Endless forms: <i>Future of production</i>

The AlgoRhythms project on curve-folded sheet metal provided a model for the industrial production of mass-customized designs of simple architectural products (columns, walls, and ceilings). It was extended to mass-customization of emergent forms shown with one example of Morphing Platters presented here. Based on a new automaton, it provided an example of mass-customized designs, each different, with the same cost of producing identical designs. This challenged the economy of scale principle, the staple of production since the Industrial Revolution. This example also showed each platter weighed the same. Same mass was redistributed by the algorithm within the same area showing conservation of mass in design. The conceptual underpinning of mass-customization based on three twin phenomena—design-production, infinity-eternity, and unity-diversity—is suggested as the overarching design strategy for producing infinite variations of form. Due to the affinity of these concepts with biology, the term “endless forms” is adopted from Darwin from his classic work on evolution. The production of endless forms, forever, provides an aspirational upper limit for physical production of our designs. Combined with another triad—form-material-process—an integrated universal design tool, when invented, can support endless creativity by humans to aid our natural drive to make physical objects and structures.