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Contemporary architectural education requires students to apply technical knowledge from a wide variety of sub-disciplines, from drawing to the performative aspects of design, such as structures, acoustics, and thermal comfort. While certain technical aspects of architectural projects are readily incorporated into the design studio, other forms of specialised knowledge are often taught in seminar-based formats, and there is rarely a cohesive approach to current practice in architectural education, particularly across different technical disciplines. This inconsistency extends to how teaching activities are typically documented, making them difficult to replicate or compare, particularly when contextual constraints are not clearly articulated. Drawing on instructional design, cognitive load theory, and exemplar teaching activities, this paper develops a framework for mapping and analysing teaching activities that complements existing instructional design models and pedagogical strategies, while remaining adaptable across different topics, tools, techniques, delivery modes, and activity durations. We demonstrate the framework by applying it reflectively to our own teaching and to analyse selected examples from the literature. Its application revealed how different technical disciplines' structure and sequence knowledge, manage cognitive load, and integrate problem-solving activities, while also supporting reflective practice and comparative analysis across teaching contexts. The application of the framework illustrates how technical knowledge can be defined, sequenced, and integrated into problem-solving activities in architectural design in ways that support comparison, analysis, and replication in other contexts. In doing so, the framework provides a more systematic approach to mapping and analysing the structure of teaching activities, while also supporting the integration of technical knowledge into architectural design education.

Large old trees provide essential habitats for birds and many other species, yet they are rapidly disappearing from many landscapes. While artificial habitat structures have been trialled, their design rarely captures the morphological complexity of natural habitats. This limitation stems from both challenges in extracting relevant features from natural forms and the difficulty of developing cost-effective systems that can be reproduced at scale. This paper addresses this gap by presenting FloaTree, an experimental example of a human–machine design workflow to generate, optimise, and construct tensegrity structures derived from AI-generated visual abstractions of large trees. We developed a parametric workflow that translates such AI-generated polyline abstractions into X-module tensegrity configurations, refined through structural optimisation and represented via connectivity matrices. Iterative prototyping, from small-scale tests to an eight-module pavilion, validated the structural and constructability aspects of this workflow and culminated in the winning entry of the 2024 IASS “Design Competition and Exhibition of Innovative Lightweight Structures” in Zurich. The results demonstrate that tensegrity structures, typically confined to artistic installations or used with limitations as surrogates for other typologies, can be designed for packability, transport, and rapid low-tech assembly to enable their potential application in artificial habitat structures. The project also advances tensegrity design methods through a novel human-machine workflow and a visualisation technique based on connectivity matrices. It shows how the analogue and digital domains can co-exist in design workflows alongside emerging forms of human–AI collaboration. While ecological performance requires future field testing, the significance of this work lies in reframing tensegrity not only as an experimental artefact but as a transferable design framework integrating form abstraction, structural logic, and constructability, thereby suggesting broader applications for computationally optimised yet low-tech structures in disturbed landscapes.

Birds and many other living organisms rely on large old trees for their survival. However, these trees are rapidly disappearing from many landscapes. The regrowth of such trees takes hundreds of years, and in many disturbed landscapes, wildlife populations cannot persist without temporary human-made replacement structures. In 2022, Mirra et al. [1] conducted a study on the AI-based generation of 3D models, or visual abstractions, of large old trees. An AI agent analysed a dataset of these trees to identify features that appeal to animals and generated forms that approximated these features. The researchers also evaluated the usefulness of the AI-generated forms as artificial replacements for trees using morphological and cost criteria. Building on this research, we developed our pavilion entry for the IASS 2024 design competition. Our focus was on creating (1) a design strategy to translate the AI-generated visual abstractions into buildable tensegrities, and (2) a fabrication method that facilitates the transport, assembly, and disassembly of these structures using repurposed and biodegradable materials. We named this prototype "FloaTree". We have constructed prototype tests in Melbourne, Australia, and will build the full-scale pavilion during the annual IASS symposium in Zurich, Switzerland, in August 2024.

This paper illustrates the design and fabrication processes of the Hypar Up pavilion, which served as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate the viability of a design-to-fabrication workflow for complex yet modular architectural geometries that utilise small and planar timber offcuts geometries discretised as Planar Quadrilateral (PQ) meshes. By integrating computational design and optimisation with efficient manufacturing processes, this research highlights the technical challenges of repurposing materials with unknown characteristics, notably detailing solutions, and evaluates the efficiency of design-to-manufacturing workflows with surplus timber products, using a quantitative cost analysis of the fabrication and assembly phases. While exploring the potential of repurposing scrap wood into hypar-shaped modular construction components, this work expands on existing research on segmented shells and investigates methods and means to move beyond the use of shell structures as monolithic and static artefacts. The pavilion is intended as a 1:1 modular prototype that can be resized to accommodate different dimensions of the timber panel offcuts and potential applications to be tested in future applications, such as load-bearing walls and facade retrofitting.

