Fabricate is an international conference on design and making about to take place in London in April 2011.

UPDATE: call for work is extended to 20th of September.

Below is an excerpt from the press release:

FABRICATE is an international peer reviewed conference with supporting publication and exhibition to be held at The Building Centre in London from 15-16 April 2011. Discussing the progressive integration of digital design with manufacturing processes, and its impact on design and making in the 21st century, FABRICATE will bring together pioneers in design and making within architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation.

FABRICATE welcomes original, innovative and pioneering projects for the Call for Work. Submission requirements emphasize strong and informative visual material with succinct analytical text and project synopsis.

Selected submissions will be featured together with articles from conference keynote speakers Mark Burry, Philip Beesley, Neri Oxman and Matthias Kohler in the book ‘FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture’ to be published by Riverside Architectural Press. Selected submissions will also be invited to speak at the FABRICATE conference where the book will be launched.

FABRICATE Will also host the UK’s first exhibition of Gramazio & Kohler’s brick laying robot “R-O-B” which will be performing its magic throughout the conference.

The paper is a part of Michal’s ongoing PhD research on providing the users with intuitive and satisfactory B2C online mass customization expirience. The abstract is available on the research page.

Green2, a polish design magazine with a focus on sustainability, published Michal’s article on SmartGeometry 2010. This year’s SmartGeometry workshops took place at Iaac in Barcelona – a post-industrial setting likely to influence the title of the event. It was called “Working Prototypes”. Over four days more than a hundred participants worked in ten distinctive clusters using various CAM technologies to manufacture their proofs of concepts.

Four days at Iaac were followed by a two-day conference drawing together speakers such as  Mark Burry (RMIT), Enrico Dini (D-Shape), Marta Male-Alemany (Iaac) and Hanif Kara (Adams Kara Taylor). Videos from the conference are available from Bentley (requires registration).

Workshop participants in Iaac at work. Image: courtesy of Shane Burger.

Final prototype of High Tech Design – Low Tech Construction cluster. Image: courtesy of Shane Burger.

Work from the Parametrics and Physical Interactions cluster. Image: courtesy of Przemek Jaworski.

Michal Piasecki recently took part in a symposium of PhD students researching computational design. Hosted by Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) in Copenhagen, the event drew together PhD students and tutors from The Bartlett, UCL, Spatial Information Architecture (SIAL) at RMIT and CITA.

The event was structured into 4 panels and presentations of PhD research where followed by an open discussion moderated by panel leaders. The list of all speakers is below:

June 11th: Panel 1: “Materials & Responses”. Moderators: Sean Hanna and Ole Sigmund.

Norbert Palz: “ Emerging Architectural Potentials of a Tuneable Materiality through Additive Fabrication Technologies”.

Sarat Babu: “Microkinetics”.

Aurelie Mosse: “Self-Actuated Textiles in the Design of Domestic Spaces”.

Gennaro Senatore: “Responsive Adaptive Building Structures”.

June 11th: Panel 2: “Adaptation”. Moderators: Jane Burry and Alasdair Turner.

Ruairi Glynn:  “An approach to interactive architecture”.

Christopher Leung: “Passive autonomic computing with heat motors and their compounds”.

Michal Piasecki: “An evolutionary approach to online mass customization of products”.

Abel Maciel:  “Negotiations of instrumental values  in architectural design: seeking for concept formation structures”.

June 14th: Panel 3: “Digital Methods”. Moderators: Martin Tamke & Alasdair Turner.

Anders Hermund: “ Applied 3D modeling and Parametric Design”.

Daniel Davis:  “Declarative Schemata: challenging the inflexibility of the flexible digital model”.

Alexander Pena de Leon:  “Intuition Based Parametric Strategies for Solving Complex Architectural Problems”.

Tore Bank: “Parametri I Praksis: Generative Performance in Architecture”.

Brady Peters: “Computing Sound Performance”.

June 14th: Panel 4: “Scripted Architectures”. Moderators: Mark Burry and Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen.

Tim Ireland: “Form follows function: activity defines function, gesticulates space”.

Jacob Riiber: “Self-organization as design methodology”.

Kindal_Al Sayed: “Spatial Morphogenesis: an analytical and generative design approach towards modeling and simulating the dynamics of spatial change in cities”.

