Built heritage perception through representation of its atmosphere

A holistic view on the city was shaped under the influence of such fundamental works as the Image of the city by Kevin Lynch (1960), or Genius loci by Christan Norberg-Schulz (1979). Especially the latter publication defined the identity of places as a resultant of a number of factors, including intangible values, which allowed better understanding of the complexity and richness of the city phenomena Similar assumptions laid foundation for the recommendation on the protection of the historic urban landscape (HUL) adopted during the UNESCO General Conference in 2011. The above-mentioned issues are crucial for visualising built heritage, since not only shapes and dimensions are responsible for the proper understanding of the place. The intangible values are also of great importance. This is the main topic of the paper, which aims at presenting various methods and techniques in reconstructing and representing heritage buildings and areas. This is illustrated by case studies, based on the professional and didactic experience of authors. In particular, traditional hand-drawing techniques and computer-based visualisation methods are compared. Despite the adopted techniques the most important seems not only to achieve a certain level of accuracy but also to reflect genius loci of represented site. Both issues have to be well-balanced to achieve sustainable and satisfactory results

Re-flex: Responsive Flexible Mold for Computer Aided Intuitive Design and Materialization

The paper presents an ongoing research about the design and a possible use of a responsive flexible mold. The mold is developed by integrating its precedents with automation and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The objective of the design is to provide an immersive design tool which has direct link to fabrication. It allows intuitive interaction to its user in order to help with the design and production of complex forms by supporting the designer's implicit skills with computer. The paper presents the design by illustrating the use of the hardware such as the actuators, the sensor and the projector; and by defining the workflow within the software. The paper concludes with the description of a possible use case in which the system is used to design and materialize an object in different scales

Toward an Environmental Database: Exploring the material properties from the point cloud data of the existing environment

The utilization of point cloud as a 3D laser scanning product has reached acrossmulti-disciplines in terms of data processing, data visualization, and dataanalysis. This study particularly investigates further the use of typical attributesof raw point cloud data consisting of XYZ (position information), RGB (colourinformation) and I (intensity information). By exploring the optical and thermalproperties of the given point cloud data, it aims at compensating the material andtexture information that is usually remained behind by architects during theconceptual design stage. Calculation of the albedo, emissivity and the reflectancevalues from the existing context specifically direct the architects to predict thetype of materials for the proposed design in order to keep the balance of thesurrounding Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Therefore, architects can have acomprehensive analysis of the existing context to deal with the microclimatecondition before a design decision phas

Robotic Materialization of Architectural Hybridity: Modelling, Computation and Robotic Production of Multi-materiality

Considering both architectural and constructional aspects of the built environment, hybridity or multi-materiality is essential to generate functional habitable spaces. Buildings consist of subsystems that each require different and sometimes conflicting material attributes and behaviours. In this context, expanding the solution space for material properties in architectural applications can be achieved through the integration of innovative design computation and production methods. With this focus, the paper presents prototyping processes and frames a discourse on robotic materialisation of architectural hybridity, ranging from micro or material to macro or component scales. The paper discusses three case studies, each with a specific focus on digital modelling, computation and robotic production of hybrid systems. The conclusion outlines how robotic fabrication of architectural multi-materiality redefines, informs and tends methods of design computation and materialisation