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This work explores additive manufacturing (AM) of concrete by using a six-axis robotic arm and its use in large-scale, autonomous concrete construction. Concrete AM uses an extrusion method to deposit concrete beads in layers to create a three-dimensional (3D) shape. This method has been found to have many uses and advantages in construction applications. The lack of formwork and autonomous nature of this manufacturing method allows for new geometries and materials to be printed in unsafe or challenging environments. Autonomous construction has been suggested as a method of creating habitats in rapid-response scenarios. This article discusses research toward one such system that could be used to rapidly construct necessary habitats in response to low-resource and emergency situations. This required addressing certain limitations of a six-axis robotic arm platform along with overcoming system challenges to achieve deliverables for NASA's “3D Printed Habitat Challenge.” This included system design to increase the build volume, integrate embedding, print non-coplanar sections, and minimize travel moves to address the challenges associated with continuous extrusion of cementitious material. The system was demonstrated by printing a one-third scale habitat, which represents the first 3d-printed fully enclosed structure at an architectural scale without the use of support.

The world is experiencing a surge in its urban population accompanied by rapidly advancing urbanization processes. Contemporary cities are witnessing the rise of numerous urban and social problems, leading, in turn, to the emergence of informal settlements. In response, computational and parametric resources are increasingly being adopted to create innovative and effective approaches to urban planning and design. These resources can be used in informal settlements to improve urban quality without losing their essential features. This paper describes the World Studio, a teaching experience that began in 2017 and continues in the present day, in which undergraduate architecture and landscape architecture students learn how to use shape grammars and parametric tools to design for informal settlements in international contexts (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Ahmedabad, India, to date).

No âmbito da Industria 4.0, e proposto um sistema para potenciar a articulacao da Realidade Aumentada com a Manufatura Robotizada na industria da construcao. O objetivo deste sistema e permitir que robos aprendam a realizar tarefas atraves da interacao direta com operadores humanos. Num primeiro passo, estabeleceu-se uma conexao entre um robo e seu treinador - ou controlador - , no qual o robo imita as acoes do operador. Equipamento de Realidade Aumentada e usado para capturar o gestos do treinador e o ambiente circundante. Uma ferramenta digital foi implementada usando Grasshopper e plugins adicionais para controlar o processo.

This paper proposes a parametric shape grammar for ancient Egyptian funerary monuments. The corpus of monuments includes ten rock-cut structures, duly documented. They exhibit different grades of completion and preservation and possess variant archaeological documentation. The generation of a design following the proposed grammar depends both on formal and functional aspects. Metadata indicates the evidential value and numerical occurrence of rules in the generation of designs. The developed grammar can be used to reconstruct unfinished tombs, extend an existing one, or generate new designs according to the rules. It denotes the linear and symmetric structure characteristic of the monuments and reflects the chronological sequence of construction. The proposed grammar encodes the typology of the studied monuments and suggests that ancient Egyptian architecture may have implied a clear set of canons that may be made explicit by developing additional grammars for other building types.

© 2020 Sociedade Portuguesa de Cardiologia. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)., Introduction: Patient selection for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in chronic total occlusions (CTOs) is crucial to procedural success. Our aim was to identify independent predictors of success in CTO PCI in order to create an accurate score. Methods: In a single-center observational registry of CTO PCI, demographic and clinical data and anatomical characteristics of coronary lesions were recorded. Linear and logistic regression analysis were used to identify predictors of success. A score to predict success was created and its accuracy was measured by receiver operating curve analysis. Results: A total of 377 interventions were performed (334 patients, age 68±11 years, 75% male). The success rate was 65% per patient and 60% per procedure. Predictors of success in univariate analysis were absence of active smoking (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.243-3.29; p=0.005), presence of tapered stump (OR 5.2, 95% CI 2.7-10.2; p8 with high probability (95%). Conclusion: In our sample only anatomical characteristics were predictors of success. The creation of a score to predict success, with good accuracy, may enable selection of cases that can be treated by any operator, those in which a dedicated operator will be desirable, and those with an extremely low probability of success, which should be considered individually for conservative management, surgical revascularization or PCI by a team experienced in CTO.

In mass customization, software configurators enable novice end-users to design customized products and services according to their needs and preferences. However, traditional configurators hardly provide an engaging experience while avoiding the burden of choice. We propose a Design Participation Model to facilitate navigating the design space, based on two modules. Modeler enables designers to create customizable designs as parametric models, and Navigator subsequently permits novice end-users to explore these designs. While most parametric designs support direct manipulation of low-level features, we propose interpolation features to give customers more flexibility. In this paper, we focus on the implementation of such interpolation features into Navigator and its user interface. To assess our approach, we designed and performed user experiments to test and compare Modeler and Navigator, thus providing insights for further developments of our approach. Our results suggest that barycentric interpolation between qualitative parameters provides a more easily understandable interface that empowers novice customers to explore the design space expeditiously.

Masonry screen walls are architectural elements made from bricks that create different patterns to provide shade and natural ventilation to buildings. This paper presents a digital framework for th...

