Heinrich Jaeger: Aleatory Assemblies — Designing with Chance and Material Agency

Abstract

From synthesizing proteins to fabricating architectural-scale structures, assembling building blocks into larger, more complex configurations typically requires precision and deliberate choices for placement. What if this placement and the resulting adjacencies are instead determined by chance? What if the building blocks now develop their own agency — where they can adapt and find their own responses to structural or environmental stimuli? In this talk, Heinrich Jaeger will discuss how such aleatory assembly has led to a new framework for understanding how mechanical rigidity can emerge even in completely disordered structures, and how it has spawned applications ranging from new classes of soft robotic systems to loadbearing architectural structures that are adaptable, reconfigurable, and fully recyclable.

This lecture is part of the Design Tech Public Lecture Series.

Biography

Heinrich Jaeger

Heinrich Jaeger is the Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago. A main theme of his work is the investigation of how materials form and behave under conditions far from equilibrium. Such conditions give rise to a wealth of complex phenomena that push the boundaries of understanding. At the same time, the insights gained can be used to control properties in unique ways and design new kinds of smart materials. He has explored this research theme in experiments spanning superconductors, nanoparticle assemblies, polymers, dense suspensions, and granular materials, often in close collaboration with engineers, artists, and architects. Jaeger is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.