Throughout her visionary, award-winning work in architecture, design, fashion, and beyond, Julia Koerner seeks to push boundaries. Whether it’s a new process, new materials, or a unique approach, Koerner is always seeking to reshape the way we view the world and the way we interact with it. Koerner’s designs have been featured in the National Geographic Magazine, VICE, WIRED and the New York Times, and institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art have showcased her work. 

Koerner is also a dynamic artist comfortable working in an array of disciplines. In design and architecture, she’s the founder of JK Design GmbH and JK3D, a firm specializing in digital design for 3D printing. Within fashion, she’s worked on high-profile 3D-printed fashion pieces for Swarovski, the Paris Fashion week, and Marvel’s “Black Panther,” which won an Oscar for Best Costume Design. Koerner holds master’s degrees in architecture from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the Architectural Association in London and has been a faculty member within the architecture and urban design department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) since 2012.

One of her most recent projects was the “Cactus Homes” affordable housing project undertaken as part of ICON’s “Initiative 99” design competition. Initiative 99 brought together “students, designers and architects from around the world to address the global housing crisis by designing homes that could be built for $99,000 or less with ICON's 3D-printed construction technology.” From a collection of around 300 entries, JK3D’s entry was named to a list of just a handful of winners and honorable mentions, partly thanks to Altair SimSolid®.

To learn more about the Cactus Homes project and JK3D’s use of Altair SimSolid, the Altair editorial team sat down with Koerner to explore the project’s inspiration, goals, and how Altair technology helped make it a reality.

Q: Before we talk about the Cactus Homes project, can you tell us a little about yourself and what sorts of projects you’re drawn to? How do you define your approach?

Julia Koerner: Sure. My biography covers a lot of who I am and what I do, but to summarize, I am a designer, architect, and artist that seeks to push the limits of traditional methods and designs. I was born in Salzburg, Austria, and I split my time between there and Los Angeles, California. I own and run two companies – including the label JK3D – teach at UCLA, and I am a mother. In the past, I have held academic appointments at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Lund University in Sweden, and the Architectural Association Visiting Schools in France and Jordan.

As for what I like to do and my approach, my overarching aim is to rethink how we traditionally design and create using novel methods, both from the computational design aspect and in how we make ideas tangible with innovative fabrication techniques like 3D printing. More simply, I try to focus on using new, innovative design methods and processes. I really just want to rethink and change the ways we conceptualize and produce things in a better way for our world.

Q: Tell us more about the Initiative 99 project. How did you find your way to it?

JK: Initiative 99 was an open, public architecture competition. In the first phase of the competition, I think there were about 300 submissions from 60-90 different countries. I hadn’t participated in an architectural competition for more than 10 years, but this one seemed a good fit. From there, six winners were selected – three in the open category and three in the student category – alongside 10 honorable mentions. Our entry was named an honorable mention. Because of this we were invited to also participate in the competition’s second phase, in which we won honorable mention once again.

Q: Designing sustainable affordable housing for less than $99,000 is a difficult, unique challenge. What motivated your team to accept it?

JK: In all the work I do, I'm always trying new techniques and technologies. What motivated me to do this competition is that, as an architect, for the last 20 years I have focused mostly on small-scale 3D printing techniques because the technology was so advanced on that small scale. Only recently have we seen the advance of 3D printing and additive manufacturing in the architecture realm. Now, there are fewer limitations, more possibilities, and less complexity on both the design and manufacturing sides.

I figured Initiative 99 was my opportunity to dive back into doing an architectural project where I could realize my design ideas on a larger scale in a way that wasn’t possible 15 years ago.

Q: Beyond the main objectives, were there any other requirements or features ICON was looking for?

JK: Certainly. They were really interested in having the houses be comfortable since they were primarily designed for people who were previously homeless or displaced. That was an important quality they were evaluating aesthetically.

Sustainability and resilience was also a major focus. We took that into account in a few ways, primarily in the roof, which we angled inward so it could collect rainwater that filtered into a storage tank. We also put a lot of thought into things like material selection, building orientation (to maximize sunlight for the house’s solar panels), cross ventilation (to minimize air conditioning usage), and beyond.

In the competition’s second phase, we also had to consider how the house would fit in within a physical site located in Austin, Texas, which already had some other microhomes. For this phase we focused on maximizing community, individuality, the living experience, and resilience through paths, outdoor furniture, green spaces, etc.

Q: Where did the inspiration for the cactus-inspired homes stem from? Of all the directions and styles you could have used, why did you choose this concept?

