Subdivided Columns   (2010-2017)

This project involves the conception and design of a new column order based on subdivision processes. It explores how a single algorithm can create not only the overall geometry of the columns, but also generate smaller surface formations, and finally embellish the column with an ornamental texture. It also investigates mass customization, using the same algorithm to produce parallel design variants that can be combined or evolved.

Alongside computational design, the project incorporates digital fabrication to materialize the designs from the digital realm. As this project predates large-scale 3D printers, all columns were fabricated out of thousands of stacked layers of laser-cut or milled sheet.

The Subdivided Columns project has three parts:

Column Prototype I was fabricated and first shown at ETH in Zurich in 2010. It spurred the TED Global talk "Building Unimaginable Shapes".
The Sixth Order, an installation of columns, was commissioned for the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale and is now in the architecture collection of FRAC Centre - Val de Loire.
Astana Columns were designed for the Expo in Astana in 2017, and shown subsequently at the Grand Palais in Paris as part of the Aristes et Robots exhibition.

Column Prototype I    ETH Zurich, 2010

Column Prototype I is built on insights from the Platonic Solids project, which demonstrated how simple algorithmic processes and minimal input forms could generate extraordinarily complex geometries. By iteratively subdividing basic polyhedra, that earlier work produced intricate, unpredictable forms, revealing the potential of computation to transcend traditional design limitations. This prompted the question: Could these processes shape architectural forms, and if so, for which elements and at what scale?

A Historical Archetype

The column, as a architectural archtetype rooted in its historical and symbolic significance, emerged as an ideal choice to test the boundaries of these computational processes. From the sturdy Doric to the ornate Corinthian, columns have embodied technological and aesthetic values, reflecting cultural ideals. In ancient Greece, artisans crafted columns using textual descriptions in lieu of images or diagrams, later codified by Vitruvius. These texts, specifying proportions and styles, functioned like algorithms, providing abstract instructions that artisans interpreted into physical forms. This mirrors how algorithms serve as coded instructions, guiding the computer to generate architectural form.

Algorithmic Exploration

Initially, fabrication constraints were entirely disregarded both in the selection of the column archetype and its design development. This allowed algorithmic exploration of form to proceed freely, uninhibited by any practical limits, focusing solely on the production of novel architectural form. The design process prioritized algorithmic artistry, creating a 2.7-meter column with six million faces, well beyond the limits of hand-drawn design. By forutnate coincidence, the column’s dimensions aligned perfectly with the era’s laser-cutting technology, allowing the Column Prototype I to be crafted from 2700 layered 1mm greyboard sheets.

 

Computational Design

In the Subdivided Columns project, the architect designs a process to generate columns rather than crafting a single column. This repeatable process, adjustable with different parameters, produces endless column variations. These can be combined or used as starting points for new generations of designs. The architect assumes the role of the orchestrator of these processes.

Multiple Scales of Articulation

Unlike traditional design processes, the single subdivision process generates the form at all its scales: from the overall proportions and curvatures, to smaller local surface formations, down to the formation of a micro-structure. The process adds information at all scales, without resorting to any type of repetition. The result is a series of columns that exhibit both highly specific local conditions as well as an overall coherency and continuity. The ornament is in a continuous flow, yet it consists of very distinct local formations. The complexity of the column contrasts with the simplicity of its generative process.

Between Control and Surprise

An abstracted Doric column serves as the subdivision process' input, embedding topographic and topological data like shaft proportions, capital, base, fluting, and entasis. Tagged components allow the process to apply varied parameters to different parts, enabling precise yet diverse outcomes that blend control with creative surprise.

Digital Fabrication

Column Prototype I is a full-scale, 2.7-meter-high variant that was fabricated as a layered model using 1mm sheet. Each sheet was individually cut using a laser cutter. Sheets were stacked and held together by poles that run through a common core.

Unspooling the Column

The cutting path for each sheet is calculated in stages. First, the 3D model’s six million faces are sliced by a plane, generating line segments that are merged into polygons. These polygons are then refined: interior ones are removed, and filters ensure delicate features (like narrow "peninsulas") maintain structural integrity. Finally, the slice is hollowed out with an interior offset to reduce weight. Despite the column’s average 50cm diameter, the extreme surface complexity stretches each layer’s cutting path up to 8 meters — accumulating to a staggering 20 kilometers in total.

Negative Space, Positive Surprise

While stacking the laser-cut sheets forms the column itself, an unexpected revelation emerged when assembling their negatives—the leftover material discarded during cutting. Instead of solid forms, this inverse stacking creates a vast, intricate hollow space: a tunnel with wildly articulated surfaces. These ghostly negative volumes produce formations unlike anything intentionally designed, revealing an entirely new spatial language hidden within the process.

Sixth Order    Gwangju Design Biennale 2011

The Sixth Order installation at the Gwangju Design Biennale 2011 continues the development of a column order based on subdivision processes. It explores not the design of an object, but the design of a process to generate objects. This procedural approach shifts the emphasis from individual artifacts to an entire family of objects—each a unique permutation of a shared theme.

For the Gwangju Biennale, the same generative process was applied to create four distinct columns. Though none of them share identical surfaces or motifs, their shared underlying logic ensures visual and conceptual coherence as a group.

