Article

Structuring Materiality: Design Fabrication of Heterogeneous Materials

  1. Neri Oxman

Article first published online: 8 JUL 2010

DOI: 10.1002/ad.1110

Issue

Architectural Design

Architectural Design

Special Issue: The New Structuralism: Design, Engineering and Architectural Technologies

Volume 80, Issue 4, pages 78–85, July/August 2010

Additional Information

How to Cite

Oxman, N. (2010), Structuring Materiality: Design Fabrication of Heterogeneous Materials. Archit Design, 80: 78–85. doi: 10.1002/ad.1110

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 8 JUL 2010
  2. Article first published online: 8 JUL 2010

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Keywords:

  • Neri Oxman, Beast: Prototype for a Chaise Longue, Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts, 2009;
  • nano through macro;
  • 'anisotropy;
  • anisotropic structuring';
  • Frank Gehry's architecture;
  • Arup and Buro Happold;
  • ‘material first’ approach;
  • Variable property design (VPD);
  • ‘synthetic anisotropy’;
  • ‘material-based design computation’;
  • Neri Oxman, Carpal Skin: Prototype for a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Splint, Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts, 2009;
  • Variable Property Modelling (VPM);
  • Voronoi cell tessellation;
  • pain-reducing splints;
  • treatment glove;
  • Variable Property Fabrication (VPF);
  • material deposition 3-D printing technology;
  • computationally enabled form-generation;
  • Neri Oxman, Raycounting, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York, 2007;
  • Subterrain: Variable Property Analysis and Fabrication of a Butterfly Wing, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, 2007;
  • [X, Y, Z, S, S, T] (pronounced ‘exist’);
  • Variable Property Analysis and Fabrication of Natural Species, 2008;
  • digital fabrication of heterogeneous materials

Abstract

What happens when we invert the usual sequence of the design process - form-structure-material - so materiality becomes the generative driver? Taking nature as her model, Neri Oxman advocates a new material method, Variable Property Design (VPD), in which material assemblies are modelled, simulated and fabricated with varying properties in order to correspond with multiple and continuously shifting functional constraints. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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