Advanced Fabrications: Fast, Cheap, and Brilliant

Advanced Fabrication: Fast, Cheap, and BrilliantThe field\’s longstanding emphasis on stability and timelessness as hallmarks of serious work has unnecessarily limited the scope of projects that architects are apt to target. As an alternative to adapting advanced technology to building construction — the focus of much fabrication research — this course will develop applications for more fleeting projects. Environments that are expendable, highly contemporary, small, and well funded are better fit to the capabilities of today\’s most sophisticated manufacturing systems. Relevant precedents include Barbara D\’Arcy\’s Bloomindale\’s sets, Roberto Mango\’s geodesic dome installations, and countless others typically located within the evanescent cultures of interior, retail, and exhibition design. With an eye toward a sensibility of aftermarket customization, projects will be made using CNC technology, airbrushing, and embedded lighting. The course\’s first phase will focus on the design, fabrication, and assembly of components that propose unconventional relationships between form, color, texture, material, and marquetry. These studies will incorporate detailing techniques that various design disciplines use for foams, plastics, and other synthetic materials. Projects will be subsequently tuned to specific aesthetic and functional parameters en route to developing a prototypical interior, and there will be weekly workshops and periodic readings throughout the semester.Advanced knowledge of digital modeling is required. Fabrication experience is preferred.