A
Harmonious Morphogenesis: A geometric imperative for bent timber morphologies
Navn
Niklas Elsgaard
Uddannelsesgrad
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Arkitektur
Institut
Bygningskunst og Teknologi
Program
Computation in Architecture
År
2024
Harmonious Morphogenesis synthesises digital fabrication and traditional timber bending, combining differential-geometric rationalization, with material-information. The result is a computational design framework, generating emergent bent-timber morphologies, allowing for sustainable resource utilization and interactive, material-aware architectural design.
Abstract
Harmonious Morphogenesis explores the integration of steam bending techniques and differential geometry in digital fabrication processes. The study hypothesizes that this integration can significantly enhance the flexibility and formability of timber, thereby expanding the range of achievable designs and improving sustainability. The paper further investigates the potential of robotic bending to extend this method, allowing for wide geometric architectural possibilities and utilizing the inherent natural behaviour of the material as a design driver. It also discusses the potential for the timber industry to optimize both geometrical capabilities and sustainability conditions, enhancing aesthetic qualities. The research aims to investigate the bending behaviour of timber from various sources, explore the geometric properties related to the bending of plasticized timber, assess the environmental impact of Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical (THM) compared to existing fabrication methods, examine the feasibility of THM as a fabrication method, and evaluate the structural feasibility of plastically deformed timber in curved element systems.
The study employs prospective methods such as surface minimization, asymptotic curves, and sustainability parametrization, and conducts retrospective studies on grading plasticity, digital materiality encoding, material irregularities compensation, bending behaviour prediction, and robotic bending. The research concludes that inherent sustainability, based on material information and sustainable fabrication practice, can be used to optimize early-stage design choices. Through simulation, calculation, and physical testing, a digital model can be created to optimize the steam bending process, limit failure, and enhance architectural exploration.
(From Greek Morphê shape and Genesis creation, literal “the generating of form”) Morphê (shape) Genesis (creation) Harmoniae (agreement, concord) Literal translation; Harmonic generation of form.
Background
Previous to my thesis project, I have explored the world of Thermo-Hydro mechanical bending, or traditionally Steam Bending, particularly in a digital fabrication scope. THM in its essence, is taking timber strips or boards, ideally hardwood species, and plasticizing them through heat and moisture, transitioning the material from a glassy to a viscoplastic state, with increased flexibility, allowing the timber to achieve greater bends, but most importantly to permanently settle into an altered shape.
Now as Wood is an inherently irregular material that exhibits varying properties depending on factors such as species, growth conditions, grain directions etc. ive worked with encoding and compensating these through a digital fabrication environment. And by not only encoding these conditions, but also the alterations through steaming, a material and fabrication aware digital fabrication framework can be applied in accurate reconstruction and production of bent timber elements.
The argument here is, that shortcomings in traditional steam bending, such as the requirement for individualized jigs and high risk of failure during bending, can be accounted for and compensated, by methods of simulation and analyses, but most importantly that the benefits of Thermo Hydral bending can be leveraged through robotic fabrication.
Methodology
This interest in designing with the material, lead me to the title of my thesis, but more importantly the philosophical implications of the work I carried out through developing my project.
What this means in an epistemological sense is synthesizing single pieces of material and fabrication information, into emergent bending behaviours across multiple scales, in a manner that ensures bending fabricability of elements, as a fundamental nature to the architectural system, where the emergent nature of each bent element, results in complex emergent architectural designs.
“Organic means, in the philosophic sense, “entity”, where the whole is to the part, as the part is to the whole. And where the nature of the material, is the nature of the purpose. The nature of the entire performance becomes a necessity. And out of that comes what significance you can give the building as a creative artist.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Research Question:
“How can the bending behaviour of timber, be rationalized and integrated with material and fabrication information, into a generative architectural modelling framework?”
Objectives:
I. Develop a computational model to generate and rationalize fabricable geometries of bent timber strips by explaining their geometric properties.
II. Develop a computational method for simulating geometries that incorporates material and fabrication information by assigning specific properties to geometric objects.
III. Model the emergence and simulate the complex behaviors of multiple elements in coherent architectural systems.
Phases of research
Phase I Geometric Rationalization
Phase II Agent-Based Materiality
Phase III Behavioural Simulation
Behavioural Simulations
Interaction Behaviours
Multi Cluster Interaction
Multi-Environment Interaction
Architectural Propositions
//Architectural Proposition I - ”Structured Serenity”
//Architectural Proposition II - ”Phantom Lament”
//Architectural Proposition III - ”Tethered Aspirations”
Architectural Demonstrator
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