Jose Pedro Sousa

University of Porto | UP · Faculty of Architecture

Following the introduction of parametric design into the contemporary digital architectural scene, this paper exposes its principals as well as some of its major potentialities that emerge from its use in the discipline. It is argued that parametric design is a technique that embraces the concept of "convergence" in multiple dimensions. Through thi...

Throughout history, symmetry has been widely explored as a geometric strategy to conceive architectural forms and spaces. Nonetheless, its concept has changed and expanded overtime. Nowadays, it is understood as an ordering principle resulting from the application of isometric transformations that keep the original object invariant. Departing from...

Establishing an evolutive dataset for architectural rationalization of social housing is technically achievable through artificial intelligence based on deep learning (DL). However, concerning the sensitive quality of social housing, the application of such technology needs to preserve the human factor and relate ethically to architectural design....

In Portugal, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was research concerning a system of the architectural design of housing for economically less favored populations, which related sociological information with analogical computational methods and culminated with its application in the Local Ambulatory Support Service (SAAL). This article presents the digit...

Mass customizing of building components allows new conditions to explore aesthetic and sustainability in architecture. However, such possibilities tend to require the use of expensive and heavy digital fabrication machinery, which is seldomly available in most regions on the planet. In this context, this paper presents a research in progress that e...

This paper presents a teaching experiment in which 3D digital computational models are explored as the representational base to integrate formal, structural, and environmental performance criteria in design. By describing the academic experience, the paper reflects on its methodologies and results, as well as on the relation between human and compu...

This paper intends to describe an educational experiment accomplished in the Geometry and Architecture course of the first year in the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto in 2017. In this activity, students were introduced to digital three-dimensional modelling as an additional tool to develop their knowledge of geometry. The subject...

This IJAC Special Issue introduces the first of two publications on "Architecture in the Age of the 4th Industrial Revolution” the theme of a unique joint event, the 37th eCAADe, and XXIII SIGraDi. This 2019 conference at FAUP in Porto, Portugal, brought together researchers from the European and Latin American communities, as well as the rest of t...

This is the first volume, of two, of the Proceedings of the 38th eCAADe, held as an online event, from 16-17 September 2020 at the Institute of Architecture, Technische Universität Berlin, in Germany. The two volumes together contain the 144 accepted papers. All papers are also available digitally at CumInCAD (Cumulative Index of Computer Aided Arc...

This is the second volume, of two, of the Proceedings of the 38th eCAADe, held as an online event, from 16-17 September 2020 at the Institute of Architecture, Technische Universität Berlin, in Germany. The two volumes together contain the 144 accepted papers. All papers are also available digitally at CumInCAD (Cumulative Index of Computer Aided Ar...

This paper addresses the role of geometry in architecture over history as the language supporting and bridging the design and construction realms. It does so by confronting two different, but complementary, approaches: the descriptive and the generative. By defending the creative relevance of the latter, this paper examines how the analogical and t...

ON THE eCAADe SIGraDi JOINT CONFERENCE 2019 The 2019 Conference in Porto joins, for the first time, two major Associations in the field of Digital Technologies in Architecture – eCAADe (Europe) and SIGraDi (Iberoamérica) - to debate together about Architecture in the Age of the 4th Industrial Revolution. http://pdf.blucher.com.br.s3-sa-east-1.amaz...

This paper presents the didactic experiences on digital modeling developed in the last three years on Geometry and Architecture course of the 1st year of the Master in Architecture program of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto. For several years, this Geometry and Architecture course, was entirely concerned with projective geometry, a...

In the last decades, digital fabrication technologies have stimulated the materialization of complex and customized solutions in several materials. Recently, the integration of these technologies with such a variable and rich material as concrete has prompted an explosion of possible processes and outcomes for digitally fabricated concrete structur...

The paper presents an investigation of a gridshell prototype called "Robo-Web", which tries to break from the more conventional grids patterns, by incorporating robotic fabrication to realize the complex construction and, eventually, exploring a higher degree of design freedom of its lattice. This research is a conscious attempt to incorporate some...

The project for an acoustic shell in the Italian city of Matera was looked as an opportunity to explore an alternative stereotomic approach. The semi-vaulted space was initially thought to be built with discrete blocks of stone following a structural system in compression bounded by tie-rods, but practical and economic sustainability issues led to...

Design methods have always changed, considering that design thinking is bound to the representational medium. Thus, its scope can be expanded by the enlarged possibilities offered by the new media and methodologies. Today, the computational methods are a crucial medium for architectural design. Not only digital media is augmenting our design capaci...

Cable-driven robots have received some attention by the scientific community and, recently, by the industry because they can transport hazardous materials with a high level of safeness which is often required by construction sites. In this context, this research presents an extension of a cable-driven robot called SPIDERobot, that was developed fo...

Case studies of industrial applicability of Single Point Incremental Forming in design and architecture parts.

