How has the use of data influenced your design/research process?
Our design approach is based on data! We use a completely unorthodox way of design: we use a method that can explain the equilibrium of forces geometrically. We manipulate these geometric equilibrium concepts and drive the design from that concept using computational tools which we develop at PSL. The tangible geometry that may represent the form of a design, architecture, or structure is in fact a derivative of some abstract geometric data representing its equilibrium. It might sound complicated, but in fact, is quite intuitive and has lots of advantages compared to any other performative design approach. In a conventional approach, often a designer starts with arbitrary geometry and analyzes it with respect to certain criteria to optimize the design. This is an iterative procedure; the optimization criteria are not evident in each step. Sometimes, the original configuration does not work at all, and the designer should start over.
In our approach, the initial geometric data guarantees the equilibrium of forces in the system. Therefore, the structural form derived from the geometric data will be in equilibrium and is optimized.
Saltatur credits:
Principal: Dr. Masoud Akbarzadeh
Structural Engineer: Dr. Mohammad Bolhassani
Design Team: Ali Tabatabaie Ghomi, Mostafa Akbari, Alireza Seyed Ahmadian, Jingchu Sun
Hanqing Yao, Judy Miziumski, Konstantinos Papalexiou
Hedracrete credits:
Principal: Dr. Masoud Akbarzadeh
Design and Construction Team: Mehrad Mahnia, Ramtin Taherian, Amir Hossein Tabrizi
Glass Bridge:
Team University of Pennsylvania
Principal: Dr. Masoud Akbarzadeh
Design Team: Tian Ouyang, Andrei Nejur
Model: Mostafa Akbari, Zhenhao Zhou
Documentation: Zach Jones
Team City College New York City
Dr. Mohammad Bolhassani
Team Villanova University
Dr. Joseph Yost, Cory Byrnes, Liam Ryan
Technical University of Darmstadt
Dr. Jens Schneider, Amir Philipp Chaddeh, Dr. Ulrich Knaack