The DigiTile Project

Abstract

The influx of computer-based design and presentation platforms, particularly in conjunction with computer aided physical modelling and manufacturing techniques, has stimulated a renewed focus on imaginative, innovative architectural product design. Essentially, the ambition of the DigiTile exercise was to stimulate the development of individual proposals for new kinds of surface articulations on the basis of a tile-like unit, or set of units. Inspirations varied widely: from precedents ranging from history to nature, as well as from contemporary design practice and graphic imagery. The prevailing freshness and technical inquisitiveness amongst the participants contributed to the generation and concretisation of distinctive tiling concepts, many of which have arguably not been seen before. The findings and conclusions are based upon the array of outcomes from the programme so far, as well from a very recent session. Furthermore, the paper highlights the kinds of opportunities for hands-on education-based compositional studies that we foresee in the near future.

Digital Wallpaper: Tiles of Proliferation and Continuity

“…Periodic, symmetrical tessellations have been considered as a way to foreground tile boundaries (Akleman et al 2000;Serrentino 1999;Breen et al 2007), but not as much as a system to define the tile as influencing the method of tessellation. Other methods explored digital algorithms such as cellular automata (Bitonti 2009) to create tiles that operate as a set of active, varying figures, but stay within a prefixed tessellated grid.…”