But what we meant was not craft in the sense of the present use of construction trades, so much as a turn to manufacturing architecture”(Woudhuysen, 51)
New technologies for making/manufacturing as Craft

Timberlake argues, “‘If today’s new materials enable integration, lighter assemblies and new technologies, then the world of design and construction will be enhanced by embracing them, rather than ignoring their possibilities.”(Woudhuysen, 51)
Sheet metal is not a new material, certainly, but new technologies for production are integral to lighter assemblies.

“Advances in analysis, visualisation and manufacturing techniques, and the electronic links between them, now allow us to construct forms, details and variations that would have been impossibly expensive a few years ago.”(Thornton, 103)

CAM’s “physical capability – to realise unique and complex environments – has finally begun to displace the iconic after image of 20th-century mass production.”(Callicott, 66)

Callicott proposed that “complexity and variety in architecture can be explored beyond the prior bounds of standardisation, yet within an economic framework increasingly favourable to the unique.”(Callicott, 66)

“our role as architects is being transformed by subscription to these techniques. However, we must remember that our roles may equally be transformed by a lack of participation”(Callicott, 66)

“the outcome depends on how architects define a methodology for the use of contemporary production with respect to the practice of design. So, we are going to have to reconsider what it is that architects do.”(Callicott, 66)

“the technological development of architectural production over this period initially fails to reflect these changes”(Callicott, 68)
Instead, architecture adopted “industrialised building products and systems”(Callicott, 67)

Modern CAM software enables “authoring and simulation of the actually machining process specific to a virtually modelled form”. This makes visual and graphic representation the “primary medium of communication”.(Callicott, 68)

“It has been argued that architects make drawings not buildings, that the relationship to the drawing and the image defines not only their professional status, but their identity.”(Callicott, 69)
The author suggests that this tradition can be turned on its head

“With the information control tools we now have we are able to visualize and manage off-site fabrication of mass customized architecture.”(Kieran and Timberlake, xii)
We now have the technology to effectively implement these strategies.

Mass-produced housing based on automotive manufacturing is not a new concept.

“Le Corbusier’s mass-produced housing modeled on American automotive production, numerous factory-produced houses of the WWII eram and the industrialized building program of Operation Breakthrough in the Nixon era”(Kieran and Timberlake, 105)
Why did all these fail to catch on?
“Each attempt to transform architecture into a commodity had political, programmatic, procedural, and stylistic agendas that were narrowly defined.”Kieran and Timberlake, (105)
By tying these projects to political agendas, it limited their life. Instead, they need to be products of “the market, not the government, is the only reliable long-term agent of change”(Kieran and Timberlake, 105) that care about the long term bottom line.
“architectural production does not thrive on rapid change”(Kieran and Timberlake, 105)
“By equating a process of building with a single type of building-housing-the result has again been disastrous”(Kieran and Timberlake, 107)
“The potential of the off-site process is greatest when the breadth of its applicability is broadest”(Kieran and Timberlake, 107)
“Mass production is a way to make a building that produces less for less”(Kieran and Timberlake, 107)
compared to More for Less of mass-customization, and specifically the more for less that you get from Roboforming. By taking a flat sheet in one dimension, you can create something more than that that can occupy an additional dimension of space.
“the spirit of living in mass-production houses did not [come to pass]. Individual circumstances of cultural heritage, personal preference, and particulars of site, while not consistent, are always present and will always work against any impulse toward a common, repetitive appearance and substance for all production”(Kieran and Timberlake, 109)

Why is the world ready now?

