PARAMETRIC BRIDGE
Selfridges footbridge Birmingham UK
SIAL Team:
Mark Burry
Andrew Maher
The Parametric Bridge was a collaborative research project between architects and structural engineers for the design of a pedestrian bridge. It was conceived to test current digital design processes in practice with those in research through the use of models of parametrically defined associative geometry.
The architectural design geometry was constrained by the bridge’s fabrication methods and linked with its engineering analysis. Iterations of the design geometry were then optimised or ‘solved’ to produce variations according to the design parameters offered up for change.
Collaborating on a single digital model between two separate disciplines demands more than document workflow facilitation. A bi-directional flow of information not normally associated with communication between the disciplines is required. Our team extended beyond architects and engineers, in this project mathematicians and fabricators were also authoritative. A design structure which can be influenced by structural analysis and optimised to target a visual solution adopts and borrows techniques from both disciplines, and yet cannot be expected to be of either discipline. This certainly has implications for the adoption of traditional methods of communication when collaborating.
The shift of the professions from the plane to digital space exposes the possibilities of new design techniques and the exchange of design parameters can potentially operate as a digital dialogue between the disciplines – a kind of digital version of Antoni Gaudi’s funicular hanging model – a metaphor of the digital space that has been developed for this project.
The project was presented at ACADIA 2003 and has been reported in Architecture Week.
Research Team
SIAL: Professor Mark Burry and Andrew Maher
Arup: Jan-Peter Koppitz and Ed Clark (LG4), Alvise Simondetti and Dr Kristina Shea (R&D)
Future Systems are the architects for the new Selfridges store in Birmingham
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