Thesis :

Digital fabrication is emerging quickly in the architecture industry and begins to reinforce the building process into design. Through this emergence comes the focus of natural, recyclable and local materials overlapped with global access to data and digital tools. We are now able to explore the possibilities of merging these technologies together and develop a new system of design. By examining the collaboration of these techniques, what can this tell us for the future of architecture? As this field is gains momentum in exploring the process of production, we were guided to focus on a system in additive manufacturing. The research of Magnetic Architecture explores the use of different sensors and various digital tools to understand the possible trajectories digital fabrication can provide to a future design process. Starting from a material approach, the research focus on the design opportunities of material deposition and solidification within a magnetic fields. By positioning two strong magnets in space it is possible to construct sequential chains of iron-based micro-columns to create complex structural network and wall formations.

 

“We may now be in a position to think about the origin of form and structure, not as something imposed from the outside on an inert matter, not as a hierarchical command from above as in an assembly line, but as something that may come from within the materials, a form that we tease out of those materials as we allow them to have their say in the structures we create.” Manuel De Landa, in Material Complexity,  2002.

Research Invisioned by:  Gabriel-Bello Diaz, Alexandre Dubor, Akhil Kapadia and Angel Lara,

More information : http://magneticarchitecture.org/