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.

SIGRADI 2010. XIV Congreso de la Sociedad Iberomaericana de Gráfica Digital, desarrollados los días 17, 18 y 19 de Noviembre del 2010. Bogotá, Colombia / Since 2008 the preference for using different programming methods (Rhinoscript) had been analyzed using blogs. Searching for answers to explain the negative tendency of this year (from 48,063 to 16,332), a second repository was created (Grasshopper) featuring interactive methods and techniques. It has been discovered that of the five geographic regions analyzed Latin America is the only one that preferred the interactive interface (18% over programming). This shows that we are still keeping a strong dependency on the use of stable and safe technologies over disruptive ones that proved to be more efficient in design and fabrication.

Latin American experiences are analyzed in order to identify adverse factors, describing the complexity of the implementation of a Fabrication Laboratory in the region. As a starting point we take the implementation done by groups of academics coming back to their origin countries, and others that after the implementation they were born or adapted to an academic supervision (Fab Lab MIT) or a technical and commercial one (Rhino FabLab). In the whole, the results allow to identify opportunities for the future.

Conference: 16th International Conference, CAAD Futures 2015 - "The next city". São Paulo, Brazil, July 8-10, 2015, At São Paulo, Brazil., Volume: Computer-Aided Architectural Design Futures. The Next City - New Technologies and the Future of the Built Environment ( Communications in Computer and Information Science, Volume 527 - 2015) / The present paper is a mapping study of digital fabrication laboratories in Latin America. It presents and discusses results from a survey with 31 universities’ fab labs, studios and independent initiatives in Latin America. The objective of this study is fourfold: firstly, to draw the cultural, social and economic context of implementation of digital fabrication laboratories in the region; secondly, to synthesize relevant data from correlations between organizational structures, facilities and technologies, activities, types of prototypes, uses and areas of application; thirdly, to draw a network of people and institutions, recovering connections and the genealogy of these fab labs; and fourthly, to present some fab labs that are intertwined with local questions. The results obtained indicate a complex “homo faber” network of initiatives that embraces academic investigations, architectural developments, industry applications, artistic propositions and actions in social processes.

In moments when the artisanship tradition seems to disappear because of industrial production, we analyze cases where digital fabrication and visual programming were used in Latin American craft, encouraged by architects with skills in digital tools. The situations confront artisans with access to digital platforms and internet, use of learned skills, and the need to modify the technological level in their products and processes. Regional initiatives, which could change contemporary design history in the region with the establishing of a trans-disciplinary systematized synergy, show that traditional materials are used and unique components maintain their originality, from a region that attempts to enter into new global markets.

abstract: Digital Fabrication has played a pivotal role in providing reality to industrial designers' ideas since its first commercial use in late 80's. Making the final prototype of a design project has been the initial assumed use for these technologies in the design process. However, new technology advances in this area offer further opportunities for designers. In this research these opportunities have been carefully explored. This research will be conceptualized through discussing the findings of a case study and theories in the areas of Industrial Design methodology, digital fabrication, and design pedagogy. Considering the span of digital fabrication capabilities, this research intends to look into the design-fabrication relation from a methodology perspective and attempts to answer the question of how the digital fabrication methods can be integrated into the Industrial Design process to increase the tangibility of the design process in very first steps. It will be argued that the above is achievable in certain design topics - i.e. those with known components but unknown architecture. This will be studied through the development of series of hypothetical design processes emphasizing the role of digital fabrication as an ideation tool rather than a presentation tool. In this case study, two differing processes have been developed and given to Industrial Design students to design specific power tools. One of them is developed based on the precedence of digital fabrication. Then the outcome of the two processes is compared and evaluated. This research will introduce the advantages of using the digital fabrication techniques as a powerful ideation tool, which overcomes the imagination problems in many of complicated design topics. More importantly, this study suggests the criteria of selecting the proposed design methodology. It is hoped that these findings along with the advances in the area of additive and subtractive fabrication will assist industrial designers to create unique methodologies to deal with complicated needs both in practice and design education. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Design 2012

