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Expanding Design Boundaries Symmetry Experiments in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Textile Block Houses Carlos Roberto Barrios1, Christina Lemley2 1The Catholic University of America, 2The Catholic University of America http://architecture.cua.edu 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected] This paper presents a research in progress on the use of simple block units for exploratory design of complex patterns. The research explains how to use symmetry rules to expand the design language of Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses. The paper shows a case study of how a single unit can be used to generate complex patterns and intricate arrangements. Keywords: Design variations; symmetry; design boundaries; random design. Introduction to patterns used by Wright. Through the use of very simple computational rules, we are now able to take During the period from 1923 to 1928 Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs and expand his limited language and Wright (FLW) embarked on a new phase in his career boundaries to a large number of new designs. in which he embraced the structural and aesthetic possibilities of modular block design, specifically in Textile block system the form of pre-cast concrete blocks. Wright designed and built four houses in this method: The Millard House The construction of the houses consisted of a sys- and the Storer House in 1923, the Freeman House in tem of pre-cast concrete blocks – often referred to 1924, and the Ennis House in the same year. These four as “textile blocks” – woven together with steel rods as houses were later called Textile Block Houses due to support; creating a knitting of tensile strength for the the quilt-like appearance of the concrete blocks. concrete, a method designed specifically for these Using modular blocks presented an opportunity houses by Wright himself. to explore patterns and symmetries to enhance de- The blending of steel and pre-cast concrete sign, however, Wright remained rather conservative gave Wright the opportunity to explore his ideas in his arrangement of blocks, thus creating a simple about plasticity, which he defined as “the expres- design arrangement where more complex and intri- sive flesh-covering of the skeleton” (Wright 1977). cate form could emerge. Wright’s purpose in building out of concrete blocks Eighty years later, our research shows the possi- was to experiment with a skin texture supported bilities for creating intricate designs and complex pat- by a structural set of “bones,” creating a fabric with terns using no more time or effort than Wright origi- strength in tension as well as compression (Wright, nally invested. This paper will present a computational 1977). Even though architects and engineers of framework that allows for the creation of alternatives the time understood the physical and structural Session 10: Design Methodology - eCAADe 25 483 properties of reinforced concrete, FLW saw a void in plastic form” (1928). After completing the last house, understanding its aesthetic possibilities, writing that Wright abandoned the idea of the pre-cast concrete concrete’s beauty had been “inadequately expressed” block, but continued to use concrete as a building (Wright, 1928). For Wright, concrete presented an material in a different way. opportunity to mold, shape, and create something The four textile block houses remain unique in beautiful and fluid – but exactly how to achieve this their structure, construction system and the designs goal was in question. of the patterns. While the minimal block variation might have been most cost-effective – requiring Fabrication process of the textile block fewer unique molds – it did not allow for dynamic and varied building facades. He seemed to take little To make the blocks, FLW constructed wooden and advantage of symmetry rules to create variations metal molds in which he cast concrete and used the both in the individual blocks and the wall patterns. resulting blocks to build walls. This process proved to be highly efficient because the molds allowed for Analysis the production of blocks in mass quantities. Howev- er, working with square concrete blocks might have The first step in our investigation was to look at the been less organic and fluid than Wright would have blocks and determine which symmetries Wright used initially anticipated. He ultimately abandoned the in each of the blocks and the houses. We used two idea of using textile blocks after only a few years. different symmetry groups: one for the single block We have not found any direct explanation as and one for the wall pattern. For the single blocks we to why Wright stopped using the textile blocks in used point symmetry, and for the symmetry of the his designs. Some authors and researchers have walls we used wallpaper groups. speculated that the downturn in the economy, as a result of the Great Depression, made it difficult for