This paper presents work on the development of a shape grammar that records the dying, undocumented craft of wire-bending in the Trinidad Carnival. This craft is important for the building and continuation of cultural heritage and identity. Due to the lack of prior research in this non-Western design practice, the author conducted site visits, interviews and observations, and visually examined wire-bent artifacts in Trinidad to develop this grammar. This paper presents the materials, steps and shape rules that begin to synthesize the craft, as well as one design. This study and the resulting grammar have positive implications for design education and practice.
Computer-based design and fabrication systems in architecture contain modes of operation and preferences that often constrain tectonic possibilities in design and construction. These predispositions neglect architecture’s cultural and material dimensions, resulting in universalizing tectonics that erase nuances of place, culture, and expression in design. How may we celebrate local tectonic languages while also revisiting them through computer-based systems in architecture? The project examined here highlights novel possibilities for cultural expression and craftsmanship through computational design methods, retaining the expressive potential of a local craft while de-familiarizing its cultural context. I analyze how shape grammars and digital fabrication methods deployed in design, de-familiarizes the craft of wire-bending in costuming in the Trinidad Carnival. I present and apply new rules for the craft’s computational description based on material tests and an architectural application to expand discourses on critical regionalism. I adopt Tabbarah’s term “computational regionalism” to describe this process and elaborate it as a five-step sequence. Computational regionalism employs computational methods to translate local craft knowledge and tectonic languages into new interpretations and poetics of construction. Its process of creative de-familiarization raises critical questions about the local and the universal.
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