reverberating across the divide

MERGING DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL CONTEXTS IN DESIGN

Merging digital processes in design with physical processes in fabrication through bespoke vision-based modeling software for 3D scanning / sensing / printing / scanning / sensing / printing / scanning / sensing / …

Reverberating Across the Divide was presented as a part of [en]CodingArchitecture 2013: A Conference on the Autonomy of Architecture, Robotics, Fabrication, Code, Machinic Desire, and Computational Theory.

introduction to physical computing

ARDUINO WORKSHOP @ FIU SOA

madLab was invited to lead a 3 day intensive workshop in physical computing for Florida International University’s School of Architecture. Over 22 hours, 18 students and 3 professors learned the foundational knowledge necessary for translating physical input into meaningful embedded interaction with the built environment, including soldering, electronics, programming, hacking, and debugging.

SeaLegs

A SQUID-BASED MODELER FOR DIGITAL FABRICATION

SeaLegs, a responsive environment for Mollusk-Aided Design, harnesses the power of a simulated virtual squid to generate baroque and expressive spatial forms.
As the creature’s movements are traced through space and time, its familiar squid-like motion aggregates into unexpected, intricate forms that are immediately ready for 3D printing.

machine drawing drawing machines

12 HISTORICAL DRAWING MACHINES DRAWN BY A CNC DRAWING MACHINE

Machine Drawing Drawing Machines, a project with Pablo Garcia, is a narrative folio in which the patents of 12 historically significant drawing machines are recreated with an industrial Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. The use of a highly specialized CNC machine demonstrates a level of detail and accuracy that the last five centuries of drawing machines could only aspire towards.

GET MAKING with madMeshMaker_v.2.5

NOW OUTPUTTING TO 3D PRINTERS, CNC ROUTERS, AND LASER CUTTERS

madMeshMaker is a generative modeling environment that bridges the processes between digital design and digital fabrication. The app embeds the technical knowledge of an experienced fabricator within an intuitive interface, and allows any novice to CAD/CAM processes to rapidly generate aesthetically pleasing, ready-to-fabricate forms at the click of a mouse.

interactive projection mapping

KINECT HACK

With the relative novelty of the KINECT, this speed project with Marynel Vázquez responsed to its inherent screen-based interaction was to pull it back out into the physical realm. Using the depth mapping capabilities of the KINECT to evaluate the viewer(participant’s) hand, and position it as the light source of the physical model. In effect, their hand becomes the sun, lighting or dimming our abstracted cityscape, and blurring the border of virtual and actual.

pattern && symmetry

GENERATIVE DESIGN MEETS DIGITAL OUTPUT

Pattern && Symmetry is a project that explores how generative design tools can create infinite variations on a single series. This is in contrast to conventional distribution of an artist’s or designer’s work, which is serially replicated to create an edition, rather than a collection. Each iteration is characterized by its geometric densities, creating topographies that seem to extend beyond the depth of the two-dimensional paperboard.

madMeshMaker_v.1.0

LEARNING DIGITAL DESIGN AND FABRICATION THROUGH PLAY

The madMeshMaker is a generative surface modeling environment, intended to be an intuitive and fun introduction to digital fabrication with computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) table routers. The main intention of this software application is to erase the technical barriers-of-entry for digital design and digital fabrication (CAD/CAM) technologies, and therefore enable those without experience to quickly learn through making.

grotto ceiling prototype

RESPONSIVE SURFACES IN ARCHITECTURE

Initial prototypes are being developed to investigate architectural surfaces that engage the human body in dynamically transforming the space around them. The Grotto Ceiling senses the presence of the person below, rising and falling in response to their position, and inspiring new relationships between the body and the surfaces that encompass it in space.

sketch me up!

THE DIGITAL PEN & YOU

As design and architecture professions become increasingly intertwined with digital production processes, the most fundamental design tool, the pen, is being replaced by the mouse. Graphic tablets and styluses are helping to bridge the gap between the analog and digital realms of design and creativity, however, they are often cumbersome to both learn and use. This project with Ziad Ewais develops a stand-alone application that will improve a user’s ability to freehand draw with the tablet, thereby increasing coordination from design ideas to the computer interface.