Design Guidelines for Zero Waste Manufacturing of Freeform EPS Facades

Design Guidelines for Zero Waste Manufacturing of Freeform EPS Facades

Jovanovic, Marko; Vucic, Marko; Stulic, Radovan; Petrovic, Maja

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The application of curved facade designs in contemporary architectural practicehas become adamant in combining the digital tools with the material properties.By expanding the focus to manufacturing as well, the topic of waste is introduced.In order to avoid the generation of waste material during fabrication, in thisresearch a workflow is introduced which describes the design of freeform surfacesout of expanded polystyrene blocks (EPS), while producing zero waste. The mainpremise is that a piece cut out of an EPS block has a piece that is left inside theblock, its complement. Following the premise, it is only necessary to design onehalf of the freeform surface over a desired facade area and the other part wouldalign to it. After the freeform surface is generated, a tessellation process isdescribed, prepared for robotic hotwire cutting, following the limitation of theEPS block dimension and the inclusion of the minimal insulating layer.

The application of curved facade designs in contemporary architectural practicehas become adamant in combining the digital tools with the material properties.By expanding the focus to manufacturing as well, the topic of waste is introduced.In order to avoid the generation of waste material during fabrication, in thisresearch a workflow is introduced which describes the design of freeform surfacesout of expanded polystyrene blocks (EPS), while producing zero waste. The mainpremise is that a piece cut out of an EPS block has a piece that is left inside theblock, its complement. Following the premise, it is only necessary to design onehalf of the freeform surface over a desired facade area and the other part wouldalign to it. After the freeform surface is generated, a tessellation process isdescribed, prepared for robotic hotwire cutting, following the limitation of theEPS block dimension and the inclusion of the minimal insulating layer.

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DOI: 10.5151/proceedings-ecaadesigradi2019_345

Referências bibliográficas

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Como citar:

Jovanovic, Marko; Vucic, Marko; Stulic, Radovan; Petrovic, Maja; "Design Guidelines for Zero Waste Manufacturing of Freeform EPS Facades", p-779-788. In: Proceedings of 37 eCAADe and XXIII SIGraDi Joint Conference, “Architecture in the Age of the 4Th Industrial Revolution”, Porto 2019, Sousa, José Pedro; Henriques, Gonçalo Castro; Xavier, João Pedro (eds.). São Paulo: Blucher, 2019.
ISSN 23186968, DOI 10.5151/proceedings-ecaadesigradi2019_345