Digitally Integrated Material Practice: Computational Methods of Engaging Non-Standardised Plantation Hardwood in Architecture

Booth, Peter Charles

Digitally Integrated Material Practice: Computational Methods of Engaging Non-Standardised Plantation Hardwood in Architecture

Booth, Peter Charles

Permalink

Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2023

Open Access

Copyright Clearance Process

Recently Added
In Progress
Open Access

This item is open access.

Adobe PDF

Download thesisAdobe PDF (37.84 MB)

View statistics

Full metadata record

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Booth, Peter Charles
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-11T02:26:05Z
dc.date.available	2024-04-11T02:26:05Z
dc.date.issued	2023
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/177708
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	As a material-based practice, architecture has an inherent relationship with both material understanding and its application within the built environment; however, this relationship has been truncated by the ubiquity of material elements and workflows introduced in the Industrial Revolution. The built environment’s unprecedented growth to meet global demand has resulted in the construction industry becoming a lead contributor to climate change. This has triggered significant international initiatives to explore the use of timber in commercial construction as an alternative to resource-intensive, non-renewable materials. While considered a highly renewable and carbon-positive resource, typical modes of engagement of timber in construction rely on industrialised processes of standardisation that remove the capacity for material irregularity to be considered as a positive characteristic. Critically, this results in significant volumes of plantation hardwood being disregarded as a viable construction material, due to an incapacity to capture and engage the intrinsically unique and heterogeneous material characteristics. In this context, the practice-led, applied research of this thesis establishes Digitally Integrated Material Practices (DIMPs) that engage irregular heterogeneous materials within Computational Design Frameworks (CDFs). It investigates opportunities for Australian plantation hardwood, as a potential construction material, by engaging digital modes of material interrogation, computational simulation, optimisation, and design. In doing so, it establishes design-centric workflows that enable the integration of material irregularity and bespoke design outcomes, which utilise latent, renewable materials within construction. The proposed DIMPs combine open and scalable methods of material capture and discretisation, computational modelling, material and performance-based optimisation, architectural design and timber fabrication. The research explores these methods through a series of investigative Design Probes and Prototypes, finding that bespoke, digitally enabled workflows can facilitate data-rich inventories for material irregularities that can be engaged as ‘active’ participants within architectural design and fabrication frameworks. These workflows acts as an intermediary between material supply chains and design applications that engage irregular and heterogeneous materials as viable materials of exploration, with the clear aim of reducing the built environment’s reliance on non-renewable and unsustainable material practices.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/177708/1/thesis.pdf
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	© 2023 Peter Charles Booth
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/cph
dc.title	Digitally Integrated Material Practice: Computational Methods of Engaging Non-Standardised Plantation Hardwood in Architecture	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

As a material-based practice, architecture has an inherent relationship with both material understanding and its application within the built environment; however, this relationship has been truncated by the ubiquity of material elements and workflows introduced in the Industrial Revolution. The built environment’s unprecedented growth to meet global demand has resulted in the construction industry becoming a lead contributor to climate change. This has triggered significant international initiatives to explore the use of timber in commercial construction as an alternative to resource-intensive, non-renewable materials. While considered a highly renewable and carbon-positive resource, typical modes of engagement of timber in construction rely on industrialised processes of standardisation that remove the capacity for material irregularity to be considered as a positive characteristic. Critically, this results in significant volumes of plantation hardwood being disregarded as a viable construction material, due to an incapacity to capture and engage the intrinsically unique and heterogeneous material characteristics. In this context, the practice-led, applied research of this thesis establishes Digitally Integrated Material Practices (DIMPs) that engage irregular heterogeneous materials within Computational Design Frameworks (CDFs). It investigates opportunities for Australian plantation hardwood, as a potential construction material, by engaging digital modes of material interrogation, computational simulation, optimisation, and design. In doing so, it establishes design-centric workflows that enable the integration of material irregularity and bespoke design outcomes, which utilise latent, renewable materials within construction. The proposed DIMPs combine open and scalable methods of material capture and discretisation, computational modelling, material and performance-based optimisation, architectural design and timber fabrication. The research explores these methods through a series of investigative Design Probes and Prototypes, finding that bespoke, digitally enabled workflows can facilitate data-rich inventories for material irregularities that can be engaged as ‘active’ participants within architectural design and fabrication frameworks. These workflows acts as an intermediary between material supply chains and design applications that engage irregular and heterogeneous materials as viable materials of exploration, with the clear aim of reducing the built environment’s reliance on non-renewable and unsustainable material practices.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/177708