Plasticité⁺

An Implementation of Artificial Intelligence for the Design, Visualization and Digital Fabrication of a Referential Façade of Historical Chinese Art and Architecture

Conçu par J.Travis Bennett Russett

II

This work is a design approach utilizing artificial intelligence, AI, to extend the vocabulary of Chinese lattice patterns to that of cultural plasticity, or Plasticité⁺. The AI generates a cellular taxonomy of lattice building blocks, an abstract diagram. From the abstract diagram, a possibility space which is the genesis of design, the AI may birth on the order of 1.22 * 10⁵⁶²⁶ unique panels. Panel designs are synthesized within a larger generative community, a population of panels, in advance designed as a part of the facade. In other words, the cellular matrix of a panel is genetically imprinted by all previous panels designed by the AI. Further, the AI is selective based on intensive qualities which determine manufacturability. The computational outputs are: technical drawings, polygonal models, computer renderings and digital fabrication files ready for computer-aided manufacturing.

I

Lattice patterns are long-established, critical components of windows and doors in Chinese classical garden architecture. Historically, systems of Chinese lattice patterns, applied in fenestration, are significant both in the articulation of cultural semiotics and as an organizing module of Chinese garden landscape, which are otherwise characteristically organic. Pattern differentiation was typically contrasted with panel, the door or window frames, differentiation: Variable panel shape or size was paired with uniform pattern and, likewise, variable pattern with uniform panel shape and size.

III

The work is plied to the renovation of a building facade. The facade design, encompassing 194m² across two levels and roof, is a timber and glass facade consisting of 86 unique door panels. Each panel is designed by an artificial intelligence that independently outputs digital visualization: two dimensional (2D) technical drawing, three dimensional (3D) polygonal model, computer rendering with representational light, shadow, materiality, and digital fabrication: computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) ready [CNC routing] code.

Design; Artificial Intelligence and General Programming; 3-D and 2-D Drawing; Computer Rendering; Graphics, Photography and Presentation; and Description…
Developed by J.Travis Bennett Russett

Plasticité⁺ | TECH-NOIR β | Stranger Than Paradise | Wet, Dry & Recycle β | Volta