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chapter 7
DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT
IN ARCHITECTURE
Asena Kumsal Şen Bayram
(Asst. Prof. Dr.), Maltepe University, Turkey,
e-mail:asenakumsalsenbayram@maltepe.edu.tr
ORCID: 0000-0002-1131-6073

1.  INTRODUCTION

The transformations in architecture since the second half of the 20th century,
go beyond just effecting the design tools&methods and necessitate re-question-
ing the role of the architectural profession in today’s World. This new compre-
hensive process, which is named as Digital Architecture, is not only a change
in representation mediums, but also directly affects the cognitive structure of
design and design thinking. While architectural design tools and thought pat-
terns evaluatecohiesively, studies are rapidly increasing about the construction
of this new designs. These production methods, called Digital Fabrication, are
effective in architectural processthrough all phases and in all scales. This
research aims to understand this effects of Digital Fabrication in today’s archi-
tecture proffession in different scales, techniques, tools and materials. The
study starts with a brief history of machine tool evolution into Computer Aided
Manufacturing (CAM) to understand the transformations in all aspects.
Secondly, the first applications of Digital Architecture were explained to under-
stand the very first impacts of this shift in design. Then selected projects are
represented to underline the importance of the new techniques, tools and
materials. In conclusion, further assumptions are made and potentials of digital
fabrication are discussed, according to the current researches.
174 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

2. EVOLUTION OF MACHINE TOOLS INTO CAM:

A BRIEF HISTORY

The Industrial Revolution was a result of James Watt’s steam engine. When
the engine become essential for more complex manufacturing of that time,
the engine cylinders started to get problemmatic because of the handmade
process. As a natural result of this problem machine tooling was born, to make
production lines more precise. A machine tool is basicly a medium, in which
the machines guides the toolpath. The first machine tool was John Wilkinson’s
boring machine (1775), thatproduces cylinders for steam engines (Weightman,
2007).Textile industry was known as the first use of modern production
methods. Just before the revolution,BasileBouchon invented a way to control
looms by using data encoded on paper tapes through a series of punched holes
in 1725. Joseph Marie Jacquard strengthened and simplified Bouchon’s
concept by tying punched sturdier cards in sequence to automate the process
in 1805 (Essinger, 2004). Punched cards developed through 1800’s and their
mechanical control turned into electromechanical system in 1896 with Herman
Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company.
With further developments thoruoghout 20th century, puched cards were
used for data input and storage in computers and numerically controlled
machines. Numerical control (NC) means using data in the form of letters,
numbers, symbols, words, or a combination, to automate control of machining
tools. In 1896, another groundbraking invention- servo mechanism- was
created by H. Calendar. In time servos become the essential part of today’s
computer numerical control (CNC) machines to attain requredtolarences in
automated machining process. CNC is, when precisely coded instructions are
sent to a microprocessor in the control system of a machining tool, enabling
an enhanced level of precision and consistency (Smid, 2008).
The attention on servomecanisms made MIT open a Servomechanism
Laboratory, where another fundamental tool for Digital Fabrication was
developed. From 1942 for 10 years many inventions made for Aircraft Industry
(URL 1). In 1952, MIT demonstrated a 7-track punch tape system. In Scientific
American’s September 1952 issue, MIT’s William Pease wrote a paper titled
“An Automatic Machine Tool”, in which he mentioned the first account of a
milling machine that converts information on punched tape into a finished
part (Pease, 1952).During that time, G-code, the most widely used NC pro-
gramming language, was used to tell computerized machine tools how to
make something. In 1956, Automatically Programmed Tool (APT) was created
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 175

