Abstract
The fired clay brick, a mainstay of Chinese construction, has for many years languished. Rough cast and hidden behind layers of stucco, it plays a supporting role to reinforced concrete and steel - rarely however in a literal sense. This has not always been the case - highly decorative, geometrically complex, perforated or materially modified in response to specific structural or environmental conditions, the brick has played an instrumental and expressive role in the built history of China. This paper describes a means by which a traditional craft and its inherent material intelligence may be transformed into a flexible and performative system of construction through the integration of parametric design software and 3D robotic clay printing technology, ultimately offering a culturally rooted yet modern material solution for a modernizing China.
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Acknowledgments
The research has been significantly supported by a donation from Sino Group. The design team for the Ceramic Constellation Pavilion consisted of Christian J. Lange, Donn Holohan and Holger Kehne. The authors would like to thank the following students who assisted in various aspects throughout the research: Tony Lau, Anthony Hu, Teego Ma Jun Yin, Ernest Hung Chi Lok, Chau Chi Wang, Ren Depei, Mono Tung, He Qiye, Henry Ho Yu Hong.
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Lange, C.J., Holohan, D., Kehne, H. (2019). Ceramic Constellation | Robotically Printed Brick Specials. In: Willmann, J., Block, P., Hutter, M., Byrne, K., Schork, T. (eds) Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design 2018. ROBARCH 2018. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92294-2_33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92294-2_33
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