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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Hybrid Aesthetics: Bridging Material Practices and Digital Fabrication through Computational Crafting Proxies Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6384k94f Author Torres, Cesar Armando Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Hybrid Aesthetics: Bridging Material Practices and Digital Fabrication through Computational Crafting Proxies by Cesar Armando Torres A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science and the Designated Emphasis in New Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Eric Paulos, Chair Professor Björn Hartmann Professor Kimiko Ryokai Summer 2019 Hybrid Aesthetics: Bridging Material Practices and Digital Fabrication through Computational Crafting Proxies Copyright 2019 by Cesar Armando Torres 1 Abstract Hybrid Aesthetics: Bridging Material Practices and Digital Fabrication through Computational Crafting Proxies by Cesar Armando Torres Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science and the Designated Emphasis in New Media University of California, Berkeley Professor Eric Paulos, Chair Creative technologies like digital fabrication led to the rise of the Maker movement, engendering grassroots innovation in education, manufacturing, and healthcare. Today, these creative technolo- gies stand at a crossroads – despite a significant rise in participation, a deeper engagement with design and material is absent from traditional computer-aided design workflows. In this thesis, I will motivate the need for creative technologies to support the morphogenetic model of making, a thinking and working style characteristic of how practitioners work with physical materials but difficult to access in digital design tools. To communicate my findings, I introduce the concept of a Crafting Proxy, an intermediary between a practitioner and a material that can be used to facilitate the interpretation, manipulation, and evaluation of a material as a part of a creative process. In these works, I employ a Research through Design (RtD) methodology to construct intermediate-level knowledge around the design, implementation, and evaluation of Crafting Proxies. I’ll demonstrate how Crafting Proxies can be enacted within physical materials, physical tools, and physical practices to support morphogenetic workflows in domains such as light and heater design, and metalworking. As a result, this work contributes a design method for creating crafting proxies and a set of design principles that inform how new materials and digital fabrication technologies can foreground the existing knowledge and practices of material practitioners and generate new forms and aesthetics that can alter the trajectory of the Maker movement towards a New Making Renaissance. i This work is dedicated to Tim B. Campbell (1989-2015), whose expressiveness knows no bounds. ii Contents Contents ii List of Figures v List of Tables xii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Problem Definition . 3 1.2 Significance and Broader Impacts . 5 1.3 Contributions . 7 1.4 Outline . 7 1.5 Statement of Multiple Authorship and Prior Publication . 10 2 A Profile of a Material Practice 12 2.1 Introduction . 12 2.2 A Material Epistemology . 15 2.3 Tensions of a Material Practice and Digital Fabrication . 21 2.4 Definitions and Concepts . 26 2.5 Summary . 26 3 Related Work 28 3.1 Design Tools for Physical Making . 28 3.2 Satisficing a Craft-based Practice . 32 3.3 Analytical Frames for Understanding Materials . 34 3.4 Summary . 37 4 Crafting Proxies 38 4.1 What is a Proxy? . 38 4.2 The Design Space of Crafting Proxies . 39 4.3 Expanding the Proxy Design Space . 40 4.4 Methodology . 42 5 Wire Forming 44 iii 5.1 Introduction . 45 5.2 A Proxy-Mediated Practice . 46 5.3 Related Work . 48 5.4 Design Process . 50 5.5 Wire-wrapping CAD Tool . 51 5.6 Material Practice with Metal Wire . 52 5.7 Shape Proxy Design . 56 5.8 Scaffold Proxies . 60 5.9 Workshop Evaluation . 66 5.10 Results . 68 5.11 Discussion . 72 5.12 Summary . 74 6 Light Forming 76 6.1 Introduction . 77 6.2 Related Work . 79 6.3 Conversational Profile . 81 6.4 Composability: Deconstructing the LED . 90 6.5 Luminaire CAD Tool . 98 6.6 Design Artifacts . 100 6.7 Workshop Evaluation . 104 6.8 Results . 104 6.9 Discussion . 108 6.10 Summary . 112 7 Heat Forming 113 7.1 Introduction . 114 7.2 Related Work . 115 7.3 Conversational Profile . 116 7.4 Composability: Spatiotemporal Resisitive Heaters . 117 7.5 Resistive Heater CAD Tool . 121 7.6 Electric Heat Perceivability . 123 7.7 Design Artifacts . 128 7.8 Workshop Evaluation . 134 7.9 Qualitative Results . 136 7.10 Discussion . 141 7.11 Summary . 144 8 Discussion 145 8.1 Crafting Proxy Design Method . 145 8.2 Design Principles and Strategies for Crafting Proxies . 148 8.3 Extensions of the Crafting Proxy Design Method . 154 iv 8.4 Summary . 156 9 Computational Design Architecture 158 9.1 Architecture . 158 9.2 SVG as a 2D Design Tool . 160 9.3 SVG as a 2.5D Modeling Tool . 162 9.4 SVG as an Interaction Design Tool . 163 9.5 Discussion . 164 9.6 Conclusion . 165 10 Conclusion 166 10.1 Restatement of Contributions . 166 10.2 Future Research Areas: The Case for a Hybrid Atelier . 168 10.3 Summary . 172 Bibliography 174 A Open-source Repositories 193 B Wire Wrapping Workshop Study 194 B.1 Demographics Questionnaire . 194 B.2 Warmup Tutorial Protocol . 194 B.3 Think Aloud Brief . 195 B.4 Post-Task Questionnaire . 195 B.5 Post-study Protocol . 196 C Luminaire Study Questionnaires 197 C.1 Pre-study Interview Guide . 197 C.2 Workshop . 197 C.3 Followup Questionnaire . 198 D Resistive Heater Workshop Study 200 D.1 Tutorial Checklist . 202 D.2 Post-study Questionnaire . 203 E Glossary 205 v List of Figures 1.1 (left) The Coiling Method. A pottery technique developed across cultures and time periods that additively deposits material to build free-standing 3D forms. (right) Fused Deposition Modeling. A 3D-printing technique developed in 1989 that additively deposits material to build free-standing 3D forms1. ................... 2 1.2 Forming Wire: Crafting Proxies as an Armature . 8 1.3 Forming Light: Crafting Proxies as an Immaterial Mediator . 9 1.4 Forming Heat: Crafting Proxies as a Lens . 9 1.5 An SVG-based Computational Design Architecture . 10 2.1 (Left) A wall of a potter’s studio holds tens of firing keys that each record the results of a firing of a unique clay body and glaze combination. The potter externalizes their mental model of the firing process onto her environment, grabbing a set of keys when deciding how to glaze her latest work and guiding her creative process. (Right) The keys each display a firing temperature and a patterned print used to mark and identify finished pieces2. ..................................... 17 2.2 A Stained Glass Process. A glassworker cuts and grinds geometries from a pane of glass material which is often risky and error-prone. The glass geometries are lined with copper tape and soldered together. The skill of applying heat at the correct location, rate, and duration is tacit and developed experientially over time. The different resistances found in each material for forming processes introduced a value system. For glass, cutting textured glass results in more compositions that display a mastery of the medium than those with smooth glass3. .............................. 20 2.3 (top) Hylomorphic making in a stained glass practice – a cartoon is used to plan.