6208: New Materials and Technologies
Department of Architecture
Seminar
4 credits
Thursday 12:00 - 2:00
109 Gund Hall
Instructor(s)
Michelle Addington, Daniel Schodek
Course Description
New Materials and Technologies for Design
6208-01 Seminar and Materials workshop
6208-02 Seminar and Simulation workshop
Instructors: Dan Schodek
Michelle Addington
John An
Course Meeting Times and Location
Thursday afternoons, from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm, in room tba
Course Overview
The normative design approach accepts the architectural artifact as datum. The surface, the wall, and the envelope typically serve as the material bounds that define immaterial space and enclose a homogeneous environment. Geometry is privileged over behavior, form is privileged over transiency. Materials are chosen to optimize the artifact and technologies are subordinated to neutralize the environment.
During the last decade, new materials have been developed with transient or changeable properties that allow a multiplicity of design states to be effected, rather than the singularly optimized state that is typified by the static artifact. For example, photochromic materials change opacity in response to solar radiation, and are thus capable of dynamically adjusting the light transmission through glazing to either shield or admit available sunlight. Furthermore, advances in physics have led to a new understanding of transient phenomena, particularly those that comprise the luminous, acoustic and thermal environments of buildings. New technologies are rapidly being developed that allow for more discrete control of these environments; examples of these technologies include fiber optics and micro-machines.
Architects have tried to embrace many of these new materials and technologies, but most have done so within the paradigm of the hegemonic architectural artifact and, as such, we most often see them inserted into the artifact or as adjunct to the artifact. Developing an approach that fully exploits the potential of these new materials and technologies may require inverting the relationship between architecture and the environment: the architectural artifact is instead inserted into the environment and is contingent on the environment.
Course Description and Organization
The course is spilt into sections. Both sections will be together during the first half of the semester in the seminar portion which comprises lectures and demonstrations introducing students to the basic physical principles of environmental stimuli and to the properties of a wide array of new materials and technologies. The primary focus will be on smart materialsmaterials that change properties in response to environmental stimuli. Students will be required to produce demonstrations for the class and each student will also complete a seminar presentation that examines a new product or technology.
At the mid-term, the sections will split. Section -01 will be a hands-on workshop where students will build working models and devices each week. Section -02 will be a simulation workshop in which students will learn how simulation techniques can be used to explore the behavior of advanced materials and specific environmental stimuli. As many of the materials have an impact on the luminous environment, most of the attention in the second module will be on materials with optical properties, and the simulation software will be Radiance.
The maximum enrollment for each section will be 15.
Date Class Lecture Student Assignment
5 February Overview of smart materials
12 February Materials Structure and Properties Demos assigned
19 February High performance Materials Student demos
26 February Smart Materials I Student demos
4 March Smart Materials II Student demos
11 March Sensors Student demos
18 March MEMS/Personal Environment Paper due
25 March Wrapup/break into sections First workshop assignments
1 April SPRING BREAK
Class splits into sections
SECTION 01
8 April High Performance Materials Exercise 1
15 April Smart Materials 1 Exercise 2
22 April Smart Materials II Exercise 3
29 April Sensors and Actuators Exercise 4
6 May Shape Memory Alloys Exercise 5
Third week in May Final Review Final project
SECTION 02
8 April Material Definition Assignment 1
15 April Sunlight / Luminaire Modeling
22 April Lighting criteria
29 April Design problem overview Presentation of project prelims
6 May Advanced modeling
Third week in May Final Review Final Project