inFORMed Clay Workshop Report

Dubai, Nov. 2017
The three-day workshop explored new possibilities of robots and digital materialization to redefine artefact design far beyond the pre-determined creation of forms. Through the code-matter-machine interaction process, inFORMed Clay participants studied the potential emergent behaviours of the system as well as learnt and exerted a new sensibility to the computational design/fabrication process by tapping into the self-organization properties of matter as a key factor in determining characteristics of the output shape. The aim was to go beyond the current state of prototyping, wherein the physical prototype is a clone of its digital counterpart, thus making fabrication a pure replication phase. Instead, by coding and embedding additional levels of information related to defining robotic behaviour and material properties, the production and digital fabrication phases become an integral part of the design process.

Encoded Memory Workshop Report

Dubai, April, 2017
The five-day workshop explored the potential of machine learning neural networks in developing the urban fabric of a particular sector in Dubai. The workshop tested multiple data inputs and explored the network response based on the self-learning generative nature of the network. Based on the network interpretation of the input data, participants were able to visualise the network growth outcome and understand its data interpretation and decision-making process. The behaviour of the system was therefore developed by assessing its propagation on a basic organisation level, then developing it to work on a variety of urban levels.

in.FORM.ed verticality workshop report

Dubai, April 2015
The five-day workshop explored ‘data embodiment strategies’ to inform the generation of vertical digital morphologies through the integration of a specific set of conditions and rules. We explored data processing methodologies of self-organizing processes to generate digital systems using advanced mesh modelling techniques and assessed their application in the development of differentiated complex systems of vertical structures, starting with a simple formation and moving into more complex ones. The aim was to teach participants algorithmic design methodologies by integrating selected information and data articulation to generate spatial and architectural vertical formations.

EXPOn-tial, Adaptive Ecologies Workshop Report

Dubai, September, 2014
The workshop explored the potential of growth processes and assessed their application in developing an urban fabric. Growth processes share common traits, such as being non-linear, rule-based, and iterative. Drawing a parallel between natural systems behaviour and computer growth processes such as branching systems, diffusion-limited aggregation and other rule-based processes, we developed non-linear growth processes and evaluated the spatial results and forms across various scales - from Material to Urban scale. The system was developed by assessing their potential character on a basic level of organization first, then developing it to work on adaptation processes of autonomous, coherent objects on various scales.

Responsive Skins: Mashrabiya Reparameterized Report

Dubai, April 2014
Throughout the engagement of parametric digital tools, the workshop introduced design exercises to re-visit the traditional Mashrabiya and liberate it from its repetitive pattern and form. By introducing different methods of creating variations within the subdivided surface in response to certain forces, the new parametric skin became responsive to different levels of interactions. New levels of transparency emerged from a communicative act between the observer and the observed, between light and dark, between movement and stillness, and between openness and enclosure.

Adaptive Skins Parametric Design Workshop Report

Dubai, February 2014
Over the last two decades, the digital revolution instigated new typologies of architectural skins and patterns. Patterns started to acquire a new role in the architectural form, moving beyond their historical symbolic decorative role into spatial devices, correlating with form structural and environmental properties. The workshop explored this paradigm shift of the function of patterns from decorative additive elements into performative integral elements with technical responsibilities for daylight modulation, temperature control, and space enclosure.