by Computer Applications Group atthe same laboratory to generate instruc-

tions for NC machines, which was the first steps of generating CNC machines.
The MIT team introduced their first CNC machine development with a CNC-
milled aluminum ashtray production in 1959. This research made The Air
Force sign a contract about developing a “Computer-Aided Design Project.”
with MIT. The resulting system of this research was called, Automated
Engineering Design (AED) (URL 1).The first commercial CAD
system, Electronic Drafting Machine (EDM), was developed by ITEKin
1962. It was the first example of an end-to-end CAD/CNC production system
and used to build production parts for a military transport aircraft (Weisberg,
2008).
One of the most influential computer program was designed for designers
to draw basic primitives by using a light-pen for inputin 1963. Ivan Sutherland,
a PhD candidate at MIT, submited his thesis titled “Sketchpad: A Man-
Machine Graphical Communication System”, describing the first graphical
user interface. The program was capable ofmany typical CAD operations of
today and differentiate from the earlier programs by it’s interaction
(Tedeschi&Andreani, 2014).
The effect of SketchPad created a rapid increase in computer programes
for design during 1970’s. One of the most important programe of that time,
Automated Drafting and Machining (ADAM), was released in 1972 by Dr.
Patrick J. Hanratty. ADAM was one of the first commercially available
mechanical design packages. In 1976, Hanratty’s laboratory MCS introduced
AD-2000, a design and manufacturing system for computeras the first model-
ing software (URL -1) (Table 1).
1980’s was the time when local area network systems emerged and micro-
processors of computers dropped. In the second half of 80’s large computer
terminals are replaced by networked stations and personal computers became
a daily life object (Weightman, 2007). It is no surprise that this rapid change
also occured in development of CAD systems. Some of the programs released
at that time can be listed as; Versa CAD (1980), 3D/Eye Inc. (1981), UniSolid
(1981), CATIA Version (1982), AutoCAD (1982), CADplan (1982), BRAVO
(1983), PseudoStation (1985), CADKEY (1985), ANVIL-5000 (1986),
AutoSketch (1986), Shape Data Ltd. (1988), Strucad (1988), ArchiCAD
(1989), in 1990’s followed by Animator Pro (1990), ArcCAD (1991), 3D
Studio (1991) and Visio Technical (1992) (URL 1).
176 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

Table 1. Important years and events in evolution of digital design and

manufacturing until 1980.

As this shift was changing the whole understanding about design think-
ing, naturally the production technologies developed and started to look for
alternative CNC systems during 1980’s. In 1981 rapid prototyping was born,
by two articles of Hideo Kodama, on three dimentional model fabrication
(Kodama, 1981a, 1981b). Jean-Claude André, Alain le Méhautéand Olivier
de Witte applied for stereolithography process patent in 1984 (Gibson &
Jorge Bártolo, 2011).It was three weeks before Chuck Hull filed his own
patent for stereolithography. Hull got the patent for “Apparatus for
Production of Three-Dimensional Objects by Stereolithography” on March
11 1986. He defined stereolithography as “printing” thin layers of the
ultraviolet curable material one on top of the other by the help of an
advanced CAD/CAM software, which slices the computer model of the
object into a large number of thin layers (Beaman, 1997). Same year,
Carl Deckard started investigating a similar method to Hull’s, which uses
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 177

uses powder materials, later to be known as Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

(Deckard, 1989). Scott Crumpcreated and patented Fused Deposition
Modelling (FDM) the same year by automating the process by attaching it
to a robotic XYZ gantry system (Crump, 1989) (Table 2).

Table 2. Important developments in evolution of digital design and

manufacturing from 1980 until early 1990’s.

This very brief history of digital design and fabrication shows that nearly
all of the inovations in this subject was made for engineering purposes.
Therefore, architecture was adapted to these new techniques rather later than
engineering.

3. DIGITAL AGE TRANSITION IN ARCHITETURE

Architecture is an effective communication of creative ideas through contin-

uous dialogue of designing and making (Dunn, 2012).Drawing as the core
activity of this process, become a more efficient and an easy task by using
CAD in Architecture for nearly forty years. But this shift from traditional to
178 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

