Gabriella Perry
Droop
An iterative design tool for material draping
Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Independent Study Spring 2021
Advances in large-scale 3D printing technology have opened up explorations on novel non-solid, non-layered 3D printing techniques such as spatial lattices and material draping. However, due to the inherent material unpredictability of many of these systems, they are often difficult to approximate with digital tools, often requiring simple trial and error to achieve a specific result, with the consequent waste of time and resources.
Droop is a work in progress material-informed simulation environment that serves as an iterative design tool for material draping fabrication processes. Droop explores the material potential of thermoplastics through the fabrication process of robotic draping to achieve complex linked catenary forms. This bespoke simulation environment approximates the spatial form of a material draping process and serves as a useful iterative design tool that allows designers to better understand and predict how a 2D pattern translates into a 3D droop form.