Upon entering the exhibition space, viewers initially perceive sixteen columns—an illusion created by two floor-to-ceiling mirrors on adjoining walls. This effect is deliberately amplified by the columns’ design: each is symmetrical along only one axis, presenting a different appearance when viewed from the front or back. Thus, a single column unites two permutations, with the mirrors multiplying the four physical objects into eight virtual reflections.

Astana Columns    Expo Astana 2017

The Astana Columns are a commission for the Expo 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan. They were installed at the Artists and Robots exhibition at the Expo's Astana Contemporary Art Center, and later at the Artistes et Robots exhibition at Grand Palais in Paris.

These columns, with three-fold rotational symmetry, are made of 5000 sheets each of 0.6mm greyboard. They are fabricated using a new high-speed serial digital cutting and creasing machine. The extraordinarily thin sheets give the columns a soft and supple texture. The high pliability of these sheets also adds a degree of deformation to the columns, as cantilevered details are pulled downwards.

Standing amidst the Astana Columns, visitors are struck by an unusual richness of detail that is at times disorientating and overwhelming. Although designed entirely autonomously by the computer program, the columns evoke analogies in multiple domains. Yet they resist reductionism and an immediate understanding. Rather, they invite visitors to wander and ponder.

Astana Columns: Revolutionary Fabrication  

Fabricating the initial 2010 subdivided column was a highly labor-intensive process. A standard 60W laser-cutter required approximately 4 minutes to cut a single sheet, with additional time needed to strip the pieces. Even when working with three laser-cutters in parallel, fabrication time was close to 100 hours.

In contrast, the Astana Columns were produced on a serial digital cutting and creasing machine. This machine, a Highcon Euclid II, operated by Maison Lack in Paris, is able to lift 0.6mm sheets from a stack, individually cut them, and then restack them at a rate of up to 500 sheets per hour. Extremely high-powered lasers reduce the cutting time from originally 4 minutes to just a matter of seconds.

The only remaining manual step was the stripping of cut material. As the columns' outlines are highly convoluted - and each sheet's outline is unique - the machine was unable to reliably strip the sheet. If this final step were automated, the machine would be able to autonomously fabricate the initial subdivided column - at almost double its original resolution - in under 10 hours.

Serial laser-cutting, 300 sheets / hour

Undrawable, and Unimaginable?

The Subdivided Columns are purely algorithmic forms. They are undrawable using conventional means - whether by pen or by mouse - due to their intricate detail and endless variation.

But are these forms imaginable? Can we as designers conceive of such forms from the outset? Even in working with generative algorithms, there are features that cannot be foreseen; there is an element of surprise. Ultimately, this approach redefines the process of design: the designer works in an iterative feedback loop with the machine, moderating processes, and incorporating feedback, surprises and proposals. Knowledge is no longer predefined but emerges through search and exploration—demanding heuristics that thrive beyond rigid categorization.

What we stand to gain are entirely new spatial and haptic experiences. A playful design that stimulates the senses, elicits curiosity, and invites interaction. A design environment that simultaneously allows control and surprise, and that embraces and celebrates the unforeseen.

Astana Column: laser-cut layers

Column Facts and Figures / Reviews  

Column Prototype I   (2010)



Material:   Greyboard, 1mm laser-cut sheet
2700 sheets total
Wooden core
Dimensions:   270cm height
45-70cm diameter
Fabrication:   ETH Zurich
Assistance: Manuela Koller, Thomas Raoseta, Edyta Augustinowicz
Venues:   Museum of Arts and Design (New York, 2013)
TED Global (Edinburgh, 2012)
Le Lieu du Design (Paris, 2012)
Smallspace Gallery (Berlin, 2011)
Reviews:   Architectural Record
Archithese
CNN
Design Exchange
Frame Mag
Frankfurter Allgemeine
New Scientist
Ling (Vueling)
KM Kunst & Techniek
New York Times
Spiegel Online
城市建筑 Urbanism & Architecture
Wired
   
Research for the subdivided columns was carried out at the Chair for CAAD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.

Sixth Order Columns   (2011)



Material:   ABS plastic in 1mm sheet
10,800 sheets total
Steel and wooden core
Dimensions:   270cm height
45-70cm diameter
Fabrication:   Nanjing
Thank you to Hua Hao and Li Biao
Venues:   MAAS Museum (Sydney, 2017)
Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin, 2016)
Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2015)
FRAC Centre Archilab (Orléans, 2013)
Gwangju Design Biennale, 2011
Reviews:   Archithese
Domus 国际中文版
时代建筑 Time + Architecture
Vogue Living
 
Two Sixth Order columns were acquired by FRAC Centre, Orléans, for its architecture collection.

Astana Columns   (2017)



Material:   Greyboard, 0.6mm laser-cut sheet
20,000 sheets total
Wooden core
Dimensions:   300cm height
45-70cm diameter
Fabrication:   Maison Lack, Paris
Thank you to Virginie and Maxime Dumesnil
Venues:   Grand Palais (Paris, 2018)
Expo Astana 2017
Reviews:   Atlantico
Deutschlandfunk
Dunya
Economie Matin
Forbes
France Culture
La Tribune
Mediapart
Radio Canada
Radio France Internationale
SRF - Schweizer Radio & Fernsehen
Télérama
 

Further information:

Astana Columns  -  at Expo 2017 in Kazakhstan, and Grand Palais, Paris   Märchenwald  -  Columns for Venice Architecture Biennale, German pavilion competition   Tor Alva / White Tower  -  A 30 meter tall tower, built of 3D-printed concrete columns