digital did not reflect on the design of the buildings (Iwamoto, 2009). Drawing
a project by using CAD with a traditional design thinking, can only be seen
as a translation of analog logic into digital realm (Tedeschi&Andreani, 2014).
This approach is an imitation of manual human design and is called “com-
puterization”, whereas, the real “computation” lets architects to search for
“extreme, strange, and occasionally unpredictable situations” by the capacity
and use of CAD (Terzidis, 2015), in design, form and construction.
First attempts for a digital design method was made long before the use
of CAD in Architecture.Luigi Moretti, invented the definition for “Parametric
Architecture” in 1939 and use the parametric design in his stadium models at
the 1960 Twelfht Milan Triennial. According to his explanation for parametric
architecture; the parameters become the code of the new architectural lan-
guage and structure. These parameters and their interrelations must be
expressed and supported by computational, logical and mathematical tools
and techniques (Bucci&Mulazzani, 2000)Anohter traditional tectonic rejec-
tion example is Frei Otto’s researches on form. Otto used physical models
such as: soap films which found minimal surfaces, and suspended fabric
which found compression-only vaults and branched structures to investigate
architectural forms (Otto &Rasch, 1996).These searches emerged a new per-
spective in design thinking. The traditional form making approach of tectonics
has shifted into form finding (Tedeschi&Andreani, 2014), even without proper
CAD & CAM use in architecture.
Today, as designers realized that CAD programs could manage complex-
ity beyond human capabilities, form-finding has becomean importantstrategy
for shape determination.Now architects can design with a multi-parametric
form-finding approach including geometry, dynamic forces, environment,
social and any desired data. This new dialogue between form and process has
led to new architectural tectonics. Kolarevic (2003a) list these tectonics as;
topological, isomorphic animation, metamorphic, parametric, evolutionary,
performative architectures and virtual environments. The variety of design
processes affected the fabrication of architecture and its components as well.
Looking through it’s history, digital fabrication was first used to make the
physical models used in the restorations of Saint John the DivineCathedral
and SagradaFamilia (Burry, 2003; Burry, Burry, &Faulí, 2001) for construc-
tive decisions. (Kolarevic, 2003b). Frank Gehry’s office began using CAD/
CAM to develop and test the Disney Concert Hall’s constructability in 1989.
They adapted CATIA (Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive
Application) to architecture, to model the exterior facade of the concert hall.
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 179

The digital model was send directly to digitally driven machines that essen-
tially sculpted the physical production (Iwamoto, 2009).
Nowadays computers are used at every step of architectural design process
for 2D drawings, 3D modelling, visualization, animation, fom finding, analy-
ses, management and construction. Digital fabrication has narrowed the gap
between representation and construction of an architectural design. The inte-
gration of CAD & CAM has created a new definition for design and produc-
tion relations(Mitchell & McCullough,1995). This file to factory process
(Dunn, 2012) will be discussed in the next chapters of this paper over selected
examples, to explore the potentials and make further assumptions.

4. DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE

Digital fabrication has a meaning referring to a production process by com-

puter controlled machines (Gershenfeld et al., 2017). Although the definition
sounds like, it is the last step of an architectural process, digital fabrication
techniques are used for many purposes at different scales in architecture.
According to the design, fabrication methods can differ. Most common digital
fabrication procedures used in architecture are; additive procedures, subtrac-
tive procedures, formative procedures, joining procedures (Hauschild&Karzel,
2011) and robotic fabrication (Picon, 2014; Willmannet al, 2012, 2013,
Güzelci, 2015, Güzelci&Güzelci 2018) (Table 3).

Table 3. Most used digital fabrication techniques in architecture.

Digital Fabrication Method Tool Type
Additive Stereolithography (STL)
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)
Selective Laser Melting (SLM)
3 dimensional printing (3DP)
Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)
Subtractive Lazer Cutter
Jet Cutter
Hot Wire Cutter
Milling
Routing
Formative Bending
Drilling
Joining Welding
Robotic Robot Arm
Drone
180 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

Digital fabrication in architecture offers possibilities that were hard to

apply in the past, not only for form but also for material, process-controland
optimisationin construction. As the world is facing an ecological crisis and
construction is one of the biggests contributors of it,with the help of these
technologies, radical changes must be searchedfora more sustainable
architecture.
Material processing is one of the most destructive environmental actors.
Therefore, bio-materiality become a popular research subject for digital fab-
rication in architecture.Pulp Faction is a research on this subject, looking for
an alternative material by utilising biological growth processes of fungallig-
nocellulosic composites as passive engines for the transformation of renew-
able materials.The controlled growth of fungal mycelium within the printed
material works as a binder of lignocellulosic biomass in post-extrusion
(Goidea et al, 2020) (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Left. Substrate development prototype, here without fungus. The

substrate was tested for extrudabilityas well as for the design material compatibil-
ity. Right. Column assemblage. design to fabrication (Burry et al, 2020).

Although the Project is a material research, it is believed that the

large scaled implementation of such material, could reduce the ecologic
impact of construction, by being environmentally safe and biodegradable
without chem-ical process and non-renewable extraction. Also, the raw
materials for such composites are low in cost and locally sourced (Goidea et
al, 2020) (Figure 2).
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 181

Figure 2. Section of a column showing an assembly of the fungal-lignocellulosic

components. Bonding between the segments is proposed to be achieved by extru-
sion of a connective tissue consisting of a modified version of the live pulp(Burry
et al, 2020).

