Week 11 Topic: Collaboration

The development of collaborative digital software has maximised efficiency in the design process, ultimately enabling effective mock up testing and scripting to be achievable in one program. This ensures that larger projects are, “automatized, [as] we cannot have a piece of software written for each type of design problem” [1]. The manipulation of design increases manual labour as it, “would affect the whole geometry… down to these very last elements [and] their machining programs” [2]. This then leads to the need to manually modify the concept in each program, therefore, further complicating the design process. It has to be understood that, “the future of architecture is unreadable” [3], as designers move forward with a collaborative mindset where, “contemporary free forms are called into considerable question when they become cliché and sacrifice the past to the advantage of an absolute present” [4]. To cater for enriching technical ingenuity and cultural and sociological imaginations, the combining of programs increases time that could be spent analysing context and experimenting with ideas. For example, a curved panelling system that incorporates, “heterogeneous elements as a challenge to be met by innovative design” [5], “is a general architectural problem that leads to [a] complex manufacturing process” [6]. However, it can be avoided through frequent software development and integration by designers.

The installation consists of 100 robotically-routed plywood ribs. Even with smaller projects, manipulation of the design elements in multiple design programs can be time consuming, thus, can be avoided through the use of arising multipurpose programs.

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r e f e r e n c e s

• [1] [2] [3] [4] [6] Cache, Bernard, "Toward an associative Architecture", in Digital Tectonics edited by Neil Leach, David Tumbull & Chris Williams (2004): Pp. 108, 109.
• [5] DeLanda, Manuel, "Material Complexity", in Digital Tectonics edited by Neil Leach, David Tumbull & Chris Williams (2004): Pp. 21.