FABCRAFT explores the intersection of advanced digital fabrication methods, informed by computational design, with traditional craft-based practices.
Traditional craft-based methods of production such as weaving and basket-making share a common trait with 21st century design and fabrication methodologies; they are based on Procedural, Bottom-Up Component Strategies, combining many small pieces or operations into a unified whole. While twentieth century construction and product design methods relied on standardized “tooling” for production of identical parts in assembly-line processes, twenty-first century design and production practices increasingly embrace the possibilities afforded by computationally derived forms and robotic or “CNC” computer controlled fabrication capable of modeling, sequencing, cutting and even assembling thousands of unique individual parts into a structurally optimized complex geometric assemblage. Increasingly, architects and designers are critically engaging these new technologies to both re-assess and re-think the trajectories of modern design, embracing both craft and computation.
The distinguishing hallmarks of this emerging generation include an interest in complex PATTERN, MASS-CUSTOMIZATION and PARAMETRIC design. The most recent advances in computational design and fabrication are beginning to embed real-world forces such as gravity, strength of materials, wind, etc. directly into the computational form-finding approach, using new software allowing designers an unprecedented level of intuitive control and optimization of form, resulting in environmentally responsive and structurally optimized forms, produced entirely within a digital workflow, from “FILE TO FAB.”
The unanticipated result of this approach, is a new “open-source” collective intelligence, relying increasingly not on machine intelligence, but rather on human interaction and innovation, across previously unrelated disciplinary boundaries.
FABCRAFT will inaugurate the opening of the DFAB-LAB with a series of workshops, culminating with an exhibition of work at the Bentonville sUgAR gallery.
The CELENTO / PEREZ STEELCRAFT workshop, FEB 17-19, will feature collaborative work by David Celento and S. Perez, utilizing CNC plasma cutting & 5-axis milling. The workshop will be held at the Government Avenue DFAB-LAB.
The PARAMETRIC CRAFT workshop, FEB 26-28, will feature DIGITAL FORM FINDING using parametric software [Rhino Grasshopper], coupled with KANGAROO, presented by Ronnie Parsons & Gil Akos of STUDIOMODE. Kangaroo is a “live physics engine for Rhino & Grasshopper. It embeds powerful mathematical models of real physical behaviour directly in Rhino’s 3D modelling environment; so designers can use it to integrate with and inform a design right from the very earliest stages.”
More information can be found at the following links:
Santiago Perez srpLAB
sUgAR Gallery
For additional exhibit information, please contact the sUgAR gallery at (479) 273-5305