How can emerging industrial processes reshape building
design and construction? This book focuses on making buildings in
a new way.
We are presenting design ideas, technical innovation,
and fabrication expertise that address crucial issues. Authors investigate
how to effectively design and practice architecture with automated
prototyping and manufacturing. We want to understand where this
might lead, and how it might change the nature of architecture itself.
We are just beginning to discover the opportunities to be found
in integrating automated fabrication within the practice of architecture.
At the same time, the new century has brought very mixed perspectives
on confident Modern progress. A cautious scrutiny of 'innovation'
is needed.
Fabrication is an old word with the straightforward
meaning, to make. The roots of the word lead to the origins of architecture.
Making has been considered a virtue by ancient writers and modern
politicians alike. Fabrication (and homo faber, 'one who makes')
have served as fundamental terms that constitutions and contract
laws have been built upon. Shaping and working with materials is
at the core of Western civilization. However at a point in human
history where nature is steadily being replaced by human artifice,
the consequences of making are far from simple. Whether for good
or ill, our new fabricated environment is transforming the world.
