The Future According to "Automorphia"
How to create a 3D shape?
The exhibition 'Automorphia' is a glimpse into a possible future of design and architecture in which form emerges by itself, similar to what happens in nature. After nearly two decades of scientific research that uncovered the physical principles underlying the wonder of self-morphing forms, we can now begin to imagine how these principles could change the way we conceive our world. “Automorphia” presents natural and synthetic materials, both traditional and technological, that take on complex forms through an efficient and elegant self-shaping process.
In the future, material systems, such as ceramics and composite materials, wood, and even concrete, could be adapted by creators, architects and designers, together with scientists and engineers, for self-morphing applications that range in scale from a tiny object to the envelope of a building. The computational methods being developed today will be the tools of tomorrow, used to predict and orchestrate the resulting shape.
The shared scientific-design vision in which we learn from nature how material can drive creation goes beyond aesthetic boundaries; it points towards a future where complex forms emerge autonomously and efficiently, and shape-shifting buildings change their form according to environmental conditions and need. “Automorphia” is a call to change our perspective, and is part of the human effort to deal with global challenges such as sustainable construction, efficient production and smart use of material resources.
The mathematical tool that characterizes three-dimensional surfaces is the curvature field, which describes the rate and direction of bending of the surface at each point. The product of the principal curvatures is the Gaussian curvature, K, which distinguishes between dome-like regions where K>0, flat or cylindrical regions where K=0, and saddle-like regions, where K<0. The great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss showed that a change of K requires a non-uniform planar growth or contraction. Inverting the Gaussian relation makes it clear that if a flat surface "grows" non-uniformly, it can turn into a dome, a saddle, or any three-dimensional shape we want!
