The DIGITAL CRAFT

Away from autonomous production, anonymous materials, scripted space and a no-hands approach, this course will explore the potentials of digital fabrication techniques towards end-user products that are the result of multiple steps of fabrication, multiple orders of structure, multiple materials, multiple textures, and most importantly, create multiple material or performative effects. The course will be broken down into weekly seminars alongside individual design tutorials. The seminars will lay out the potentials as well as limitations of a wide range of digital fabrication techniques, moving from the micro- to the macro-scale, from the fabrication of advanced materials to the production of architecture – in between lie techniques from the automotive industry, art and aerospace engineering, among many others. We will examine case studies alongside working through a theme/ question at each scale. This will range from strategies of assemblage, orders of structure to the optimization of the economics of production.The design project – \”accessorizing space\” – will be the design and production of a fully working prototype addressing the use of advanced fabrication techniques towards end-user products. During the semester we will visit Frank Stella???s studio to look at large scale SLA prototypes and smaller scale tests of various other techniques employed to produce complex sculptures. One of the seminars will be held in collaboration with MGX one of the most innovative companies working in the field of prototyping today.