Fabricate: Making Digital Architecture

Edited by Ruairi Glynn & Bob Sheil ‘FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture‘ is published by Riverside Architectural Press and released in April 2011.

Covering a cross-section of scales and typologies, “Fabricate” features 32 illustrated case studies of completed buildings, new works in progress, and the latest research in design and digital manufacturing. Practices included Foster+Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Arup, Buro Happold, Ron Arad Associates, and the renowned institutions Delft, Harvard, MIT, and The Bartlett. As the scope and diversity of work shown here very clearly conveys, new protocols of engagement between the design and making of digital architecture offer disciplines on all sides the challenge to rethink fabrication as a design activity, and to question how the necessary expertise to master this field can be acquired.

The term Digital Fabrication has been in broad circulation for over a decade and the argument that it is a revolutionary force for design and production is widely understood by the world’s leading practices and schools of architecture. New manufacturing tools have been invented and drawing software is bridging the gap between representation and realisation.To date however, no single publication has captured and analysed the defining built works and prototypes of this emerging age. This was the purpose and topic of ‘FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture‘. Rather than showcase hypothetical works, this book addresses innovative ideas that have been applied, built and tested. It presents documentation underexposed in contemporary architectural publications, e.g. 21st century working drawings, model/prototype hybrids; adaptive tooling, jigs and manufacturing interfaces; on site bespoke construction, and post production 3D scanning.

Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands

Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands is a collection of provocative projects from a young generation of digitally enabled designers. This publication oscillates between the analog and the digital, from concept to realisation, mapping processes as it explores the diverse digital paths that lead innovative spaces, poetic narratives and social interactions. (more…)