A WEB-BASED DATABASE SYSTEM FOR CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION OF FREE-FORM BUILDING DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

摘要

This paper introduces an interactive web-based database application which is currently being developed as a search engine for retrieving information on design precedents in order to examine problems that existing methods pose and the emerging potentials digital technologies offer for the design and production of free-form double-curved buildings (Blobs). Digital technologies have changed the feedback loops and established new relations between formal, structural and manufacturing processes which mutually influence and contribute to the formal variety of Blobs. Thus, integration should not only be used as a tool to realize the desired free-form but also to explore new possibilities in the free-form development process. Consequently, the database project aims to establish a theory that will account for how initial formal, structural and manufacturing related decisions mutually influence, affect and inform the evolution of new configurational possibilities between the structure and the skin(s) in the design of Blobs. Based on the analysis of design and production processes as well as built examples of Blob buildings, the database serves as a catalogue of possibilities related to form, and facilitate assessment of the impact of the early choices on the free-form building design and development. Particular emphasis is the relationship between two primary building systems; the superstructure and the exterior/interior skins.