A Case Study of Materiality and the Necessity of Craft in the Age of Digital Fabrication

Digital technologies have opened up a vast array of possibilities with respect to architectural design and fabrication. Architects must be wary, however, of not only the possibilities but also the limitations inherent in digital fabrication methods, particularly the continued need for trial and error and craft as integral parts of the construction process. We tend to extend the precision of digital fabrication to all aspects of buildings that incorporate these technologies and forget that, at least for the time being, the building process is still subject to the vagaries of weather, human error, and site conditions