Speed-Based Additive Manufacturing Technique - Discovery and Exploration of Design Potential of Speed of Deposition in Additive Manufacturing

This paper-based doctoral thesis is the result of a PhD research into generative design potential of certain fabrication parameters in Additive Manufacturing (AM). Advent and proliferation of Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) in the field of architecture challenges the way buildings are designed and made. Like construction methods before CAM, large-scale concrete and metal 3D-printing will set limitations and opportunities for design, however, uniquely it will offer a chance for architects to radically expand the profession's domain. In digital fabrication, an architect has a capacity to participate in designing construction workflow. Predicated upon this context, the hypothesis is that manipulating machining parameters would inform various elements of an architectural object and that the value of such intervention would be in enhanced continuity of the design process and in emphasis on material aspects of architecture. The research questions are: what architectural implications are latent in AM fabrication parameters, such as speed of movement? How can such parameters be instrumentalized to produce specific effects? These questions are investigated through research by design methodology, with an aim to develop an essential structure for Speed-Based AM technique by determining most prominent relationships, causalities and dependencies within speed of deposition and between it and other elements of the production system. Speed-Based technique is an AM method devised by this research. It revolves around designing speed of deposition, defined as a term for how fast a printer moves and how much matter it deposits at a given location. The theoretical framework is formed by principles and concepts associated with loosely delineated digital craft movement in conjunction with research on AM technology. AM is an object of this investigation and the main tool for generating data while key concepts of digital craft guide all operations. Physical result of application of Speed-Based technique is a variety of undesignable textural artefacts. When restricted to the surface - their value is phenomenological; more targeted and substantial alterations of material deposition were experimented with as a tectonic device. The research contributes to the body of work, dedicated to adoption of AM in architectural practice by providing foundations for utilizing various printing parameters, in particular speed of movement to generative ends. Even though only small-scale models were produced, iterative experimentation with continuous growth of complexity allowed to generate sufficient amounts of objective data and tacit knowledge on main dependencies and causalities between elements of design and fabrication. That information was then synthesized into diagrams and fed into the design of the process model, which embodies Speed-Based technique. At the current stage, the research has produced merely a framework for the technique, open to future studies, which could focus on its practical applications or on developing it into a more objective, inductively scalable interpretation of practice.