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Honorable Mention

Architect: Marble Fairbanks
Technical Design: AARDVARK
Digital Modeling: Stevens Institute Product Architecture Lab
Metal Fabricator: Maloya Laser, Inc.
Powers Brown Architecture

Flatform

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling
Museum of Modern Art
New York, NY

Commissioned as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling exhibition, Flatform is a panel system of flat stock stainless steel components that are perforated, scored, and folded to form details of assembly without external fasteners. Facing panels are joined through tabs that either interlock between the two panels or extend through the face of the opposite panel. The surface geometry of each panel is parametrically linked to the characteristics of the tabs and is limited by the ability of the material to bend. The composition and number of tabs can vary to address specific performance requirements.

In contrast to the modern logic of managed assembly, in which details developed by combining standard pre-manufactured parts disconnected from the design process, Flatform has a logic of designed assembly. Flatform emphasizes the design and fabrication of performance—specific parts that structure the logic of the whole, linking concept, design, fabrication, and assembly.

The practice of architecture has always been in the paradoxical position of being invested in the production of real concrete matter, yet always working with tools of abstract representation (drawings, models, computer simulations). Techniques of dimensional or geometric representation, formerly part of an abstract process of drawing, have evolved into an integrated system of design information embedded in production and assembly processes. CNC (computer numerically controlled) systems put the process of design closer to the production of buildings, as design and production merge into a common language of digital information.

 

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