The outcome of AA Visiting School Dubai will consist of an inhabitable pavilion, which will respond to the aspirations and themes of the Expo 2020. The pavilion will enclose an exhibition showcasing the processes that lead to the construction of the prototype pavilion.
A brief introduction to the entire process will be covered at the early stages of the workshop. After which AA Visiting School Dubai participants will have an opportunity to join a unit lead by one of the tutors. Each unit will specialize in a certain part of the process to conceive, develop and build the pavilion.
Although the 5 units will all touch upon the basic skills needed to reach our goals, students will choose the unit that best responds to the skill sets and their personal goals of learning new techniques in architectural design and research. We will have 5 teams working together on this exhibition:
MATERIAL COMPOSITES (Riyad Joucka)
This unit will investigate the potential inherit in coupling the efficiency and flexibility of tensile membranes, with the rigidity of composite materials. Starting with the very simple manipulation on fabrics within certain geometric forces and physical pressures, this unit will develop a construction technique to achieve lightweight stiffened panels that assemble to generate interesting spatial conditions at full scale.
ROBOTIC RECURSION (Suryansh Chandra)
The use of robotics in Architecture today is mostly limited to research labs and academic projects at universities. Using industrial robots is anything but intuitive or simple. We built our own robotic arms last year to understand robots better, and make it simpler to program and use them. Over the year, our robotic arms have seen much improvement, and in this next iteration of the AAVSDXB, we will use them help the team with complex tasks which might be too intricate, repetitive or for human builders to carry out. We will develop hardware to enable our robots to perform tasks such as 3d printing and weaving to enhance the processes involved with building our experimental pavilion.
SCAFFOLDING FABRICATION (Muhammed Shameel)
The unit will take up the fabrication of digitally manufactured scaffolding required for the construction of the pavilion. Design strategies for effective use and construction of the formwork will be addressed. Potential integration of the formwork along with composite materials to further enhance the structure will also be investigated. This unit will be the primary user of our fabrication facilities, developing a system that will be easy to assemble, use, disassemble and reuse.
COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATION (Alessio Erioli)
This unit will explore computational simulation and non-linear strategies applied to the logics of fiber-composites. A basic understanding of material properties will serve as launch pad to proceed into programming simulations, coupling 3D modelling, material processes and agency in the development of fiber-composite tectonics.
AAVS DUBAI UNITS
