IW2022: Folding In Nature and Design

Folding is a meta principle and transcends all realms of the organic and inorganic, hence is present in all natural systems and across all scales. Folding is applied spatiality.

Our current move towards WEB3, embedded digital capabilities and nextgen manufacturing

redefine our material assumptions based on digital code. The fold as analog code, simultaneously representing objects and executing actions lies

at the foundation for the explosion of “Folding as an interdisciplinary Field of Research” spanning: Art, Science, Math, Tech, Engineering, Design and Education.

In this workshop we will look at and trace 2 decades of Folding and hear from eminent figures in the field with a glimpse to the future of 3D and 4D application of “Folding principles”."

Please join us for a quick introduction into the cross disciplinary field of “Folding” with:

Prof. Karola Dierichs is presenting her work on: “Designing Matter: Autonomously Shape-changing Granular Materials in Architecture"

Karola Dierichs is a Professor of ‚Material and Code‘ at the weißensee school of art and design berlin within the Excellence Cluster ‚Matters of Activity‘ (MoA) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She has been conferred her doctoral degree with distinction from the University of Stuttgart in 2019. Previously she studied at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and the Technical University of Braunschweig. Teaching engagements included the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, the Städelschule Architecture Class (SAC) in Frankfurt and the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) in Stuttgart. At the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) Karola Dierichs has conducted research on ‚Granular Architectures‘, where she has developed designed granular materials in architecture. She has been engaged in transdisciplinary research collaborating nationally and internationally, among others with the Institute for Multiscale Simulation (MSS), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany and the Behringer Lab, Duke University, USA. She has published numerous articles in her field and lectured both within Europe and the USA. Her research on designed granular materials has been recognized with the ‚Holcim Acknowledgement Award Europe 2014‘ and the ‚materialPREIS Acknowledgement Study and Vision 2019‘. Selected works have been included in the traveling exhibition ‚Hello, Robot.‘ starting 2017 at the Vitra Design Museum, Germany and the opening exhibition ‚Minding the Digital‘ of the Design Society in Shenzhen, China.

Vincent Floederer: Artist, Founder of the Centre de Recherche International pour le Pli, le CRIMP, prominent origamist/Folder following in the tradition of Paul Jackson, Vincent has defined the field through his contribution in “Structured Crumpling” - “Le froissage structuree” since the late 1980’s

Vincent will present his current research on extremely thin and extremely big scale crumpling process / structures and what type of industrial applications and processes he is researching and collaborating on to infuse biomimetic exploration of 'structured crumpling'.

Chris Palmer: Digital Fabrication Manager, College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley, prominent Origami Artist, world renown for his pioneering work in multi material folding, tessellations and kinetic designs. ( octagon polypouch - Flowertower). http://shadowfolds.com/

Chris will present his current work on very thin and very small scale as well as his unique textile material folding process, the flowertower in textile folding.

Chris K. Palmer is a Fine Artist who has specialized in traditional and modern geometric art and ornament, textile design and folding. After four years teaching digital fabrication in schools of architecture in Chicago (IIT) and the University of Colorado at Boulder he now works as Digital Fabrication Lab manager at the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. In 1995 he developed a novel technique for folding fabric and published a book called Shadowfolds about it with his co-author Jeff Rutzky. He enjoys designing, building, maintaining and using cnc machines of all sorts at home and at work.

Jianzhen Gu PhD student Morphing Matter Lab, Prof Lining Yaho Carnegie Mellon University.

https://www.morphingmatter.cs.cmu.edu/projects/thermorph

From Origami to Pasta: Material-driven Computational Self-folding

Jianzhe is a Ph.D. student at Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Lining Yao. His research interest focuses on human-computer interaction, digital fabrication, and computational design. Blending digits and materials, he devotes himself to exploring the future form of shape-changing interfaces that can be computationally designed, evolved, and generated. His research work was published at premier conferences of HCI, including CHI and UIST. Prior to joining the CMU, Jianzhe earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.