Machine Delay in Architectural Design by Zachary Cohen Bachelor of Architecture Carnegie

140 Pages·2017·9.84 MB·English

Hold Up:
Machine Delay in Architectural Design

by

Zachary Cohen

Bachelor of Architecture
Carnegie Mellon University, 2012

SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE STUDIES
AT THE
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
June 2018
©2018 Zachary Cohen. All rights reserved.
The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and
electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter
created.
Signature of Author:
______________________________________________________________________________
Department of Architecture
May 24, 2018

Certified by:
______________________________________________________________________________
Mark Jarzombek
Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture
Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by:
______________________________________________________________________________
Sheila Kennedy
Professor of Architecture
Chairman, Committee for Graduate Students

Hold Up:
Machine Delay in Architectural Design

Zachary Cohen

Master of Science in Architecture Studies
SMArchS Architectural Design

Supervisor
Mark Jarzombek
Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture

Readers
Sheila Kennedy
Professor of Architecture

Mark Goulthorpe
Associate Professor of Design

Hold Up:
Machine Delay in Architectural Design

by

Zachary Cohen

Submitted to the Department of Architecture
on May 24, 2018 in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in
Architecture Studies

ABSTRACT
This thesis introduces an architectural design approach that is founded on working with
digital fabrication machines, materials, and time: Machine Delay Fabrication (MDFab). MDFab is
characterized by the materialization and manipulation of the time taken by digital fabrication
machines to do work. MDFab contrasts with other approaches to digital fabrication that
architectural design has appropriated from adjacent fields (for example, human-computer interaction
and automated manufacturing). In particular, MDFab is a response to “real-time” digital fabrication
techniques, which use embedded sensing to immediately interact with the designer, material, and/or
environment. Real-time techniques have negatively distanced architectural designers from material,
temporal, and instrumental understanding. Further, the current dependence on real-time points to a
future of anti-anticipation: a time in which architectural designers—and human beings, in general—
will not have to anticipate what happens next. MDFab is an alternative to this future: it offers a way
to interact with digital fabrication machines that enables architectural designers to advance the
material thinking, improvisation, and speculation that are—and should always be—fundamental to
the architectural design process.
The first part of the paper is concerned with the historical, theoretical, and practical
contextualization of MDFab. MDFab is situated within work in both the arts and sciences that has
explored the productive potential of delay. These experiments in delay set up critiques of three
contemporary architectural design approaches to digital fabrication. These critiques are
supplemented by an examination of digital fabrication projects that have opened alternative contexts
for architectural design research. The first part concludes with a discussion of the science and
practice of curing in concrete fabrication. The second part of this paper is dedicated to the
introduction of Machine Delay Fabrication. The foundational concept of MDFab, machine delay, is
introduced. The conceptual design implications of MDFab are discussed. The method of 3D
printing concrete that was invented to explore MDFab is presented through a detailed account of its
design. The findings of the concrete 3D printing exploration are used to speculate on the aesthetic,
constructive, and ethical possibilities of MDFab in architectural design. Finally, the work is
recontextualized in terms of the not-so-distant future that awaits architectural design practice.

Thesis Supervisor: Mark Jarzombek
Title: Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture

Acknowledgements

Thank you:

to my committee members, Mark Jarzombek, Sheila Kennedy, and Mark Goulthorpe;

to my independent study advisor, Justin Lavallee;

to my informal advisors, Mark West, Caitlin Mueller, and Joel Lamere;

to the MIT Architecture Shop managers, Chris Dewart and Jen O’Brien;

to the Marvin E. Goody Award Committee;

to the MIT School of Architecture community;

to Robyn and Josh,
for holding me up.