Students Work with Industry Partner, Zahner Metals, and State-of-the-art Digital Technologies to Design/Fabricate/Build a Park Structure for the Muncie Community:

The reBarn project aims to enhance a public park along the White River in Muncie, Indiana. With the support of Muncie’s mayor and partnering with the local parks commission, students selected and researched the Westside Park site while developing design proposals. By providing a new semi-programmed platform for activity and reflection, users are connected to the landscape in a tactile and visual manner. Rejecting the over-simplified archetype of “bench” or “platform”, reBarn purposely anticipates many different programatic and ergonomic moments by engaging park users with a formal ambiguity. Without a predetermined and easily read use, users are invited to invent uses for sitting, reclining, climbing, etc. A sense of human scale and proportions is embedded in the layout of the panels, and its form is pulled specifically from the site as it creates a third levee above the river to encourage visitors to engage the structure.
reBarn is composed of reclaimed barnwood (275 unique pieces for a total of 300,000 board feet) donated to i.M.A.D.E by a local family. Each piece of barn wood was de-nailed and power washed, numbered and inventoried by species, length, width, depth, and other physical characteristics. This catalog of available stock was used to efficiently nest reBarn components which were unrolled from a digital Rhino model. Each wood component was custom milled using a 3-axis CNC router.
Connections between individual wood components and panels were informed by a partnership with Zahner Metals in Kansas City. Our students and a team from Zahner discussed this project very early in the process in order to effectively design and engineer reBarn according to the many fabrication and structural constraints. This collaboration included online meetings, phone calls, and a visit to Zahner’s headquarters in Kansas City. Zahner generously supplied materials and fabricated all of the aluminum components for reBarn including five water jet cut aluminum surface panels and over 350 variable aluminum joints.
After fabrication, reBarn was installed over seven days, including all site work and preparation. On-site, the digital model (loaded on laptops) was the only reference for placement of structural supports, resulting in precision assembly. In fact, digital design and fabrication technologies along with industry partnerships were instrumental in realizing the project.

i.M.A.D.E wishes to thank:
Mayor Sharon McShirley of Muncie and the Muncie Parks Department, particularly Doug Zook for their support of the project.
Bill Zahner, Tony Birchler, Roger Reed, Sam Miller, and the rest of the team at A. Zahner Metals for their collaborative help throughout the design process and their generous production and material support.
Ken and Karen Newton in Cambridge City, Indiana for their generous donation of the barn wood used for the project.
Stacey and Linda Burt in Eaton, Indiana for lending tools and equipment and donating site and landscape materials.
The College of Architecture and Planning’s wood shop staff–particularly the shop manager, Kyle Sechrest.

Design to Production Team:
Elizabeth Boone
Eric Brockmeyer
Adam Buente
Jared Burt
Dustin Headley
Kyle Perry

Student Help Team:
Amber Agan
Rudy Arroyo
Ariel Aurellano
Deepak Baniya
Ben Fruehling
Ben Greenberg
Austin Lucari
Joseph Martin
Claire Matucheski
Brianna Newton
Priyanshu Shrivastava
Mark VandenAkker

Partners:
A. Zahner Metals
Muncie Parks Department

Faculty:
Kevin Klinger
Joshua Vermillion

Institute for Digital Fabrication sponsored studio courses place a strong emphasis on forging partnerships with regional material manufacturers to promote and explore the potentials of designing and producing with advanced technologies. Many visits were made to different industries, including custom glass, brass casting, metal fabricators, Indiana limestone, and recycled rubber. Frequently, these visits lead to collaboration and offer students new knowledge of production methodologies, which are immediately fed into design and fabrication prototype strategies.

One such visit, in which students visited Zahner Metals in Kansas City, US, led to collaboration on the reBarn project for the engineering and fabrication information of custom textured aluminum panels—each panel unique. This industry collaboration informed the formal design intent through a series of conversations both direct and remote regarding the design and detailing of reBarn metal joints and skin panels. This kind of innovation through information in partnership with industry drives the energy for the studio design through production methodology.

i.M.A.D.E hosted an international symposium entitled “Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture” at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Architecture as a material practice implies that making, the close engagement of the material, is intrinsic to a design process. Material effects, such as pattern, texture, relief, or varying properties, become the means through which building surfaces manifest the design intent, often at different scales. As surfaces become more complex in their form, shape, composition, and appearance, the manufacturing of material effects becomes a locus of design and production efforts.
Today, however, making is increasingly being mediated – it is the CNC machines and not the hands of the maker that mostly shape the materials and their properties. Innovative new techniques based on digital technologies are redefining the relationship between design and fabrication, enabling a closer interrogation of materials from the earliest stages of design, encoding in the process new ways of thinking of and making architecture.
i.M.A.D.E assembled leading thinkers, designers, and manufacturers from around the world to closely examine collaborative design and production practices based on innovative and experimental processes of material exploration. The symposium framed the various levels of engagement of new forms of architectural production that bring designers deeper into the complexities of making, assembly, and material formulation.

MMFX Symposium website

CHAIRS: Kevin Klinger and Branko Kolarevic, Ball State University

VENUE: Indianapolis Museum of Art

CORPORATE SPONSORS:
Autodesk Inc.
Bentley Systems Inc.
McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group
Autodessys

INSTITUTIONAL SPONSORS:
i.M.A.D.E
College of Architecture & Planning, Ball State University
Department of Architecture, Ball State University
Center for Media Design, Ball State University
Indianapolis Museum of Art

A strong dichotomy exists between the factors of fluctuating natural orders apparent in the river, and the striation of the land by human historical and cultural influence. This installation exists as surface of influence between these forces. The form is informed by parameters of light, vista, material and process through a method of digitally folding and perforating sheets of steel to enable a self structuring membrane which rises and falls from the plateau edge. This edge is demarcated by a swath of prairie grasses, rising and falling in their own cycle. A screen of 15 weathering steel sheets stretches for 63’ across the boundary of the human order and the encroaching erosion of the natural realm. From the initial generation of geometry pairings, well “adapted” pairings are spliced from the parent and “bred” with similarly fit geometries. The fit of these pairs is based on the relationships between the form and the desired criteria of reflection, screening and framing.

