studio chahar
Digital Mason
Research project: Screen Maker, a low-tech digital mason. Completed 2015.
Low-tech building methods have developed over thousands of years according to the needs of a community and the demands of a location. High-tech digital design has advanced the precision and control over materials and increased the possibilities for studying design options. But where might the two meet? How can innovation in construction carry forward the lessons of vernacular and low-tech building?
This work explores the relationship between digital design and low-tech application by local labor, looking for opportunities to advance the exchange between design process and practice. The goal is to link the precision and design innovation of computation with traditional building systems in a context-aware way.
The process starts with an algorithmic 3D modeling tool that lets users design brick masonry walls digitally and produce construction guides for building them physically, so the designer, the community and the mason can communicate during design and construction.
The team studies form, pattern and solar exposure together and shares the results with the mason through simple paper guides called “DNA guides”. Instead of presenting an image of a complex form and imposing a foreign, digitally fabricated shape on a traditional setting, the community gets a tool to study the form, texture and materiality of a future design and to advocate for its needs and desires.
To develop the algorithm and the toolkit, a full-scale brick screen prototype was designed and built. The toolkit was then applied to design and build Compressed Earth Block screen walls, constructed in West Africa by local labor as part of the facade of a multifamily housing project. A third prototype tests the toolkit at a larger scale.
Credits