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- Title of Exhibit Proposal:
CODE TO CRAFT ? Genome Jewellery Collection (Ref #151)
- Date:
- 05-10-2006 05:40:52
- Status:
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Accepted
- Rating:
- 9
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Details:
- Themes:
Innovation, design and craft; Craft and digital process; Practice and research; Craft and manufacturing; Intelligent making
Keywords:
Architecture, craft, craftsmanship, data driven fabrication, digital design, jewellery, minimal surface, rapid-prototyping, variable scale
Can digital technology enrich the field of craft and re-introduce a sense of craftsmanship into the practice of architecture? Finely crafted in the virtual realm and manifested as a set of jewellery, the Genome collection demonstrates the potentials embedded in digital techniques and their applicability to both craft and architecture practice. ?Code to Craft? suggests a new vocabulary and language for craft based practice through the use of digital tools and fabrication technologies.
The exhibition will comprise a selection of jewellery objects crafted using software that mathematically emulates the behaviour of elastic 'minimal' surfaces such as soap films. Minimal surfaces exhibit elegant and efficient solutions for spatial and structural design. The work shown and its associated research began as an investigation into the use of minimal surfaces as an architectural design tool. Initial experimentation led to further studies into applications across a variety of scales and the combination of customised software, data driven fabrication and traditional crafting techniques enabled both the conception of unique forms and the ability to produce these forms and structures to any desired level of intricacy and accuracy. Genome Jewellery is formed directly from a digital file using a thermo-wax object printer. The ?printed? master is translated into precious metal using the traditional technique of lost-wax casting. These sterling silver and gold forms express permutations of surface articulation and patterning that illustrate the numerous potentials, unexpected outcomes and variables implicit in digital design and fabrication strategies.
The work to be exhibited in ?Code to Craft? shows that by engaging directly with a 3D virtual object and data driven fabrication tools, the digital craftsman can evoke the Pre - Renaissance notion of 'master mason': overseer of conception, design, fabrication and construction. Implications for architectural design and construction are profound since these technologies seem to bridge a traditional 'representational' divide between conception and realisation by integrating design and fabrication. As digital manufacturing technologies increase in size, viable applications extend to fabricating large-scale components suitable for building construction. Architects and designers are empowered through a new medium where representation interfaces directly with fabrication information. As an example, ?Concrete Contour Crafting? is a proposed large-scale construction technique being researched at the University of Southern California1. This technology employs a similar layer deposition method to that used in the creation of the Genome jewellery collection.
While there may be some scepticism about these processes among craft practitioners, Code to Craft clearly demonstrates some of the benefits that can be gained by using emerging digital technologies, particularly the appropriation of computation, design and fabrication strategies across scales and between disciplines.
1. http://www.contourcrafting.org
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Reviewer Comments: