Material- and Fabrication-informed Design of Structurally-sound Jammed Architectural Structures

Abstract

In the last two decades an increasing number of professionals and researchers have attempted to minimise the harmful impact of the building industry on the environment by taking advantage of ongoing technological progress. Computational design and digital fabrication technology are combined to realise geometrically or functionally complex architectural artefacts. As a result, optimised material use can be achieved. Nevertheless, in the context of the current advancements in the field, one key research strand has remained rather underdeveloped — recycling, which is considered essential for preventing overconsumption of materials and, in this way, foster environmental sustainability. In this regard, this doctoral research investigated a non-standard material system that firstly, was made of locally-obtained ingredients and secondly could be used to fabricate architectural elements without the use of formwork and ultimately facilitated a fully reversible construction process. The building elements discussed here are called Jammed Architectural Structures (JAS) and consisted of unbound crushed stones confined by textile string. These largely-available bulk materials were shaped into full-scale architectural artefacts through a robotic fabrication process that did not require moulds during construction. The absence of a binding matrix between the stones and the string resulted in their complete separation during deconstruction and thus complete recycling. However, to investigate the material system's capacity to act as an effective building material and to study its design and application potential, it was crucial to explore the material system's properties. The thesis explored the material system's applicability for architectural purposes through the analysis of its structural behaviour under loading conditions. In this way, the possibility of using the string-confined crushed stones for the construction of structurally-sound building components was tested. Additionally, the design space of the material system was explored by developing material-informed and fabrication-aware computational methods that integrated the collected knowledge of the specific material properties and the constraints imposed by the robotic fabrication process. Ultimately, the work targeted the realisation of full-scale load-bearing architectural structures to validate the techniques developed and to demonstrate the architectural potential of the investigated material system at large. In general, the results outlined aimed to contribute to the existing studies on possible applications of granular matter for architecture — a still immature branch in the realm of construction which explores the possibility for recycling of full-scale architectural elements through reversible construction logic. Moreover, due to the application of locally-obtained and largely-available materials, this work is placed in the context of vernacular architecture and, as such, is considered a relevant part of the overall research on environmentally sustainable solutions for the built environment.