Monday, November 16
12:30-2PM, AVT 7-431

SIMON GREENWOLD
Software Developer, MathWorks

Structural Sketches: From ActiveStatics to StaticsPad
Too often the processes of design and analysis are separated. The tools and techniques of form-making are very different from those of structural analysis. Structures may first be modeled in the forceless vacuum of CAD and then subsequently “rationalized.” Ironically, computationally generated form can be among the least structurally sensitive because production of arbitrary geometry is so easy in software.

Disciplines such as graphic statics, as taught in the publications of Edward Allen and Waclaw Zalewski, seek to bring consideration of forces directly into the design process from the very beginning. The techniques demonstrate that structural efficiency can guide a design process without interrupting it.

In this lecture, software developer Simon Greenwold will show a series of software experiments and demos drawn from his work at the MIT Media Lab and after; and also student work from classes he taught at Yale Architecture. Some are environments for training structural intuition, some are efforts to integrate models of forces into computational design. Some are raw play at the intersection of form-making and form-finding.

Simon Greenwold is a software developer who designs new ways for humans and computers to interact. He began his graduate training in architecture and moved to the Aesthetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab. His thesis, “Spatial Computing,” dealt with interaction in spaces shared between people and machines. He has taught computational and model-based design at the Yale School of Architecture. In collaboration with architect Edward Allen, he has produced an set of interactive statics teaching demos called ActiveStatics. An expansion and elaboration on ActiveStatics called StaticsPad is underway. Since 2005 he has been at The MathWorks, makers of MATLAB technical computing software, developing diagram editors for visual engineering languages.

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This lecture is open to the public.

Light refreshments will be served.
Please contact amulcahy@mit.edu with questions.

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Upcoming dates in the Fall 2009 BTLS:

Mon Nov 23
AVT 7-431, 12:30-2PM
Roger Chang, Westlake Reed Leskosky
Sustainable Design: A Collaborative Approach

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