2011 CONFERENCE THEME
The ACADIA 2011 Annual Conference will explore integrative trajectories and areas of overlap that have emerged through computation between design, its allied disciplines of engineering and construction, and other fields, such as computer science, material science, mathematics and biology. The conference will highlight experimental projects in which methods, processes, and techniques are discovered, appropriated, adapted, and altered from elsewhere, and digitally pursued.
The aim of the conference is to project a fundamentally different attitude towards collaboration, one that needs not be limited to the professions and disciplines comprising the building industry. It will do so by featuring the work of designers and researchers who engage design as a broadly integrative endeavor by fluidly navigating across different disciplinary territories, and who deploy algorithmic thinking, biomimicry, computation, digital fabrication, material exploration, and/or performance analyses to discover and create processes, techniques, and products that are qualitatively new. Some take scientific and engineering ideas as starting points of the design investigation. Others are embracing mathematics and geometry as a rich source of ideas for articulating form, pattern, surface and structure in architecture. Many are increasingly looking for inspiration in nature to discover new materials and new material behaviors, which can enable an architecture that can respond dynamically to changing environmental conditions. They all rely on computational techniques for design explorations.
The conference will project integrative design as an emerging trajectory for architecture as it enters a post-digital phase and as it embraces ideas, concepts, processes, techniques, and technologies from elsewhere (just like before only more so).
ACADIA 2011 Design + Fabrication Competition: Sponsored by FLATCUT_
Contemporary parametric design models are being developed through linkages between geometry and increasingly complex and informed sets of data. These design methodologies are asking new questions of designers who chose to embrace these modeling techniques for the production of material assemblies. How does parametric design engage changes scale? How does the selection, tooling, and deployment of material shape the physical environment? How do inventive material pairings work positively and cohesively to produce new forms of assembly and environmental response? How do designers begin to embed parameters that engage concepts of sustainability, augmented performance and material flexibility?
Coordinate values, the shared language of numerically controlled machines and CAD modeling platforms allow for an uninhibited exchange of information between designers and fabricators, but the design-build approach has yet to push this exchange towards its full potential.
The ACADIA 2011 Annual Conference with the support of FLATCUT_ seeks proposals for innovative geometric forms that push the limits of design through the exploration of integrative material strategies for digitally fabricated assemblies.
This year’s conference theme addresses integrative trajectories and areas of overlap between design and other disciplines. While design’s allied fields of engineering and construction will be explored, collaborative possibilities between design and other concentrations, such as computer science, material science, mathematics and biology will also be highlighted.
In a partnership with the fabricator FLATCUT_, ACADIA is seeking proposals for experimental projects that digitally pursue the discovery, appropriation, adaptation, and alteration of methods, processes and techniques of fabrication and assembly.
Proposals for inventive design will be accepted in the following categories:
a. Lighting
b. Partitions
c. Furniture
Entrants should consider the material intelligence of their proposal and actively seek opportunities for material integration. Proposals should exhibit ingenuity in creating a novel system of production that explores the cross-section of digital forms and the fabrication process. Designs should demonstrate an experimental approach to the problem of digitally fabricating multiple part assemblies that address both the themes of the conference and the performance criteria of the category in which they are situated.
Design Constraints and Categories
Lighting:
All lighting submissions must be self-supported assemblies that can either rest on the ground or be hung from no more than four points of contact. Care should be taken to avoid direct contact between lighting components (i.e. bulbs, cords, etc.) and material assemblies.
Partitions:
Partitions should be able to stand up without support, or be able to be hung from no more than four points. Partitions should not exceed the dimensions of 8’W x 8’T x 2’D.
Furniture:
Furniture submissions should be designed as self-supporting assemblies able to be easily moved without dismantling and reassembling components.
Material Opportunities
This competition asks entrants to propose hybridized material assemblies that engage more than one material and its properties.
Designs in the Lighting and Furniture categories should be able to be produced using two sheets (5′ x 10′ maximum) of flat materials, one rigid and the other flexible.
Designs in the Partitions category should be able to be produced using three sheets (5′ x 10′ maximum) of flat materials. Designs can utilize either two or three materials, at least one of which must be rigid and one flexible. Material selections are left to the discretion of entrant, but must be available for sourcing by FLATCUT_, the competition fabricators, in order to be considered a valid entry.
Contestants should strive to minimize waste and fully engage the material performance of their selected pairing. Entrants are encouraged to take risks with their designs and to be equally inventive with their material selections.
Examples of available materials are:
Rigid:
– Alloys
– Woods
– Polymers
Flexible:
– Films
– Rubber
– Fabrics
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