Article:

This research focuses on issues of coordination between designers andfabricators during early design. The aim of this work is to improverepresentations, enable more informed conversations, and streamline exchangesof digital models. In order to show the potential of the work, research is focusedon architectural precast concrete facades. Previous work established methods forlinking ``global'' and ``local'' parametric models of architectural intent andcorresponding components, describing processes of mapping from individualcustom panels to diagrammatic façade surfaces and vice-versa. Such mappingmay be considered ``direct,'' wherein individual panel boundaries - defined bysurface patterning - allow simple mapping of data from global to local or fromlocal to global descriptions. However, there are some buildings with architecturalprecast concrete façades which do not permit direct relationships between globaland local descriptions. These atypical facades require ``indirect'' mapscontaining additional layers of information in order to coordinate global andlocal descriptions. This paper describes two categories of these indirectscenarios: ``panelization'' and ``patterns across panels.''