Coordinating Atypical Architectural Precast Concrete Façades - Two categories

Abstract

This research focuses on issues of coordination between designers and fabricators during early design. The aim of this work is to improve representations, enable more informed conversations, and streamline exchanges of digital models. In order to show the potential of the work, research is focused on architectural precast concrete facades. Previous work established methods for linking "global" and "local" parametric models of architectural intent and corresponding components, describing processes of mapping from individual custom panels to diagrammatic façade surfaces and vice-versa. Such mapping may be considered "direct," wherein individual panel boundaries - defined by surface patterning - allow simple mapping of data from global to local or from local to global descriptions. However, there are some buildings with architectural precast concrete façades which do not permit direct relationships between global and local descriptions. These atypical facades require "indirect" maps containing additional layers of information in order to coordinate global and local descriptions. This paper describes two categories of these indirect scenarios: "panelization" and "patterns across panels."