JK: The inspiration came from two places: thinking about pushing the boundaries of what is currently possible with 3D-printed concrete and looking at nature. We knew early that we wanted to have the undulating walls you see in the final concept. From there, I started thinking about which plant or system in nature mirrors some of these concepts. For example, we had a circular floor plan, a textured exterior pattern, and a system for gathering and recycling water. It wasn’t that I saw the cactus and started designing, it was the other way around – I knew roughly what I wanted to design and looked for a natural system that would guide me as we progressed. It was textbook biomimicry: analyzing and learning from nature so we can implement those characteristics in human designs.

Q: What were some of the main challenges you faced when working through this design?

JK: Well, in most of my work I use 3D printing as part of my process; I print designs and ideas at a 1:1 scale and let those physical results guide me as I progress through a project. Obviously in this competition we didn’t have that option since we couldn’t build a 1:1 replica of an entire house. It was challenging not to have that direct physical feedback loop. But it was also motivation.

The other challenge was that we are a very small team here at JK3D. We are normally a team of five or so people; for this competition we had a few extra people on board for a team of about eight, divided between Los Angeles and Vienna, Austria. But that is still a small team for a competition of this scale and scope. Many of the other entries were submitted from full-scale architecture firms with finished buildings and concepts in their portfolios. Our team is small, but it made winning an honorable mention that much more meaningful.

Q: How did Altair tools play a role in this concept? What was the partnership with Altair experts like?

JK: For this project I worked closely with [Altair expert] Jaideep [Bangal] and his team. He was in Los Angeles for a 3D printing conference, but during his trip he came to my office and I showed him around our studio and he was so enthusiastic about working on this project together. Throughout the Cactus Homes project, we’d send his team 3D files and they would perform structural analyses for us. They mainly conducted a series of structural simulations to benchmark the house’s geometry against other simple curvilinear forms – which can already be efficient – yet we wanted to demonstrate how organic forms can potentially do more with less. In other words, they were testing and validating different design variations for the living spaces, walls, and water tank. The goal was to lower stresses and deflections and minimize material volume and weight. The results ensured we were getting the best, most efficient designs possible and adapting our workflows to generate more efficient forms. 

The collaboration was really nice in large part because Jaideep is very interested in the work I do. After this project, we did another collaboration where his team designed a necklace and we 3D printed it for them, which they displayed at the Formnext event in Germany. It was the start of an exchange of ideas, and he was really interested in the ways I could use the software more in my work.

Q: What were you most proud of as this project progressed and eventually wrapped up?

JK: I am really proud of having implemented my thoughts and ideas on an architectural scale. To be selected as one of 300 teams and get invited to participate in the contest’s second phase was a big honor. It has ignited a desire within me to explore more and do more in this direction, and I am really excited about the possibilities of 3D printing within architecture in general – especially when you talk about sustainability and manufacturability.

Q: As an educator, how do you view advanced simulation tools within your educational practice? Are these the kinds of tools today’s architecture students should be familiar with?

JK: Well, for years now I have shown Altair SimSolid to my students to encourage them to use it for finite element (FE) and structural analysis. More broadly, before anything, I tell people that when you encounter a constraint or an obstacle, don’t stop trying to push boundaries. Sometimes there might not even be a tool for what you are trying to solve or simulate – that happens when you are pushing boundaries. There will be obstacles. But you should always be looking to solve problems, whether that’s by yourself or working with experts or trying new methods.

As for the tools themselves, it is pretty common for architecture and design students to be exposed to 3D modeling tools, but they are likely not as exposed to simulation tools like Altair’s. I think there is a huge learning opportunity here; tools like this should be integrated more into students’ curriculum so they can get more immediate feedback on designs and validations. They open new possibilities that previously required a ton of time or, say, five separate tools. 

My task as an educator is to show students that these tools are out there and that they can make their workflows easier, faster, and more innovative. After all there are going to be plenty of students who specialize in architecture but that end up working for engineering-first firms. This early exposure then gives them a major boost. 

To learn more about Julia Koerner and the Cactus Homes project, visit https://www.juliakoerner.com/copy-of-virtual-bloom. To learn more about Altair SimSolid, visit https://altair.com/simsolid. 

Thank you to the full JK3D team: Julia Koerner, Oliver Hamedinger, Naomi Neururer, Thomas Koyama, Kais Al-Rawi, Lucia Flir, Kinamee Rhodes, and Stefanie Thaller.