I was invited through CORE studio to co-organize a workshop at the Advances in Architectural Geometry (AAG) conference on the theme form active structures, this year held at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Workshop 1: Form-active structures with Kangaroo/K2Engineering – AAG 2018

The workshop focused on the design and analysis of form-active structures using Kangaroo and K2Engineering. In particular, it aims at investigating the enriched design exploration process that arises from having both steps implemented in a flexible parametric environment. Form-active structures are notoriously difficult to analyze due their large deformations when subjected to external loads. Form-finding and analysis are inherently tied together to capture this non-linear behavior. Generally this process requires advanced finite element software, which is time consuming to set up and makes it difficult to establish a creative collaboration between architects and engineers because the shape is directly driven by the internal forces. This is this challenge that the workshop attempts to address. More specifically the challenge was:

• Design a structural system within a box of 50x50x50 cm that uses form active elements (GFRP rods and flexible cables)
• The structure should be aesthetically pleasing.
• At least two design iterations have to be explored to improve the stiffness through geometry (rather than adding extra material or increasing the internal forces)

The goal was to accurately predict the deflection of the structure comparing computer analysis and physical model.

There were 12 participants in the workshop with mixed backgrounds – engineers, architects, coders and academics. Tutors were Daniel Piker, Cecilie Brandt-Olsen, Emil Poulsen and James Solly. The participants were Jack Bakker, Konrad Zaremba, Johan Reissmuller, Eike Schling, Trent Bryne, Maja Linse, Florin Isvoranu, Takuma Kawakami, Masaaki Miki, Samir El Mourabit, Alexandra Groszek, Viktor Johansson, Johanna Isaksson and Jan Contal.

See below for some pictures and results of the workshop which I would claim turned out successful!