Advanced Digital Design + Fabrication
ADD+F is a research hub at the Melbourne School of Design that brings together researchers covering a diverse field of expertise, including digital design, construction robotics, 3D printing, mixed reality, and BIM.
ADD+F's key focus is to instigate innovation through a collaborative and cross-technological approach, applying design thinking and experimentation methodologies. The research hub seeks innovative and sustainable solutions that apply to industries – ranging from construction, health and well-being, to the arts, entertainment, and design disciplines.
The Design Research Hub ADD+F:
- explores advanced digital technologies to challenge current design and construction practices seeking innovative and sustainable solutions that apply to industry.
- engages with a wide range of industry partners including construction, health and wellbeing, the arts, entertainment and design disciplines.
- ventures into new directions, formulating novel processes, methods, tools and applications for a future-orientated discipline and profession.
- undertakes explorations through research and teaching in collaboration with national and international partners.
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Call for PhD's
Members of ADD+F are currently looking for PhD candidates. Follow the link for more information.
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Future Design Research Symposium
The ABP Symposium is held on the 29th and 30th of September 2022. Hosted by Advanced Digital Design and Fabrication (ADD+F) Research Hub. The Future Design Research Symposium: Experiments, Disruptions, Affordances is a hybrid event bringing together experts over two days of presentations, round table discussions and networking.
- Address:
- Melbourne School of Design
Glyn Davis Building (133)
The University of Melbourne
Parkville Victoria 3010 Australia - Contacts:
- A/Prof Rochus Hinkel
Leire Asensio-Villoria
Dr Alberto Pugnale - addf-research@unimelb.edu.au
Research Projects
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Systems Upgrade
The research is a deep study of material artifacts from design history, using advanced digital design and manufacturing tools, to construct bridges between design history research and contemporary creative practice.
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Design Technology in Contemporary Practice
Research associated to this project reflects on how the world’s most renowned architecture practices use technology to support design and delivery of their projects.
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The Doppelgänger
Developing digitally manipulated and fabricated artefacts by combining documentation with speculation. Funded by: The UniSA, the SIDA Foundation and the David Roche Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship.
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Prosthetic Nests for the Powerful Owl
This project uses more-than-human and interspecies design approaches to make and test prosthetic habitat-structures for the powerful owl (Ninox strenua).
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ROOM
ROOM: Digital design to fabrication in temporary accommodation options for youth homelessness
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Clay 3D Printing
Development of clay 3D printing techniques that provide viable fabrication options for the built environment.
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Indoor Positioning Simulation
The study grounds the method for determining the dynamic and room-specific occupancy limits to improve well-being in indoor environments.
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Computing and Design Thinking
Development and application of computational tools, processes and theories for automation, optimisation and machine learning in architectural design.
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Micro-Hortus Conclusus
The research aims of this prototype is an exploration of the capacities for novel fabrication technologies to construct cultivated synthetic micro-ecologies. These synthetic substrate prototypes are intended as components within green roof or wall systems.
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Right Tree Right Place Right Time
A visual-functional design approach to select and place trees for optimal shade benefit to commuting pedestrians
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Digital and data-driven innovation in asset delivery, operations and management
Digital and Data-Driven Innovation is transforming how built environment assets are designed, delivered, operated, and managed towards better outcomes for end-users.
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Parametric Adjustable Mould
PAM is a patented computer numerically controlled (CNC) mould frame designed to produce double curvature concrete panels with a single mould frame.
Members of the ADD+F research hub teach and coordinate graduate and undergraduate coursework with a computational design and technology-driven focus at the Melbourne School of Design. You can find a list of subjects below showcasing the diverse design research undertaken by ADD+F staff.
Digital Design & Fabrication Electives
The Digital Design and Fabrication Electives offer students the opportunity to gain expertise and competence in the understanding and application of contemporary design tools – informing students’ design process, making, and thinking.
Design Making – Making Design is an interactive Augmented Reality (AR) and poster exhibition featuring new designs developed by students in the Digital Design and Fabrication Electives: Experimental Furniture Futures Lab, Bespoke Timber Furniture Lab, Spatial Intelligence Lab, Digital Fabrication Lab, and Made by Robots Lab at MSD.
During the Melbourne Design Week 2023 exhibited as poster and Augmented Reality exhibition, to be found across 40 locations in inner Melbourne.
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R_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90412)
R_Lab introduces students to the use of robots in the design and fabrication of non-standard more-than-human habitats. Students will develop knowledge of 3D clay printing and test their designs on-site, at the McGeorge Bequest, a University of Melbourne-owned site at Darebin Creek, near the Yarra River.
