Presentation
			A design and architecture workshop based in Paris, Objectile combines engineering, mathematics, technology, and philosophy to work on the industrial design and manufacturing of curved and variable forms of every proportion, including sculpture, design, furniture, building components, architecture, town planning or landscaping. Objectile has perfected an original mode of production, using their own Objectile software based on TOPCAD, which enables calculating the designs of curved and variable shapes and producing them using numerically-controlled machines. Singular objects can thus be mass produced, including panels, partitions, furnishing elements, etc. Objectile has already designed a teller-window for the SNCF railway company, with curved surfaces adaptable to every situation. Their architectural projects create new topological spaces, in which casing and interlacing are substituted for orthogonal shapes.
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	Exhibition
			Series of objects, at once similar and yet all different, a little like the way each dune in the desert represents a particular variation on the same morphological theme. These non-standard objects are not designed, but rather calculated by computer and industrially produced by digitally-controlled machinery. After ten years or so of development, Bernard Cache, Patrick Beaucé and Jean-Louis Jammot set up Objectile SARL in Paris (November 1996). Their purpose was to work on the creation and production of curved and variable forms on every scale: sculpture, design, furniture, building components, architecture, town-planning, and landscape. Taoufik Hammoudi worked with "Objectile Paris" from February 1997 to May 1998. After an initial project, Stephen Fitzgerald is now opening "Objectile New Zealand" in Christchurch, and working with Rayonler New Zealand to develop a new range of machinable board: "Patinna Stress-free" MDF. Objectile has introduced an original production method based on the TopSolid software of the MISSLER group. Objectile is actually convinced that architectural creation now starts at the stage of software and technological tools. With the Objectile software, forms are not designed or drawn, but calculated. For with calculation it is possible to design complex curved surfaces whose slight variations cannot be controlled by traditional CAD. Each form may produce an unlimited number of variations which are presented in the form of interactive video sequences. To make the most of these surface generation resources, Objectile has developed a machining programme writing module which makes it possible to manufacture these series of objects - all of them different - industrially, on digitally controlled machines. So Objectile is in a position where it can guarantee its customers the technical and economic feasibility of their projects, no matter how complicated they may be, from the design stage on. Objectile has accordingly produced for the French Railways (SNCF) a ticket-office model with curved surfaces, which can be produced unit by unit on digitally controlled machinery, and can also be adapted to the situation specific to each particular station. Architecturally speaking, Objectile pays very special attention to secondary components which may become the medium of contemporary decoration. For Objectile, electronic architecture should not be restricted to major demonstrative projects; on the contrary, it should have to do with the most humdrum of buildings. As a result, Objectile has developed lines of decorative boards which help, for example, to differentiate doors in office corridors, and create series of facing.

			Semper Pavilion - Making a virtue out of necessity
			As part of Archilab, Objectile is making further investigations about the work of Gottfried Semper. The project also acts as a commentary where technology is inseparable from a form of anthropology. Broadly speaking, this project is extremely simple : a cube turned 60º, thus showing its main side to the entrance of the large exhibition hall. Every possible attention has been given to the calculation of the fluid elements and the complex textures, but it is also part of a right-angled geometry with flat sides, which is the very condition of the existence of architecture. Each of the elements originates from a mathematical model that is open to variation. So the pavilion built is just one specific case in an unlimited series entirely produced by digitally controlled machines. The elements of this Pavilion are four in number, in compliance with the organization of Gottfried Semper's thinking in "Die Vier Elemente der Baukunst". The mound or plinth which, for Semper, must insulate the building from the damp ground beneath it and protect it from flooding, has itself become fluid by its undulations, its outline and its texture. We thus go along with the fact that we do not find any solid foundation, which does not prevent us from building. Every aspect of it has been included in several layers of mathematical design, which was nothing new to Semper, who wrote an essay about the section of projectiles dispatched by catapults. The walls in themselves are reduced to vertical, screen-like enclosures with interwoven motifs. They are not load-bearing. They serve solely to enclose the area and clad it, as it were. The fretwork and tracery were produced by modulation algorithms- part above, part below - which represent the actual procedure of the textile. We should actually point out that the Semperian textile, from which the basic motifs of architecture originate, can in no way be reduced to fabric. Rather, it has to do with a crosswise procedure which finds a chance to differentiate itself from the most varied of materials: wood, ceramics, metal, and so on. At the same time, fretwork and tracery are basic tattooing patterns, which we have dealt with freely on the basis of a quasi-periodic graph. Because of the lighting system, the fretwork represents a kind of inner fabric which projects its motifs on the outer sheath of the room where the pavilion is installed. The roof is self-supporting; it is the architectonic crown of the pavilion, which does not alter the fact that it comes from models developed in the field of furniture. Furniture comes before edifice. These, in particular, are the models that Objectile has used to produce its series of "nymphea/water lily" tables. The shift to the scale of the building obviously has effects on the technique for manufacturing new boards which are assembled to make the roof. These boards in themselves form a series of variable elements, whose manufacturing process must be organized as such. Two holes are made in the roof, and these assume the property of that fundamental Semperian feature, the hearth, which lends the space a torus-like topology. Objectile borrows this element by adopting a multi-hearth perspective - the hearths themselves being deliberately off-centre.
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	Resources
	Biography
			Objectile Patrick Beaucé (1960) Artiste-designer DNS Expression Plastique, sous la direction de Claude Viallat. Bernard Cache (1958) Architecte, diplômé de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne ; diplômé de l'Institut de Philosophie, sous la direction de Gilles Deleuze, et diplômé l'Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales. Directeur d'études au BIPE, expert en télécommunication de l'image et télévision numérique. 1997 - Médaille d'or de l'innovation, Bâtimat. Enseignement 1999 / 1998 - Patrick Beaucé enseigne à l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes. Bernard Cache a enseigné les sciences humaines à l'ESSEC et l'économie de l'information à l'Institut Français de la Presse et enseigne actuellement à l'Université de Toronto. Principaux projets et réalisations : 1997 - Pallas House avec DECOi, Kuala lumpur ; Extension de l'Aéroport de Schipol - Consultant avec Ove Arup. Production - Réalisation de sculptures calculées par ordinateur et fabriquées par des machines à commandes numériques, de séries de panneaux décoratifs en bois (panneaux acoustiques, cloisons, faux-plafonds, portes, claustras), et tables (bureau, bistro, etc.). Design industriel et composants bâtiment - Série de guichets pour les gares SNCF de Paris, Bld Henri Martin, Enghien, Pierrefittes, Villeneuve St Georges. Expositions récentes : 1998 - FRAC Centre, Orléans (juin - septembre). 1997 - VPR One (automne) ; "Trans-Architecture 02" IFA (été) - Columbia - NY (automne) ; "Computers images" Imagina, Paris.
	Bibliography
			Principales publications de Bernard Cache 1998 - Objectile, Editions HYX / FRAC Centre. 1997 - "Terre meuble" Editions HYX. 1995 - "Earth Moves" Editions MIT. Auteur d'articles d'économie politique sur les médias et les télécommunications dans les journaux et revues tels que Libération et Médiapouvoirs. Bibliographie sélective 1996 - Wiederhall (juin). 1995 - Chimères (Hiver) ; De Architect (printemps) ; Journal of Philosophy and Visual Arts (automne). 1994 - Faces (printemps) ; ANY (mars-avril), Wiederhall (juin).
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