Fabricating a Future Architecture

During the Renaissance era, the builder was the master of both design and fabrication. The Industrial Revolution split these two activities in the pursuit of higher efficiency. Now, the ascendance of digital fabrication could bring the two back together. This study explores the current and future use of digital fabrication in architecture. Digital fabrication is increasingly used to manufacture components for other industries, but it is experiencing slower adoption in the building industry due to size and material limitations and a contract process that makes fabricators less willing to take risks on newer digital technology. A design project was undertaken to establish a digital design-to-fabrication workflow that could work on actual building components for a large-scale built environment. The resulting workflow did offer the advantages of design freedom and the elimination of shop drawings, but the absence of large-scale 3D printing still makes it difficult to quickly fabricate and assemble mass-customized, non-uniform 3D designs