Workshop Leaders: Shajay Bhooshan, Henry David Louth, Vishu Bhooshan, Tommaso Casucci, Federico Borello, Georgios Pasisis, Leo Bieling, Cesar Fragachan, Jianfei Chu, Nicolas Rawitscher, Ryan Hughes, Ed Meyers / Zaha Hadid Computation and design group (ZHCODE)

Architectural Geometry (AG) focuses on the synthesis of shapes that guarantee structural and fabrication optimality. It is also closely aligned with and complementary to the development of robotic and digital fabrication (RDF) technologies and design methods; We at Zaha Hadid Computation and Design group (ZHCODE) explore the relevance of this state-of-the-art design and construction paradigm to both complex, multi-objective, precision manufactured, computational geometry projects and computational housing projects that need to adapt additionally to local contextual aspects including limited budgets, supply chain and fabrication technologies. This workshop focuses on the latter.

Specifically, we are finding that the methods and algorithms used to produce AG have unusual and yet significant applications in the design of modular, fast-to-assemble residential buildings including design of self-stable, volumetric stacks using rigid-block equilibrium methods from masonry design, earthwork optimization using Function representation schemes and methods, constrained optimisation of set-out grids using projective dynamics etc. In particular, the immediate application of AG in modular construction is the design and customization of parametrically flexible prefabricated building components such as floor slabs, façade components, structural members, staircases etc. Further, the geometric basis and subsequent computational speed of AG methods & algorithms means that they are also finding ready use in the development of easy-CAD applications and browser and game-platform based configurators that allow non-expert end users to assemble prefabricated , building components into custom houses. The workshop will focus on these two near-field applications.

The workshop will provide an overview of the concepts and technologies, including a sandbox environment consisting of:

Browser based, easy-CAD web-apps to design pre-fabrication friendly, building components – robotically wire-cut façade & stair elements, timber skeletal structural and floor decking components etc. These web-apps encode fast AG algorithms within;
A configurator template to use the assets created above to produce browser-based interactive customisation apps and rendered images.
Embedded Technologies: Rhino inside, C++ & web-assembly, Three.js / java-script, Epic Unreal and pixel streaming;
The content and tool-chains of the workshop are representative of the imminent future of the AEC industry as it shifts from Building Information Modelling (BIM) for documentation to Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA)/ industrialised construction (IC) paradigm. They are also representative of the state-of-the-art in practice and provide an alternative view to ubiquitous perception of unified design & compute environments in the AEC industry.

The workshop content and tutors are drawn from live projects and personnel of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and ZHCODE respectively: a large stadium and metro stations on the one hand and a 200K sq.m residential project and configurator based democratically, co-created residential condominium on a tropical island, on the other! The workshop will thus provide a hands-on, introductory experience to prepare for both the imminent future of architectural design and construction and architectural practise;

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