Achim Menges: "Rethinking Materiality" (Apr 3)
Achim Menges is the founding director of the ICD – Institute For Computational Design in Stuttgart. Menges and the ICD is renowned for research and exploration into the intersections of architectural construction, computational modelling and robotic fabrication – the full-scale implementations of which are showcased in the institute's experimental research pavillions, erected yearly as part of the educational program. In this lecture, held at the Arkitektur- och Designcentrum on Skeppsholmen, Menges will present his view of how emergent design technologies and practices of fabrication generates new notions of materiality in architecture.
Time: Thu 2014-04-03 18.00
Location: Arkitektur- och Designcentrum, Excercisplan 4, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm
Advances in the conception of materiality and the technologies of materialization have always been a catalyst for design innovation in architecture. Today, technological innovation across multiple disciplines suggests that design computation is no longer limited to the binary realm of the digital, but rather transforms into an intense interface to the more complex domain of the physical. Thus a new understanding of the material in architecture is beginning to arise, forging new alliances between the fields of design, engineering and natural sciences, and leading to a novel material culture in architecture. In this lecture Achim Menges will discuss how materiality no longer remains a fixed property and passive receptor of form, but instead how it can be transformed into an active generator of design and an adaptive agent of both structural performance and architectural performativity.
ACHIM MENGES, born 1975, is a registered architect and professor at the University of Stuttgart where he is the founding director of the Institute for Computational Design . Currently he is also Visiting Professor in Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Menges' practice and research focuses on the development of integral design processes at the intersection of morphogenetic design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing that enables a highly articulated, performative built environment. His work is based on an interdisciplinary approach in collaboration with structural engineers, computer scientists, material scientists and biologists. Achim Menges has authored and coauthored numerous articles and scientific papers on this work and related fields of design research, published several books and other publications on the subject – such as the the guest editorship of the Architectural Design issue entitled Material Computation .
Stockholms Arkitektförening in collaboration with KTH School of Architecture, with the support of Arkitektur- och Designcentrum