Intelligent Form

Brand-new methods and ideas arose as computational aided design technology was increasingly improved and introduced into architectural design at the end of 20th century. Since then, human beings have gained the capacity of form-finding with more freedom and creativity. In recent years, along with the completion of some architectural projects in organic and intricate forms, architects start to use the “morphological evolution” method to intelligently generate architectural forms inspired from the same way nature does.

Just as above, Intelligent Form came into being. The cutting-edge method of topological optimization has been introduced in this design. Meanwhile, The bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) technique and an additive manufacturing method have been applied to design the structure and fabricate the formwork, which integrate the inspiration of natural morphological evolution into architectural component form-finding. The strategy aims to find the solution with the highest structural performance under certain material limitations by removing or adding material elements step by step.

With the assistance of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique and innovative structural material, Intelligent Form is no longer stranded by complex design methods, eventually balancing optimal mechanics performance and architectural aesthetics. Intelligent Form has been fabricated as a prototype through 3D printing mould and spraying ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC).

Together with 3D printing formworks in architectural scale and spraying thin UHPC wall components, the project is completed in an entire digital workflow with high efficiency and high quality. The techniques developed from this innovative design project for constructing free-form architectural prototypes have the potential to be applied to large-scale spatial structures and signal the future direction of façade elements manufacturing.