DIGITAL CRAFT

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2019

Implementing Manufacturing Computer Technologies in Practice: The current position of Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacture (CAD/CAM) technology presents an opportunity for architects to explore new design relationships with the added possibility of producing physical outputs. It is proposed that these technologies support existing design processes, rather than supplanting them. The recently completed Bilbao Guggenheim Museum establishes a precedent for the utilisation of CAD/CAM in design practice. Architects are utilising advanced computer technologies from the manufacturing industry as a means to facilitate design evaluation, and designers are able to control manufacturing equipment directly from computer models. Techniques used for the execution of the Bilbao museum suggest that the production of customised building components that suit a unique product, may be increasingly feasible, thereby recalling the concept of a ‘Kit of Parts’ in architecture. The close integration of manufacturing digital technologies with architectural processes has the potential to improve design analysis and reduce design practice overheads thereby supporting craft, management and fabrication. Conclusion The proposition of craft within technology represents a paradox, yet in contemporary architectural practice, technology can be complementary to, rather than being in opposition with traditional design thinking. By inserting CAD/CAM techniques seamlessly into the traditional design and construction process, the technology can be interpreted as a contemporary medium for the craft process. The co-ordination of assembly processes leads to the possibility of a virtual design office that utilises CAD/CAM to control the fabrication of building components, monitor deliveries to site and erection in place. This research provides a basis for further research to be conducted into the implementation of CAD/CAM in design education and practice.

Use it or lose it" is an aphorism that over time has acquired several connotations depending upon what "it" refers to. In a pedagogical context, it alludes to the importance of exercising one's mental faculties lest neurological dust collects on a brain's synaptic pathways. 1 To an athlete it refers to the inevitable atrophic demise awaiting muscles left too long inert. However, sometimes the "it" refers to an activity entailing a coalescence of multidimensional skills on both esoteric and exoteric planes, idiosyncratic and subtle in nature, difficult to quantify. Skills that are a complex synthesis of behavioral constructs consolidating intellectual aptitude, physical dexterity and sensorial acumen.

This article for Estonian magazine MAJA advances the argument that what we consider “digital” in architecture, may in fact be analog. Architects have consistently misunderstood the nature of the digital, and have mainly based their argument on “the affordance” of computer controlled machines to create differentiated forms. This analog approach to digital manufacturing has led to a situation where architecture is reduced to a surface and disconnected from the actual economic and political implications of digital manufacturing tools. The article develops a series of arguments and discussions about the relationship between “the digital” and architecture. It advances the criticism that “we have never been digital” - not as a negative, counter-argument, but as something propositional, continuing the project of the digital in architecture in the long run - post 2008. The text advances the Digital and Discrete, as a propositional argument for another way to think about the digital and architecture, driven by the notion of a digital building block. It is an invitation to leave the surface behind, to recolonise the depth of architecture, fundamentally questioning how it is produced, distributed, and given form. Apart of the more architectural questions related to syntax and part-to-whole relations, a focus on digital production beyond mere formal differentiation sets up a discussion about the potential social agency of these tools. It enables the possibility for architects to engage the digital in a larger social discussion. At the same time, the focus on parts, composition and syntax keep this discussion firmly grounded in design. In the digital-discrete, the political engagement is integrated : digital fabrication tools are understood as a way to engage with modes of production and therefore also social and political ideas. Rather than an isolated conversation about material behaviour and structural performance, architects can use their understanding of digital workflows to contribute ideas to a vivid cultural and political debate about the future of capitalism, automation, the status of the city, housing etc.

Journal of Computational Design, 2022

New production techniques and digital design tools allow new possibilities in architecture and digital fabrication laboratories provide an environment for these new opportunities. In addition to its potential in terms of science and technology, digital fabrication creates many opportunities for artistic aspects of architecture. Therefore we aimed to make a theoretical discussion and try to provide a new perspective for an evaluation of the phenomenon in the context of artistic and poetic aspects. From this perspective, to clarify the artistic aspects of architecture in the context of digital fabrication technologies and to understand how the subject is covered in the literature clearly, a comprehensive literature review has been made. Initially, the literature review was limited to the themes of digital fabrication and architecture to extract from out-of-context articles and 197 peer review journals written in the last 10 years were examined. Then, a pre-coding schema was prepared f...

