Digital Fabrication in Architecture

by Nick Dunn

With the increasing sophistication of CAD and other design software, there is now a wide array of means for both designing and fabricating architecture and its components. The proliferation of advanced modeling software and hardware has enabled architects and students to conceive and create designs that would be very difficult to do using more traditional methods. This book focuses on the inspiring possibilities for architecture that can be achieved with all the different technologies and techniques available for making complete designs or their components.

Genres: Architecture

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 2012

Reviews

[Kasper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially i thought the book would be more about materials, software, techniques and algorithms, and less about whatever meanings artists were trying to invoke with the array of individual case studies that are presented in the book. I was expecting something like a manual or at least an introduction to the subject that would put me on a path toward trying some of these techniques myself on a computer. What I got instead were sentences like the following:

'This proposition maintains the instrumental capacity of representation as a space of speculation and specification, while addressing issues pertaining to the ideal, predictive and predetermined characteristics of representational methods in relation to contexts of use that tend toward the endemically dynamic and contingent.'

This sentence talks about a designer who inflates large metal shapes with fluids so they expand irregularly, then 3d scans them, and bases the starting shape of his next piece on the result of the previous one. At least, I guess he 3d scans them. The most technical term to describe the process is that it 'ínforms' the next shape. I give the book 3 stars for the fifteen pages spread throughout the books dealing with technical matters, showing me a few interesting case studies here and there, and a nice list of 'further reading' at the end. Spelling BIM full-out as 'Building Information Management' on page 37 almost makes me detract a star, but I can resist the urge.