Material Sketching

Abstract

Designing for digital or robotic fabrication typically involves a virtual model in order to determine and coordinate the required operations of its construction. As a result, its creative design space becomes constrained to material expressions that can be predicted through digital modeling. This paper describes our preliminary thinking and first empirical results when this digital modeling phase is skipped, and the designing occurs interactively 'with' the fabrication operations themselves. By analyzing the material responses of corrugated cardboard to simple linear cutting operations that are executed by a robotic arm, we demonstrate how emergent material effects can be discovered improvisationally. Such material effects cannot be virtually modeled, however, they can be recreated and controlled by the robotic manipulations. We believe this form of 'material sketching' broadens the advances in 'human-fabrication interaction' towards a novel and unforeseeable expressions of physical form that require a much more direct, yet still digital, relationship with materiality.