TAC.Postgraduate course

TAC Technically Advanced Construction is a new postgraduate course for graduates and professionals established by the Department of Building Environment Science and Technology (BEST), Politecnico di Milano and Co-de-iT. It will run for three months and will allow participants to achieve high levels of knowledge in the design-to-production process through the use of advanced digital tools for design and machines for the creation of physical models.

The entire course, based at Politecnico di Milano, will take place through studies, workshops and working periods assisted (during the development, manufacture and test trial) by a team of highly skilled professionals and teachers (from studies and international schools like AA London, ARUP, Buro Happold, Zaha Hadid, Gehry Technologies, SPAN Architects ...).

The objective is to design, prototype, and finally test "multi-performative skins" through computational design software. Audits in progress performance of the "skin" will be the main feedback to optimize the final design.

The course will be completed by a series of public lectures held by the same course tutors and other professionals and teachers of international renown.

The course will start on January 17, 2011 and will end on April 15, 2011 (daily attendance).
Registration are open until December 13, 2010.

INTRODUCTION

TAC Technically Advanced Construction course aims at the formation of highly specialized professionals in the field of digital design and fabrication processes for innovative architectural construction systems. Partecipants will achieve cutting edge know-how levels in the "design-to-production" process with the use of digital tools and machines, deploying and driving it for the development of "multi-performative skins".

The whole course unfolds through studios, workshops and working periods tutorized by specialized international teaching staff (during development, fabrication and testing), bridging together theoretical aspects, practical application and digital tools learning on an almost daily basis, thus enhancing the knowledge exchange pattern with continuous feedbacks among the mentioned aspects as well as among the involved subjects (tutors, lecturers, participants).

Participants will be clustered in groups, each of them developing a project on the subject of "multi-performative skin" (architectural dynamic envelopes). "Multi-performative" relates to embedded capacities (which could be implemented on a multi-scalar level) of modulating structural performance and controlling of one or more fluxes - light, heat, noise, information, etc.

COURSE PROGRAM

The course will be structured in three main parts. The first part will be dedicated to provide theoretical foundation (contemporary design strategies, self organization and emergent systems, information theory, material computation and form finding) integrated by the use of parametric and generative software, thus giving students the basis to think and design innovative solutions in materials, form, behaviour and adaptation to environmental pressures.

In the second part design teams will explore and develop their projects towards a component system that integrates different features in a multi-performative solution. The development will be carried through digital tools and fabrication/prototyping techniques. Partecipants will learn to give consistency to their strategies by embedding fabrication in the overall design process from the very early stage.

The last part will be focused on testing the overall system behaviour, providing a flow of information that will feedback on the system itself in order to understand and improve solutions quality.

More: http://www.tac.polimi.it