Prefabrication experiments - 221 - AI and information technology - 02 - Complex joinery

In the history of construction, intricate joinery is normally associated with timber. Complex joints highlight the craftsmanship of legendary Japanese master carpenters who mastered methodical, social and historic knowledge of their local resources for building.  Displaying the properties of softwoods and hardwoods, the ingenuous assemblies used timber’s anisotropic properties for the basis of a great number of joints fitting and straining harmoniously while representing particular genealogies and guilds. 

The industrialisation of building components, nails, screws, bolts, and hangers has made carpentry more about quick and cheap assembly.  The Steel industry further standardized connections with rivets and later with nuts and bolts. Throughout the twentieth century wood and concrete were also standardized and their theories and connections normalized. Theses standards were only marginally challenged by integrated building systems looking to further facilitate assembly. Technology limited the possibilities of complex joinery as piecing materials together requires knowledge, precise tools and skilled craftsmen, which industrialization certainly tried to offset. 

Today, numeric cutting devices, digital controlled machinery and streamlined file to manufacture possibilities support the idea of designers as creative makers, pushing the envelope in terms of joinery and making building certainly more efficient. Using contemporary information technology, as an approach to design laboursaving structures ConXtech is an American manufacturer of steel frames, which is using digital processes and tools to develop friction, lower and lock connections for easier and safer site conditions. Their connections are precisely conceived and manufactured to significantly reduce errors during field assembly. Column to beam connections work on a type of mortise and tenon joint attached to each component. Almost toy like in its simplicity; the skeletal steel frame constituents include a library of various joint types for any size or shape frame. Joints begin as computer models. Their information is fed to robots and numeric cutters, which reproduce in detail every meticulous interaction. The interlocking joints are deigned for structural efficiency but also keep components in place acting like placeholders, templates, plumb and level check while workers simply tighten the nuts and bolts. These types of dry intelligent assemblies also make it easier to disassemble structures making it possible imagine each component’s long-term use in multiple lifecycles.  

Beam being lowered into place - from ConXtech website