UCLA Architecture & Urban Design-IDEAS
1st Place
UCLA A.UD
Project: Undulating Gills
Students: Anna Kudashkina, Yifan Wu, Yuekan Yu, Shahr Razi, Simi Shenoy, Marcelo Marcos
Instructor: Julia Koerner, Lecturer
UCLA A.UD students under the direction of Lecturer Julia Koerner submitted ideas for composite facades, developed within the Technology Seminar “Animated Fibers” (Winter 2016). Inspired by advanced fiberglass infusion techniques within the wind blade industry, the studio researched composite fabrication of “mega-panels” while integrating robotic technology to fabricate panels without a mold.
Earlier this year the Architectural Division, a committee of the American Composites Manufacturing Association Composites Growth initiative invited A.UD along with other selected institutions to participate in the first COMPOSITES DESIGN CHALLENGE for architecture students. The challenge invites students to engage in a material investigation focused on novel means of integration of composite constructions into architectural production.
ACMA asks the student teams to consider the development of an architectural/ building component or assembly that operates in a systemic way. The teams were free to imagine and interpret uses that can range from the banal to the extraordinary. In addition to the unlimited formal possibilities that the plasticity allows for, strong integration with other more normative building Systems is expected.
The San Francisco MOMA Facade designed by Snohetta, fabricated by Kreysler Associates and the DIOR Flagship-store in Seoul, Korea, designed by Portzamparc are architectural precedents which showcase how composite fabrication is being used in construction today. Questioning the cost, energy and waste of mold production for large scale facade panels, the students will investigate designing mouldless composite panels for an architectural application . Material based research will be used to generate a feedback loop between physical material studies in the robot lab and digital design tools including simulation of performative criteria.
The ambition is to work with robotic fabrication technique, using motion to create 3 dimensional fiberglass “mega panels”; to use the robots as a precision and time based tool and motion actuator for variability between the individual prototypes.
UCLA A.UD is grateful for the material support received from ‘Composite One’ and ‘Polynt’ which allowed students to realize large scale semi-mold-less robotically animated infusion fiber-glass prototypes.
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