Earth and Digital

Research on the design and fabrication of the Free-Form Earth Constructions

Report by Zubin Khabazi

While worlds contemporary architecture has been vastly affected by the notion of computation and
its consequences in digital design and fabrication, it seems that there are various techniques of
design and related materiality which are mostly spreading across the globe. This is happening
because of the fact that new technological advancements in architecture are using predefined
materials and techniques and not yet adapted with the older techniques of construction and their
materiality which were been in use in the building industry for decades, sometimes centuries.
Among them is the idea of working with earth construction in this contemporary realm of digital
design and facing such complex notion of mixing these two not-well-matching phenomena of earth
and digital.
Digital architecture has been extensively coupled with digital fabrication technologies in which the
use of machineries like CNC becomes common. These machines forced designers to use certain sets
of techniques and related material systems, mostly flat-sheet materials to suit the needs and
necessities of such machineries. The fact that working with digital code in order to make something
is so promising, that for a while pushed most of the architects, exploring it with lots of products
made by sheet materials, cutting based fabrication and almost similar assembly logics. But building
industry is more diverse in terms of material logics and could not be limited with some special
techniques and materials just because of the early understandings of the machine qualities. The idea
behind this research agenda is that to find out potentials of working with earth, yet using the
beneficial qualities of digital design and fabrication technologies. The question is, while it seems that
both earth materials and techniques of construction, and also digital architecture, have lots of
potentials, where are the areas that these two can mix and match and create unexpected outputs
which could extend the current available catalogue of material practice in contemporary
architecture.
The general research hypothesis is that the earth could be a great source for materiality in
contemporary architecture and can play an important role in the realization of modern designs if
well understood and constructed. While it has been in use for several centuries, from the ancient
civilizations, to the traditional masterpieces, it could also be a great source for todays products. This
research investigates various ideas to utilize high potentials of the earth materials and construction
techniques, the methodology of combining them with recent technological advancements in digital,
and related aspects of such hybridization.
In terms of the methodology of the work, there are distinctive areas to focus on, each reflects one of
the main important aspect of the whole research agenda. The main challenges for the research at
the moment are Free-Form Earth Construction using various techniques and in different scales, PreFAB Earth Construction either off or on-site, Earth 3D Printing and all related structural, material and
technical explorations, analysis and implementation in design process. While these challenges and
related methodological approaches are the subject of the research of a big group of experts engaged
in the global research agenda, the rest of the report will focus on the Free-Form Earth construction
techniques, being developed as part of the AA_Lyon Visiting School in Les Grands Ateliers, France.
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Free-Form Earth Construction

Beauty and complexity of free-form design products attracted architects to design their projects in
this fashion and digital design tools enabled them to do it far more easier than conventional
techniques. While free-form and flexible surfaces are now available as design tools in software
packages and related techniques of fabrication develop quickly, it seems really challenging to design
such products with earth. If succeeded, the method would bring new potentials for the construction
of such geometries to the spectrum of digital design.
Mud is great to make compressive structures. Traditionally, it has been used to make structures
which can bear compressive forces, but as other masonry structures, they are not really good at
dealing with tension forces. This has limited the possible geometries made with earth, to those
which usually transform compressive forces easily to the ground. It also caused such structures to be
thick and with lots of excess material. The idea of designing free-form surfaces initially mean that the
product should deal with bending moments, continuous change of compression and tension forces
while traversing inside a complex geometry. This challenge needs lots of intelligence to be imbed in
the design of such projects.
During two successive AA Visiting Schools in Lyon, France, the agenda of making free-form earth
construction was one of the main research fields. In the first version in 2013, the team focused on
the development of digital techniques which could be used as a medium to design products like a
generic shell. This shell then could be converted into a fabric formwork to be covered with mud.
Removing the digitally fabricated formwork, the output was a shell made out of thin layer of earth. It
was important to interlink the qualities of the shell and its material behaviour to the digital design to
make sure that the output of digital process, performs well in reality. This has been done through
lots of experimentations and studies. The second version of the school in 2014 focused on larger
scale prototypes to make sure that this idea of digital design would match the real physical
construction when scale plays an important role. Other parameters like cantilevering and mud
layering has been tested in parallel. It was important to observe and understand the behaviour
because earth materials are not simply scalable. After these first two periods of study and
observations, it is clear that design and construction of such geometries with earth has lots of
potentials but with certain considerations and need different researches and experimentations in
various fields which are listed here.

