A
Assistant Professor
Institute of Architecture and Space
Suzi Pain
My research explores ornament and ornamental practice in the digital age, predominantly through clay 3D printing and informed by the history of architectural ceramics. Alongside this, I investigate architectural models and model culture, with a particular interest in how material practices and the process of making can shape architectural thinking.
Research
The Historicist and the Algorithm is a practice-based research project undertaken to explore how ‘digital architecture’ can formally respond to historic architectural context. A 3D printed clay column was designed as an experimental architectural object for the Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen in order to directly assess how the expression of the piece can informed by both context, material and fabrication technique.
Dissemination
Pain, Suzi. ‘The Historicist and the Algorithm: An Exploration of 3D Printed Columns Based on the Architectural Languages of Glyptotek in Copenhagen’. AMPS Proceedings Series 25. Urban Assemblage : The City as Architecture, Media, AI and Big Data 25 (2021): 222–33. https://amps-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Amps-Proceedings-Series-25.pdf
The Power of Modelling is a cross-disciplinary research project I have participated in led by the National Museum of Denmark. The project has included researchers from Moesgaard Museum, the Royal Danish Academy, and Aarhus University and has brought together anthropology, archaeology, architecture, audience studies and cognitive science. The project has explored how physical models transmit and shape technological, social, and cultural knowledge, and how modelling can become a shared language between researchers, museum professionals, artists, and audiences. I have conducted a study into the power of architectural models within schools of architecture where I have looked at the notion of enchantment as well as how material agency might play a role in the shaping of architectural ideas.
Dissemination
International Conference: The Power of Modelling - Physical Models and Co-Creative Exhibition-Making
Textile Column is a skin of 3D-printed ceramic tiles that are an experimental proposal for an ornamental, fire-resistant cladding system for structural steel. The piece offers a critical practice against the state of the art by reimagining architectural ceramics in the digital age using Semperian metaphors of textile and dressing as design principles. The approach illustrates an alternative to the complex computational design methods that dominate the field, with greater focus on architectural theory and analogue thinking. The experiment aims to question how we design using paste-based additive manufacturing technologies from an architectural perspective and to explore 3D-printed clay for its ornamental and fire-resistant qualities.
