Michal will give a talk entitled “Digital Craft” at the Faculty of Design, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. It will be a discussion of computer aided manufacturing and design as tools enabling the creation of complex forms, often inspired by nature and contributing to developement of new business models based on the idea of mass customization. The lecture will take place on 28th of April at 2pm.

Michal wygłosi wykład zatytuowany “Cyfrowe Rzemiosło” na Wydziale Wzornictwa Akademii Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie. Będzie to dyskusja cyfrowego wspomagania wytwarzania i projektowania jako narzędzi umożliwiających tworzenie złożonych form, często inspirowanych naturą, oraz przyczyniających sie do powstawania nowych modeli biznesowych opartych na koncepcji masowej personalizacji. Wykład odbędzie się 28 kwietnia o 14.00.

Green2 published Michal’s new text about an algorithmic analysis of cities. The text features the research of Space Syntax (University College London) as well as the one of prof. Waldemar Marzecki, dr. Klara Czynska and Pawel Rubinowicz (Szczecin School of Architecture). The first group uses sight analysis to simulate movement of actors such as pederstrians and vehicles across the city, while the focus of the second one is the visibility of high-rise developements from various points in the city.

Green2 opublikowało artykuł Michala dotyczący algorytmicznej analizy miast. Tekst opisuje badania grupy Space Syntax (University College London) oraz prof. Waldemara Marzęckiego, dr. Klary Czyńskiej i Pawła Rubinowicza (Wydział Architektury w Szczecinie). Pierwsza grupa używa analiz widoczności do symulacji ruchu osób oraz pojazdów, a jednym z tematów badanych przez drugą grupę jest widoczność budynków wysokich z różnych punktów w mieście.

Experimental Architecture is an exhibition composed of two parts: Computational Forms and De-Coding complexity. It’s opening this Thursday, November 25th, 5 pm at the Forma gallery in Szczecin as part of city’s festival of architecture. Exhibition website is available here (in Polish only).

Computational Forms features the work of Przemek Jaworski and Michal Piasecki. Przemek will show his recent design work as well as prototypes, including a robotic arm for automated drawing. Michal will show his design and consulting work, including purpose-built software for Unusually Rare Events (commissioned by Ola Wasilkowska) and for Structural Ornament (by Malgorzata Mozolewska). Thesis projects from 2009/2010 students of the Msc AAC: Prarthana Jagannath, Petros Kataras, Hugo Loureiro, Eleni Sotiriou and workshops conducted by the Workshops Factory group will also be on display.

De-coding complexity features the work of Pawel Rubinowicz, a researcher from the School of Architecture in Szczecin, whose enquiry is centered around the notion of bottom-up generation of forms.

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.

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”.

The first iteration of the Excel spreadsheet script will generate instances of parametric definitions which will be random but constrained by maximum and minimum values of each of the attributes. Further iterations will feature a variety of browsing algorithms. For now have a look at how it works with Solidworks:

Above are a couple of pictures showing manufacturing process of Evolve Ring Silver, commissioned and distributed by Fluid Forms and co-designed with Krystian Kwiecinski. The manufacturing process begins with a wax 3d print of a positive form. Then a rubber mold is created with the use of the print and once it is ready the actual object is cast in silver.

The entire process takes place in Austria, where Fluid Forms is based.

Przemek Jaworski (who runs the projektowanie parametryczne.pl blog) and I where invited to speak about computational design at the “Westival” – architectural festival in Szczecin.

Our talk will take place on 17:00, 23rd of Nov in “Willa Lentza”, al. Wojska Polskiego 84. Program of the event is available here (polish). Please join us if you are in Szczecin at the time.

We will begin with a bit of history of computational design (John Frazer will certainly be mentioned). An introduction to computational tools such as parametric modeling, scripting and programing will follow. Later we will speak about optimization with genetic algorithms and particle-spring systems. Finally we share out experiences from Adaptive Architecture and Computation course at the Bartlett.

Major media increasingly notice the possible change, which 3d printing might bring when it will be developed into an affordable technology capable of working with multiple materials. “A factory on your desk” is an article on Economist.com, which not only introduces the major players in the game, such as Z-Corp, but also gives a hint on the history as well as the future of additive digital manufacturing. 3D systems, a company which marketed world’s first stereolithography machine already back in 1986, is mentioned there right next to the potential shift from “rapid prototyping” towards “rapid manufacturing”. Even though the article does not provide enthusiasts of the topic with a new perspective, it is a very good introduction for those who are not familiar with notions such as Bruce Sterling’s “spime”.

I have accessed the article through Geometry Gym.