4.1.2a Units + Assemblies

This Lesson will introduce the wide (very wide) range of material options available to the facade designer. While no means exhaustive, the focus of the Lesson will be on types of materials in relationship to their size and scale and thus to larger facade compositional strategies, as well as to their means of assembly in a wall system: eg. stacking, hanging, framing, embedding, troweling, smoothing, shaping.

Examples from a wide range of regions, building cultures, climates, and levels of required craft utilizing both digital and traditional or vernacular manual methods will be presented. This will include materials and methods outside the canonical architectural sources. The Lesson will foreground how both digitally advanced and manual analog assembly processes might be hybridized to produce an unanticipated richness in design that simultaneously validates the invaluable contributions of those often neglected or invisible workers who are our real co-collaborators in translating design into architecture.

The Lesson will highlight the trains of material sourcing and production to emphasize the consequences of our design choices and actions in manifesting a more sustainable and equitable professional ethic.

Upon understanding the fundamentals of materials, processing and assemblies, students will be encouraged to explore, adapt and alter existing material and assembly procedures for new applications in their studio work.

Follow this link to a pdf version of Lesson 4.1.2a.

Section 001: Follow this link to the 4.1.2a Learning Check.

Section 002: Follow this link to 4.1.2a Learning Check.

4.1.2b Facade Planes + Panel Systems

This Lesson builds directly on the material from Lesson 4.1.2a and is focused on the façade materials and assembly systems that general are fabricated, assembled and installed in sheet or panel formats. As in Lesson 4.1.2a the lesson will present details of connections, erection tolerances and adjustments to help guide your own façade system design and the development in your studio comprehensive wall section drawing.

Follow this link to a pdf version of Lesson 4.1.2b.

Section 001: Follow this link to the Lesson 4.1.2b Learning Check.

Section 002. Follow this link to the Lesson 4.1.2b Learning Check