Prototyping Tomorrow
To advance the research and creative practice efforts of the Building Tomorrow agenda, Dean Massey launched a college-wide competitive research incentive funding program in 2018, entitled “Prototyping Tomorrow.” Now in its second year, the program continues to support work that moves concepts from idea into some form of provisional reality, allowing a hypothesis to be studied, tested, and refined iteratively. Prototyping Tomorrow targets the deployment and potential impact of the discoveries made over the past decade via the precursor funding programs of Research Through Making, Research on the City, and Research Through Planning.
Based on evaluation by a jury of Professor Raveevarn Choksombatchai (UC Berkeley), Professor Jenny Sabin (Cornell University), and Associate Professor Molly Wright Steenson (Carnegie Mellon University), Dean Massey committed $140,000 to fund eight of these proposals, which are listed below.
Brick by Brick: A Thermodynamic Approach to Load-Bearing Masonry
Principal Investigator: Jen Maigret, Associate Professor
Co-Principal Investigators: Lars Junghans, Associate Professor; Craig Borum, Professor
Partner Organizations: Davenport Masonry, Michigan Institute of Masonry, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD)
Computational Design and Robotic Manufacturing of Bespoke Timber Façade Components
Principal Investigator: Arash Adel, Postdoctoral Fellow
Co-Principal Investigators: Wes McGee, Associate Professor
Partner Organizations: ERNE AG Holzbau, Kuka Robotics, Güdel Inc.
Envelopes of Fecundity
Principal Investigator: Geoffrey Thün, Associate Professor
Co-Principal Investigators: Wes McGee, Associate Professor; Kathy Velikov, Associate Professor; Peter Halquist, Lecturer
From Knit to Shell – Functionally Graded Knits for Concrete Monocoque Casting
Principal Investigator: Tsz Yan Ng, Assistant Professor
Co-Principal Investigators: Sean Ahlquist, Associate Professor; Dr. Evgueni T. Filipov, Assistant Professor
Measures of Access: Ruler, Template, Model & Game
Principal Investigator: Julia McMorrough, Associate Professor of Practice
Co-Principal Investigators: John McMorrough, Associate Professor
Network Structures: Buildings, Publics, and the Internet
Principal Investigator: Cyrus Peñarroyo, Assistant Professor
Co-Principal Investigators: McLain Clutter, Associate Professor
New Civic Vessels: Ornament and Identity
Principal Investigator: Steven Mankouche, Associate Professor
Co-Principal Investigators: Dr. Steven Lauritano, Lecturer
Nootropic Chambers: The Micro-Architecture of Cognitive Labor
Principal Investigator: Robert Adams, Associate Professor
Co-Principal Investigators: Joy Knoblauch, Assistant Professor; Dr. Michelle Meade, Associate Professor; Upali Nanda, Associate Professor of Practice; Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami, Assistant Professor