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F_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90222)
In F_Lab students consider materiality, anthropometrics, and timber fabrication techniques as part of their design process. Students will use a wide range of making techniques to design and fabricate a bespoke furniture piece that is highly individual and of novel aesthetic and material qualities. A resulting final piece will highlight students’ experimentation process, demonstrate exemplary craft, and creating a novel furniture piece.
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Ex_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90361)
In Ex_Lab students investigate how digital technologies can play a role in experimentation, iteration and making of future furniture. Body tracking and 3D scanning are harnessed to generate, interrogate, and provoke performative relationship between the human body and furniture artefacts. Students will use temporal sensor data for design development and explore 3D printing technology for the fabrication of Experimental Furniture Futures.
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Si_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90422)
SI_Lab introduces students to advanced 3D scanning, photography, and mapping, developing critical approaches to site and place. Students will build skills in the use of LiDAR, photography and representation of digital data, developing knowledge in observation and mapping through field trips to significant Australian landscape contexts.
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DF_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90378)
In DF_LAB students explore architectural design through making, at the intersection of craft knowledge, advanced technologies, and non-standard materials. Traditional timber techniques will be re-invented through computer aided design and manufacturing technologies. Emerging tools such as 3D scanning, algorithmic modelling, and CNC fabrication will allow to integrate natural geometry and material behaviours into the designed form.
Building Information Modelling Electives
The BIM Electives aim at developing students’ understanding of available innovative technologies and methodologies, particularly BIM, as crucial elements to the future of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry.
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Building Information Modelling
This subject will introduce BIM principles and break down the jargon in the BIM context. During tutorials, students will work with popular BIM software to develop and coordinate building information models including 3D, 4D and 5D BIM models.
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Building Information Management
In this subject, students will explore typical workflows of implementing BIM within organisations and on construction projects managed by multidisciplinary teams.
Previous Electives
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R_Lab Semester 2 2022 (ABPL90412)
We live in an era of mass extinctions, biodiversity loss, and growing urbanisation. In addition to protecting and restoring existing habitats, we can also design places for non-humans in our cities.
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F_Lab: Semester 2 2022 (ABPL90222)
This semester, F_Lab will introduce students to explore the properties of wood as a material for furniture making. Focusing on the theme of ‘the body at rest’, students will design and prototype in pairs to produce two artefacts designed to relate to each other.
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Ex_Lab: Semester 2 2022 (ABPL90361)
Resources, Waste, Re-cycling, Life-cycles, and Re-use are topics which are explored from industrial production, building construction to craftship and arts. Upcycling is a creative process.
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DF_Lab Summer 2022 Intensive (ABPL90378)
In this Summer Intensive students will be joining a team of researchers from ADD+F Research Hub to develop a modular street fixture for outdoor ambient cooling. Students will have the opportunity to take part in the design and making of a structure that supports an evaporative cooling system.
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Si_Lab Semester 1 2022 (ABPL90422)
SI_Lab (ABPL90422) introduces students to the use of advanced spatial information tools that allow architects and designers to better observe and represent buildings, objects, and environments.
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R_Lab Semester 1 2022 (ABPL90412)
Non-human habitats will be the focus of the R_Lab elective during Semester 1, 2022. In the age of the Anthropocene we need to care for other species. R_Lab students will design habitats for non-humans close to a creek in Melbourne.
Graduate Research
Design and Creative Practice research are actively supported in the Melbourne School of Design and the University of Melbourne through the PhD model ‘Thesis by Creative Work'. Academics in the ADD+F research hub have the capacity to supervise PhD research projects, especially those with a design and creative practice focus.
Co-Directors:
- A/Prof Rochus Hinkel
A/Professor in Architecture and Design
- Leire Asensio-Villoria
Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design
- Dr Alberto Pugnale
Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design
Researchers:
- A/Prof Ajibade Aibinu
A/Professor in Quantity Surveying & Construction
- Dr Sofia Colabella
Lecturer in Construction Technology in Architecture
- Dr Dominik Holzer
Lecturer in Construction Technology in Architecture
- Dr Nano Langenheim
Lecturer In Landscape Architecture & Urban Design
- David Mah
Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design
- Dr Mehran Oraee
Lecturer in Building Information Modelling
- Ryan Pennings
Coordinator, MSD Robotics Lab
- Dr Stanislav Roudavski
Senior Lecturer in Digital Design
- Dr Djordje Stojanovic
Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design