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DIGITAL DESIGN + FABRICATION SM1, 2016 M3 JOURNAL - THE SLEEPING HOOD

Luke Adamson, Briana Achtman, Alex Weller699014, 803454, 757284

Michelle , Tutorial 1

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Introduction

Stemming from Module 2, Our group has decided to stay together and undertake the design option of the Sleeping Hood. The considerations that influenced this decision include the ability to create the design through a fabrication process, the prior development of the design and design ideas, the overall ability of the design to fulfill the requirements of the brief and the ability to work further into Module 3.In review of what was presented in Module 2, we have recognized some flaws in the design and its process, thus creating a series of elements that we are looking to focus on and develop to greater potential.Firstly, we aim to integrate elements of the design that we are not pursuing into the Hood design, allowing for a culmination of design ideas contained within both designs.Continuing on, our group has discovered problems that exist within the design as it stand. The overall shape is something we are content with, as its strong connection with the initial concept of a hood. Thus, we are working to rectify problems in relation to fabrication; the panel of the design is something which needs to be redesigned in order to be effec-tively, constructed, as well as working to create a file which produces all the connections that we require neatly.

Previous Design

Padding Sections

Supporting the head

Panelling Tools

Precedent - 3D Form Ideas of Personal Space

Physical Prototyping

Precedent - PanelsHexagonal Structure

Elements to continue through the design...

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Design development

Feedback/ Recommendations from Module 2 Submission

- two designs which while somewhat disjointed provide explorations that could be combined into one project- to start to make the most of the Panelling Tools in Rhino to start to unroll your panels so that you can start to fabricate a more accurate prototype that reflects the distortion of the panel to fit thebody. - fabricate this prototype sooner rather than later to identify small errors.- refine the overall form of the sleeping pod further to fit the wearer even better.

Combining Design Elements Prototyping to discover errors

Construction Problems

Panel Design Implications

Testing levels of padding for maximum comfort

Testing to help refine shape

Using various padding designs.

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Design development + fabrication of Prototype V.2

Depicted above is the continued prototyping of this padding idea which we wanted to incorporate further into our chosen design from the one which we decided not to pursue. Through testing material and a variety of different but similar padding forms, we made some informed decisions in what kind of material we would want to work with to achieve maximum comfortability levels providing a level of workability consistent with our skills and available technology.Memory Foam was our favourite comfort wise, with the main ability of being able to conform to the shape of the users head effectively, regardless of shape and size. However, we found this material extremely difficult to work with in regards to creating the necessary shapes and sizes, as well as connecting the pieces together, so this material was eliminated as a potential solution. Thus, we decided to develop this pillow like style of material as our padding system. As we realise in Module 2, it works every similar to a pillow as long as it was stuffed sufficiently to provide enough support.In the above images two kinds of applications were designed in order to decide on a practical shape. There are long strip pillows which fit the whole hood width, or the small singular pillows which would be continually replicated to fill the hood. Moving forward, we would like to combine these two by stiching small sections into the strip pillows.

These Rhino Images attempt to detail graphically what the padding would look like on the final design. These further strengthen our need for the strips to look like individual cells, tying strongly with the design intent on the exterior and having a greater aesthetic appeal.

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Above is our attempt at modelling the padding system integrated with the design to see what they would look like together. It is obvious that this is a process that is easier and more effective to explore through hand made prototypes.

Above and to the right is the first trials of the panel system laser cut into box board as a way of figuring out how to connect all the pieces. This helped us start to visualise the design as a whole.

We instantly recognised the problems with this element of the design. When trying to unroll the panel in Rhino, it was impossible to create a group of surfaces that stayed joined into one or two pieces without major overlapping. Instead, we attempted to create some 20 odd pieces and join them seperately. This also didnt work because of the intersecting tab system which was very small to create a small panel. The surface area for construction was not large enough and having everything in seperate pieces would mean an impossible construction period.From here we had to move on with the panel design and create and test other options for their feasibility.