The textile block Wright to continue building with this system (Stor- In their book, The Geometry of the Environment, Lio- rer, 1994). Others suggest that there were limitations nel March and Phillip Steadman (1974) identified to the skilled labor needed which might have caused one of Wright’s original blocks, the Millard house, as Wright to try something different. One limitation for having D4 symmetry. Using the symmetry rules they Wright might have been the difficulty in creating outlined, we determined Wright used D4 symmetry fluid skins for buildings using rectangle parts (Blake, again in another block, the Storer house, and C1 sym- 1964). Wright stated, “here in a conglomerate named metry in the two other homes, the Ennis house and ‘concrete’ we find a plastic material that as yet had the Freeman house. Figure 1 shows the symmetry of found no medium of expression that will allow it to take the blocks used in the aforementioned houses. Figure 1 Original blocks from the Textile block houses and their symmetry; here shown in order: the Millard house (D4) the Storer house (D4), the Ennis house (C1) and the Freeman house (C1) 484 eCAADe 25 - Session 10: Design Methodology Figure 2 Designs from the wallpaper symmetry group using a square unit The textile façade dimensional tiles of the Storer House blocks and the For the façade designs, Wright repeated each block Millard House blocks. to create the pattern for each house, thereby creat- To create a full-sized model of the Millard Block, ing a wallpaper comprising all of the blocks woven we used plywood, cutting the parts on a table saw together. We identified the façade of each of the and stacking together the layers to the correct Wright’s houses as primarily having W1 symmetry, depths. This proved to be a quick, but rather inaccu- although in some instances, there are little varia- rate, method of creating an individual block. During tions introduced in the corners. Using the wallpaper this reconstruction phase we were successful in be- rules, we produced the possible arrangements that a ginning to understand the symmetries and design of square unit can generate. Out of the 17 wallpapers, each of Wright’s blocks. we selected eight groups for possible designs with a square block -W1, W2/1, W3/1, W2/2, W3/2, W4/2, Expanding designs W4, W2/4. Figure 2 shows the different wallpaper ar- rangements that are created from a single block. The To expand the possibilities of design we used param- wallpaper groups take each block and apply mul- eterization of the original blocks. We created a variety tiple transformations within a specific set of rules to of individual blocks based off slight changes to the generate the resulting patterns. FLW blocks. By only making minor changes – making certain parts wider or narrower, slightly changing Protyping proportions and lengths of block components – the We replicated Wright’s four original concrete blocks symmetries were skewed so the individual blocks in AutoCad using the symmetries identified. Using were not always as internally symmetrical as they a laser cutter we created two-dimensional tiles out were originally. Figure 3 shows a catalog of resulting of the blocks at 1/8 of their original size. We again blocks by parametric variations of the originals. Fig- used the laser cutter to cut layers from the Auto- ure 3 also shows how the symmetry is changed by Cad files at 1/4 of the original size to create three- these variations. Session 10: Design Methodology - eCAADe 25 485 Figure 3 Variations in the Textile Blocks We used the 3-D printer and the laser cutter to so fascinating” (1974). Ultimately, the more varied create panels of blocks generated from the wallpa- the apparently randomized pattern appears, often per rules. We began with the most basic design, W1, the more interesting the design becomes. and generated 10” x 6” panels. The 3-D printer files were extruded in CATIA to give them the proper di- Design variations beyond Wright’s mensions and depths of the original blocks. Wallpa- boundaries pers were printed in a variety of scales. Using the la- ser cutter, we created two-dimensional panels which When the individual block is highly symmetrical, as showed where voids were cut out. The limitation is the case with the Wright’s D4 blocks, the resulting with this was that the laser cut panels do not show wallpapers become identical. Mirroring, rotating, the depth of the original three-dimensional designs. and repeating the blocks did very little to create However, 2-D laser-cut panels proved to be more ef- dynamic wallpaper designs. When the block itself ficiently produced than the 3-D print-outs. is not symmetrical the resulting wallpaper designs We produced panels based off the sets of wall- appear much more complex and dynamic. The lack papers for many of the less symmetrical designs we of symmetry in the individual block meant that mir- generated, not just the original FLW designs.

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