MAAD F25'
Fabrication Customization
Fabricating Customization: Prototype explores design thinking via 1:1 fabrication and is premised on the understanding that making and building are as fundamental to the discipline of architecture as drawing and drafting. Over the semester, the goal was to prototype a series of architecturally inspired objects, fixtures, elements, games and/or devices, drawing on the full breadth of CMU’s fabrication resources, including Carnegie Mellon Architecture's Design Fabrication Lab (dFAB) and wood shop.
Learning objectives hone in on iterative prototyping as a primary mode of inquiry, using familiar industrial design objects as proxies for buildings and/or building elements to better understand how architecture responds to external environmental stimuli (heat gain/loss, aerodynamics, gravity, etc.). It involved (1) making and (2) using as equally important and mutually beneficial endeavors, prioritizing the activation and use of objects as much as their production, and in doing so, reinforcing a view of architecture as embedded in and inseparable from its environment.
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PROMPT 1: Deflate Gate
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The advent of mass manufacturing after the industrial revolution led to a proliferation of industrial design objects that prioritized quantity (scale) over material quality and personalization of design. Corporations became incentivized to introduce “planned obsolescence” into their products, i.e., balls that deflate necessitate the purchase of a subsequent ball.
Digital tools such as 3D printers and parametric design software offer opportunities to reintroduce repairability and customization into design objects, echoing principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement while adapting them to contemporary production methods.
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PROMPT 2: Heat Check
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The design and construction of architecture are underpinned, in large part, by the delicate balancing act between efficiency and experience. The efficiency of a building is deduced from its performance, a set of objective thresholds that can be measured, evaluated, and adjusted.
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Heat Check, uses the coffee mug as a proxy for the building envelope, asking to design a drinking vessel through a combination of digital and analog tools. Coffee mugs will be evaluated both on performance and on experience.
Translating Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp into product design, this project explores thermal haptics through a double-walled coffee mug. Mimicking the precedent’s thick walls, the double layer insulates the vessel, ensuring the exterior remains cool.
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However, apertures in the outer shell function as controlled thermal bridges allowing users to safely access the drink’s warmth at specific touchpoints. Fabricated via digital sculpting and 3D printing, the prototype is currently undergoing testing to validate both heat retention and tactile feedback.
PROMPT 3: U.F.O
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U.F.O, investigates the relationship between architectural technologies and the natural systems they depend on-asking how architecture might interface with its environment not as a sealed object but as a participant within a larger ecology. In this assignment, (as of yet) unidentified flying objects serve as speculative tools for imagining more empathetic relationships between nature (i.e., the wind) and an architectural object (i.e., the kite).
This project investigates structural modularity and “Design for Disassembly” through a tetrahedral kite system. Moving beyond static models, the design employs 3D-printed joints with internal converging angles to create secure friction fits without adhesives.
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This engineering solved fabrication tolerance issues found in earlier iterations by scaling to 1/4-inch dowels. Paired with laser-cut sails featuring corner pockets, the final structure offers a clean, flight-capable assembly that breaks down completely into a compact, reusable kit of parts.
