#microstructural architecture

Material Matters : New Materials in Design

A couple of months back now I was asked to contribute a few images and text on Designing Hybrid Variable Materials for Material Matters: New Materials in Design by Philip Howe and Zoe Laughlin. It's always great to see our images in print. The book has just gone on sale and it's an impressive hybrid between an introduction to material science and a compendium of modern materials and processes. Well worth picking up.

Design, Materials and ALM for EOS User Day Conference

Along with its installation for Clerkenwell Design Week, Cilia was part of a presentation that I co-authored with Ulf Lindhe from Nefabb which was presented last week at the EOS User Day Conference.

It's mostly clips from a variety of videos from over the years but there are a number of new shots which show processes and speaks to the tactile quality we achieved with the new iteration for Clerkenwell Design Week.

For those interested in whats being shown in the video here is an outline of the clips used in the film (from first to last):

(1) — Panning shot of Nylon fibres, these are about 0.5mm thick, one of my very first experiments, these parts are more than 3 years old now, (2) — Composite swatches, (3) — A composite ball with variable elastic modulus, (4) — A jug made of composite material which forms a spout when you grab it, (5) — An MRI style scan of a variable density open cell foam ball, (6) — A prototype for Cilia, no.2 testing the density, resolution and length of fibres we could print on an EOS Formiga P100. The fibres here are 150mm in length, (7) — An MRI style scan of a Cilia, no.1 from the Surface Design Show, (8) — Cilia, no.2 installed at the BREAD office, (9) — Cilia, no.2 installed at SCIN Gallery,

Rich and I are currently working on an evolution of Cilia for the upcoming Clerkenwell Design Week. The complexity of the SLS processes inevitably leads to some failed builds where not all of the numerous parameters which need to be maintained are done so. Usually this stops the process in the middle of its tracks and you end up with half built models. However we pulled out a failed build only to extract a rather perplexing artefact — an incredibly detailed organic furry surface.

With a bit of deduction we figured that fibres had detached from the main surface of the Cilia prototype in the build and been scraped into the material powder volume. These loose fibres had then be joined together by the laser pathways essentially creating a network of randomly sintered fibres to create organic mesh that looked and felt like an organic fur.

Whether we could replicate this is another matter entirely but it goes to show the creative potential with additive process.

Persistent Modelling — Extending the Role of Architectural Representation, edited by Phil Ayres

Phil very kindly asked me to contribute a chapter to this book that collects an impressive array of interpretations on the Persistent Model and its role in Design and Architecture. Some what strange to see my words in print, but it is a theme I feel I identify with strongly.

To celebrate the books release I've been asked to contribute to a Seminar with a number of the authors at CITA this Wednesday — it promises to be a really engaging experience.

The following images and text are from a recent installation at the Royal College of Art as part of the Inspiring Matter 2012 conference on materials, art and innovation:

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Nylon-Silicone Composites placed in tension

New ways to Shape Form —

Additive Manufacturing is unique in that the complexity of an objects form has little to no bearing on the cost or time it takes to produce it.

Despite this benefit, the impact of Additive Manufacturing on commercial products has been limited. The outputs, though visually convincing, have often failed to provide the mechanical properties or aesthetic qualities we take for granted in everyday products. The few examples that have managed to use these processes effectively have all focused on the creation of niche artisan objects: ornamentation, jewellery and accessories — where the complexity of forms and negligible setup cost allow for short runs of aesthetically unique objects.

But is there more we can do with this powerful means of rendering complex form? Just how far can Additive Manufacturing by pushed?

Variable Density Auxetic Sphere

Printing Hybrid Materials —

As these technologies have developed, one of the major performance parameters has been improving resolution. Most machines now create layers at the scale of microns. Selective Laser Sintering is one method that can manufacture at below the millimetre. Its unique approach of fusing powder particles allows the creation of robust elements with thicknesses as fine as 0.4mm.

At these resolutions we are able to fabricate structures with details at the boundary of our perception. When we assemble these sub millimetre elements into a lattice we create a plastic foam – a hybrid material of nylon and air. Similarly we can embed these structures into other materials such as silicone to form composites. The physical and mechanical properties of these hybrid materials depend on the structures we impose. As such we design material through microstructural geometry.

Variable Density Auxetic Sphere (Macro)

From Selection to Design —

The implications of this leads us to larger questions. What does it mean to be able to design material in relation to products? How do we as designers explore and exploit these opportunities?

When we consider an object we have a tendency to split its form and its material such that we can deal with them one at a time. Doing so make the problem easier — after all material is but a parameter of form. Materials make a form hard or soft, strong or tough, they are in the context of an object, one dimensional.

