RESEARCH-THROUGH-DESIGN Literature review

A comprehensive literature review laid the foundation to contextualise the project within the thesis-related topics and fields. State-of-the-art in research and [architectural] design was extracted and exemplified.

The literature studies covered the topics: adaptive architecture and facades [01]¹, biomimicry in architecture [03], climate comfort and architecture [01, 06], digital tools [04, 05], evaporative cooling [06], folding [01, 03], kinetics [01, 03], ornament in architecture [01], performance [01, 06], responsive materials [07], theory and research methods [02], thickfold [04] as well as web links [01-08]. The complete literature list as a complementary overview of the literature studies is at the end of the thesis, whereas the direct references are gathered behind each chapter.

In line with (Martin and Hanington 2012:112), this literature base enabled ‘to collect and synthesise research’ on the given topics. The qualitative and fundamental research of the literature review was continued in the paper fold studies by research-through-design as the method.

Paper fold studies

The objective to explore and expand the potentials behind the fold principles led inevitable to hands-on studies with paper, as an explorative, but also as an agile method for initial typological studies:

It can be considered explorative [as method] because of the generative nature of investigating the folding process and agile due to the efficient way to get feedback and indications and on variations and geometric variables.

The intended goal was in this case not to seek for one specific final shape but rather to study a variety of kinematic behaviours of unfolding mechanisms. The interest was in the process to transform a plane sheet of paper into a 3-dimensional kinematic surface.

The application of fold lines to a sheet -both as top and valley folds- define in a pattern the outcome of the shape, but also the motion.

1 The numbers in brackets link the literature categories to the chapters of the thesis document.

All studies are captured beside the physical model in a picture series where they are ‘frozen’ in closed – open – unfolded state. In a mapped overview these typologies are set in relation with analogies in architecture, product design and biomimicry to receive indications for the range of beneficial performances.

‘…The versatile and polymorphic nature of (paper)folds increases their potential to generate design prototypes.…’

(Vyzoviti 2006:6)

Explicit experience between patterns, material, 3-dimensional form [shape] and motion is a rather complex matter to simply describe or draw. Designing and developing physically small models by hand offers a direct and explorative way to gain knowledge, which includes finding general constraints, unsuitable geometries for up-scaling or façade implementation, testing forces or actuation principles manually.

The active production of physical paper folds led in the process of:

choosing line patterns - applying fold lines to the paper - transforming a flat sheet of paper into a three-dimensional artefact - and experiencing the direct connection between form and kinematic behaviour - to a valuable understanding, which was crucial for the further process of materializing and thickening the paper folds.

Beside a directly gained experience of cause and effect in the design process of creating folds [concerning the three aspects of shape, materialisation and kinematics], potential applications could be projected in regards to the performance. In combination with the literature review on the topic of benefits of folded morphologies in nature, [product] design and façade applications, performances were categorised in a matrix and contextualised with considerable applications.

The approach and method behind are based on Research-through-Design [RtD] or constructive design research, which is characterised by ‘doing research through the process of making’ (Bang et al. 2012:9). With the objective to extract new knowledge, the design artefacts of folded paper studies and the gained experiences were systematically linked to performance references from nature, design and architecture.

The personal technological driven curiosity behind the investigation, as a legitimate context in RtD, enabled ‘to shape the hypothesis which frame and guide a research process’ (ibid.) in the initial exploratory phase.

A second evaluation matrix gathered and displayed the performances of each of the 53 fold studies regarding their geometric particularities² or specific kinematic behaviours³. Defined criteria based on the experience of the fold experiments helped to guide and select the fold pattern for further development and investigation: the Miura fold⁴.

Thickfold studies

Transferring the gained experience and continuing design experiments of thickfolds by research-through-design followed a certain typology:

the serial method. (Krogh, Markussen, and Bang 2015:5 ff.) argued for a distinction between 5 forms of design experiments: The typologies could be accumulative, comparative, serial, expansive and probing (ibid.) The applied serial method is characterised by a ‘certain order and logic… and …achieved on the basis of insights gained into the relationships between design experiments that proceed chronologically’, summarised as ‘systematizing local knowledge’ (ibid.).

This study covers the criteria of the serial method through the sequence of design experiments, which both results in knowledge production of beneficial performance aspects through the principle of folding as well as a documentation of the design process to achieve dynamic behaviour.

Countering the critics on the RtD⁵ approach as described by (Zimmerman, Stolterman, and Forlizzi 2010) and the demand that

‘…RtD has to find its own ways of approaching traditional research qualities, such as reliability, repeatability, and validity through ways that are trustworthy while true to the approach…’, the results of the sketch models were supplemented by empirical investigations to confirm indications on structural abilities and kinematics. Simulations provided quantitative and scientifically measurable evidence on the assertions of performance.

2 Such as rigid or non-rigid facets, or the maximum amount of fold lines joining at the knots

3 Such as linear, multi-linear and non-curved 3-dimensionally, redirecting, auxetic, etc. kinematic behaviour

4 This type of fold is named after its inventor Koryo Miura.

5 RtD is used as abbreviation for Research-through-design