The paper examines the gradual shift that has occurred in architectural authorship with the introduction of digital intelligent tools that aid in the process of creation and production of architectural space. By examining the nature of digital architectural design tools starting from their very beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, one can observe a certain pattern of transfer of both capabilities and decision, in the process of creation, from the designer towards the artificial intelligence of the machine. This transfer has rendered the software instrument, the driving will behind the power of the computer, into a veritable extension of the human intellect. This of course, has empowered architects, as well as other professions, to extend the reach of the architectural art and science to previously undreamt extents. Looking at the nature of the architectural software tool in its numerous declinations(the CAD program, the plug-ins, the script, a difference between the instrumental nature of the traditional facilitators of architectural design (like the drawing instruments and medium, pen and paper) and the new digital ones becomes evident. This paper aims to show that the gradual departure from the muted neutrality of the tradition towards the empowering new abilities gained through the digital shift has both immense advantages but also pitfalls that need to be navigated with skill and wisdom. To achieved that, a brief recourse to the history of architectural creation with regard to the digital shift will be made. This will help to prove that architectural authorship connected to the architectural notation (digital or analog) has always been in question, well before the first real applications of computers in the creation of architectural space. Secondly looking into the nature of the new digital architectural tools and especially into those belonging to the new digital wave, we need to acknowledge and accept that the extended ability to design, now ubiquitous throughout the profession, comes at a price. The architect, now user of digital tools, produces designs that are (in some cases) more the result of the particular instruments used than of the architect's own creativity. This raises the question of shared authorship of the architectural design with the creators of architectural tools. In the paper some typologies of digital architectural creation, with various degrees of shared authorship are analyzed and discussed. For a beter understanding of the changes arising from the deeper integration of algorithmic tools and thinking into the architectural design and workflow the paper looks into the phases of architectural authorship of the design. The post-architectural phase gathers everything that happens with the design after it is outside the control of the architect-designer. Usually here we find all the normalization changes needed for the physical production/building of the architectural artifact. These usually do not impact major aspects of the design and therefore can be considered to have low to insignificant influence on authorship. The architectural phase, although using a strict name, does not refer to design changes initiated by the author architect. It refers to changes made during the period when the design process directly involves the architectural author. The pre-architectural phase is of most interest to our endeavor because it is located at the very beginning of the creation process. This is the part where the inception of architectural form starts and also where the first ties are created between the author and its work. The digital intelligent tools of today incorporate prepackaged wisdom that unlike the simple tools of our analog past facilitate, but inevitably also suggest the path for the design. This is what can be called the pre-architectural phase, the creation of the intelligent architectural tool one capable of extending the reach of the human mind but also constraining its ability for picking its own cretive direction. Another important point in the paper is made by analyzing the way digital tools are helping the creative profession extend the reach of the human intellect in the quest for more and better design. A critical look reveals a number of steps that both designers and digital instruments took in relation to one another all in the service of better architectural design. The paper build upon the a chronology proposed by Robert Aish[1] . The first stage was the early CAD era when digital tools were used only as faster and more exact analog ones. First the new design instruments were included in the existing design paradigm. The second stage or the blob era was the first real digital augmentation of the creative architectural mind by harnessing the power of differential calculus and making it available to the (mathematically untrained) designer through an interface. The next stage, the BIM era, is a return from the digital formalism and exuberance of the '90s towards a more practical use of digital power, performance of the process. This in Aish's view marks also a return to a forced formal restraint embedded in the instruments. The last stage and the most important from out point of view is the computational design also known as algorithmic or parametric design. In computational design a critical step is the pre-architectural phase when the designer or design temp creates the bespoke instruments that will facilitate the design As Robert Aish [1] states in the same text, computational design creates a critical distinction between the generative description of a building and the visual or textual description of the result, the final form. This becomes a critical disjunction between design as static form and design as a process with multiple outcomes, the design that builds potential versus the design that builds form. Based on this idea the paper proposes that architectural authorship is also split between the creativity placed with building the instruments and the one spent using them to create the design. In order to support this the paper looks deeper into the ways a favorite technique of algorithmic design, scripting, is helping architects and splitting architectural authorship. The result of this endeavor hopes to prove that digital multiple-authorship of architectural design is the next big leap in design. It is what is gradually happening in the architectural profession after the primal digital enhancement of the architectural mind through computers and software. Now architectural expertize and inspiration receives a new dimension. From parallel evolution and ulterior cross-fertilization, design is slowly becoming serial and infinitely additive, all as a result of the new embedded intelligence of the digital architectural tool. Building from the finds of this investigation the paper concludes that the architect profession needs to accept the dilution of intellectual property of the design between the user-architect and a new breed of instrument-creator-architect a big part of the future of real creativity. References [1] Aish R. First build your tools. In eds. Bradley Peters, Terri Peters. Inside Smart Geometry Expanding the Architectural Possibilities of Computational Design. John Wiley & Sons, pp. 36-49. 2013

2017

Alberti’s writings introduced a new conception of the architect that started with the Renaissance and continues to dominate until today. During modernity however there have been movements that challenged that idea, like the arts and crafts, by placing importance on concepts like craftsmanship; concepts that had their roots in pre-modern practices. Digital fabrication protocols are offering a possibility to reconnect to some of those properties, albeit in a new, protocol-mediated fashion.