“repetitive appearance and substance are no longer a prerequisite for off-site fabrication. By decoupling appearance from substance and emphasizing the substance of new methods of fabrication we can exploit the multiplicity of form they give rise to”(109)
“Mass customization is a rapidly replacing mass production”(Kieran and Timberlake, 111)
“Mass Customization is about cultural production as apposed to the industrial output of mass production. In other words, rather than decide among options produced by industry, the customer determines what the options will be by participating in the flow of the design process from the very start.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 111)
“it is no longer acceptable to report year in and year out that architecture costs more, takes longer to build, and yields lower quantity.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 111)
“we have within out reach methods of mass fabrication that yield custom results.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 111)
“Not only can we now change the construction paradigm from mass production to mass customization, but now we must.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 115)
“Trial and error in the field is used throughout the conventional building process. The building is both prototype and completed architecture.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 115)
“In off-site production, the components must fit, since they arrive at the site whole and, in most cases, cannot readily be modified”(Kieran and Timberlake, 115-117)
“We can now solid-model components and simulate how they will join all adjacent elements.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 117)

Why didn’t off-site fabrication take off in the 20th C?

“building was still a simple affair”(Kieran and Timberlake, 127)
“mostly structure and shelter with few systems”(Kieran and Timberlake, 127)
“Systems constituted only 5% of economic expenditure”(Kieran and Timberlake, 127)
“the advantages afforded by off-site fabrication did not pertain”(Kieran and Timberlake, 127)

Why is architecture ready now?

“The amount of money spent on these systems as a percentage of total cost has increased more than fivefold in the past 100 years-from 5% to 27%”(Kieran and Timberlake, 127)
“we have only now developed an architecture that is truly a machine to live and work in”(Kieran and Timberlake, 129)
Yet “we still build as though our buildings were all bricks and mortar and no systems”(Kieran and Timberlake, 129)
“systems have become the unwitting, unseen structure of our architecture”(Kieran and Timberlake, 129)
“the building is nothing more than a prototype, a flawed yet permanent trial”(Kieran and Timberlake, 129)

Definitions:

Digital Morphogenesis: refers to various processes of form generation resulting in shapes that remain elusive to material and construction logics.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 199)

Computational Morphogenesis: encodes logic, structure and behaviour, as well as the underlying principles of natural morphogenesis.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 199)

Natural Morphogenesis: the process of growth and evolutionary development, generates systems that derive complex articulation, specific gestalt and performative capacity through the interaction of system-intrinsic material characteristics, as well as external stimuli of environmental forces and influences.(Menges, “Integral Formation and Materialisation”, 199)

Descriptive Complexity: a printout of the program code together with a table of all parameter sets needs less paper than all the workshop drawings.(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 91)
Kolmogorov-Complexity: the shortest description of the object in a given language.(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 93)
Mass Customisation: the production of individual components at almost the price of mass production through the use of digitally controlled (CNC) fabrication tools.(Scheurer, “Materialising Complexity.”, 91)

Computation: the processing of information (Menges, “Material Computation”, 16)

Adaptive Manufacture: the very manipulation of material becomes a means by which response is generated, modified and, ultimately, understood.(Callicott, 67)

Grand Blocks: “a completed 150 to 1,000 ton segment of a ship that includes all of the systems, structure, machinery, compartments, and finishes in a given segment of a ship.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 73)

Build Document: a specification sheet describing the particular product to be built,(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
Pick-Time: the time required to get the part to the module(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
Cluster-Sequencing: “ensures that parts arrive at the line in the correct order of assembly, so that no selection by the installer is necessary.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)

Final Assembly Joints: “provide the means of connection, systems interface, and closure between the modules and systems interface, and closure between the modules and systems that comprise a complex artifact.”(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
Types

Connection Joints: “fasten one module to another physically. The means by which [modules are] joined to the overall armature”(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
Systems Connections: “allow systems to be fabricated in modules or chunks, independent of the frame, then joined to other systems in other modules at the final assembly plant”(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
Closure Joints: “provide the visual finish of the module as its surfaces are closed to other modules”(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)
Visual relation between parts: flush, subflush, or projecting(Kieran and Timberlake, 101)

Die: A die is a specialized tool used in manufacturing industries to cut or shape material using a press. Like molds, dies are generally customized to the item they are used to create. Products made with dies range from simple paper clips to complex pieces used in advanced technology. (Wikipedia)