“A Redefinition of the Paradox of Choice”, a paper co-authored by Michal Piasecki and Sean Hanna, was accepted for the Design Computing Cognition conference 2010 (DCC’10).

In the paper builds upon Barry Schwart’z definition of the paradox of choice. The abstract outlines our proposition of reconsideration of the paradox and positions the Breeding Objects Experiment 1 in this context:

Abstract: Barry Schwartz defined the paradox of choice as the fact that in western developed societies a large amount of choice is commonly associated with welfare and freedom but too much choice causes the feeling of less happiness, less satisfaction and can even lead to paralysis. The paradox of choice has been recognized as one of the major sources of mass confusion in context of the B2C online mass customization. We propose to redefine the paradox of choice with an emphasis on the meaning of choice in conjunction with the amount of available options, rather than just the quantity of choice. We propose that it is the lack of meaningful choice, rather than an overwhelming amount of choice, that can cause customers’ feelings of decreased happiness, decreased satisfaction and paralysis. We further propose that since users themselves are often not able to explicitly define what constitutes a meaningful choice, the task they face belongs to the category of ill-defined problems. The challenge for mass customization practitioners is thus not to limit the scope of choice, as has been suggested in previous literature, but to provide users with choice that is relevant to them.

We further discuss two computational approaches to solving problems related to the redefined paradox of choice in the context of the B2C mass customization. The first is based on recommender systems and the second is an implementation of artificial selection in genetic algorithms. We present findings of an empirical comparison of genetic algorithm and parametric product configurators. We find that the genetic algorithm tools, which allow users to move through a solution space by recognition of meaningful options rather than their definition, appear to be more popular among the users when it comes to browsing through solution spaces with larger number of dimensions.

“Simply put, a configurator is a software application for designing products exactly matching customers’ individual needs.”

B2C online product configurators are of my particular interests. These ones are the tools of communication between producers and customers (or users) by allowing the later ones to customize products of the former ones. The whole process takes place over the internet.

De-facto standards in the design of configurators

Clarissa Streichsbier’s talk on “Identification of De-Facto Standards for Designing the User Interfaces for Web Based B2C Product Configurators” was one of the most appealing ones. Streichsbier (who works with cyLEDGE) looked at similarities of layout in 126 different online product configurators from 3 different industries: electronics, apparel and automotive. The Configurator Database was her source of links to the online customization tools. Sean Hanna and me have used this database as well in order to access most of the configurators discussed in our review.

The findings of Streichsbier’s review are very consistent. Standarts can be found in designs of configurators from the same industry. For example: electronic industry seems to pay little attention to the actual picture of the product. Instead it devotes most of the screen space for the customization menu. Automobile industry’s approach is the opposite. Product visualization in this case occupies majority of the screen space. It additionally seems that there are no clear standards across the industries. This means that if an experimental research was about to be conducted on online product configurators, these de-facto standards would definitely have to be taken into consideration in the design of the experiment.

“Open Toolkit”

In a later session Günter Dressel’s and Wolfgang Frühwirt’s, also from cyLEDGE, launched the project called “Open Toolkit”. Their aim is to create an open-source tool for development of configurators. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will develop and hope to contribute as well.

Michal Piasecki attended Mass Customization and Personalization conference in Helsinki (MCPC 2009), where he presented the Review of B2C Online Product Configurators. There where couple of really interesting issues raised during these intensive two days and I would like to begin with discussion of the term “personalization”. Posts on automation in architecture as well as B2C product configurators will follow.

Personalization as an umbrella term

Diversity of meanings applied to the term “personalization” was quite astonishing. For example: Bruce Kasanoff used it to name nearly any kind of mass customization. His examples ranged from products up till body customization with electronic devices.

Personalization as an process in which user is passive with respect to product attributes

Sunnika and Brage’s literature review provided an interesting insight on the distinction between “mass customization” and “personalization”. Their work is an automated literature review, facilitated by text mining algorithms. They have found that “mass customization” referees more often to tangibles, while “personalization” is rather used in the context of “intangibles”. In other words mass customization is likely to be about products, while personalization is associated with information.

This goes in the same line with what Sean Hanna and I proposed in our review. We considered “mass customization” as the process in which user is active with respect to product attributes, while we referred to “personalization” as a process in which user is passive with respect to product attributes. We discussed recommender systems the examples of personalization.

