Performance driven self-supporting curved surface morphologies and tectonic in current practice

Abstract

Advances in the computational simulation techniques in the last decade have prompted increased interests and emphasis to be brought onto performance driven design approaches. As a result, tectonic, describing the relationship between structural and architectural properties has become one of the main topics in the discourse related to form finding methods in digital design. This paper specifically highlights the computational tools, work flow and research agenda pursued at Zaha Hadid Architects. The selected projects in this paper showcase how structural performance, fabrication performance, and material intelligence inform the resulting morphologies through computational design in different architectural scales and the technologies employed to realize complex morphologies. Self-supporting curved surface such as shell structures are provided as examples of multi-performative morphologies which integrate structure, skin enclosure, material, fabrication, spatial and social function through topological variations. This paper aims to illustrate research driven form finding and fabrication methods that are interdisciplinary in nature and the computational methodology to integrate bottom up design process in current architectural practice within the constraints of real-world construction industry.