The Grammar of Crystallographic Expression (2016)
article⁄The Grammar of Crystallographic Expression (2016)
abstract⁄This paper stems from a research collaboration which brings together two disciplines at different ends of the scale spectrum crystallography and architecture. The science of crystallography demonstrates that the properties of crystalline materials are a function of atomicmolecular interactions and arrangements at the atomic leveli.e., functions of the form and structure of the material. Some of these nanogeometries are frameworks with special characteristics, such as unidirectional porosity, multidirectional porosity, and varied combinations of flexibility and strength. This paper posits that the symmetry operations implicit in these materials can be regarded as a spatial grammar in the design of objects, spaces, and environments. The aim is to allow designers and architects to access the wealth of structural information that is now accumulated in crystallographic databases as well as the spatial symmetry logics utilized in crystallography to describe molecular arrangements. To enable this process, a bespoke software application has been developed as a toolpath to allow for interoperability between crystallographic datasets and CADbased modelling systems. The application embeds the descriptive logic and generative principles of crystallographic symmetry. Using this software, the project, inter alia, produces results related to a class of geometrical surfaces called Triply Periodic Minimal TPM surfaces. In addition to digital iterations, a physical prototype of one such surface called the gyroid was constructed to test potential applications in design. The paper describes the development of these results and the conclusions derived from the first stage of user testing.
keywords⁄interdisciplinarity,
physical prototyping,
triply periodic minimal surfaces,
computational workflow,
bespoke software,
crystallographic space groups,
nano-scale symmetry,
nano-scale periodicity,
molecular geometry,
crystallographic expression,
2016
|
|
| Year |
2016 |
| Authors |
Pineda, Sergio; Arora, Mallika; Williams, P. Andrew; Kariuki, Benson M.; Harris, Kenneth D. M. |
| Issue |
ACADIA 2016: POSTHUMAN FRONTIERS: Data, Designers, and Cognitive Machines |
| Pages |
236-243 |
| Library link |
N/A |
| Entry filename |
grammar-crystallographic-expression |
