With a strong inter-sector focus, InnoChain connects “research in practice” with “research in academia”. Assembling 6 internationally recognised academic research environments leading research into computational design in architecture and engineering and 14 innovation pioneering industry partners from architecture, engineering, design software development and fabrication, the programme will establish a shared training platform for 15 early stage researchers. The network created a structured training programme focussed on supervision of individual research projects, an inter-sector secondment programme as well as collective research events including workshop-seminars, colloquia, winterschool and research courses that provide a unique opportunity for young researchers to obtain new knowledge and skills positioning them between strong innovative research practice and influential industrial impact.
Innochain was structured around three major challenges for the building industry related to the extended digital chain: Communicating Design (WP3), Simulation for Design (WP4) and Materialising Design (WP5)
WP3 addressed the current strict separation between design, engineering and execution in the building sector, a division which has been identified as the biggest obstacle for innovation. In order to tackle this, the work package developed integrated methods, which are oriented towards the specific processes in architecture and enable an open and feedback oriented communication between the disciplines. The projects in the work package did this through three different strands investigating:
1. New workflows and shared platforms.
2. New ways to manage and design with information.
3. The integration of novel practices with professional practice.
WP 4 addressed the integration of simulation into the design chain. Where existing practice places simulation after design, the ability to simulate performance as part of design exploration is identified as having a central impact on the analysis and specification of material systems and their fabrication driving new practices of form finding. WP 4 develops three different research trajectories examining how analysis and simulation can extend the digital design chain.
1. Analysis of material behaviour.
2. Simulation for fabrication.
3. Interfacing simulation with design.
WP 5 addressed the ability to use the conceptualisation of the extended digital design chain as a means of ideating novel fabrication methods that rethink the material systems of architectural construction. Here, the outdated paradigm of material standardisation and the positioning of architecture as the assembly of pre-defined material systems is challenged through the creation of new prototypical methods for the non-standardisation of material into on- and off-site fabrication. WP5 develops three research trajectories examining new methods of fabrication and their associated digital methodologies for driving specification and assembly information:
1. Additive manufacturing through 3D deposition
2. Material Behaviour as Design Driver
3. Design for Assembly.
