Toni Kotnik's research while affiliated with Aalto University and other places

... For instance, Hassanpour and Ş ahin (2021) argue that technological-instructional tactics, particularly a supplementary digital toolkit, induce students to reflexively approach instructional inputs and avoid mental shortcuts. Similar novel conceptual frameworks that incorporate technology into studio instruction to trigger improved creativity, design productivity and design exploration by idea generation have also variously been developed by Cindioglu et al. (2021) (mixed-reality framework for basic design), Fricker et al. (2020) (computational design as a means for thinking in interaction patterns across various scales) and Karada g and T€ uker (2022) (integration of ecology-based concepts into computational design thinking). ...

... Finally, the workflow of The Canopy shows that the pursuit of structural art is not about letting the structure's sound overshadow the building itself [34]. We can instead find an interdependent and solid balance between the two by utilizing the proper design medium and process [35,36]. Obviously, achieving this equilibrium requires multiple iterations of the design process instead of allowing the structure to realize the building's form in a "post-rationalization" manner. ...

... The final materialization of The Canopy demonstrated that all the design intentions, functional requirements, and site constraints were met. The thinking process behind this project reflects the interaction between form and force, creating a space of "Strong Structures" [33] through a synergy of structure, construction, and tectonic aspects with an extremely lightweight and minimal intervention. The Canopy ultimately succeeded in providing an attractively proportioned and functionally partitioned temporary space for the conference, always respecting the existing space in which it was immersed. ...

... Westerlind [20] used computational design methods for the programmed placement of the filament in space to produce intricate porous choreographed concrete compositions. Alothman et al. [21], and Mohite and Kotnik [22] generated emergent patterns by manipulating the print path, controlling the geometry and the motion speed, in small scale semifluid material extrusion. Efthimiou and Grasser [23] implemented an agent-based path planning and printing simulation to control the 3DCP process and minimum printable distance between neighbouring geometries. ...

... Straight line folding transfigures the sheet into a polyhedral surface with a sudden change in surface direction; by contrast, the curved folding, generically called "free forms", turns the sheet into a smooth curved surface with the gradual change in direction, obtaining unconventional complex three-dimensional modern spatial forms by the hybrid deformation [4]. In this form, the thin sheet gains strength and becomes more resistant to deformation [5]. ...

... Given the performance and material savings gains enabled by Topology Optimisation (TO) [2,5-9] the promising results offered by structural optimisation in the field [10][11][12][13][14][15] and for complex problems [16,17], as well as the advances for manufacturing of topologically optimised parts [10,[18][19][20] it can be regarded as surprising that those approaches and techniques are not more widespread in the Civil Engineering industry and, mainly, in steel connections design [2,8,21]. ...

... This interlocking system relies on friction, without the need for additional fixtures, resulting in a self-supported system. Here, the configuration options are limited because the slots are located only along the [29]. It consists of six plywood panels that are connected on an orthogonal spatial pattern. ...

... An approach to the design of freeform surfaces as combinations of hyparssmooth poly-hypar surfaces, also referred to as hyperbolic nets [25]or A-nets [24], -has been recently introduced from a structural perspective [12,13,11]. While in the existing precedents, hypars are generally joined through folds that work as stiffening beams, leading to bending actions at the edges [3,7,35,31,36,38,37,19], in the smooth poly-hypar surfaces, different hypars are combined smoothly. ...

... As a result, designers often miss the opportunity to incorporate intricate material behaviours that can only emerge through a physical process like in craft [Malafouris 2008]. Instead of starting with a pre-determined design idea, the material-driven digital fabrication seeks inspiration from material behaviour by altering machine and/or 3D-model parameters [Corsini et al. 2018;Gürsoy 2018;Mohite et al. 2018;Zboinska and Dumitrescu 2020]. Even though the aspect of material exploration resembles craft, the fabrication process is not as 'continuous' as craft, because of 'turn-taking' between physical fabrication and fine-tuning of 3D-model or [Peng et al. 2018;Zoran and Paradiso 2013]. ...

... Nevertheless, in the last decade, advances in computer simulation and digital fabrication techniques have attracted a new wave of research on this topic. With each new research approach introduced, the specific material constraint has been progressively detached from stereotomy, allowing the term be perceived more as a generative system: a collection of form and structure relations which follow a clear set of principles and parameters (Castellón and D'Acunto 2016;Tellia 2018;Vella and Kotnik 2017). ...