A
Rhizaerial
Research Area
Biogenic Design
Category
research project
Forskere
Paul Nicholas, Carl Eppinger, Gabriella Rossi, Cameron Nelson, Konrad Sonne, Carolyn-Nelle Preston Ichniowski, Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen
År
2024
Rhizaerial explores the continuous grading of a biopolymer composite material. It extends the circular design framework for biopolymer composites within architectural application by formulating new design and fabrication approaches that engage with and respond to the inherent variability of resource availability.
In Rhizaerial, we design and fabricate a suspended ceiling structure whose geometry, expression and material specification vary locally. This interior system of connected curved components is robotically printed in a 3d porous lattice structure that allows light to pass through while maintaining structural integrity. The project develops the design and fabrication methods that enables this targeted variation.
Rhizaerial
3D printing
Rhizerial develops methods for varying material composition in response to resource availability. Reclaimed and residual resources are characterised by highly dynamic changes to their accessibility and value. To work efficiently with cascading, this project develops a broad recipe space and aligned new material specification approaches that support exploration and responsiveness to locally available resources.
The project uses machine learning to navigate this recipe space. The project connects Design of Experiments to a Parameterless SOM method. This method allows us to use the specific properties of tested material formulations to make predictions about of properties of untested recipes in an open and exploratory way.
The biopolymer composite is printed robotically onto a shaped mould mounted to a turntable. Two separate material feeds are mixed at the nozzle, and locally air cooled to speed reprinting. Material grading occurs throughout the plane and section of each vault.
Lattice design exploration through implicit volumetric modeling which enables geometric morphing by varying properties of the scalar distance field along a direction or path. This results in variations of pattern scale, the thickness of meshes, twists and rotations, as well as a simple morph between two different patterns.
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Designing with material grading across the geometry. Within each panel the material mixture of the biopolymer composite transitions from one fiber to the other. A associative material map that is based on unsupervised machine learning allows us step through the recipe transitions, and and allocate different mixtures to sections of the geometry.
The material grading is executed both within the same layer, as well as across the layers by blending a shifting pattern between the top and bottom material design targets.
Dissemination
Exhibition: Rhizaerial was exhibited at: "In the Making - Artistic Methods in Architecture and Design", 31.10.2024- 11.04.2025.
Publications: Additive Manufacture with Graded Bio-polymer Composites
