On Making [
On Digital Dissemination] [
On Digital Pedagogy] [
On Digital Research]
Synthetic Making
The hybridization of information through various forms of virtual and physical modeling has led to a synthetic form of making that is plastic and scalable in nature. This shift from traditional forms of representing and generating architecture now addresses full-scale construction and fabrication processes and links transparently to industry. Architects are dynamically informing the visioning processes of assemblies and design through a range of precise subassemblies. Further to this end, the synthetic nature of forms and materials are opening up avenues for designers to investigate a range of fibers and fabrics that have radically transformed light and color renditions, and texture. Investigations in the realm of traditional materials such as stone, wood, and concrete continue to evolve, as do their associated forms of making. As a result of synthetic technologies, architects today have the possibility to work along side industry engineers and professionals to design castings, moldings, patterns, and tools that challenge not only the architectural built form, but industrial- and product-design as well.
This cultural shift from physical space to virtual space back to physical space combining hand-, digital-, and robotic-making offers a unique juxtaposition of architecture to manufacturing that challenges conventional norms of building through precision and tolerance. The discrepancies between the drawn and actualized challenge traditional forms of documentation as the level of precision and tolerance at the virtual level far exceed the degree of tolerance typically encountered in the field. It is within this context that leading-edge architects and designers operate today. How the profession and the academy respond to this genre remains an open line of inquiry and addressing these concerns opens up the rich potential enabled through synthetic making.
Digital Making Session One:
Digital Ornament
Architecture and Industrial Design: A Convergent Process for Design Exchange
Manufacturing Surface Effects
Digital Making Session Two:
Performance House 1 – A CADCAM Modular House System
Eucalyptus: A Participatory Design Studio
Curvilinear – Pedagogy of Tensile Fabrications
