Narthex study and passion facade model, La Sagrada familia

The project is based on historiographical analysis. It is an architectural interpretation of surviving material by the architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926). A surviving photograph at a reasonably high resolution showing Gaudi's original pencil and gouache drawing of the facade affords adequate spatial information. The principal challenge was to interpret this drawing using the geometries with which Gaudi worked exclusively during his final years - he died before being able to model the narthex in plaster. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION The architectural design by Mark and Jane Burry is presented as a 1:50 scaled sectional model. Design research commenced in 2001 and construction for the project commenced in 2004. Construction of the main colonnade and the entablature that it supports commenced in 2009. The basic design for the project, which uses exclusively ruled-surfaces, was completed in 2005. Since then, the challenge has been to prepare the project from scaled rapid-prototyping to full-scale direct production using a robot-controlled stone cutter that works directly from three-dimensional parametric computer files. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE Two principal innovations are represented in the model: firstly, sophisticated mathematical sequences and proportional systems are followed which are intrinsic to the whole design. Secondly, this is the only parametric model that has been reported to date that uses associative geometry; no dimension can be altered without affecting all other elements of the design. This integrated relationship is only achievable by computer, not by hand.