Sodium Design

The Digitactility project seeks to explore the relationship of materials and CNC of fabrication. On a fundamental level CNC technology can be viewed as another tactile level of removal much in the same way that as the industrial revolution put into question this relationship. These new technologies have the opportunity to transform the manner in which we manipulate materials and articulate the environment around us. This research takes a material first approach and studies this relationship through a direct and in depth study into material. By a gaining a deep physical and kinesthetic knowledge of (a) materials and a keen understanding of modern digital fabrication techniques new material and spatial effects can be explored and exploited.

The power of computers to articulate three-dimensional geometry is well established in the architectural field but, their ability to articulate physical relationships between materials is just now being explored in earnest. This research project begins with a simple paper model folded and unfolded. In the material work this is incredibly simple, but in the digital work can becomes increasingly complex. The project seeks to articulate an overall architectural form, or surface, and break the geometry down into tessellated surfaces that ultimately unfold into straight strips of material that can be easily and efficiently fabricated utilizing CNC fabrication technology.

A joint research project with Professor David Thaddeus this project was spawned through a curiosity to see if there was a way to more clearly express the structural behavior of buildings to architecture students, a notoriously difficult task. Through a series of investigation into material and fabrication methods a set over one hundred demonstration pieces were designed that clearly articulate the complex structural behaviors of structures under load.