Informing Design through Production Formulations

Over the decade of the aughts, architectural discourse has charted a new course, and in the wake of the digital effect on mainstream architectural thinking, we find ourselves in a great age of exploration. Research in digital fabrication has moved from the general to the specific, in that it aims to focus efforts related to technological impact on particular cases and variable parameters which contribute to even larger ideas, such as manufacturing, the social impact, sustainable practices, etc. Specific work on building components, coupled with a pragmatic rigor about durability, strength, and production have provided concrete examples of work that spin out of these design-through-production investigations. To be certain, each new design-through-production project explores unique territory and contributes to the knowledge map by adding to a matrix of possible applications. Still, we align our work with the age-old discipline of architectural thinking, while privileging Making, Materials, Performance, Form, and Function. Indeed, form is informed by performance! The principles that govern the human decision-making, in light of this new kind of digitally generated work have yet to be clearly articulated, but techniques and methods have expanded to create new opportunities for making architecture. In fact, research has tended to be less about framing the new principles for making digital architecture and more about adding specific cases to the knowledge base, as each new project helps to define the collective body