Above is the initial prototype for the structure of the hood. Although we believed the hood design was exactly what we wanted, this process was perfect for discovering any problems with the file for submission. Firstly, we have to make sure that any duplicate items were mirrored to work for both side of the hood rather than one. Continuing, the way the the file was unrolled in Rhinoa weird distribution of the panels, so that was another thing to fix. Finally, the major design prob-lem was the clashing of the panels. This was something which stopped the production process, however it could be easily fixed by creating angled tabs which do not collied with eachother.

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Architecture in the Digital Age - Design + Manufacturing/ Branko Kolarevic, Spon Press, London c2003 Briefly outline the various digital fabrication processes. Explain how you use digital

fabrication in your design?

Reading Response Wk 6

In his article, Kolarevic describes recent developments in digital fabrication techniques and how they have affected modern architecture and construction. The four main digital fabrication processes are 2D fabrication (CNC cutting, including laser-beam, water jet, and plasma-arc), subtractive fabrication (CNC milling), additive fabrication (SLS, 3D printing, LOM, FDM, and MJM), and formative fabrication (reshaping or deformation using mechanical forces, heat, or steam). He also describes how computerized machinery can even aid in the assembly process. These new fabrication processes have had a huge impact on new materiality. Since skin and structure can now be combined, architects are able to focus on the aesthetic and combinations of new materials. This has also led to a change in production strategies, shifting from a focus on mass production of identical structures to the mass production of unique structures. In our design, we used laser cutting (a form of 2D fabrication) in order to cut out forms from material, which then allowed us to put the pieces together to create a 3D form. We started our design in Rhino and were able to digitally unroll each panel surface so that we could send it to be laser cut from a sheet of polypropylene (and then manually put together).

Evidence of the use of the laser cutting process throughout the design for prototyping and construciton.

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Reading applied to design

How does the fabrication process and strategy effect your sleeping pod project?

Because of new digital fabrication strategies, we can now build things beyond just what we can draw with a pencil, paper, and ruler. Thus, we were able to create a 3D model in Rhino using various digital tools (e.g. the paneling tool, which was used extensively). After creating our digital 3D prototype, we were then able to choose how we wanted our project to come to life. We essentially had two main options for creating the panels. The tech tutor suggested 3D printing, but we decided that would use too much material and was impractical, so instead we decided to use laser cutting. In Rhino, we unrolled each panel, added tabs, and made sure that none of the surfaces overlapped so that our project could be successfully laser cut. We chose which curves (lines) were to be cut and which were to be etched so that when it was printed we could easily put it together. Since laser cutting works with different types of materials, we were able to test out which materials worked best for the panels. At first we tried boxboard, and then decided on polypropylene. The laser cutting gave the pan-els precise edges, and the material was flexible and strong enough that we could manually put them together and place them on the base.

The ability to creat extensive files which can be full of detail to create with great accuracy.

Any changes that need to be made can then be altered with easy instead of needing to start the whole process again.

This looks similar to how our final design was produced, instead on mountboard and polyproplyene rather than balsa.

Laser cutting adds another dimension to the fabrication process, allowing you the freedom to chose from a variety of materials and being able to readily access those materials.

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Digital Fabrications: architectural + material techniques/Lisa Iwamoto. New York: Princeton Architectural Press c2009

Describe one aspect of the recent shift in the use of digital technology from design to fabrication?

Reading Response Wk 7

As Iwomoto explains, the recent shift in the use of digital technology has changed the role of the architect from designer to creator. The continual improvement of these strategies aims to create a “seamless con-nection between design and making” and “narrow the gap between representation and building.” Thus, the architect must learn a whole new set of tools. They must know which computer-numeric-controlled machines to use and when to use them; they must know which materials can be used with which ma-chines; and they must know how to assemble the parts after using the machines to create them. Several different digital fabrication techniques have come about in the past decade, including sectioning, tessel-lating, folding, contouring, and forming.

