The Wall-Mill : the design of a flexible machine for the in-situ architectural machining of surfaces

Water-like wave patterns on surfaces are seen in the walls of the Glaphyros Apartment in Paris, France and in the Frankfurt Nightclub in Frankfurt, Germany (designed by Mark Goulthorpe). These 3-D surfaces were created by first constructing molds which is an extremely time-consuming and inefficient process. It is also difficult to transport a large mold from the machine shop where it was created to the building site where the panel will be installed. Additionally, the non-modularity of molds requires that a new one be created for a different design. It would be much simpler and efficient if the mold is replaced with a portable apparatus that can machine the surface directly. The main concept is a vertical milling machine appropriately named the Wall-Mill. The goal of this thesis project is to design and construct a prototype of the Wall-Mill.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Yang, Tiffany

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alexander Slocum.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36680

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36680