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented global event that has been challenging governments, health systems, and communities worldwide. Available data from the first months indicated varying patterns of the spread of COVID-19 within American cities, when the spread was faster in high-density and walkable cities such as New York than in low-density and car-oriented cities such as Los Angeles. Subsequent containment efforts, underlying population characteristics, variants, and other factors likely affected the spread significantly. However, this work investigates the hypothesis that urban configuration and associated spatial use patterns directly impact how the disease spreads and infects a population. It follows work that has shown how the spatial configuration of urban spaces impacts the social behavior of people moving through those spaces. It addresses the first 60 days of contagion (before containment measures were widely adopted and had time to affect spread) in 93 urban counties in the United States, considering population size, population density, walkability, here evaluated through walkscore, an indicator that measures the density of amenities, and, therefore, opportunities for population mixing, and the number of confirmed cases and deaths. Our findings indicate correlations between walkability, population density, and COVID-19 spreading patterns but no clear correlation between population size and the number of cases or deaths per 100 k habitants. Although virus spread beyond these initial cases may provide additional data for analysis, this study is an initial step in understanding the relationship between COVID-19 and urban configuration.

The World experiences a significant growth in population coupled with fast urbanization processes particularly in the Southern hemisphere, which puts an enormous pressure on cities, giving rise to numerous social, infrastructural, ecological, and urban problems. In this context, the formal sector is often unable to provide adequate housing for this growing population who resorts to self-help processes that lead to informal settlements. This paper focuses on the development of an analytical shape grammar for Santa Marta, the iconic settlement used as a critical case study, whose rules describe the generation of the self-constructed urban fabric. The methodology includes an analysis of the built shape and the physical urban relations. The resulting model is a shape grammar that recreates the urban fabric of Santa Marta. Future work includes the evaluation of the settlement’s urban space and the corresponding transformation of the analytic grammar to generate a synthetic grammar for planning new housing settlements.

Shape-changing materials have become increasingly popular among architects in designing responsive systems. One of the greatest challenges of designing with these materials is their dynamic nature, which requires architects to design with the fourth dimension, time. This article presents a study that formalizes the shape-changing behavior of three-dimensional printed wood-based composite materials and the rules that serve to compute their shape-change in response to variations in relative humidity. In this research, we first developed custom three-dimensional printing protocols and analyzed the effects of three-dimensional printing parameters on shape-change. We thereafter three-dimensional printed kirigami geometries to amplify hygroscopic material transformation of wood-based composites.

Despite its marked success in recent years, it is still not clear how Virtual Reality (VR) can assist architects at the early stages of ideation and design. In this paper, we approach VR to build and explore maquettes at different scales in early design stages. To this end we developed a VR environment where user interactions are supported by untethered, easy to operate, peripherals, using a mobile virtual reality headset to provide virtual immersion and simplified geometric information to create voxel-based maquettes. Usability studies with laypeople suggest that the proposed system is both easier to use and more effective [better suited] than current CAD software to rapidly create simplified models. Additionally, tests with architects have shown the system's potential to improve their toolset. This is partly due to VR combining real-time performance with immersive exploration of the content, where body-scale relationships become visible to support the creative process, allowing architects to become both builders and explores of spatial constructs.

This chapter illustrates a novel framework combining building information model (BIM) and various artificial intelligence techniques developed as part of The Pennsylvania State University’s participation in NASA’s 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Centennial Challenge. It encompasses a parametric algorithm for generating design alternatives and a common BIM-based data exchange platform facilitating information exchange between the parametric algorithm, analysis tools, 4D-simulation tools, and optimization routines. Machine learning is embedded to learn from previous design iterations and speed up the optimization process. This framework enables generating 3D models of multiple design alternatives, 4D simulations of robotic additive construction, and design optimization for structural and environmental performance. Simulating construction early in the design phase is important as it plays a crucial role in dictating the constructability of the building shape and, therefore, the feasibility of autonomous construction. The framework also overcomes limitations of designers in generating and evaluating large sets of building design alternatives and it is demonstrated in the design of a 3D-printable habitat. Limitations of the proposed framework and potential avenues for addressing those limitations are outlined.

Passada num ambiente distópico, Judge Dredd é uma obra de HQ que centra a sua atenção em temas como o totalitarismo, autoritarismo, a violência ou os perigos da tecnologia. O estudo aqui apresentado procura olhar para a obra de Wagner e Ezquerra explorando, em primeiro lugar, o universo da personagem Dredd, para depois analisar as duas adaptações cinematográficas (1995, 2012) que se lhe seguiram e a forma como estas refletem as ansiedades do seu tempo. Desse modo, o objetivo deste estudo é perceber como Dredd, mas também Mega-City One (local onde se passa a narrativa), têm sido usados enquanto reflexo da contemporaneidade e como forma de denunciar os potenciais perigos de um (futuro) mundo distópico. Palavras-chave: Juiz Dredd. Distopia. Totalitarismo. Histórias em quadrinhos. Cinema.

