A SEARCH FOR DIGITAL DESIGN PEDAGOGY: DIGITAL FABRICATION AS A CHALLENGE

This paper aims to expose current developments in digital architectural design, digital fabrication techniques and their relations to design pedagogy. The conjoining of machine and material computation potentially has significant and unprecedented consequences for design and built environment. With the influence of the emerging technologies, architectural design has become engaged with the exploration of complex geometries, free forms as well as related materialization processes of fabrication technologies. Today, with the emerging interest in fabrication techniques and through file to factory processes, architects are able to design, fabricate and assemble digitally created form, structure and surface. As a result of these developments, architects became closer to the production process and to have a better control over building parts and materials. Accordingly, there is an emerging need for a new digital design pedagogy, responsive to contemporary conditions in which digital fabrication techniques are integrated as a unique body of knowledge consisting of the relationship between digital architectural knowledge and digital fabrication skill. The discussion of this very paper will be based on the design curriculum of the Architectural Association Summer DLAB 2014, in which the author was one of the participants. With the experimental design approach of Summer DLAB, a search for a new pedagogical approach emphasizing the integration of conceptual content, experimental methodologies, digital architectural knowledge and digital fabrication skill will be demonstrated.