Research pavilions as a laboratory for the digital design and fabrication process

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present and discuss the construction of small pavilions as an opportunity for experimentation in the digital design, modeling, digital fabrication (DF) and assembly process of complex architectural forms based on a series of workshops held between the years of 2017 and 2019 in two schools of Architecture in different universities in Brazil. Design Science Research was the primary scientific method adopted in the research, with experimental, exploratory field research being used in different workshops to produce objects and validate the process. The pavilions consisted of funicular shell structures used for shading, and their forms were obtained by a parametric generative algorithm. Participants in the modeling workshops were given a Grasshopper code, which they could alter to design their own versions of the pavilions. Scale models and full-scale prototypes of four different pavilions modeled and manufactured were materialized. With these experiences, different didactic potentialities that the parametric modeling (PM), the DF and the assembly of pavilions can offer were evidenced. Among these the reflection on the design processes of an architectural envelope and its implications for constructability, the experimentation of PM in the design of the form and the possibility of experiencing the entire cycle of design and construction of an architectural object during the undergraduate course. Presenting the lived experiences and discussing their vicissitudes and the difficulties encountered, this work hopes to contribute to the discussion on PM and DF of architectural envelopes in complex shapes.