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LITH

Project details

Programme

Research Cluster RC4

LITH is a publicly owned automated living platform for space sharing enabled by a 3D printing farm. It is aimed towards the decommodification of gentrified neighbourhoods. LITH provides affordable long-term homes for at-risk members of the community and a platform for those artists and artisans being displaced due to gentrification. The automated LITH printing farm works tirelessly around the clock, producing serialised 3D-printed formworks. These formworks can be incrementally cast to produce an intentional community, where spaces are designed, shared, and managed via a platform.

Group Students

LITH: A Platform Architecture

Decommodification of Housing: Policy and Proposal

Funded by the local council, a spatial-sharing platform and a localised, automated fused deposition modelling (FDM) 3D-printing farm are utilised to generate an intentional community.

Kit-of-Parts

Once printed, each formwork can be utilised in 24 different orientations. This enables LITH to produce extreme complexity in its algorithmic generation.

The Printed Formwork

The printed formworks require no additional scaffolding. Formworks can be utilised as temporary partitions and dividers.

Assemblage Experiments

The parts assemble and coalesce into non-recurrent configurations. Parts are engineered to assemble along multiple axes of rotation and as mirror images.

Cast Architecture

Interior view of a building using LITH formwork to cast structural elements.

Construction and Assembly

Design System

LITH is an amalgamation of multiple design systems including platforms for generation of space, management of space sharing, and construction process support.

Space as Voxels

Parts of shared and private space are measured in voxel-units. A single bed occupies two voxels, whereas a shared kitchen occupies nine.

Serialisation of Parts

Within each generated aggregation, each part is serialised, identified, and tagged with a code. This enables the assembly process to identify and re-use moulds from the layers below.

Construction Process

LITH utilises an automated construction system to print, assemble, and cast elements.

View of a Completed LITH Building

Finish and Ornamentation

LITH: The Story

LITH Typologies

LITH structures can respond to a variety of boundary conditions, functions, and contexts.

Digital Ornamentation

Experiments with 3D-printing toolpaths produce textures, articulated as digital ornamentation on the formwork surface.

Evening View of a Completed LITH Building

LITH: The Platform

Living System Platform

LITH is a system of automated living. How residents interact with their built environment is influenced by the structures that the LITH platform introduces.

Customisable Parts

The algorithm for part customisation takes existing parts from the LITH library and generates triangulations on their surfaces to produce new, customised parts.