AGILE DRAWINGEXPANDING THE TERRITORY OF ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING THROUGH DIGITAL FABRICATION

Maya Lahmy & Anders Kruse Aagaard

KEYWORDSarchitectural drawing and making; creative process; digital fabrication; reflective practise; experimentation through tooling; architectural education and research

INTRODUCTIONThis paper aims to discuss the expanding territory of the architectural drawing through digital fabrication processes and with this angle suggest an experimental practice in research and education.

The author Edward Robbins opens the discussion of the twofold character of the architectural drawing. ‘Drawing, as idea and as act, embodies within itself the relation between society and culture, the relation between realisation and imagination, and the relation between object and subject ’(Robbins and Cullinan, 1994)

In an architectural design process as the drawing moves from one level to the next it changes role, starting at the conceptual level creating a field for ideas to be developed and investigated moving to the level of translating these ideas into realisation in the build environment. Despite the acknowledgement of these two levels coexisting the crystallisation of an architectural design is traditionally understood as a linear process with autonomous successive steps towards translating ideas into matter. With the introduction of digital fabrication tools in architectural research and educational practice the drawing can take on a new role. Moving away from solely representing ideas or form the drawing is converted into tool activating processes by subtracting and transforming information into drawings that control fabrication. By the end of the twentieth century some aspects of direct data interchange between architectural practices and parts of the building industry had already been introduced through digitalisation of drawings and production. As Bob Sheil explains ”The drawing was no longer a static document, but an evolving bank of parametric data from which multiple subsets were extracted.” (Sheil, 2005) The increased territory gives an opportunity to rethink the practice of the architectural drawing as an exchange of information and experimental practice is made possible through digital fabrication tools.

Figure 1. The role of the drawing as a spectrum between imagination and realisation.

DRAWING

construction

reproduction

machine information, tool path

procject management

architectural memory

recording and documentation

communication

interface, bridge

representation

perception

experiment

creation

act

sketch / concept

idea / hunch

IMAGINATION

REALIZATION

DRAWING IN A REFLECTIVE PRACTICEAdvancing a project through drawing is essential for the architect. The closer a project comes to settle, the more a fully developed and refined output will naturally separate from the process that was prior. Until the process solidifies the drawing acts agile and manoeuvrable, branching in multiple directions to reconnoitre the field of investigation.

The architectural drawing acts within a spectrum of roles between imagination and realisation exploring different approaches and intentions. Branching out to fabrication produce specific facets in the landscape of drawing accomplishing a mediating link between idea and reality - drawing establishes a connection to the actual. By default there is a variable distance between drawing and fabricated object depending on the type of fabrication involved. A three-dimensional solid-modelled drawing can be an almost direct input for additive manufacturing and a two-dimensional line-based drawing can straightforward act as cutting lines for a laser cutter. More complex forms of fabrication – like computer numeric controlled (CNC) routing or industrial robot fabrication - require more specific types of drawing to move tools around. The greater the distance the more the drawing have to transform and obtain specific qualities, which can be obtained through coding of the drawing information, specific post-processing or computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software. The distance is incorporated into the drawing set and adds to the breadth of the creative process.

Figure 2. A forward flowing drawing pro-cess with multiple branching and breadth.

Drawing and reality establishes a direct interchange of information

Drawings - flowFabrication branching drawingFeedback from fabrication

The drawing will need to not only consider the type of fabrication but also the specificities of materials involved. Transforming a drawing into fabrication-information and fabricating the object, can be an agile branching into reality in an early phase of a project that will add to the perspective of materiality. Knowledge gained through interaction with materials will feedback into the accumulated body of investigations. The implementation of fabricating as an investigational instrument broadens the role of the drawing as mediator between idea and real. This allows for an oscillating exchange of information between idea, drawing and fabrication and thereby brings an opportunity to extend the reflective process in architectural practice. (Gramazio & Kohler, 2008)

Lines define the drawing; they are the immediate and concrete content, they form information with which the drawing is employed and they are boundary-defining elements between space and matter. When the drawing develops into fabrication, the lines morph from specifying contour into a relational role with the fabrication tool. The appearances of those lines are shaped by the properties of the machine, the tool and the operational concept of fabrication. Along lines tools run and cut and printers print. The lines that inform fabrication are directly defining the movements, directions and approaches of the machine, but might not have any visual correlation with the shape that is intended or the object that is created. Nevertheless those actions of tangible manufacturing are creating the shapes and surfaces of the actual materialised object. Whether the lines are representatives of the boundaries of space and matter or the information for the fabrication, the lines in the digital drawing are the mediator of the information between idea and comprehension. In the unfolding from idea, through visual representation to fabrication, the body of accumulated drawings foster the collective understanding of the bred intention.

