TEMPLE SAGRADA FAMÍLIA - BARCELONA

Sagrada Familia research website

As part of an ongoing involvement with the Sagrada Família Church in Barcelona researchers in SIAL lead by Professor Mark Burry are currently working on the following projects:



INVESTIGATION INTO ANTONI GAUDÍ'S FINAL DESIGN MODELS
This project is creating a new scholarly understanding of the Sagrada Família Church in Barcelona, the greatest work of the architect Antoni Gaudí, a major building in the history of architecture and a building that remains under construction today. By adapting a computer-aided design technique known as parametric design to create designs that are consistent with all of the available historical information on the church, new insights are gained into Gaudí's own generative system. The results from these investigations are used to specify how the Church is actually being completed, thus making the church itself a statement of Gaudí's design intent.

NEW ONTO OLD: FLEXIBLE 3D COMPUTER MODELLING TO AID HERITAGE BUILDING RESTORATION, RECYCLING AND EXTENSION
When architects work with existing buildings assumptions need to be made when accurate measurement is impossible through constrained access, and where construction information is hidden within the building fabric. In these situations architects might benefit from interactive (rather than static) computer-aided design models. The Sagrada Família church has proved a useful case study for this research, with its protracted period of construction since 1883, the interruptions of Gaudí's death, the Spanish civil war and the damage and destruction of models and documentation during this period further breaking the continuity, much of the construction underway now meets building that was completed between 10 and 100 years ago.

THE ROSE WINDOW IN THE WEST TRANSEPT
Drawing on Professor Burry's earlier experience in working on the detailed design proposals for the lateral and central naves, the 7 meter wide, 35 meter high Rose window screen wall for the West Transept was researched, modelled parametrically, documented, prototyped in wax and polystyrene and constructed within a twelve month period, using a fast track approach where parts of the design were being stone cut or under construction while the higher reaches were still in design. This involved exploiting new technologies to the full in the network of communication between the researchers in Australia, the technical office on site in Barcelona and the stonemason in Galicia on the other side of Spain. Pioneering approaches to modelling, stereotomy, documentation and communication resulted not only in smooth communication, almost free from queries but in such accuracy in the huge individual granite components, that the 10mm construction tolerance was found to be superfluous.

THE COLONNADE AND GABLE OF THE WEST TRANSEPT
This part of the church is currently under investigation. There are no plaster models of this area from Gaudí's time. The explicit evidence consists of a drawing, a 1:25 plaster model interpretation of one half of the whole western portal assembly completed in the 1980s and plans sections and elevations drawn throughout the second half of the twentieth century relating this to the whole of the west transept.

The first stage has been to understand the lineage and reasoning for past interpretation and changes in interpretation. In this work an overall understanding of the developments in Gaudí's final design models for the church as a whole is important in making a reasoned interpretation of the material representing the proposal for this area in detail. As a first step, the existing plaster model has been digitised to build a computer model that provides the basis for starting to design a flexible parametric model to test different design solutions.