/// Amorphous Ornament - WS 2004/2005
/// Building by use of machines
/// Chair of CAAD - ETH Zürich

Subject

The website of the course you can find here.

New methods of fabrication and construction are changing the practice of architecture. The use of the computer as a design aide is rapidly being augmented by the capabilities of the computer as a COMPUTATION machine. Geometries are automatically generated and adjusted by given rules.

Amorphous Ornament is an introduction to the design and fabrication of complex parametric forms using the computer as the main design medium. The course questions how these new techniques of design fit into the greater concept of architecture, and how they also relate to the past.

Ornament once held a significant role in the creation of architecture. Its decline is often attributed to the arrival and incorporation of technology in the modernist approach to architecture. The possibilities being realized with computer controlled fabrication have the potential to efficiently reinvigorate the role of ornament within architecture.

The primary skills to be developed are parametric digital modeling and CNC manufacturing. The semester work will examine the possibilities of computer generated form, and its fabrication using CNC machines.

Technical procedure

The geometries were generated by using Alias Maya and its integrated coding-language MEL (Maya Embedded Language). These geometries have been taken to the CAM-application Surfcam for further editing work to be prepared to be sent to a 3-axial cnc-mill.

Work

In a first step geometries were built by hand within Maya, followed by writing simple scripts to generate geometries. These geometries have then been milled into small wooden boards.

Project

At the end of the course a bigger assignment was to be accomplished. An amorphously ornamented ceiling was to be developed. For this a bigger area was devided into smaller plots subsequently to be designed by each participant. Later on the original surface should have been shaped by several digital forces. Additionally the code should have been applicable to adjoining plots to be able to establish neighbourhood-relations and interesting combinations of the different ornaments. Following these demands all deformation of surface was to be done by computing. Hence the MEL-scripts are basically applicable to any given surface.

Starting point of the personal ornamental work was the examination of a historical example, in my case a Japanese painting of the 19th century. It was analyzed and the rules contained were taken as basic developement guidelines for the personal ornament. This was followed by a long process of scripting and experimenting.

The finished surfaces were milled into a special, dense kind of foam. The parts could be put together and formed the whole of the amorphous-ornamented ceiling.