1 Drawing

3 Transformation (strecthing)

4 Artefact

2 Fabrication (waterjet) - realisation of drawing

PROTOTYPINGREFLECTIVITY andSPECULATIVE INQUIRY

BUILDING COMPONENT- translates matter into spatial ideas

MATERIALITY- translates material-led ideas into a condition

DIGITAL DRAWING

DIGITAL FABRICATION

CRAFT BASED KNOWLEDGE

· eye-hand-material relation

· direct tool handling, body handles tool

· working area by body size and strength

PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES

· eye-hand-monitor relation

· virtual-mechanical, tool handles tool

· work area defined by machine

HAND DRAWING

· eye-hand-paper relation

· materiality of paper and the drawn

· format of paper

· drawing-body scale 1:1 / scale of the drawn

COMPUTER DRAWING

· eye-hand-screen relation

· virtuality

· format defined by program window

· scale of the scroll / all scales

maya lahmy | drawing - material - component | VIVA presentation 11.2013

25 variations of the module

2/0 2/1

0/1

4/0

1/1 1/2

3/13/0

0/0

1/0

4/1

3/3

2/4

1/4

0/3

4/3

1/3

2/32/2

4/4

3/4

4/2

3/2

0/2 0/4

PROTOTYPINGREFLECTIVITY andSPECULATIVE INQUIRY

BUILDING COMPONENT- translates matter into spatial ideas

MATERIALITY- translates material-led ideas into a condition

DIGITAL DRAWING

DIGITAL FABRICATION

CRAFT BASED KNOWLEDGE

· eye-hand-material relation

· direct tool handling, body handles tool

· working area by body size and strength

PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES

· eye-hand-monitor relation

· virtual-mechanical, tool handles tool

· work area defined by machine

HAND DRAWING

· eye-hand-paper relation

· materiality of paper and the drawn

· format of paper

· drawing-body scale 1:1 / scale of the drawn

COMPUTER DRAWING

· eye-hand-screen relation

· virtuality

· format defined by program window

· scale of the scroll / all scales

maya lahmy | drawing - material - component | VIVA presentation 11.2013

Drawing - component - structure

OPEN-ENDED CONCLUDING REMARKSIt is the domain of reflective and investigative interplay between digital fabrication and drawing that defines our field of research. Digital fabrication can take an active part in the interaction between idea and reality. Introducing fabrication knowledge in an early phase of a project expands the drawing spectrum and introduces a link from imagination to realisation. This moves fabrication from an at-the-end task to an active partner during the whole process. Designing can now be ‘…a creative and experimental process that occupies the full extent of architectural production…’ (Sheil, 2012) Instead of seeing the drawing in an architectural process as successive numbers of separate steps, drawing combined with digital fabrication process has the role of a dynamic fluid unit – growing on information and given the opportunity to continuously oscillate between imagination and realisation.

In two workshops to be held throughout June 2014 the described approach and mind-set of this document will be presented to 2nd year architecture students at Aarhus School of Architecture. Through series of investigations the aim is to concretise and elaborate the diagrammatic premises in this document. The students will be working with fabrication tools that divide (laser- and water jet cutting), add (3D printing) and subtract (5 axis CNC routing) with a focus on the correlation between tool – drawing. The output of the workshop will be considered one accumulated body of drawings and artefacts, mapping the concept of this document in a tangible materialised approach.

REFERENCESGramazio & Kohler, 2008. Digital materiality in architecture. Lars Müller Publishers, Baden.Robbins, E., Cullinan, E., 1994. Why architects draw. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.Sheil, B., 2005. Transgression from drawing to making. Archit. Res. Q. 9, 20–32.Sheil, B., 2012. Manufacturing the bespoke: making and prototyping architecture. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., Chichester, U.K.

Conceptual drawing

Different materials - different fabrication - different drawings

Materialisation

Fabrication drawing - wood routing