- Design and Fabrication of Free-Form Structures

Designing free-from surfaces becomes easy by using various tools, developed in software packages.
Using NURBS technology or various Mesh editing software and plug-ins would make it easy to deal
with the design side. There are various techniques to fabricate such surfaces with digital techniques
by using CNC machines or Robotic arms depending on the material which is going to be used. But the
challenge arises when such designs are going to be made by mud. Here is the point where constrains
and limitations should be implemented in the design process. This has been explored in physical
experimentations and related digital model makings through two AA visiting school programs in
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Lyon. In later stages, it would be possible to design various products while the material behaviour is
embedded in digital models, proves whether it is possible to be built or not. This could be further
completed into digital toolset, plug-in or add-on for the design, analysis and fabrication of such earth
constructions which needs researches in multiple fields.

- Structural properties
While thinking about free-form earth construction, structural properties of the design become a
driving factor for the realization of the project. The fact that earth constructions are generally
heavier than similar geometrical products, makes such concerns more important in the design and
analysis of them. The way force vectors travel in the system should be carefully analysed and the
design should be optimized or become intelligent for dealing with them. There are number of tools
to analyse the material properties of earth and its related structural behaviour with techniques like
FEM which are available in design software and plug-ins today. This area of the research needs
collaboration with the engineers and experts in related fields and careful laboratory observations
and tests at later stages.

- Earth as a basic material for Free-Form Construction

There are various earth mixtures which could serve as the basic material for the construction of freefrom surfaces. There are extra materials like fibres which should be carefully understood and
implemented into the system for the success of the construction. Various techniques of layering,
mixtures of materials, timing and other related issues have been tested in experimentations in two
AA visiting schools but still need more documentations and research in parallel to the other parts of
the global research agenda. Catalogue of material possibilities would help the more successful
production of the design, in various scenarios or different geometrical situations. Partners like
CRATerre would be great assets for further collaborations in this area of the research.

- Material Behaviour of Earth in Free-Form Geometries

After design and realization of each project, it would be valuable to further analyse the output and
gather the feedback in order to address the failures or successes in each step and to well document
the pros and cons. This has been done by visually documenting the projects process but still needs
more elaborate measurements and analysis. This might be more precise if accomplished in
collaboration with engineering partners in terms of structural behaviour of the product, or earth
experts to check out the material properties. Defining such feedback loops would enrich the design
principles and would affect the whole process.

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Fig.1. Sample modelling of the fabric formwork experimented in digital and physical for further
explorations on the design capabilities of the free-form earth constructions. AA Lyon Visiting School,
Les Grands Ateliers, France, 2014.

Fig.2. Transforming digital into physical, by Cutting and setting up the fabric formwork for applying
various layers of the earth.

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fig.3. Final Free-Form structure made by a thin layer of earth as a self-stable structure.

Outlook
Application of earth construction in contemporary architecture still needs lots of further researches
as outlined in this report, yet the qualities of material that has been observed in the early steps
proved that earth has lots of potentials in this realm. Although there are various lines of research in
the global research agenda, this single task of making free-from earth construction by itself would
propose couple of parallel researches for the development of design and fabrication tools, structural
analysis and material properties. The driving force behind all of these researches is that earth
architecture could bring us sustainability, thermal insulation, on-site material and community work
and more, as it was played such roles in the history. This research would try to bring these valuable
parameters to the contemporary architecture by using it in a contemporary fashion through usage of
all related technologies to serve for the better future of the built environment.

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