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Design control, research, and prefabrication
SHoP Architects recently completed the striking Porter House in New York City with a unique process of 3-D modeling and automated fabrication.
“The facade, a grid of custom zinc panels and light boxes, also makes the building a metaphor for the digitalization of the design and construction process. The architects, New York City-based SHoP Architects and their consultants and contractors, developed the cladding system for the upper floors with the aid of a digital 3-D modeling program, allowing them to organize, fabricate, and execute a design that would otherwise have been too expensive and time consuming. The facade panels, in three sizes dictated by the standard sheet dimensions of the zinc, were randomly placed with the help of the software (see “Collaboration in the Digital Age,” page 80). Paired with a well-preserved example of early-twentieth-century brick construction, SHoP’s process showcases what could be the future of digital fabrication while maintaining, through the addition’s spatial relationship to the original structure, a link to the past.”
On a similar note, KieranTimberlake Architects take advantage of similar technology with a ventilated curtain wall at the Levine Hall School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Architectural Record Innovation article
Their approach to manufacture and design is further documented in Refabricating Architecture.
Wednesday | 5 January 2005 | Inspiration