We are pleased to share photos from our recent Pratt 2011SP Pratt | Digital Crafting Midterm Review.

The seminar is examining the procedural distinctions between craftsmanship and manufacturing; the former being the “workmanship of risk” and the latter the “workmanship of certainty”. Digital Crafting operates through a framework of computational, material, and fabrication strategies that hinge on the craftspersons’ skill, dexterity, and willingness to embrace the unknown, what has been termed “Risk” by David Pye in his seminal work, The Nature and Art of Workmanship .

It is our assertion that through this notion of Risk we may best critique our current milieu and arrive upon an apt characterization of Craft, as well as its affiliated set of procedures, within architectural praxis today.

Participating Students:
Heidy Garay
Justin Hattendorf
Sharon Jamison
Eun Ji Lee
Seo Hee Lee
Victoria Perez
Christopher Santos
Ji-Won Shin
Jia Rong Zhu

Thank you to Christopher Santos for the great set of photos!

More information and photos can be found HERE!

We are pleased to share photos of the 2011 UMinn. Catalyst Workshop | Material Intelligence Installation.

Special thank you to Marc Swackhamer for the invitation to participate in this excellent event!

Student Participants:
Aaron Frazier
Angela Bateson
Ben Garrison
Christianne Roach
Eric Lindner
Jessica Andrejasich
Keith McDermid
Marcus Hulmer
Pablo Villamil
Rob Holley
Shona Mosites

Additional photos can be found Here.

Studio Mode will be presenting the lecture, Material Intelligence this Friday in conjunction with the 2011 UMinn. Catalyst Workshop Series.

Special thank you to Marc Swackhamer for the invitation to participate in this excellent event!

Catalyst Participants:
Aaron Frazier
Angela Bateson
Ben Garrison
Christianne Roach
Eric Lindner
Jessica Andrejasich
Keith McDermid
Marcus Hulmer
Pablo Villamil
Rob Holley
Shona Mosites

Additional photos | modeLab.

The Fay Jones School of Architecture is inaugurating a new Advanced Digital Fabrication Lab [DFAB-LAB]  supporting new research and teaching initiatives directed by 21st C. Chair in Integrated Practice, assistant professor Santiago R. Pérez. The new lab will provide specialised computer-controlled machines for both small-scale protoyping and large-scale industrial fabrication of components in steel, wood, and experimental materials for architecture. The lab has been outfitted with a custom high-gantry, 5-Axis CNC mill and Steel Plasma Cutter, an innovative tool that will provide new opportunities for research and teaching.

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.

Thank you to Santiago Perez for the invitation to participate in this excellent event and to all the wonderful students who made this project happen!

More information + photos can be found at the following links:
srpLAB Flickr
Santiago Perez srpLAB
sUgAR Gallery

For additional exhibit information, please contact the sUgAR gallery at (479) 273-5305

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

Woodbury: San Diego Event Series
Saturday 29 January – Monday 31 January

Woodbury University School of Architecture students, faculty, and alumni may sign-up to participate in three days of advanced software and digital fabrication instruction.

Maxwell with Cameron Crockett.
Ecotect with Oliver Pennetier of SYMPHYSIS.
Revit with Jason Anderson of CASE.
Rhino | Grasshopper with Ronnie Parsons and Gil Akos of Studio MODE.

Many thanks to Marcel Sanchez-Prieto for the invitation!

Studio Mode is pleased to announce that we will be conducting the Advanced Parametric Design workshop at the upcoming ACADIA2010 Conference.

The ACADIA 2010 conference will focus on the changing nature of information and its impact on architectural education, research and practice. With the ever-increasing integration of information technologies in the design laboratory, the discipline of architecture has changed profoundly in recent years. The emerging fields of digital fabrication, generative and evolutionary modeling among others, are now at the core of investigations in a growing community of digital design practitioners and researchers.

ACADIA 2010 will explore the ways designers, architects, engineers and scientists collect, analyze and assemble information through computational systems that redefine the notions of design performance and optimization, evolutionary and responsive models. These notions are today inherently related to the possibilities and limitations offered by our increasing computational capabilities, and the way information shapes relations between the human, the environment, and the machine.

ACADIA 2010 will gather leading practitioners, theorists, and researchers who will examine the relation that architecture has with technology and information, and how the latter propels today’s most innovative design experimentations and research. The conference will be centered on a series of peer-reviewed paper sessions and a groundbreaking exhibition including peer-reviewed projects.

ACADIA 2010: October 21st to 24th 2010, The Cooper Union, NY

Strip Morphologies Workshop | modeLab | 20100619-20100621
Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos

This workshop introduced participants to the cultural, technological, and tectonic domain of parametric design and digital fabrication. Over two-plus days, the workshop investigated the morphology of the ’strip’ by cross-linking developable surfaces and seaming strategies. We identified and exploited the constraints inherent in sheet material and High-Force CNC cutting technology in an effort to explore and construct highly articulated material assemblies.

coLab Casting Workshop | modeLab | 20100403-20100404

This workshop introduced participants to the cultural, technological, and tectonic domain of parametric design and digital fabrication in a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment. Over the course of two days, the workshop involved iterative prototyping and associative design strategies capable of incorporating and embracing an array of material and fabrication constraints. Participants explored and constructed highly articulated material assemblies through computer-aided manufacturing, mold making, and casting.

This workshop was the result of a collaborative effort between Studio Mode and Point.B Design and will provide participants with direct access to a full suite of manual tools for wood, metal, and plastics fabrication in addition to a 3-Axis CNC Mill. Instruction was provided in the construction of molds, the proper handling of materials and casting, file preparation for working with the mill, as well as a series of parametric design strategies with supporting content.

The introduction of computation and digital fabrication into architectural design, and its related fields, has not only accelerated our production capacity but has radically transformed the way in which we imagine and construct our surroundings. Incorporating both digital and material processes will provide participants with a unique opportunity to not only gain knowledge in digital design but also explore, through hands-on learning and prototyping, the radical implications of this rich new territory.

Associative Protocols | Catalyst Workshop | University of Minnesota | 20100308-20100312
Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos

Architecture continuously informs and is informed by its modes of representation and production. Evidenced by recent material, construction and media innovations in our field, the introduction of computation and fabrication has accelerated and broadened the means by which architects imagine and construct the world. As architects, we have the unique capacity to catalyze opportunities in this contemporary scenario into novel design solutions.

While this fertile ground may seem exclusive to the contemporary condition, there is a rich history of material and construction innovation within the field of architecture poised for interrogation. This can be seen in the work of architects such as Charles and Ray Eames, Erwin Hauer, and Miguel Fisac, whose explorations prefaced architecture as a material practice. Drawing from such precedents, this workshop will investigate a design model that simultaneously incorporates means of working and making that are iteratively examined and cross-related through prototyping and material testing.

Associative Protocols encompasses processes that are explicit, specific, and operative. This model will be the mechanism by which we incorporate design and fabrication constraints as well as cultural pressures in the design of rich and robust material assemblies and prototypes.