The MUD Frontier Project is another application focusing on inexpensive

usage of free bio materials, such as local soil in construction by a robotic 3D
printing set up. The mobile scara robotic 3D printer that was developed for
the project, can print the local soils from the site and build structures larger
than itself. Also the software application for 3D printing, is designedas an
easy-to-use interace foreven novice users can quickly begin to create
complex g-code to 3D print environments within minutes (San Fratello&
Rael, 2020)(Figure 3).

Figure 3. Left. High alpine 3D printing with local soils. Right. The Lookout stair
during construction(Burry et al, 2020).
182 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

‘Sophisticated Buildings will be made of mud’ was announced as the

number one topic at thelist of 40 most important things one should know about
the next 40 years by the Smithsonian Magazine. The MUD Frontiers aims to
see this prediction become a reality with further research(San Fratello& Rael,
2020).
Bio materiality is not the only way for ecological footprint reduction.
Digital fabrication can be used as a construction tool that uses less amounts
of existing materials used in construction, by optimised forms where they are
needed, to create more sustainable designs. 3D concrete printing (3DCP)
provides this opportunity with promising mouldless, no-waste constructions
and shape customisation. Concrete Choreography is one of the projects
searching for a new understanding on concrete with these aspects (Anton et
al, 2020) (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Left. Fabrication set up. Photo. Axel Crettenand.

Right. Transportation. loading the columns from ETH Zurich.
Photo. Benjamin Hofer (Burry et al, 2020).

Nine different 2.7-meter-tall columns were fabricated in fiveweeks

after four weeks of research. This project not only proves transformation in
con-crete construction from an ecological and economical perspectivebut
also changes the definition of concrete and designer. Concrete now is not an
inert material but the part of the final production. Designer can make
optimised decisions on elements for direct fabrication, without the drawings
and proce-dures that will cause lots of time as we know today. Also, the
high speed production of high detailed deigns creates a total shift in
understanding about construction (Anton et al, 2020).
The changes in a total construction proces can only be understood in a
real construction site. DFAB HOUSE was constructed to understand how
can a complete habitable building be designed and built primarily using
multiple digital fabrication processes(Graser et all, 2020) (Figure 5).
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 183

Figure 5. Left. Exterior view of completed DFAB HOUSE. Photo. Roman Keller.
Right. Completed project lower level interface of Mesh Mould wall and Smart
Slab (Burry et al, 2020).

Six new digital building technologies were combined for the construstion
of design listed as; (1) the in-situ fabricator, (2) mesh mould, (3) smart
dynamic casting, (4) smart slab, (5) spatial timber assemblies and (6) light-
weight translucent façade. DFAB House is an important construction for
digital fabrication in architecture which is embedding research to real practice
(Graser et all, 2020) (Figure 6). The project raised questions about feasibility,
cost-benefit of automation, new models of man-machine collaboration, opti-
mized sustainability performance, new forms of collaboration, construction
management, interdisciplinary work and inter-organisational knowledge in
the process. Still, creation of a physical building showed digital fabrication
to be an applicable concept for construction.

Figure 6. Left. Smart Slab during installation. Photo. digital building technolo-
gies, ETH Zurich / Andrei Jipa. Right. Innovation Objects in DFAB HOUSE,
diagram. Image. NCCR Digital Fabrication / Konrad Graser (Burry et al, 2020).
184 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

Although digital fabrication refers to a file to fabrication process,

Gerschenfeld proposes ‘digital fabrication’ as a process that compiles discrete
building blocks. Retsin works on several timber assembly structures to search
the possibilities of this discreeteness combining Digital Materialsand
Programmable Matter with the architectural field of Prefabrication and
Modularity. In discrete a digital form, which isbased on versatile and acces-
sible parts as digital data, offers a complex andopen-ended architecture
(Retsin, 2019). This also creates a shift in relations between individuals,
society and nature, in which predetermination is not required and responding
for adaptation is the main design creteria(Kohler, 2016) (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Left. Gilles Retsin, Diamonds House, Belgium, 2015, Right. Gilles
Retsin, Tallinn Architecture Biennale Pavilion, 2017 (Burry et al, 2020).

