A new approach to materiality

Abstract

Heterogeneous material assemblies have been investigated by structural, material engineers, and architects for nearly a century since the release of D'Arcy Thompson's "On Growth and Form" in the beginning of the twentieth century. The idea of heterogeneous assemblies that enable to produce a variation of material properties within the same assembly as seen in nature is not new, however, man-constructed assemblies of this type became obsolete at the dawn of the Industrial revolution and the advent of homogeneous materials such as steel. Nanotechnology and nano computing enabled a new approach to material construction and form finding which enable to derive form from a variation of material properties. The goal of the thesis is to explore such an approach, to integrate it with studies of material properties and studies of social behaviors and to speculate about spatial, social and programmatic implications. In the scope of the thesis we are to synthesize these studies into a cohesive architectural system of material research and synthesis center and propose another method of form finding where the form logic is embedded in material properties.