Sacrificial Formation is a strategy for creating highly intricate architecture through the integration of robotic direct polymer deposition, multi-agent algorithmic design, and sacrificial formwork. This research leverages the potential of building-scale direct deposition, or 3D printing, and explores its implications for architectural form, structure and tectonics. The application of 3D printing in building construction is in its infancy, but with its rapid development it is critical to interrogate the transformative capacity of this technology and to understand how it might meaningfully affect architectural design. As with many technologies, 3D printing has been initially adopted within the construction industry primarily to increase efficiency and to replace existing techniques without consideration for its impact on architectural design. In contrast this research directly engages and experiments with this technology through design, in an exploration of a new architectonic approach.

This research leverages large-scale robotic polycarbonate printing and fiber-reinforced concrete to open up a new space of formal possibility. This strategy exploits the intricate geometric capacity of robotic-scale 3D printing and the fabrication efficiencies of more traditional cast-in-place concrete. The intention of this line of research is to print pre-fabricated thin skins of buildings within which structural and thermal mass is cast. As such only a small percentage of the building mass is printed, while still enabling geometric complexity and intricacy. 

This is an expansion of our ‘behavioral formation’ agenda – a methodology for designing through the behavior of multi-agent algorithms. The integration of multi-agent algorithms and robotic fabrication is both a desire to construct the complex geometry that is generated through volatile computational processes, and an interest in the capacity of multi-agent algorithms to encode and incorporate the behavior and constraints of robotic fabrication techniques. The non-linear behavior of multi-agent algorithms enable a negotiation between numerous competing rules, offering an ideal design platform for the integration of robotic fabrication logic into generative design. 

Although 3D printing technologies are developing rapidly, direct deposition of material is significantly slower than casting liquid material into a mold. Consequently, a 3D printed sacrificial formwork approach is posited here that utilizes the relative advantages of both operations. Sacrificial formwork, also known as permanent or stay-in-place formwork, is a construction technique in which the formwork remains as a permanent part of the building once the primary material has been cast. Within contemporary building construction this technique is generally used for casting concrete with strategies ranging from simple core-filled concrete block walls or slabs cast on to metal decking, to pre-fabricated structural or insulated proprietary systems, and bespoke formwork design.  As building form and articulation are dependent upon the geometry of the sacrificial formwork, 3D printed formwork enables a greater complexity of geometry and non-repeating form.

The sophisticated integration of structure, thermal mass, insulation, and mechanical services is possible within the complex geometry of 3D printed sacrificial formwork. Printing conduits, cavities, and jointing systems within prefabricated building components, enables the relationship of skin, structure, and services to be re-thought.

PUBLICATIONS

• Snooks, R. 2018, 'Sacrificial Formation', in Towards a Robotic Architecture, ORO Applied Research + Design, New York, United States, pp. 104-117 ISBN: 9781939621634