Examples of Folding and Tesselating throughout the design process.

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Reading applied to design

Referencing from the lectures and readings, what is the implication of digital fabrication on your design ?

Digital fabrication played a huge part in our design. The panels are the main aesthetic feature and cover the entire sleeping pod, so we needed a way to easily and effectively create a lot of them. We were able to use Rhino to create 3D models, understand the form, and even unroll the surfaces. We were then able to use laser cutting to test the design on several materials. We found out early on in the fabrication process that boxboard would not be a workable material and that the tabs we created were too small; we even decided to alter the entire design of the pattern so that it would be easier to work with once laser cut. We were in control throughout the whole process, from designing to making, so we found out on our own what worked and what did not work. Since laser cutting is so simple (we only needed to learn how to lay out the design, and the computer/fablab did the rest of the work for us), we were able to test out the effects of different designs and materials. The laser cutting also gave the forms straight, clean edges, and the etches and material were flexible enough that we were able to easily fold the flat surfaces into 3D pan-els. Without the ability to create our design in Rhino and then physically construct it with the aid of laser cutting, it would be a much more difficult, time consuming, and maybe even impossible execution.

Examples of folding and tesselating being used as methods of design production with accuracy aided by digital design..Most of this would not be possible to create without computer aid due to the high level of detail required for a perfect design.

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Prototype development

There was a minor problem with some of the panels near joining edges. This was only relatively minor and very simple to fix. One way to stop this was to remove some of the unneccessary panels and leave the structural surface exposed.Another consideration we made was how a different style of panel would react in this situation. From here we decided that this panel was not neccessary, so we simply removed it from the design.

As touched on earlier, there was an issue with some of the areas of the design that were the same being unrolled in the same direction, rather than opposite as to create two differ-ent pieces with the same shape.

The solution for this was easily fixed through the Rhino file, by mirroring the same surface as to be laser cut backwards, creating the desire surface aesthetic and cuts.

Below is physical observation and testing of levels of padding within the design, ranging from heavy levels of padding to a pillow which contained almost no stuff-ing at all.

This was the heavily packed pillow. It provided advantages of being extremely comfortable and enveloping the head. However, its large sur-face area meant that the users head would not sit properly within the hood and therefore render the design ineffective.

We found this to be similar to the perfect amount of stuffing to be used in the final design. Here we have a situation where the pil-low is comfortable, able to fit easily within the design while still providing the neccessary support for the user’s head.

We decided to see how it may feel with very little padding. If we did something like this it would defeat the purpose of having padding at all, creating longer construction time and increasing cost for no reason.

FAIL: creasing of the mountboard, no line definition, hard to fold.

SUCCESS: perfect folds, definition of panels, smooth surfaces.

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The most important consideration that we had to make that would impact the design as a whole was the design of the outside panelling system.Through initial prototyping, there was errors consistent through the digital modelling and physical modelling process:- many of the panels were doubly curved, meaning they could not be un-rolled for fabrication purposes.- unrolling the panels that were not doubly rolled led to many overlapping areas and surfaces that could not be tabbed and joined together effectively.- they did not particularly reinforce the design concept we wanted to work with. Here we believed that the design was inviting rather than asking for privacy. It needs stronger, sharper lines which gave a definitive impression that the users wants alone time.

This led use to redesign the panel and come up with two options using triangular shapes because of their workability, while still inspired from the pineapple and its ‘defense system’.

Square based panel with a hexagonal interior connected with triangular surfaces.

Hexagonal based with a hexagonal interiorconnected with triangular surfaces.

Would fill the entire panel, dominating the exte-rior surface of the design.

Would leave the edges bare for the structure of the hood to be left exposed

Allows for folding with only small overlapping areas which can be adjusted by creating 2 seperate pieces.

