PROCESS

Knitting Behavior is a cyclical process which involves physical making, quantitative evaluation, and informed digital simulations.

STITCH TYPES

Fundamental stitch types - a knit, hole, and transfer - form the language by which patterns are formed.

ELEMENTAL MATERIAL ASSEMBLIES

Using the fundamental stitch types, four distinct material assemblies were created (a) knit (b) open knit (c) diagonal (d) hexagon.

REPRESENTATION

The topology of each knit pattern is analyzed in its static representation without the distortion of forces. Pictured: Hexagon Pattern

QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION

Each material sample was subjected to comparative structural loading tests to evaluate the relative stiffness of the knit patterns.

INFORMED DIGITAL SIMULATIONS

A workflow was developed within Grasshopper and Kangaroo to explore an abstraction of a knit material assembly through a particle-spring method.

SPRINGS AS MATERIAL ASSEMBLY

Each spring in the mesh topology represents one of the four elemental material patterns.

SPRINGS AS MATERIAL ASSEMBLY

Subtle formal variations highlight the differences between a uniform material assembly and a material assembly specific to a flow of forces.

SPRING AS STITCH TYPE

Using the particle-spring system, a new topology is constructed where five springs represent a single stitch.

DIGITAL GENERATION OF KNIT PATTERNS

Digital simulations act as a tool to explore the possibilities of form informed by the physical testing.

DIGITAL GENERATION OF KNIT PATTERN

The digital also serves as a tool to generate knit patterns according to the flow of forces.

PHYSICAL GENERATION OF KNIT PATTERNS

Each of the four generated digital patterns was constructed on the Kenner knitting machine.

CATALOG OF FORMS

Each material assembly was anchored at 9 points and pushed by a force applied to the center. Each material assembly produces a unique formal result.

KNITTING BEHAVIOR: A Material-Centric Design Process

While we construct our built environment from materials, we often do not program the materials from which we build. Historically, architects have been limited to materials with un-programmed internal structures -- such as wood, stone, glass, steel, or concrete -- neglecting assemblies with properties that derive from a material and its internal organization. This thesis states a new architecture may emerge if the programming of material assemblies is within the control of the designer.

My research explores computation as a communicative device between the physical and the digital, establishing a conversation between a material assembly and a digital model as a tool to inform the logic of the assembly’s internal organization.

This manifests through the technique of knitting, a material practice defined by pattern as rule-based code. Whereas traditionally the pattern is a static visual representation, in my research it is both the physical sequence of stitches and the dynamic properties of each stitch within a digital model. The dynamic properties of the physical material communicate through the knit pattern to the digital model, which explores the possibilities of form within the constraints of the material to remap the pattern’s code, thereby re-informing the physical.

My research focuses on the development of knit material assemblies for tension activated architectural forms. Currently designers lack a framework for understanding how the topology of a knit structure can align with formal and structural motivations. Therefore, my primary goal is to establish a system that allows for a recursive investigation of both the physical and the digital through the computational device of a knit pattern.

The knit pattern is the code which assigns the local arrangement of stitches to the physical material assembly and activates the global characteristics of the form in the digital model. Programming the pattern to align with formal motivations requires a quantification of the behavior of each stitch. Comparative structural loading tests the stiffness of the physical assembly in order to activate a digital model as a particle-spring system that form-finds via an equilibrium of forces. The force exerted on each spring in the model then generates a new knit pattern according to the unique behaviors of the form, shifting the topology of the knit material assembly to better suit the formal motivations.

The play between the physical and the digital is recursive, experimental, and interpretative – each informs the other while never truly resulting in the same output.

2014-2015 Thesis Research
SMArchS Design & Computation MIT
Advisor: Larry Sass
Readers: Caitlin Mueller & Brandon Clifford

Link to thesis coming soon!