The pursuit of reducing waste and carbon emissions in the building industry is a challenge which is collective, prescient, and an opportunity for explorations of new material practices and fabrication methods. This thesis seeks to show how digital fabrication can serve as a tool in material reclamation and reuse in architecture. Utilizing the design of a pharmaceutical headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts as a vessel for investigation, both the challenges and potentials of such a process are evaluated. This proposal includes a process by which material reclamation drives design decisions in order to show that when architects consider material lifecycles and design for a process, rather than just a product, new possibilities can be realized for a building and its implications. By reusing existing metal cladding in the pharmaceutical building's solar veil, not only is waste reduced, but a narrative is conveyed about possible futures. Through creative material practices and digital tools, architects have the opportunity to create a future that is locally grounded, resource efficient, and less wasteful while meeting the needs of an expanding global population. This thesis raises a number of questions around material use in buildings, fabrication methods, facade design, and the balance between performance and embodied traits. The journey of designing for material systems is documented here in order to show the possibilities for change in the industry towards more sustainable material practices. / Master of Architecture / Around the world, buildings are one of the top producers of carbon emissions and waste. Responsible and creative methods for material use in buildings is imperative to address the current global climate and environmental crises. This thesis seeks to show how digital fabrication can serve as a tool in material reclamation and reuse in architecture. Utilizing the design of a pharmaceutical headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts as a vessel for investigation, both the challenges and potentials of such a process are evaluated. In this proposal, material reclamation drives design decisions in order to show that when architects consider material lifecycles and design for a process, rather than just a product, new possibilities can be realized for a building and its larger impacts. By reusing existing metal cladding in the pharmaceutical building's solar veil, not only is waste reduced, but a narrative is conveyed about possible futures. Through creative material practices and digital tools, architects have the opportunity to create a future that is locally grounded, resource efficient, and less wasteful while meeting the needs of an expanding global population. This thesis raises a number of questions around material use in buildings, fabrication methods, facade design, and the balance between performance and embodied traits. The journey of designing for material systems is documented here in order to show the possibilities for change in the industry towards more sustainable material practices.

Modern architecture has lost its sense of place by the adoption of practices like standardization and universal modularity, over the focus and influence of unique local building practices. However, looking outside of the cultural main stream works of architecture, there exists some built structures with such purity around how they were constructed and a form of honesty deeply embedded within their material usage. Having been idealized in such a locally specific manner, these attributes become the essence of belonging that ties the building to its particular place. In this thesis, I have considered architecture both within regional or vernacular architectural traditions and the unconstrained means and methods of modern architecture. I looked at how modern technologies related to fabrication can be influenced by the subtle adaptations that traditional architecural crafts have developed, unique to specific regions. / Master of Architecture

XIX Congresso da Sociedade Ibero-americana de Gráfica Digital 2015. De 23 a 27 de Novembro de 2015. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis/SC, Brasil / The article presents a mapping of digital fabrication laboratories in South America from the architecture and urbanism field. First, it draws a brief context of implementation of facilities and growing of expertise highlighting economic, academic and cultural aspects. Second, it presents some data mapped from 31 laboratories of the region, as infrastructure, and correlations between uses and applications. Third, it organizes the mapped laboratories in two significant approaches for the region’s context: works focused on technological development and actions directed to the social and environmental development. Fourth, it infers some possible steps of the field in the region in the near future.

Proceedings from the Fab 9 Research Stream 9th International Fablab Conference, 21-27 July 2013, Yokohama. / Since 2007, Latin America has incorporated a set of emerging techniques promoted under three initiatives: a) from the experience of Master and Doctoral students who return to their home countries and promote their experience, b) from the external academic experience that goes towards the region, and c) from self-learning. These experiences are developed in an academic area, unlike Europe or the U.S., where they were promoted from and to professional practice, with varying degrees of implementation and effect. Generally speaking, the academic programs of the region lack a policy of inclusion of systematized emerging technologies, and that produces a slow uptake, especially in architecture. On one hand, if educational policies are not stable, equipment investment cannot be stable, and on the other hand, the generation gap between those who promote and those who accept blends into disruption and status quo. Each implementation in the region produces adverse and complex patterns, replicating existing models and seeking alliances with institutions in developed countries. Thus, there are self-help groups, while others incorporate academic, technical and/or commercial supervisions, in principle through the Center for Bits and Atoms (MIT Fab Lab) and McNeel Associates (Rhino Fab Lab). In this research, we evidence evolution and implementation processes in Latin America of the three types of initiatives, analyzing the case study in Peru, which together open up the possibility of moving from a phase of experimentation, trial and error to another that actually promotes local innovation and inclusion.