Os monstros têm atraído a nossa imaginação ao longo dos tempos, mesmo numa época aparentemente racional e pragmática como a nossa. Um dos monstros do novo milénio, o zombie é uma figura constante da cultura popular, cristalizando os medos mais terríveis da sociedade e explorando o desejo das audiências por experiências catárticas violentas. De origem africana, o zombie foi popularizado pelo cinema americano, tendo-se espalhado a diferentes culturas e meios. Ainda que sem grande tradição de terror, Portugal tem também um exemplo do fenómeno de zombiemania que parece ter tomado conta do mundo, a curta I’ll See You In My Dreams (2003, Real. Miguel Angél Vivas, Prod. Filipe Melo). Este artigo tem como objectivo questionar o conceito de monstro, olhar para a evolução do zombie enquanto figura monstruosa e, finalmente, analisar aquele que é considerado o primeiro filme de zombies português, contextualizando-o relativamente a representações globais do zombie., Monsters have attracted our imagination throughout times, even in an apparently rational and pragmatic age such as ours. Being one of the monsters of the new millennium, the zombie is now a permanent figure of popular culture, both embodying society’s most terrible fears and exploring audience’s desire for violent cathartic experiences. Of African origins, the zombie has been popularised by American cinema and spread across cultures and media. Although with no great tradition of horror, Portugal also has an example of the zombiemania that seems to have overtaken the world, the short film I’ll See You In My Dreams (2003, Dir. Miguel Angél Vivas, Prod. Filipe Melo). This article aims at questioning the concept of monster in general terms, then look at the evolution of the zombie as a monstrous figure in particular and, finally, analyse that which is considered the first Portuguese zombie film, contextualising it in relation to global zombie representations. ResumoOs monstros têm atraído a nossa imaginação ao longo dos tempos, mesmo numa época aparentemente racional e pragmática como a nossa. Um dos monstros do novo milénio, o zombie é uma figura constante da cultura popular, cristalizando os medos mais terríveis da sociedade e explorando o desejo das audiências por experiências catárticas violentas. De origem africana, o zombie foi popularizado pelo cinema americano, tendo-se espalhado a diferentes culturas e meios. Ainda que sem grande tradição de terror, Portugal tem também um exemplo do fenómeno de zombiemania que parece ter tomado conta do mundo, a curta I’ll See You In My Dreams (2003, Real. Miguel Angél Vivas, Prod. Filipe Melo). Este artigo tem como objectivo questionar o conceito de monstro, olhar para a evolução do zombie enquanto figura monstruosa e, finalmente, analisar aquele que é considerado o primeiro filme de zombies português, contextualizando-o relativamente a representações globais do zombie.

In the past few years, the adaptation of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for the building industry has reached new levels of sophistication, triggering design and development of novel 3D-printable materials and material interfaces; inspiring innovative architectural details; rethinking of material-specific printing systems; and enabling significant understanding of the interrelationship between multiple variables and aspects of design thinking and processes. For example, there are notable consequences of toolpath design in relation to material design, spatial experiences, and structural performance. AM has been recognized for its unique affordances, including flexibilities and freedom of free-form construction; speed of construction; reduced construction time and cost; reduced waste of resources, materials, labor, and energy; and increased safety due to innovations in automated construction. This technology has far-reaching implications and impact by augmenting conventional technologies and wisdom. This paper presents an overview of materials, systems, design explorations, and selected results in the context of NASA Centennial Challenge’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge Competition, leading to the production of the first fully 3D-printed, fully enclosed concrete habitat. The paper also reflects on the potential impacts of this technology when fully adopted by the construction industry.

Scaling up additive manufacturing (AM) for automated building construction requires expertise from different fields of knowledge, including architecture, material science, engineering, and manufact...

This paper reviews and extracts lessons from historic buildings, whose stability relies mainly on compression to resist gravity loads, that can inform the construction of affordable housing and shelters using 3D printed concrete without reinforcement and formwork. The first part consists of a literature survey of historic constructions with systems relying on compression considering four vectors of analysis: (1) form; (2) structural principle; (3) materials; and (4) construction process . The survey starts by identifying forms whose structural principle may be adequate for 3D printing of concrete applications. Then, historic structures displaying similar forms are analyzed in terms of structural behavior, the types of materials employed, and the construction process used to obtain foundations, walls, and roofs. A series of historically inspired shapes for printing is thus obtained from this survey. To address the printability of the structures identified after the survey, the second part of the paper provides a brief description of existing processes for construction scale printing considering material aspects, such as fresh state behavior, and printing system configurations. Addressing the fresh state properties of concrete is crucial as it determines whether the structure fails during printing. Finally, a set of strategies including potential toolpaths and intermediate states are defined to print the identified forms, considering issues concerning material requirements and printing process.

The construction sector is under increasing pressure to improve its efficiency and effectiveness, reducing environmental impacts, material use and costs. A computational tool was developed to design and fabricate functionally graded building components. The material composition was defined based on voxel determination in order to design building elements with varying material stiffness. A cement-based conceptual building wall was investigated with a varied material composition, using two different lightweight aggregates, a granulated cork one and the other with expanded clay. This functionally graded material concept applied to lightweight building components will allow producing resource-efficient graded building components tailored to specific loading conditions, minimizing waste generation, emissions and resource consumption.