Digital Diversions

3 units

This course will employ advanced digital computing tools to examine the fabrication and assembly of materials diverted from the construction industry waste stream for new possibilities within design. While current digital fabrication techniques are commonly used to produce cut sheets and fabrication instructions for the assembly of cousom components, this often results in a large amount of raw material entering the waste stream despite complex nesting (cut sheet configuration) softwares. In addition, the EPA estimates that building-related construction and demolition debris totals approximately 136 million tons per year, accounting for nearly 60 percent of total non-industrial waste gereration in the U.S. Given the scale of materials available and the introduction of powerful, advanced computing techniques, this course will closely consider the construction waste stream as a point of entry for the digital design of highly repetitive assembly systems. Students will research and develop desigh proposals that minimize the production of waste using standard CNC production techniques or porpose innovative methods to employ digital tools to assemble materials destined for the waste stream. Students will follow a research trajectory throughout the semester that utilizes one or more of the advanced computing techniques being addressed in the course (scripting and/or parametric modeling) to design a prototypical assembly system that makes "something out of nothing."