Microstructure, Macrostructure and the Steering of Material Proclivities

This article reports upon recent and initial explorations by the author in the hydroforming of steel. The material processes involved and the resulting artefacts are reflected upon, providing a ground from which to speculate about implications for architecture as both artefact and practice. The particular hydroforming procedure employed bears close similarity to that under investigation within the chair for CAAD at ETH. This article therefore also seeks to identify how the work presented differentiates itself from that being conducted in Zürich.

The simplicity in execution of the forming method belies a complex matrix of interactions occurring within, and between, scales of material organisation. Within certain limits, these interactions dramatically and irreversibly transform material and component attributes towards increased performance potentials and formal complexity. These transforms are steerable but not exclusively dependant upon profile geometry. The definition of geometry leading to physical outcome is familiar design territory.

The forming method can be arrested and resumed arbitrarily. The notion of an extended forming process presents interesting implications to the linear relationship that tends to bind the commonly distinguished phases of design, fabrication/construction and occupancy/use. It suggests a potential for active response in relation to demand. This, in turn, presents challenges to a design practice that is reliant upon methods of representation that tend towards the ideal, predictive and pre‐determined. This is less familiar design territory.

This work begins to define both a material language for, and a non‐deterministic design paradigm of, steered proclivity. A conceptual framework for this paradigm is sketched out and presented in the form of the Persistent Model.

The ensuing examination commences with an anecdote.