Towards A Data Driven Fabrication Process

Today's evolving digital tools allow designers to be more creative in designing new forms and geometries. Adapting similar tools to the fabrication and installation of these geometries helps manage the complexity of these forms and control their costs.

The Center Street Parking Garage is an eight-story building in downtown Berkeley, CA. The facade of the building was designed with nearly 2000 pieces of folded metal panels. The perforation types, sizes, and bent angles of the panels vary considerably from panel to panel. Parametric software was used extensively to optimize the design for fabrication.

First, a detailed 3D model was used to design the attachment system and coordinate the interface between primary structure, secondary structure, and the envelope. Next, the coordination model was developed into a more precise fabrication model.

Panel dimensions and angles were extracted from the fabrication model to Excel, which became the primary source of panel data. Macros were used to reformat the data and generate the panel identification tags. Likewise, the panel sizes and perforation types were consolidated in Excel to a set of 280 panel types. Once optimized, the Excel spreadsheet was used to generate the fabrication drawings and CNC files.

Given the tight schedule and small team, the LOA or Level of Automation framework was used to guide the automation process.

Relying on digital tools and automation allowed for the standardization of the complex facade design. Likewise, automating many of the tasks reduced the risk of human error and facilitated multiple rounds of quality control before fabrication commenced.