Variable Property Design Summary

Design engineering, is the application of engineering principles and technology to building design and construction. In this issue of AD magazine: The New Structuralism the guest editors (Rivka Oxman and Robert Oxman) call for a new model of architectural production in which architects and engineers work together in a higher level of cooperation. Design no longer needs to be controlled by form with structure following behind; structure becomes fundamental to form- finding. This issue calls for engineers to be part of the design conceptual stage and no longer only a fixer used in the last stage of the design process. The Oxman’s publication is an investigation into the current state of relationship between architecture and engineering.

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This approach has been termed ‘material-based design computation’. Variable property design is a technical framework by which they model and create material assemblies with different properties designed to correspond to multiple constraints.

The charts above are done by computers on top of a representation of the frontal and dorsal planes of a patient’s hand and refolded following material assignment to construct the glove. Carpel Skin is a prototype for the treatment of carpel tunnel syndrome. This project is a good example where Neri Oxman used a model to construct an assembly of varying properties using the Variable property design approach.

Hanif Kara the co-founder and director of AKT writes an article in this edition of AD magazine: On design engineering, she defines the emerging methods of ‘design engineering’, by emphasizing the importance of early input by the engineer at the design conceptual stage. AKT (Adams Kara Taylor) a design-led structural and civil engineering practice has begun to create a theoretical framework for the practice of architectural structural engineering. AKT suggests a different approach to design collaboration between the architect and the

There approach is to ignore the real differences between the architect and the engineer and to suggest an approach where the engineer is not the problem solver but instead operates at the intersection, adopting different roles depending on the needs and methods of each project.

Foreign Office Architects’ Ravensbourne College in London (2010). This project is a good example of the collaboration between architects and engineers.

Neil Spiller counters the main theme of this issue in his article: Digital solipsism and the paradox of the great ‘forgetting’. He questions the focus on architectural production and new technologies in the architectural field. - Neil Spiller. These are some of the questions that Neil Spiller posses in his article. I can’t help to think that he might be right, are we sacrificing our own humanity only to be able to create even greater complex designs?

He states that some of the more recent and well known projects are without humanity and that they are only focusing on creating more complicated surfaces and structures. Neil Spiller believes in the great ‘forgetting’ – a forgetting that subtracts humanity form architectural designs. Neil Spiller. He calls for a more humane use of new technologies with the understanding of human longing and expression in architectural