Abstract: The focus of this master thesis lies on the exploration of cleaved timber as a material and creating a process of working between the physical and digital. Different methodologies are explored and developed by working with both physical and digital representative models of cleaving. By employing scale tests of cleaved wood, the material is examined, categorized and digitized in a way that allows for further digital exploration. These various forms and shapes influence the design ethos and create the fundamental perspective of materiality and texture for this project. The initial process is conducted using single scale cleave tests that are an exploration into trying to control the cleaving direction. This process is extrapolated by combining these pieces together and testing a different scale of application. To further explore both the texture and materiality of the cleaved surfaces, a process of digitization was created. This digitization required several iterations before usable 3d meshes could be produced. Using photogrammetry, multiple 3d meshes of the material were created by use of a repeatable method of arranging cleaved wood pieces in various formations. Manipulations of these meshes allowed for the creation of a model that functions as both an analog of a physical model and a way to create architectural representation. Individual pieces of a final design are created digitally with a focus on retaining materiality through this digitization process. This thesis concludes in two distinct studies of form and representation of a cleaved structure: an open air structure that follows a physical model result, and a chapel made from digitized cleaved surfaces. The investigation examines the material consequence of using cleaved timber as a building material and how a post-digital workflow studies material. The process of working and equivocating physical and digital texture and materiality guides the design and creation of architectural representation in various forms. That workflow stems from the view that by working with textures, both digital and physical, an exploration of materiality is possible that is both new but also linked to the original material and an architects role in creating a built environment. Spring 2021
 Post-digital workflow : Using photogrammetry as a digitization method, the result of the cleaved tests can be easier utilized to create digital representations. This axonometric view shows a version of the mesh with an overlay of mesh edges that shows the variable density of the model. The amount of data produced is on the order of hundreds of thousands of mesh faces and is reduced to show the varing density over the model. This information also includes countless glitches that add a purely digital signature to the model. Embedded information in the post-digital world is the digital equivalent to the impression of wood found in cast concrete. By utilizing this method, representations of hallways using a cleaved method are produced. The various pockets that moved the cleaving action are left as remnants of its production. These are then given more data and their use becomes apparent as details in physical space.


Physical model fabrication : To create the polygonal shapes from the scale cleaved material, subtractive manufacturing was utilized. A CNC router cut away layers of wood 1mm deep at a time. Due to the limitations of a lightweight, home built machine, small cuts needed to be taken to create the precise edges and angles required in the final model. The machine was able to keep a speed of roughly 2500mm per minute which gave each piece a fabrication time of roughly 2 hours. The actual fabrication of each in individual piece required tailored solutions each time. First, the pieces needed to be affixed the work table of the machine. This was done using clamps bolted into inset threaded nuts that allow holding the material only by the corners, such as in the first image above. For pieces that had the cleaved texture facing downwards, shims where placed under the model to approximate a top surface perpendicular to the endmill. Insulation foam was used as it could be crushed by the clamping force, greatly increasing the holding ability of the clamps. Some pieces required a second operation. If the piece had angled edges of both slanting upwards and downwards, the modeled needed to be flipped and milled on the opposite side. This was done approximately by the endmill to a corner that was known in the digital model, then moved to the next know corner. Tracing the polygonal shape and adjusting the alignment of the piece each time until it was deemed satisfactory in its relation to the machine and thus the digital model used in generating a toolpath.