On Monday, Sept 29th, 2008 LaN presented 20 slides for 20 seconds each as part of Pecha Kucha Night Denver.  There were 19 static images, and one video which you can see below.

video by Shane Salisbury, edited by Monika Wittig

LaN @ Pecha Kucha Night Denver: Slide#10

The presentation slide comments were as follows:

1. Introduction
   -Good evening, Luis Fraguada and myself, Monika Wittig, two of the founding partners of Live Architecture Network, are pleased to present on digital design and fabrication in architecture in this local/global setting as it is the basis of our practice currently based between Boulder and Barcelona and soon establishing a port in Brooklyn with James Coleman.
2. Tools and Tech: Appropriation
   -The CNC technologies and tools that we promote are not necessarily new in other industries, but what is new is the recent economic feasibility which makes these technologies available for their adoption and appropriation as research tools by architects and designers.
   -Reference Project Montaña Denia Fabrication for Vicente Guallart
3. Tools and Tech: 3D Printing
   -We have all used some form of CNC, take your inkjet printer at home.  With the same technology, we can also print in three dimensions replacing ink with an adhesive that binds starch based powder at fractions of a millimeter.  This enables us to directly manufacture parts from the file to the material.
   -References: IaaC, LaN-ON-SITE, chair fabrication for Vicente Guallart
4. Tools and Tech: Robot Arm
   -While 3D printers might seem to have a disadvantage in terms of scale, here we see a CNC process that uses a Robotic arm and enables the architect to design through full scale architectural prototypes.
   -Allowing us to reengage the most common building material, bricks, in a way that we no longer think of them as something rigid that makes flat walls, but rather exploiting the structural aspects of the bricks in order to explore light and spatial qualities.
   -Reference: ETH Zurich
5. Tools and Tech: Contour Crafting
   -This is where LaN really gets excited.  This slide shows a CNC process that not only has adapted a common material, concrete, for the purpose of 3D printing on the scale of a building.
   -While it is still in its infancy, contour crafting presents not only the potential for designing without formwork, but also allows incredible flexibility as the design process approaches construction.
   -Reference: Contour Crafting
6. Tools and Tech: History
   -Consider that 99% of our history has been spent with stone tools and yet how is it that architects of the last century have been reduced to designing through representation, surrendering the materiality of the project to a third party.
   -A fundamental shift now, is the ability through software, to reengage materiality throughout the design process.
   -Reference: Flickr, IaaC
7. Tools and Tech: Design Environment
   -Here is a glimpse into our design environment.  It is multi platform with 3d modeling directly interfacing with modes of production.  The architect can both visualize and generate the very files necessary for final production.  With direct communication to output modes, this encourages feedback of production back to the design.
8. Tools and Tech: Parametrics
   -This continuous feedback into the design would be problematic with the industry standard, AutoCAD, where objects share no relationships.  If you change one, you must also change all of the others manually.
   -Conversely, what it means to design parametrically is to privilege the design of associations between elements over explicitly defining each object.
   -Reference: IaaC
9. Project Parametrics
   -This idea of working parametrically is something we extend far beyond a modeling basis in order to understand the project as a set of associated resources that will inevitably be in flux.
   -On a 700ft stretch of Peña Blvd. we are negotiating between these listed project drivers.
   -This enabled the final design of the project to adapt according to the unforeseen fluctuations, Take the extreme example of winning twice the site area with only half the budget.
10. Parametric Design (Video)
    -Instead of a model that has one final state, we create a model that allows for a range of solutions, facilitating the feedback between all of the project drivers as well as influencing the design and manufacturing.
11. Parametric Process
    -Perhaps it is clearer TODAY more than ever that large shifts in the economy and culture can occur suddenly, thus the need for architecture to respond instead of sitting passively.
12. DIA Lifecycle
    -Instead of the common understanding of architectural design as a client initiated process, we see our projects as able to generate clients and attract sponsors, allowing the project to continue even when the client does not.
13. Project, Resource, Client Model?
    -For LaN it’s raised the question of what IS a project, a resource and a client?
    -A project is an organization of resources.  A plane ticket can be an architectural resource, and our peers some of our best clients and collaborators.
    -We organized this project around the resource of cheap airline tickets and created a dialogue between our peers and industry practitioners.
    -Reference: LaN IN-FLIGHT 001
14. Site Model?
    -The main resource in this project is our affiliation with IaaC, la Institut de Arquitectura Avanzada de Catalunya in Barcelona.  This facilitated an intense 14 day workshop where participants from 14 countries engaged in site specific design and fabrication.
    -Reference: LaN ON-SITE 001
    
15. Industry as the driving resource
    -We don’t even discriminate against garbage as an architectural resource!
    -In this project we worked with an industrial manufacturer that transforms garbage into plastic and turned their process into the main resource influencing all aspects of design.  This all occurred in an academic setting at IaaC, further enforcing the value of understanding a wider definition of resource.
    -Reference: Lasentiu, IaaC
    
16. Industry Process
    -Here the companies’ six axis CNC machinery compression molds melted plastics into chair components.  Our process began here utilizing a standard chair part and exploring through parametric studies the variations possible on the scale of architectural applications.
    -Reference: Lasentiu, IaaC
    
17. Collaboration
    -Collaborative aspects of the project were vital to its success.
    -Working simultaneously allowed us to approach the project in a multitude of ways, leading to a series of solutions …
    -Reference: Lasentiu, IaaC
    
18. Return to materiality
    -Construction documents are files to drive fabrication machines
    -Reference: Lasentiu, IaaC
    
19. Culmination of parametrics
    -This resulted in a…
    -Reference: Lasentiu, IaaC
    
20. Conclusion
    -Thank you

LaN is proud to be part of this dynamic and energetic event.  Thanks to Angela Schwab and Jamie Kopke (organizers of Pecha Kucha Night Denver), Buntport Theatre (venue), and the other amazing and amazingly diverse presenters:

Christopher Weed, Sculptor

Metro Denver Promotion of Letters

Mike Muirheid Moore, architect / builder, tres birds

Daniel Crosier, Thoth Engine

Lenny Maiorani, photographer

Tran Wills, Fashion Designer / Entrepreneur
Josh Wills, Graphic Designer / Art Director
The Fabric Lab & The Shoppe

Rick Griffith, Owner & Director in charge of “Sit Downs”,Matters