Week 2 - Design to Production

3D computational softwares, digital modelling and its influence within architectural design has developed to become an efficient tool, which has expanded not only into architecture, but also into many other industries. Digital information has risen to be the essential component within the architecture and building industry, where computational design is influenced and incorporates multi-layer complexities of system generated computational design. With the development of new software coupled with developing hardware, complex designs are formed through the collaboration between design and information. Although technology is developing at a rapid rate, and designing starts to seem like an “autonomous” process through the complex calculations of non-linear splines, ultimately humans still control the selection of parameters and exchange of information within technology.

The relationship between the designer and the builder has fluctuated, where architect and constructions have parted ways. Kolarevic states that “building contractors were reluctant to take on projects they saw as –unbuildable- so designers became closely involved in the digital making of buildings.” Architecture before the digital turn, was seen to have a distant relationship between architecture and construction, with very little to no communication between the two. Through to the digital age, there is more sense of collaboration between architect and construction. Kolarevic states that “The close relationship that once existed between architecture and construction could potentially re-emerge as an unintended but fortunate outcome of the new digital process of production.”

Fabrication and its processes have been developed through the introduction of new technologies. These New technologies include CNC fabrication and CAM technologies, which allow for mass customization at the cost of traditional mass manufacturing methods. The relations between architect and machinery operators mirrors the relationship between the master builder, or the architect, and the artisians in the pro-renaissance era. The gained interdisciplinary knowledge has increased the efficiency and has the designer and constructor more involved with the whole process from design to production.

Readings:

Scheurer, F. (2014). Materialising Complexity. Theories of the digital in architecture. R. Oxman and R. Oxman: 283-291.

Klinger, K. (2008). Relations: Information Exchange in Designing and Making Architecture. Manufacturing material effects : rethinking design and making in architecture. B. Kolarevic and K. R. Klinger. New York, Routledge: 26-36. 

Kolarevic, B. 2003. ‘Digital Production’. Architecture in the digital age: design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon Press: Pp. 40-68