Also easily unrolls in a manner which only slightly overlaps; able to fix this by creating 2 pieces or perhaps trimming to create a rough, rawness to the panel design.

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Prototype optimisation

Above is a series of images outlining how we fixed one of the problems that we discovered during the prototyping period. The first image shows our initial problem; the tabs that are used for constructing the hood structure kept hitting eachother not allowing the surfaces to fold properly. These tabs are vital because of their ability to hold the design together, as well as creating divides for the padding underneath.To solve this problem in the physical prototype we had to manually remove roughly a 45 degree cut on the corners of every single tab so that they were seperated far enough to connect the surfaces yet still allow for the shape to take form. This is depicted in the second and third images.The final image in the series depicts the difference between removing these corners compared to not fixing the problem. To the right of this image you can see huge gaps between the surfaces and the fact that each individual surface does not line up perfectly. To the left in the image you can see how much more effective the design becomes by becoming one whole surface when combined.

To the right the final hood shape for the prototype is shown. You can easily notice how much better the tabs fit together in this image. We think that they also improve the aesthetic of the underside by creating sections for the padding pillows to be inserted.

Unrolled Surface. Add Tabs. Add Trimming Lines. Trim Unwanted Corners.

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1.0 mm Mountboard 0.6mm Polyproplyene

This page is dedicated to the material choice of the exterior panels. We have previously experiemented with a variety of materials for the underside padding and decided that no more exploration was need in that regard. Also, already having tested boxboard we eliminated that from discussion about material because of its poor structural qualities and the ugly aes-thetic. In regards to other materials:- MDF was removed from discussion because of the extra accuracies needed, not to mention the inability to tab.- Perspex was not even considered because of its cost and the ability for it to easily crack and scratch as we had all noticed in previous projects.Hence, the prototyping stage led us to make a decision between Mountboard and Polyproplyene; materials that have shared qualities but still great differences to be explored and tested.

Above is a chosen panel from the shoulder of the design to test the mate-rial capabilities and restraints of mount-board.- Material comes only in one white colour.- Etched burn marks are effective in creating definition of areas within the panel.- Nice sharp lines are consistent with design intent.- Any mistakes made with the laser cut file or process could be easily rectified

Close detail analysis of this material shows some imperfections. Folding the etched edges meant that some of the surface material peeled away to show the card underneath as depicted below. Also, the combination of using mountboard to create the panels and the structure underneath did not fit properly in the design idea and desired aesthetic.

Right: the peeling away of some of the mountboard which shows the card underneath - ugly and not neat, something to avoid.

Above is the same panel laser cut onto a black polyproplyene material. We found that both materials worked in a similar way, having flexible qualities that are almost the same. However, the polyproplyene material definitely executed our design ideas more precisely.

The laser cutter was able to accurately create the surface division on the panel with-out having unneccessary burn marks. More importantly, there was no creasing or unwanted folds in the material and it did not peel away to creat any ugly surface.

An interesting and crucial observation we made was how well the two materials worked together. We used a plastic glue to connect the polyproplyene to the mount-board which fixed securely extremely fast. We think that this is due to the surface coat-ing of the mountboard acting similar to a plastic kind of material.

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Prototype optimisationPerhaps the most important design thought behind fabrication phase was the way in which all of the panels and other laser cut materials were going to ordered on the sheets of material.

This was a primary thought because of the time constraints and the cost of printing more labels onto the material. Thus, we opted for the option of grouping design by area so that it was primarily only one design feature or part to one page.These pages were further defined vertically and horiztonally in an order that we could recog-nise while building our prototypes and final.

Choosing to do this rather than putting emphasis on saving material was an easy decision for us. In the scheme of things, squeezing the design onto as litttle amount of pages as possible would have saved us only about 5 dollars and would have cost us a huge amount of time when it come to fabricating the final product.

As using digital methods of fabrication was always our primary method of construction, it is hard to describe how we optimised the project for prototyping without going through almost every aspect of the design again.