Recentes desenvolvimentos nos métodos computacionais e a sua integração com processos de fabricação digital permitem perspectivar um paradigma de fabricação personalizada. O referido paradigma é particularmente adequado à realidade da reabilitação de edifícios construídos com técnicas tradicionais, um corpo diversificado em que as intervenções são...

In November 2015, the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto and the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science concluded a 2-year research project on the use of robotic fabrication technologies in architecture and building construction. Funded by the national Foundation of Science and Technology, this was a...

Stereotomy is usually regarded as a classic discipline in the field of architecture which has lost its relevance to other construction methods. Recently we have witnessed approaches to the stereotomic way of building using modern digital technologies, bringing the discipline to the present. On the other hand, the complex shaped buildings being buil...

Brick construction has a strong tectonic tradition in architecture, being used both as a structural and as an expressive material. Despite several technological innovations at the composition and production level, its application still relies on talented craftsmanship, which has some natural human limitations and has becoming harder to find in the...

The CorkCrete Arch was an experimental prototype built in the scope of a research project concerning the use of robotic fabrication technologies for non-standard solutions in architecture. It combined 2 materials, cork and GRC into a self-supporting lightweight building system, designed to explore the integration of different robotic fabrication te...

The use of robots in architectural construction has been a research field since the 1980s. Driven by both productive and creative concerns, different systems have been devised based on large-scale robotic structures, mobile robotic units or flying robotic vehicles. By analyzing these approaches and discussing their advantages and limitations, this...

Developments in computational design methods and their integration with digital fabrication processes are ushering a customized fabrication paradigm. This paradigm is particularly suited to renovation of old buildings built with traditional construction techniques, a diversified corpus in which interventions are surgical and unique, and where parti...

In recent years, digital fabrication technologies have enabled renewed explorations into traditional materials, with innovative results. This paper focuses on concrete and on the potentials of a specific technology: robotic hot-wire cutting for the production of expanded polystyrene (EPS) formwork. Academia and industry have explored this process r...

Brick construction has a long and rich structural and aesthetic traditions in architecture, which can be traced back to the origins of our civilization. However, despite the remarkable works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Eladio Dieste or Alvar Aalto in the 20th century, the application of this construction process to address more irregular geo...

Digital design and manufacturing technologies are progressively employed in building construction and architects interest in this field has grown widely, as many recent works, publications and scientific meetings demonstrate. By identifying some of the main reasons and expectations that were at the basis of the integration of CAD/CAM processes in t...

In the past few years, cable-driven robots have received some attention by the scientific community and the industry. They have special characteristics that made them very reliable to operate with the level of safeness that is required by different environments, such as, handling of hazardous materials in construction sites. This paper presents a c...

O aglomerado de cortiça expandida (ICB) tem-se revelado uma solução com potencial para ser usada como revestimento exterior de fachadas e coberturas de edifícios novos ou sujeitos a reabilitação. Com o intuito de garantir o uso adequado do ICB, as empresas Amorim Isolamentos e Saint Gobain Weber têm vindo a desenvolver, juntamente com o ITeCons/UC...

Today, the relationship between computational design and digital fabrication technologies has opened new opportunities in archi-tectural practice that are challenging the relation between the academ-ia and the industrial world. To investigate this condition, the IS-CTE/IUL and FAUP created the Advanced Studies Course in Digital Architecture (CEAAD)...

Presently there is a progressive tendency to incorporate parametric design strategies in urban planning and design. Although the computational technologies that allow it are recent, fundamental theories and thinking processes behind it can be traced back to the work conducted at the Institute for Lightweight Structures (IL) in Stuttgart, between th...

The debate around the impact of digital technologies in architecture is usually centered on the discovery of new possibilities for the discipline. However, the past and traditions can also play an important role in the future of architecture. After 50 years of technological assimilation, architects have today the necessary distance to embrace a cri...

In contemporary architecture there is a growing interest in exploring unique forms and constructive solutions, which could hardly be conceived and materialized until recently. Operating in this context, the construction industry has tried to innovate by inventing new materials aside with rethinking existent ones. In this second scenario, given that...

This paper describes the workshop which took place during the international symposium “Digital Fabrication – a State of Art”, which took place at the School of Technology and Architecture ISCTE-IUL, on 15-16September 2011. Its main goal was to introduce a group of about twenty people to the use of digital fabrication in architecture, in a country w...

Digital technologies of information and communication are transforming the way man understands and intervenes in the world. Indeed, our culture reveals important changes occurring at many levels in our society, which inevitably affects the discipline of architecture. Engaging the challenges of our contemporary reality, new means are defying the bui...

This paper participates in the current digital architecture debate taking into account the introduction of CAD-CAM technologies in architecture and focusing on the way this could further change the process of architectural production. It proposes a mode of integration based on associative parametric environments and explains that new conditions for...