Similar to additive manufacturing, when the construction is discretised, it

becomes integrated, continuous and organic. This method removes the
gap between representation and construction completely by turning the
digital design into assembled, and vice versa.Therefore, automation of
construction increases and man power would become less required (Retsin,
2020) (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Left. Gilles Retsin, Tallinn Architecture Biennale Pavilion, 2017.

Middle. Gilles Retsin, Tallinn Architecture Biennale Pavilion, 2017.
Photo. NAARO. Right. Gilles Retsin, Real Virtuality, Royal Academy of Arts,
2019 (Burry et al, 2020).
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 185

Discrete Automation takes this one step further by enabling

customisation and inassembly to adapt any new situation after assembly. It
uses logics from automation in response to their contextualisation in
society andin different scales. This is different to the previous understanding
of digital designing with it’s capability of ‘customisation-infabrication’
and‘customisation-in-design’ processes (Carpo, 2017).
Discrete Automation also considers computational and technological
capac-ity of today/future and cost reduction.Selfsimilarity of building
parts and repetition, shortens production lines, therefore the cost of the total
production process. A Discrete design reduces the number of building parts
in a typical building to a few parts of digital materials (Gershenfeld et al.,
2015). This paradigm change in manufacturing and construction, reveals the
innefficiency of current methods andenable the questioning of the material
usein architec-tural design.

Figure 9. Generated combinations of discrete parts. Image. Ivo Tedbury,

Semblr, Architecture MArch Unit 19/ Design Computation Lab,
UCL, 2017 (Burry et al, 2020).

Automation functions in several ways in discrete. Digital fabrication

technologies, can be used to produce the pieces of buildings or industrial
robots can be used to assemble the pieces to their places. This way of using
digital fabrication in construction needs an alternative framework for building
assembly. Patternsof construction follow digitalassembly logics, allowing the
parts to be changed, replaced or removed. Discrete Automation presents an
186 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

ecology forproduction in which architectural labour and spatialpractices can

be computed again and again without extending production chains.
But,Discrete Automation does not project a non human labor where
technologies inhabit all business.Therefore, thematerial arrangements
must be re-articulated and tought to constructors. DiscreteAutomation
seeks to take the first stepin devel-oping a more optimisticapproach to the
new architectural production(Clay-pool, 2020) (Figure 10).

Figure 10. Automated assembly into a small house using mobile robots.
Image. Ivo Tedbury, Semblr, Architecture MArch Unit 19/Design Computation
Lab, UCL, 2017 (Burry et al, 2020).

Selected projects show that from material to building, digital

fabrication has a great effect on today’s architecture not only in
construction phase but also in the description of all methods and
professions in the whole process.

5. DISCUSSION

Architecture is a profession that informs and is informed from all of it’s

phases in different scales from two dimentional representations to construc-
tion. Today, with the effect of technology, this mutual relation can be seen
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 187

more than ever. What is concieved to be possible about design, form, tecton-
ics, materials, manufacturing and construction is changing day by day
(Iwomoto, 2009, Dunn 2012).
The brief history of digital architecture showed that when CAD replaced
drawing by hand, buildings looked pretty much the same. This was just a
replacement of a two dimentional representation with another in a different
medium. The real shift occured in the theory of architectural design, with the
boundary extending effect of three dimensional computer modeling and digital
fabrication. The increase of computers and advanced modeling software has
enabled architects to conceive and construct designs that would be very dif-
ficult to develop before. New tectonics came to life with new design methods
allowing parametric and complex organizations to be generated and explored
not only in design but also in construction. The inspiring possibilities offered
by digital fabrication for architecture, as explained with examples in previous
section, brings more questions to life about the future of architecture
profession.
First question can be about education. Today, as we are facing a pan-
demic state, on-line education became a must instead of a need in cirucu-
lums. In most of the architecture faculties, CAD/CAM is still tought as a
tool, that helps students to express their “traditional” ideas and designs in
another medium. Based on the idea that the intellectual and instrumental
digitisation process in architecture has created revolutionary changes, edu-
cational design studios should be fundamentally reconstructed as an impor-
tant part of this revolution. Researches based on this assumption supports
the idea that educational studios should be re-questioned in architecture,
starting with general education systems. For example, Oxman (2008)
emphasizes changing the studio setup away from a project-oriented structure
intobanexperimental Digital Design Studio. He suggests conceptual titles
such as; topology, mobius models, generative systems, parametric models,
performative design, physical modelling and digital materialing. The edu-
cational character on which this approach is based, is built on the idea that
the profile targeted by design education should be a designer-thinker (Oxman,
1999). Therefore, architects of tomorrow will have the ability to think and
design in a “digital” way.
From the examined projects, the second question rises for the future of
the “new” materials of this new digital architectures. These massive shifts in
design processes have implications in material culture far beyond the disci-
pline of architecture, at cross-disciplinary levels worldwide. It is crucial to
understand the logic of geometric organization in relation with material prop-
188 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