Another interesting input from Sunnika and Brage is that exactly the same distinction in computer science literature was described as a difference between “adaptability” and “adaptivity”. Where “adaptability” is a process in which the user is active, while adaptivity is an automated process.

If you are in London by the end of September void exhibit (AAC) is an event not to be missed. It’s the end of the year show of Msc Adaptive Architecture and Computation, starting at 6.30 pm on 25th of September. The venue is Arup’s “Phase 2 Exhibition Space”. Here is an excerpt from the exhibition description:

“The work combines computational models and physical pieces that address the themes of embedded, embodied and adaptive architecture. Each piece represents a scientific exploration of computation in the design process. There are analyses of space and structure, artificial intelligence techniques applied to design performance, and emergent systems built around bodily relationships between space and technology.”

Digital Hinterlands Exhibition will definitely be worth visiting as well. The exhibition, curated by Ruairi Glynn in collaboration with Arup, features works by recent graduates of the Bartlett, Architectural Association, Royal College of Arts and University of Westminster. Marilena Skavara’s “Adaptive Fa[ca]de” is this year’s Msc AAC thesis project which became part of this exhibition. You can find a description of this project below:

“Marilena Skavara’s ‘Adaptive Fa[ca]de’ explores the functional possibilities and performative characteristics of cellular automata (CA). In addition to the unique emergent behaviour of CA, a neural network enables a further computational layer to evolve CA behaviour to the context of its surrounding environment. Building upon the early work of Conway’s ‘Game of life’ and Stephen Wolfram’s extensive research on the wider implementation of CA, Skavara’s facade becomes a living adapting skin, constantly training itself from the history of its own errors and achievements.”

One more event which sounds very well is Digital Architecture London conference.

Discussions are divided into five thematic panels:

- space

- bio-technology

- interaction

- form

- fabrication

Alan Penn, Brett Steele and Hanif Kara are just of a few from many great academics and practitioners which will share their perspectives on computation and design. Take a look at the programme of the event for more details.

All three events are part of London Digital Week.

While business to customer (B2C) mass customization has been discussed mainly from the producers’ perspective, researchers have reported a lack of sufficient literature examining the topic from customers’ perspective. This paper provides a review of configurators with user experience in mind. We first discuss terms such as: personalization, customization, optimization, design and innovation. We then use these terms to discuss definitions of configurators’ features such as: solution space, type of customers’ input, linearity, product visualization method and types of recommendations. The features of two distinct sets of configurators are then reviewed: the first, of 50 specific configurators currently operating commercially; and the second of configurators which have been used for empirical experimentation. We find that while configurators operating commercially have a heterogeneous set of features, configurators subject to experimentation to date, by contrast, have relatively homogenous features. We conclude with an outline of features found in configurators available commercially, but not researched experimentally. We argue that those features demand empirical experimentation, since they are likely to influence customers’ satisfaction with the customization process, satisfaction with web interface, perceived customization complexity, perceived product utility, willingness to pay and intent to purchase.

What is post-industrial design? Ponoko was until very recently based only in New Zealand. Yet on 5th of July 2009 they have announced the opening of a second manufacturing hub, located in San Francisco. This way they can ship to clients in US and nearby for a lot less. Is this the beggining of a new phenomena which can be refereed to as “distributed manufacturing”? One day perhaps we will again be able to produce locally, especially if the buzz about desktop 3d printing will eventually become common place. Desktop Factory is having some financial problems at the moment, but I believe “micromanufacturing” is only a question of time. Micromanufacturing combined with the potential of generative design, mass customization, social networking and web 2.0 in general all together constitute a new design paradigm, where needs of a single individuals may be met by a personalized approach and not reduced or approximated to a mass produced offer. In this new paradigm a digital instance of the product indeed becomes more important than it’s physical instance, so one of the features of a “spime” envisioned by Bruce Sterling is slowly becoming a feature of commercially available products.

It was proposed during the discussion in Turin that distributed digital fabrication, generative processes, mass customization, social networking and web 2.0 all contribute to the new, emerging paradigm of post-industrial design. Our aim during the workshop was to sketch a road map of possibilities and potential disruptive solutions related to this new paradigm. Those maps will soon be published on-line under CC.

Speaking about web 2.0, Twitter recently made it to the cover of the Time. Will Maker Bot, Desktop Factory or the term post-industrial design itself make it there any time soon?

Many thanks to Massimo Menichinelli and Todo for the invitation and hospitality.