The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research advancements is visible in many fields, from medicine to the visual arts. In architecture, Generative AI tools have enabled designers to generate large numbers of compelling images through simple textual prompts, triggering critics to focus the theoretical debate around issues of authorship and creativity of design outputs: the process goes into the background, and investigating the collaboration mechanisms between human architects and machines loses its centrality. This essay aims to restore continuity between the research conducted in AI in design of the 1990s and the current technological developments in the field by illustrating how recent applications of AI models and tools can support designers in areas other than image generation. We discuss how architects can establish and strengthen forms of collaboration with AI to develop and review design proposals, offering an approach that embraces AI as a partner rather than a replacement for human creativity.

This paper describes a novel approach to structural optimisation based on learning design strategies rather than searching for optimal solutions. In the proposed approach, an AI agent is trained through Reinforcement Learning (RL) to explore a 3D modelling environment and iteratively morph a flat NURBS surface into a doubly-curved shell structure. At each iteration of the 3D modelling process, the agent computes the maximum structural displacement through FEM analysis: it learns to select modelling actions through this feedback and progressively improves the performance of the input surface. Unlike current applications of RL in structural design, where the AI agent generates design options by recombining a predefined set of design variables, our approach aims to create structural forms through the interaction of a designer and an AI agent within a 3D modelling environment. An application illustrates that our agent can interpret a preliminary structural form defined by a designer and iteratively transform such a form to improve its structural performance. The trained agent can hence transform the geometry and improve the structural performance of any open surface that features a square footprint and is defined through a sequence of modelling commands. Preliminary results suggest that this AI agent can be used for the development of more interactive tools for structural design and optimisation.

The design of music venues, such as concert halls and open-air concert stages, requires an integrated approach in which the acoustic response of the space being created is evaluated at every stage of the process to inform its formal development and associated performance. Various software exists to assess acoustic performance: Odeon is considered by many as the industry standard standalone software for detailed and accurate acoustic analyses, whereas Pachyderm is a plugin for Grasshopper (Rhinoceros 3D), which provides architects and engineers with more rapid feedback on preliminary design ideas because of its integration with a parametric modelling environment. Although an experienced acoustic designer could rapidly learn to use any of these programs, their usefulness during conceptual design or teaching activities is limited by the computational power and time required to get acoustic performance results. In these instances, testing time is more valuable than accuracy. This paper introduces Aeolus, an acoustic modelling plugin for Grasshopper. Unlike other similar Grasshopper plugins, Aeolus allows users to control the simulation accuracy and can therefore be used to rapidly test the performance of design ideas. Aeolus can also easily be interfaced with various Grasshopper optimisation plugins. Aeolus v0.1 was publicly released on 7 March 2023, and will be the focus of a Masterclass offered at the IASS Symposium 2023 in Melbourne, Australia.

Delivery methods of Higher Education classes have been scrutinised globally during the COVID-19 pandemic as academics and students were forced to shift rapidly to online delivery modes. In a post-COVID-19 scenario innovative teaching and learning approaches are required to rethink how large student cohorts can be educated online and on campus in a meaningful way, thereby reenvisioning the traditional lecture and its wider class context. This paper reports on the approach taken by the authors who restructured and redesigned an existing second-year undergraduate subject in an Australian architecture faculty. They collaborated with specialist learning designers to develop a blended mode of large-class delivery that simultaneously addresses their students' desire to engage with subject content flexibly and asynchronously, whilst benefitting from in-person interaction in the classroom. The new subject was subsequently delivered for the first time at the point of writing this paper.

This book reviews Dante Bini’s inventions and designs, focusing on his form-resistant Binishell and other pneumatic construction systems. Dante Bini’s double profile of architect and builder underpins the narrative of the entire book. It is used to analyse the evolution of the early reinforced-concrete Binishell patent into a variety of automated construction systems based on the use of air. Dante Bini has always been quite proactive in promoting his work and disseminating the results of his experimentations and achievements via journal articles, conference presentations and public talks; promotional brochures in multiple languages were also prepared to export and license his patents in various countries, from Italy to the Americas and Australia. Despite this, a rigorous study of Dante Bini’s work is still unavailable, and the relevance of this figure to contemporary architecture has yet to be discussed comprehensively. This book fills in this gap and arrives at the right time: during the last two decades, there has been an exponential interest in shell and spatial structures, particularly concerning the use of complex geometries and innovative construction techniques.

This book will be of interest to academics in architectural design, theory and construction history, and practitioners and students interested in expanding their knowledge in the design and construction of shell and spatial structures.