Introduction to the idea
The main ideas that are of interest to me, and therefore this research, are:
- Tiny homes– I think these may be the logical evolution of housing (at least when compared to independent plot houses, not apartments), but i’m surprised how so few architectural firms are involved in the making of these- its mostly private contractors, and self built projects. There are many companies that just sell plans for builds- and there are a few organisations like wikihouse and foundhouse that share open source plans to download, cnc manufacture in wood and build with just a mallet. Tiny homes/ Microhousing is a trend that sprung up likely due to the financial crisis- but the environmental benefits and quality of living compared to multi apartment residential housing, makes this a good pick for the future of housing, in my opinion.
- Consumer manufacturing– The advent of 3D printers at home has opened up people to many home manufacturing technologies like small bed CNC carving and Laser cutting machines, every couple of weeks there are more companies popping up selling steadily advancing technology of making things- this is coupled with online services like shapeways- that 3D prints your designs in a variety of materials and techniques and mails them to you; tech shops that work on a membership based model to allow you to use larger scale industrial machinery and 3D model design sites like thingiverse that is populated by user submitted designs that you can use any 3D printer to manufacture. I believe consumer manufacturing is an important tool to counter the planned obsolescence ideology that most manufactured products today are faced with.
- Open source software, hardware and data– GRASSHOPPER has developed more tools and sub-programs in its few years since its 2014 release than Revit (similar parametric based modelling framework) has in 17 years of existence. I feel that its the open source nature of the software architecture that has made this possible. There are many such examples of open source software, hardware like the arduino and data (climate, weather, watershed) available to us today- and I think this is something that can be leveraged to help accelerate evolution and innovation in sustainable development and will be one of the key drivers in this research.
- Self motivated sustainability goals– In recent news since Trump’s decision to walk out of Paris, various companies like Unilever, google, Facebook, Tesla have committed to stay the course and adhere to the climate goals set forth by the Paris agreement. I think this is commendable, and this is a great time and opportunity to carve out a framework for individual commitment to climate change. What is the individual response to adhering to the Paris agreement, what is the construction industries response, and how to architects adhere to the Paris agreement- and a larger commitment to sustainability in general.
Based on these ideas, there are few different directions my research can go-
Option 1
Design a tiny home that is shaped by open source data and built by consumer accessible manufacturing. The design of this house will create a parametric framework of design to the effect that the house can be placed in any geographic location and the design will modify itself and optimise to be efficient in that location.
Option 2
Create an online community of collaborative architecture that is a collection of available tools for design and simulation, to in-effect create the same end product as Option 1, but in this case it won’t be one person designing this system, it would be a collection of people making various inputs into the design- this philosophically is a method of self-rectifying errors in design for open source- and it creates a democratic system of defining architecture and I think this feature would distinguish the solution from outer existing systems.
Option 3
Add-on units to tiny homes- These are are small multifunctional units that can be added on to a tiny home, to support the functioning of the home. A manufacturing unit with basic CNC and 3D printing machine capabilities, woodworking and basic electronics setup. The manufacturing unit I imagine would be connected to the Internet of Things, to the effect that the units are all connected to a central backbone system that shares products to be manufactured according to their locations- an example would be to create nesting spaces for migratory birds during the season, apiary kits for spring season, rainwater harvesting systems that can be built up over time, etc.
While I have thought about all these options a little in-depth, i’m unsure which direction to take at this point. I feel like Option 3 is an interesting product since it has immediate marketability given the popularity of existing tiny homes.
Abstract
There is for the first time enough empowerment of information, open source knowledge sharing and data computational capability to propose a framework for a resilient, sustainable design that encompasses human, wildlife and ecosystem preservation and restoration with adaptive evolutionary technologies.
We are constantly recording and logging information from satellites, sensors, aggregators and the scope of data collection is only growing and is going to continue to grow as technologies of aggregation are becoming more efficient and prevalent.
There are some unique outcomes of this information age that will form the basis of this research as modern day resources that can help shape the future of architecture.
- Never has so much information been available to so many.
- Never has one individual of a species been capable to interface with so many others of the species.
- For the first time consumer manufacturing both of products and the machinery to make the products has become accessible. Recent research shows that CNC manufacturing of metal components is for the first time at par with the costs of mass manufacturing.
- Open source design sharing has been booming over the last few years, especially for softwares that are open source themselves such as Grasshopper.
- Live big data is constantly accumulating from various sources and will continue to aggregate- this can be considered a new non-physical resource.
Projects that i find inspiring
OpenSourceBeeHive, Cass Community tiny homes,
Data sets available open source
Big Data – EPWs | GIS
Open Desk | Aker | Wikihouse |Sinclaire network
TechShops | Shapeways | Thingiverse
Instructables |
Data computation tools available opensource
Grasshopper software | GH file sharing |GITHUB | Arduino |
Consumer manufacturing options
Shapenko, Carbide cnc, Shapeways, Delta 3D printers
More links
http://www.shareable.net/blog/10-awesome-open-source-hardware-and-design-projects
RISHABH PARMAR 