Modern Methods (Asynchronous Session)
Virtual Reality as Agency for Design in Architectural Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tatiana Estrina, Liane Werdina, Alvin Huang, Vincent Hui
Architectural pedagogy weighs the balance of design and conceptual thinking with technical and digital knowledge, using one facet to leverage the other. The ideal architectural education provides students with both a grounded understanding of human-centered design and the technical assemblage of architectural elements. Lacking the time and resources to engage students with full scale construction methodologies, many architectural institutions turn to design build projects and scale models to expose students to design and construction processes. While these physical explorations have proven to be very effective, the transition to virtual curricula amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the projection of an increasingly digitized future of education makes these initiatives challenging. Instead, educators have gradually begun to turn to emerging technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), to supplement remote educational architectural modelling. By capitalizing on the capabilities of VR, students can meaningfully interact with their design work and leverage virtual space as a host for architectural inquiry. This paper presents the applications of VR as a means to engage with architectural precedents, a design tool to conceptualize space, and an instrument to explore architectural assemblies. By leveraging these digital toolsets students can gain boundless ownership over digital spaces, allowing them to engage with design elements more freely at the human scale. This is examined through the lens of numerous case studies in Canada’s largest architecture program. This paper concludes the significance of implementing a variety of digital tools and methodologies within design pedagogy to provide students with more agency in their design work.
Innovative Practices Applied to Architectural Design: Analysis, Perspectives, and Solutions View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mauricio Diaz Valdes
Through the century’s humanity has passed by different tests that marked the history of humanity, we are currently facing great emergencies that are changing the lives of the inhabitants and are forcing us to reflect and develop a critical sense and reflection about our actions about of the future of the earth. We are in the second decade of the twenty-one century and we are in a period of transition that seeks and must modify our actions as architects. If we analyze the history of architecture, we will observe that technology, science ,and materials have been catalysts and have generated great changes in a positive way; post-Industrial Revolution many construction techniques, materials and processes gave the architect / engineer new ways of developing architecture. The current transition facing architecture finds its answer through Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and digital fabrication, since today architecture demands new needs and limitations that previous centuries had never directly inferred, such as: global warming, overpopulation, excess consumption of natural resources. Innovative processes and techniques are essential for the architecture of the next decades to generate a positive effect on the environment and the health of the inhabitants of the following generations. Digital fabrication, software and new materials are essential to be able to combat the adversities that society faces today. This problem affects the entire population of the world and through commitment and knowledge these effects can be minimized.
Associative Thinking and Urban Design as an Interpretative Practice : A New Way of Looking at Historic Urban Fabric View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aslihan Caroupapoulle
This practice-based research seeks to generate a research-led design approach for a post-industrial UNESCO World Heritage site that supports continuity and consistency in the historic built environment through innovative critical design practice. My focus is the town of Belper in the Derwent Valley, which was developed by mill owners during the period of industrialisation from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. As an example of the pioneering period of the Industrial Revolution, Belper's identity is defined by its overall form and its relationship to the industrial landscape. It is essential that these relationships are definite and recognisable. However, the town is currently under pressure from diverse and conflicting socio-economic forces due to the post-industrial decline of the cotton manufacturing industry. This research generates a coherent design model for Belper that fits into the town's historical context, drawing from theoretical investigations of alternative urbanism and heritage studies, alongside extensive first-hand investigations of Belper's architectural heritage and urban fabric. This new way of design thinking developed with a holistic approach, that considers the site and its history together with personal lived experience. Communicating the poetics and politics of making and experiencing a place, design concerns interpreting physical, social, and cultural conditions -the 'situations' that make a place and uncovering the dialogue between them within the whole. Knitting together the new and the existing, my research-led design proposal seeks to promote appropriate and viable mixed-use development that repair and upgrade Belper's existing urban grain while recognising the evolving nature of its historic character.
Industrial Processes through Systematic Layout Planning and Lean Manufacturing Tools: Designing an Optimal Layout View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Iván Vázquez Cenil, José Manuel García Córdova, Fernando Elí Ortiz-Hernández
An optimal layout design that maximizes the productivity and process efficiency may be achieved by methods such as the Systematic Layout Planning and by the supporting of Lean Manufacturing Tools, the former focus on floor plant elements and the letter on add value activities and material flow. Systematic Layout is the most common method to design a workplace due to the ease of use and it focusses on optimal arrangements on elements of floor plant such as departments, workstations, machines, equipment, etc. On other hand, Lean Manufacturing tools focuses on add value activities that identify the needs of each area and use principles such as closest adjacency that eliminate unnecessary transports, lean tools also focus on ergonomics aspects that makes the activities easier and increases the life quality of employees. Based on literature review, this investigation shows ways to improve the productivity and efficiency in industrial process through the workplace Design implementing Systematic Layout Planning Method and Lean Manufacturing Tools such as AMEF, cellular manufacturing, SMED, Kaizen, Eight Disciplines, Lean Six Sigma and visual control. Besides, this work also shows examples how models of process simulation were used to see the process performance, to obtain missing data and determine the impact of layout designs and the application of Lean Manufacturing tools before implementing them in reality.
