Implementing Advanced Knowledge
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5 .4.2 Fabian Scheurer
Digital Fabrication in Architecture
IaaC Lecture Series: Digital Fabrication in Architecture
(IaaC Lecture Series 13th November 2012; synopsis by Jordi Vivaldi)
The new tools of graphic representation that computational technology has brought closer to architecture have multiplied the interest for the exploration of new formal solutions. It is about digital tools that are relatively simple and intuitive, and that allow the user to manipulate complex surfaces with high level of precision and leaving aside some formal complications. However, when is the moment to go beyond the digital moment and it is required to fabricate that architecture, complexity appears again and it is inevitable to face it. That signifies to start a constructive process that has nothing to do with the traditional construction that architecture has been developping durint the last decades and that still nowadays is a predominating practice. The main differences in between both developments are fundamentally based in three aspects that are totally transforming the usual sense of architectonic fabrication and that are introducing radically new concepts in its practice. Firstly and extremely important, the constructive process is not lineal anymore. It becomes a synchronic exercise: even if this constructive process it’s following a layout that have several layers (architectonic design, digital modelling, digital fabrication design and final assembly), the process works with all the levels at the same time insteat of progressing in a correlational and unidirectional manner. Therefore, all the layers of the constructive process are simultaneously retro-fitting in between them, suffering certain adjustments and variations in his schemes and optimizing the constructive solution. In this process is specially important the detail of the joint in between the different pieces, because it is going to be the correct adjustment of it that will be determinating in order to continue with all the different layers of the constructive process. Secondly, it is being sustantially incremented the number of involucrated actors in the constructive development and the transversal interaction in between all of them. Beside the client, the architect and the promotor, it is impossible to not count on the participation of an assambly enterprise, an Cover - Shigeru Ban Project, IaaC Archive Figure 1 - Shigeru Ban Project, IaaC Archive Figure 2 - Fabian Scheurer Project, IaaC Archive 2
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Figure 3 - Fabian Scheurer at IaaC, IaaC Archive Figure 4 - Fabian Scheurer at IaaC, IaaC Archive 6
enterprise of pre-fabrication and a parametric modelator. Communication in between the actors need to be continuous and simultaneously involucrate all the protagonists, given that the constructive solution needed to be applied has to do with all their imputs. Finally, the construction in-situ is being reduced to a mere assambly process. All the elements are prefabricated, elaborated in industries far from the final emplacement and following all the computationally stablished parameters: the is no possibility of change or adaptation when the piece its arriving to the site. With this scenario, the assambly is fast, efficient and precise, but requires a big dose of rigour in the previous digital development, because on the one hand the error margin is reduced to some milimiters, and on the other hand, any imprecision in the digital model will be reproduced in the new fabricated model. Therefore, it seems evident that the apparition of the computational phenomena in architecture cannot be reduced just to make a revolution in its conceptual generation and in its visual representation, but has also shacked the foundations of its construction. It’s appearing a digital fabrication that is not paying attention any more to the traditional constructives methods in which it was beeing founded,and its mainly adapting and transforming its principles in order to fit the logic proposed by the new digital tools.
“...all the layers of the constructive process are simultaneously retrofitting in between them.�
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IAAC BITS
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IAAC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Manuel Gausa, IaaC Dean
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
EDITORIAL TEAM Manuel Gausa, IaaC Dean Mathilde Marengo, Communication & Publication Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
ADVISORY BOARD: Areti Markopoulou, IaaC Academic Director Tomas Diez, Fab Lab Bcn Director Silvia Brandi, Academic Coordinator Ricardo Devesa, Advanced Theory Concepts Maite Bravo, Advanced Theory Concepts
DESIGN: Ramon Prat, ACTAR Editions
IAAC BIT FIELDS: 1. Theory for Advanced Knowledge 2. Advanced Cities and Territories 3. Advanced Architecture 4. Digital Design and Fabrication 5. Interactive Societies and Technologies 6. Self-Sufficient Lands
Nader Tehrani, Architect, Director MIT School Architecture, Boston Juan Herreros, Architect, Professor ETSAM, Madrid Neil Gershenfeld, Physic, Director CBA MIT, Boston Hanif Kara, Engineer, Director AKT, London Vicente Guallart, Architect, Chief City Arquitect of Barcelona Willy Muller, Director of Barcelona Regional Aaron Betsky, Architect & Art Critic, Director Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Hugh Whitehead, Engineer, Director Foster+ Partners technology, London Nikos A. Salingaros, Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio Salvador Rueda, Ecologist, Director Agencia Ecologia Urbana, Barcelona Artur Serra, Anthropologist, Director I2CAT, Barcelona
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