Designing material offers us unprecedented control over their properties. We no longer have to select but can shape them to our exacting requirements. I can make them lighter, stronger, tougher but again how important is this? Not all our commercial products are solely performance driven. Is there more to this than simply property optimisation?

Nylon-Air Non Convential Auxetic Foam Block

Embedding behaviours —

What makes using additive manufacturing unique in the fabrication of hybrid materials is the level of control we are able to achieve. We prescribe every single strut, every joint, and every contour and as such we are able to change them not only en-mass but also at a local level. We are able to vary our microstructures, changing them as we please and as a result creating variations in properties throughout an object volume. We move from one material to another simply through microstructure.

In doing so we elevate material. A material is not solely soft or hard, it can be soft to hard or vice versa (the precise description is a function of its form). Suddenly the way an object behaves in three dimensions is not solely prescribed through form, but also through material. Perhaps an apt example is in a loaded die. The intention in such an object is to favour a certain behaviour — we wish to make it more likely to land on one particular face. Changing the shape of the dice from a cube is not an option; it makes the deception obvious and defeats the objects purpose. However by changing the distribution of weight — varying the material within the form — we can embed this behaviour into the object.

Designing material then offers us more than just better properties. It adds a new dimension in prescribing behaviours on the artificial. Embedding behaviours through microstructures not only challenges our visual understanding of form but also enables us to embed a new level of sensory and functional intelligence into material, which we control.

Nylon-Air Non Convential Auxetic Foam Block (Macro)

Cilia (closeup)

I made a few posts back in October and November with little snippets of experimentation for a surface concept we've been developing.

Late last year we were asked by Annabelle Filler to contribute some samples of Metafoams to the Future Thinking segment of this years Surface Design Show. However, rather than simply show a material sample, we thought it might be better to actually develop something specific for the show.

A lot of my own research is about designing the form and structure of a material in parallel to play with its properties. Usually the challenges are mechanical in nature, but we thought we'd take the contribution to Future Thinking as an opportunity to just experiment with aesthetics, light, texture and touch.

We've been exceptionally lucky to be trialing Selective Space Structures from Netfabb an incredibly powerful program that allows you to design microstructures in rapid prototyped objects. With digital tools in hand, we began exploring different structural opportunities, to affect sensory impact.

Richard Beckett joined the project to provide some much needed input and our experiments began to really push hard at object complexity - the experimental results of which we have been posting. Things recently took a turn for the biological as we started to construct a complex scaffold through which to create resin Stalactite's:

Variable resin stalactites grown on a SLS scaffold

But for us, one of the most interesting experiments was the very first. By pushing the SLS machines to its limits its possible to construct fibres, no more than 0.5mm in diameter, that are like hairs to the touch. The concept of printing a fur got us pretty excited and we started to explore how we could apply such a construct.

Given the constraints provided by Future Thinking, we decided on a 240mm x 240mm x 80mm double sided tile. Inside this volume we wanted to control both the form of the tile, but also its structure to create a heterogeneity in the fibres. We did this by creating a surface topology (to control the height of the fibres) and a 2D gradient of pattern through which we could selectively control the thickness of the fibre individually. We could then use Selective Space Structures to populate our shells.

Modelling steps for Cilia

Even at this scale, the sheer density of the fibres is over 50,000 in this tile alone. To create this without something like Netfabb's tool would be incredibly difficult, just in terms of the complexity of the 3D model. Instead we are able to design and print the final tile in the space of days rather than months. Cilia installed at the Surface Design Show 2012

Cilia is on show at Future Thinking from the 7th - 9th February at the Surface Design Show at the Business Design Centre.

Now that things have quieted down a little post workshops we've had a good chance to return to the backburner. Above is a little sneak peak of our surface concept. Every iteration just produces another generation of ideas, of what structures and geometries work and how to make others better.

Matt and I's workshop at the Royal College of Art finishes tomorrow in the IDE workshop - it's been a lot of fun. Adrian has been down documenting some of the outputs and process, so a project post on the workshop will be out next week.

In the meantime, above are some other things we've been working on: The first is a concept were developing for a surface commission we have in the works. We're developing concepts around dynamic interaction - more on that as it develops. The second is a shot from some new MetaFoam samples fresh from the SLS - actually these are the first examples of a graded cellular structure laminate, further images and videos are coming soon. Note the sinusoidal cell walls - hopefully we'll be publishing some mechanical test results and product developments were creating using this research soon.