Reconfigurable molds as architecture machines

Abstract

In The Architecture Machine (1970), Nicholas Negroponte postulates the development ofdesign machines wherein the "design process, consideredas evolutionary, can be presentedto a machine, also consideredas evolutionary, anda mutual training, resilience, andgrowth can be developed." The book, dedicated to "the first machine that can appreciate the gesture," argues for developing machines with human like qualities. This paper aims to develop an alternative trajectory to the "evolutionary" architecture machine, this time not towards anthropomorphism but responsiveness. The aim on one level is the same: to create machines that appreciate the gesture. However our approach is tied to more modest aims and means that bring current thinking on evolutionary processes and the forming of materials together. The reconfigurable mold (RCM) is an architecture machine that produces parts that can be combined to create more complex organizations. The molds are simple analog computers that employ various continuous scales like volume, weight and heat to develop their unique components. Parametric alterations are made possible by affecting these measures in the process of fabrication. An underlying material that is instrumental in the molds is rubber, whose variable elasticity provides unique possibilities for indexing the gesture that remains elusive for industrial processes.