Materializing the Digital

For the past two hundred years, architecture and urban planning have been driven by the imperatives of industrialization: efficiency, mass production, and standardization. While rigid grids and repetitive forms have facilitated the development of cities and housing, they frequently fail to account for the nuances of people and place. “The result is that everything is square—easy to build, easy to control, easy to afford,” explains LAVA Partner Chris Bosse. “Yet, all of the things in nature that we love so much—jacaranda trees, coral reefs, forests—none of them follow these principles, but they’re equally efficient and effective; no one could argue otherwise.”

Though the pursuit of such complex, organic forms has deep historical roots, technological limitations have long restricted designers’ ability to explore them fully. Early pioneers, like Frei Otto, with his tensile structures and soap film experiments, and Robert Le Ricolais, with his exploration of flexible, lightweight forms, began to break these boundaries. Their work deepened our understanding of geometries and structure, paving the way for the tools that would expand architectural possibilities. Today, parametric modeling and digital fabrication allow architects to realize these organic principles with greater speed, precision, and scale.

Out of Hand—a traveling exhibition exploring the evolving history of digital technologies, processes, and materials—captures this shift in a powerful way. LAVA’s exhibition design embodied the curatorial concept of “materializing the digital.” To create the design, the exhibition infrastructure was laser-mapped into a flexible parametric model, which the architects overlaid with hand sketches, drawing together the analog and the digital. As Bosse notes: “It was a small project with big ideas.” The exhibition, which opened in 2017 at the Powerhouse Museum of Design in Sydney, featured over 90 works from renowned artists, designers, and architects; among them, Zaha Hadid, Iris van Herpen, and Ron Arad.

LAVA’s use of parametric modeling enabled the creation of forms that reflect nature’s dynamic systems. By adjusting parameters such as scale, curvature, and surface distribution through computational algorithms, they generated non-linear geometries that responded to the constraints of the 770-square-meter gallery. This digital process mirrors organic processes, where slight variations in input can lead to emergent outcomes—novel forms that remain contextual and flexible.

LAVA leveraged digital processes in design and fabrication, merging technological precision with hands-on construction. The curved forms were shaped using a timber framework and bendable plywood, while horizontal surfaces were CNC-cut in batches and assembled on-site. Integrated alcoves, shelving, and seating, each with varying depths and proportions, created a series of spaces within the exhibition that provided different vantage points for visitors. Painted in a uniform cool white and lit with recessed LED lighting, these elements provided a neutral backdrop that didn’t compete, but rather complemented, the artworks.

“If we were asked to design the same exhibition today, I think it would—for the most part—be the same,” says Bosse. “The principles we applied here are the same as in master planning, where we ask: How do people move through a city? One typical response is: walk straight, come to an intersection, press the light button, cross, and repeat. But we approach the city differently. We see it as a fluid, continuous space where movement is about exploration, engagement, and surprise. How do you move through such a space? Not in a straight line.”