Gridshell Tectonics: Material Values Digital Parameters

This paper begins with a simple proposition: rather than mimicking the geometric structures found in nature, perhaps the most effective modes of sustainable fabrication can be found through understanding the nature of materials themselves. Material becomes a design parameter through the constraints of fabrication tools, limitations of material size, and most importantly the productive capacity of material resistance—a given material’s capacity and tendencies to take shape, rather than cutting shape out of material. ¶ Gridshell structures provide an intriguing case study to pursue this proposition. Not only is there clear precedent in the form-finding experiments of Frei Otto and the Institute for Lightweight Structures, but also the very NURBS based tools of current design practices developed from the ability of wood to bend. Taking the bent wood spline quite literally, gridshells provide a means that is at once formally expressive, structurally optimized, materially efficient, and quite simply a delight to experience. The larger motivation of this work anticipates a parametric system linking the intrinsic material values of the gridshell tectonic with extrinsic criteria such as programmatic needs and environmental response. ¶ Through an applied case study of gridshells, the play between form and material is tested out through the author’s own experimentation with gridshells and the pedagogical results of two gridshell studios. The goal of this research is to establish a give-and-take relationship between top-down formal emphasis and a bottom-up material influence.