Digital vernacular design: Form-finding at the edge of realities

Abstract

Introducing design innovation within structural systems normally requires the development of novel design strategies for exploring different solutions in which optimized shapes can be derived from material behaviors and force principles. This condition is particularly important for bending- and form-active structures where intricate geometrical arrangements can be produced by combining simple discrete components. The use of real-time physics-based simulations as design tools has rapidly become popular for addressing these problems. However, all numerical methods tend to lack the interactive and playful characteristics that are intrinsic in traditional analogue methods. Because of this, the intuitive and creative characteristics of digital design processes are limited, and therefore a gap between analogue and digital design practices is progressively created. In this paper, we present a design approach we call "digital vernacular," which involves the combination of interactive and playful characteristics of empirical and experimental methods within numerical models. This approach originates from the technical framework of topology-driven form-finding, which addresses the activation of topologic spaces during real-time physics-based simulations. The presented study is placed within a larger body of research regarding simulation-based design and aims to bridge the gap between analogue and digital design practices. Two computational frameworks based on particle-based methods and a set of research projects are presented to illustrate our design approach.