What is meant by this is that every mistake that we came across in prototyping and even be-fore that in the design stages was then altered through our digital medium in order to create a file which could effectively and efficiently work in our favour.

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Mountboard - Hood Structure Polyproplyene - Side Panels Shoulder Panels Hood Panels

Start by Unrolling the Necessary Surfaces and defining how you want them arranged.

Here we added the tabs and removed any unecessary tabs, also trimming the tab edges as previously discussed.

Outlining which lines to cut and which to etch. The black lines cut through the material, the red lines etch to allow for easier folding.

Taking the unrolled surface, repanel in order to remove many of the doubly curved surfaces, also for ease of laying them out.

After rebuilding any double curved surfaces, unroll each surface and place them in order to avoid confusion. Seperate any pieces that require it due to overlapping, creating at most 2 pieces. Tab every outside edge to be stuck the hood structure.

Repeat the etch and cut process used for the hood structure. Red helps outline the individual surfaces within the panel and allows them to fold to the necessary shape without cutting all the way through and seperating.

This page outlines how we optimised any previous design flaws through the file in order to get the job ready for fabrication. This process means that constructing the final design should be easier and hassle free now that all the hard work and intensive thinking has been completed.

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Prototype optimisation

Depicted here we have tabs created on spare space during the prototyping stage. These were initially experimental however they actually worked successfully.

The idea behind them is to use them as tabs that are not directly attached to any surfaces, meaning that we could glue them to the underside of our panels to help keep them in shapemore effectively.

Each piece is designed to be small enough to fit onto the smallest of surfaces within the panel without effecting the shape. Also, each have an etch mark in the middle which means that the can fold to accomo-date angles up to about 270 degrees.

We created over 100 of these in the proto-type stage, meaning we do not need any more.

This digital model, alongside the physical prototype, helped us decide which panel to use for the final design.

Through the fabrication process, for some of the elements of the design, especially the panelling system, we decided to work primarily through Rhino rather than in physical design. By doing this we could still get a idea about how the final product would look and whether the desired outcome could be achieved.

However, when it came to physical prototyping, as shown above, we decided to only model a few panels at a time before making important design decisions like chosing a material or designing a new style of panel. You can see the two options for the final design above, of which we produced 6 before making a final decision.

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In this situation we began creating our prototype and final design padding using a template which we had created through the necessary unrolled surfaces in Rhino.

By doing this, we are able to accurately repli-cate the same shape where need be, through re-using the same template each time.

This allowed for us to minimize our material usage by being able to organise the layout of each pillow on the material before cutting, these creating an efficient arrangement and not wasting material.

Constantly testing different small but important factors throughout the fabrication process allowed for us to

These images strengthen the idea of allowing room in the nesting process for ease of construction. These are the 2 mountboard sheets for the final design. As you can see, there isnt enough room on one page to fit them all, thus we allowed for enough room for everything to fit easily within the page and without creating chaos, meaning that items can be easily read and constructed when it comes time.

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2nd Skin final design

Front Elevation

Left Elevation Right Elevation

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Back Elevation

Plan View

Perspective

Final Panel Design

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Fabrication Sequence

1.

6.

11.

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16.

21.

26.

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Assembly DrawingCreating a Panel Creating the Hood Form Creating the Shoulder Form

Unroll the Surface.

Add Tabs and Trim those

not required.

Unroll the Surface.

Add Tabs and Trim those not required, making sure only the outside

edges have tabs.

Unroll the Surface.

Add Tabs and Trim those not required. All edge pieces do not require tabs, especiall the front

section of the hood.

Flip One Surface to Create both sides.

Repeat and Flip One of the side panels to ceate both sides.

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All of the Should Elements

All of the Hood Elements

=

The tabs attached to each of the panels fold under to be fixed to the relevant panels underneath. For example, the front left panel on the shoulder diagram connect with the corresponding square form beneath.

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Sleeping Pod

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