Digital Fabrication
Fabrication Class Spring 2011, University of Illinois at Chicago
Study Abroad Program at The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC)
Professor: Marta Malé-Alemany
Assistant Professor: Brian Peters
Assignment 1:
Laser Cutting – Hanging Vertical Gardens
The first assignment introduced students to the Fab Lab Barcelona and focused specifically on using the laser cutting machines. The students were asked to develop hanging vertical gardening systems which attached to existing infrastructure in the city for the “Urban Street Furniture“competition held by the Architecture for Humanity’s Chicago chapter. The students were then asked to design and fabricate 1:1 prototypes of their vertical garden system. All the prototypes were comprised of curved panels, which introduced the students to the idea of ruled surfaces and how to create flat cutting patterns of curved forms. Students first constructed paper models to study the curvature and connections between components, prior fabricating on the laser cutter. The assignment was designed to help students focus on fabrication issues such as material efficiency, material selection, connection methods, and drawing preparation.
Assignment 2:
Creating a cast using 3-axis milling
The second assignment introduced students to the 3-axis milling machine. Students were once again divided into teams and each team was asked to design a single module that would be fabricated in foam and then cast out of plaster. For the first part of the assignment, each team was given two pieces of 40cm x 40cm x15cm foam from which to make their molds, and each mold was required to have between two and four elliptical connection points. The second part of the assignment focused on how the team’s module could be repeated to create interesting aggregations or assemblies. The process of the assignment started with the design of a single module, modeling the module and its possible aggregations, creating fabrication files, and finally casting the module out of plaster. This assignment introduced various fabrication issues related to milling, such as limitations of 3-axis milling, how to generate and control the effects of the milling paths, and how the tool head can affect your design.
Students:
Peter Overman, John Donoghue, Robert Garrison, Thomas Frost , Allison Frost, Christin Mains, Lorene Ford, Aaron Spiering, Stanley Schultz III, Stephen Gordon, Daniel Starcher, Jay Studer, Jennifer Nguyen , Erin Patterson , Margaret Strojny, Christina Visscher