The patterning ranges are developed by merging images of the river surface with tonal ranges that pair with the desired transparency of the metal surface. Water surface images were chosen for the non-uniform distribution of tone. Light tonal areas create small punches, while dark tonal areas create larger punches. The water composite image is rasterized in a half-tone patterning and converted to fabrication data with RhinoScripts for CNC production. By weaving structure and surface into the ground, acting as a disruption of the terrestrial field, we create an event rather than an object, connecting organically into pre-existing, living dynamic systems at the vestigial intersection of the sky | earth | water. Our installation is sited in the liminal zone between the fluctuating river zone and the cultivated landscape of the arts park—a terrestrial suture merging of event and field.

Site concepts were then applied to the parameters received from the metal fabricators. Four by eight sheets of metal were sheared into two pieces at an angle, creating three asymmetrical plans that were folded into twelve different shapes. The angles from the shear and the break patterns created a variety of ways the shapes could begin to sit together, to produce both lateral and vertical movement within the site. Perforated shapes are placed against the ground plane, the holes filled with native plants. In this way, the installation shapes the vegetation within it, but is also taken over at the edges by the existing plants on the site. The steel employed intentionally weathers to absorb and trace the effects of the conditions around it. Two pieces of mirrored steel were strategically placed into the design to reflect the canopy above, casting the sky against the ground. The final form weaves through the existing site conditions, shaping the terrain as well as being shaped by it.

Perimetric Boundary Team:
Robert Beach, Austin Durbin, Melissa Funkey, Jori Garcia, Robert Horner, Anne Jeffs Cupp, Katie Marinaro, Christopher Peli, Josh Reitz, Chelsea Wait

Faculty:
Kevin Klinger
Director, Institute for Digital Fabrication
Associate Professor of Architecture

The Perimetric Boundary was generously supported by the following Industry Partners:
A. Zahner Metals, SHoP Architects, Indianapolis Arts Center, Minnetrista Center

Partnering Campus Units:
Virginia Ball Center, College of Architecture + Planning

External Support from Industry Partners: $2500 in Materials and Fabrication

A strong dichotomy exists between the factors of fluctuating natural orders apparent in the river, and the striation of the land by human historical and cultural influence. This installation exists as surface of influence between these forces. The form is informed by parameters of light, vista, material and process through a method of digitally folding and perforating sheets of steel to enable a self structuring membrane which rises and falls from the plateau edge. This edge is demarcated by a swath of prairie grasses, rising and falling in their own cycle. A screen of 15 weathering steel sheets stretches for 63’ across the boundary of the human order and the encroaching erosion of the natural realm. From the initial generation of geometry pairings, well “adapted” pairings are spliced from the parent and “bred” with similarly fit geometries. The fit of these pairs is based on the relationships between the form and the desired criteria of reflection, screening and framing. To properly combine these pairings, several mutations occured. The patterning ranges are developed by merging images of the river surface with tonal ranges that pair with the desired transparency of the metal surface. Water surface images were chosen for the non-uniform distribution of tone. Light tonal areas create small punches, while dark tonal areas create larger punches. The water composite image is rasterized in a half-tone patterning and converted to fabrication data with RhinoScripts for CNC production.

By weaving structure and surface into the ground, acting as a disruption of the terrestrial field, we create an event rather than an object, connecting organically into pre-existing, living dynamic systems at the vestigial intersection of the sky | earth | water. Our installation is sited in the liminal zone between the fluctuating river zone and the cultivated landscape of the arts park—a terrestrial suture merging of event and field. Site concepts were then applied to the parameters received from the metal fabricators. Four by eight sheets of metal were sheared into two pieces at an angle, creating three asymmetrical plans that were folded into twelve different shapes. The angles from the shear and the break patterns created a variety of ways the shapes could begin to sit together, to produce both lateral and vertical movement within the site. Perforated shapes are placed against the ground plane, the holes filled with native plants. In this way, the installation shapes the vegetation within it, but is also taken over at the edges by the existing plants on the site. The steel employed intentionally weathers to absorb and trace the effects of the conditions around it. Two pieces of mirrored steel were strategically placed into the design to reflect the canopy above, casting the sky against the ground. The final form weaves through the existing site conditions, shaping the terrain as well as being shaped by it.

Terrestrial Suture Team:
Robert Beach, Austin Durbin, Melissa Funkey, Jori Garcia, Robert Horner, Anne Jeffs Cupp, Katie Marinaro, Christopher Peli, Josh Reitz, Chelsea Wait

Faculty:
Kevin Klinger
Director, Institute for Digital Fabrication
Associate Professor of Architecture

The Terrestrial Suture was generously supported by the following Industry Partners:
A. Zahner Metals, SHoP Architects, Indianapolis Arts Center, Minnetrista Center

Partnering Campus Units:
Virginia Ball Center, College of Architecture + Planning

External Support from Industry Partners: $2500 in Materials and Fabrication

i.M.A.D.E wishes to thank A. Zahner Metals for their generous donation of materials and fabrication work for the Perimetric Boundary and Terrestrial Suture projects.