erties in the digital medium because the material explorations would affect
the whole fabrication process (Güzelci et al, 2017, 2016). The projects in this
paper are examples of materialresearchs both for traditional and new materi-
als. Today digital fabrication lets us to use the materials we are familiar with
in spectacular ways. In addition to the Concrete Choreography in this paper,
there are lots of researches continuing on searching the possibilities of using
traditional materials with digital fabrication such as; BUGA Wood Pavilion,
Urbach Tower, Textile Hybrid M1: La Tour de l’Architecte (URL 2),
Augmented Bricklaying, ROB (URL 3)As we are facing an ecological crisis,
alternative material searches keep increasing in digital fabrication, like we
see in Pulp Faction. In addition to bio material developments such as; Silk
Pavillion, Hybrid Living Fibres, Radiofungi (URL 4), there are also new
researches continuing in new non-bio materials.Elytra Filament Pavilion,
Cyber Physical Macro Material, MoRFES_01: Mobile Robotic Fabrication
Eco-System (URL 2) are some of the examples that extend the material use
both structural and construction wise.
According to World Economic Forum (2016) data, construction industry
is one of the largest sectors in the world economy with 13% of global GDP
representation and 7% of the world’s population employment. It is also an
industry with very low annual productivity increases, only 1% per year over
the past 20 years. Less than 1% of revenues is invested in R&D. It is remark-
ably poor in comparison to other sectors (Barbosa et al., 2017). Also, only
0.2% of all robots worldwide are sold to the construction industry whereas
55% sold to the automotive industry (Executive Summary World Robotics,
2017). There are only a few examples where robots are predominantly/totally
used in the construction of buildings (Claypool, 2020). Therefore, the third
question is about the future of construction in digital fabrication. Compared
to others, construction stillremains one of the most analogue industries.
Digitisation in architectural production has largely remained in the virtual
environment as design tool. Digital design enabled creating more procedural,
flexibile, variabile, and interdependent formsutilising computational tech-
niques (Carpo, 2012; 2017). But this ability was not translated to building
practices directly. Therefore, the realisation of those designs, still dealing with
challanges in production chains, manufacturing, assembling and labor.
Although discrete automation suggests an easier way of production, construc-
tion still needs foundational changes for other types of digital fabrication. As
we saw in The MUD Frontier Projectin-stu fabrication has great potential in
digital fabrication of architecture. At the first days of pandemic, isolation
 DIGITAL FABRICATION SHIFT IN ARCHITECTURE 189

cabins were printed with 3d printers in just a few hours. There are various
examples in 3d printing such as;Mini-Castle (Andrey Rudenko), Urban Cabin
(DUS Architects),Lewis Grand Hotel Extention (Lewis Yakich), AMIE
(Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Office of Future
(Gensler), Rotor-shaped Residence (ApisCor), The BOD (COBOD), Yhnova
House (University of Nantes & Nantes Digital Sciences Laboratory) etc (URL
4). Even space architecture searches alternative ways of 3DP in space with
local materials (Leach 2014).
As it is clearly understood from all these examples, contemporary tech-
nologies must become an indispensable part of architectural practice, in order
to make architecture to be a profession that has adapted to the present and
could be easily adapted to the future like other technologies. Otherwise, when
the last question,”What is the definition of the architectural profession?”
emerge, answer will be given with a completely digitalized scenario, from
professions of other than architecture. For this reason, it is inevitable to
rebuild the profession with such a logic from its education, to its rules, mate-
rials and applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All images in this paper was taken from Burry, J., Sabin, J., Sheil, R., Skavara,
M., (eds.). 2020. Fabricate, London: UCL Press. DOI: https://doi.
org/10.14324/111.9781787358119under their Creative Commons 4.0
International licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows the user to share, copy,
distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial
use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any
way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Please go to the original source to use images if needed for further
researches.

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190 ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

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