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MAKLAB | Digital Materiality

Bruce Newlands Kraft Architecture

Gantenbein Winery, Switzerland, by Gramazio and Kohler ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

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New approaches to manufacturing are set to take hold in Scotland over the coming decade, these approaches challenge the basic assumptions of production through the application of new affordable manufacturing technologies & ways of working. The concept of centralised factories may be replaced by distributed workshops. Global centralisation will likely be replaced by highly adaptive local cottage industries Technologies like CNC Routing, Cutting & Drilling have been around for decades. What is interesting is how these technologies have been steadily transferred from industry to the garden shed with a burgeoning tech shop scene in the United States and the development of CNC into laser and plasma cutting. The emergence of cheap DIY 3D printers offer mass customisation & potentially the democratisation of design that breaks free from traditional assumptions of designer & client. A new generation of small makers promises to bring these sophisticated means of production into the home, applying it to everything from making church benches, to printing jewellery; from making toys to printing whole houses. Kerf Pavilion by Hoffer, Mackey, Crain and Miranowski This sophisticated making culture is sustained through social media networking, swapping, sharing, co-operating and collaborating. All community building techniques that goes hand in hand with the powerful concept of a global village of local makers. Having access to the means of fabrication has the potential to democratize design and transform the entire life cycle of the things we use daily from conceptualisation, design, manufacturing and recycling. The disruption of the orderly production cycle is profound, creating new values, changing how we associate commercialisation with wider social & ethical impacts. Digital fabrication Gramazio Kohler dimRob

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Notions of intellectual property are being challenged; Open The newly renovated Digital Fabrication Lab (FABLab) at Taubman College leverages state-of-the-art industrial technology to perform architectural fabrication research. source, where you can build on someone elses work, in return for publishing your work under the same license and sharing back any changes. Hacking clubs that encourage people to dismantle, understand and mod existing products with new and additive functions. Fablab is a concept developed by Neil Gershenfeld Director at The Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT. It provides a hub to learn and share ideas, techniques and skills openly. It has grown to be a global network of over thirty workshops from as far afield as Afghanistan, Amsterdam, South Africa, Iceland, USA and Manchester. Gramazio & Kohler use the term digital materiality to Crowd funding provides a way to raise get funding for ideas from a wide range of people who share an interest, it works well with the concepts of open source and rapid prototyping. describe an emerging transformation in the expression of architecture. Digital materiality crosses the divide in praxis between digital and material processes in design and construction. These are all ideas that suit the nimbleness of being innovative and small. They all have a place in Scotlands industrial revolution 2.0. They all have a place in places which are collaborative, places which seek new creative futures, places like MAKLab www.maklab.co.uk Were excited by the prospect of developing a decentralised network of fabrication facilities that with the assistance of local creative networks will provide the platform to explore 21st century entrepreneurialism with tangible local and global community benefits. Learning from this de centralised This synthesis is enabled by the techniques of digital fabrication, which allows the architect to control the manufacturing process through design data. Traditionally, the promise of industrial robots has been that they would replace the human workforce. But these projects, led by the Architecture and Digital Fabrication laboratory at ETH Zrich, demonstrate a different result: architects are free to create designs and patterns of a precision that simply could not be achieved by hand. Architects ideas entirely permeate the fabrication process. Data, material, programming and The Gantenbein Winery, in Flsch, Switzerland by Gramazio & Kohler has been the prototype for an entirely new approach to bricklaying: using modified industrial robots. It is one of few select academic institutions around the world utilising robotic automation to perform both

subtractive and additive manufacturing processes.

construction are interwoven.

experience of making and doing will have value for the future of collaborative working.

This new situation transforms the possibilities and thus the MAKLab aims to give everyone from school children through to entrepreneurs, the capability to turn their ideas and concepts into reality. professional scope of the architect. Perhaps even

characterised as a return to a crafts based fabrication of architectural components.

Digital technologies have existed in the aerospace and automotive industries for some time, but have just recently infiltrated the architectural-fabrication industry. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Decathlon Solar House

Decathlon Solar House, Barcelona

In Barcelona they recently successfully built the Decathlon Solar House www.fablabhouse.com bringing together ideas around information exchange, collaboration, design, energy use and technical precision.

This scale of project gives an indication of the learning & practice benefits possible when the architecture professional & education institutions engage with digital fabrication technologies creatively.

Today, practitioners have an unrivalled access to fabrication possibilities, whether that be off site manufacture or the use of CNC Technologies for engraving, shaping, cutting or creating ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___ components.

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Wikihouse

Wikihouse is an international project where open source shelter designs are shared and constructed by students as live build projects. Structures completely digitally fabricated, transmitted through the internet and output via large bed cnc routers using low grade ply sheet materials.

Wikihouse Live Build

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Architects are uniquely placed to engage with these technologies, whether it be for model making or building 1.1 prototype junctions to test ideas, creating customised signage for projects or detailed decorative engraving for wall panels. MAKLab has capacity for doing this affordably. MAKLab is keen to engage with the architectural profession in Scotland. We think there is a creative opportunity here for architects to engage directly in making components, artefacts and finishes for their projects. Perhaps reinstating the architect as a maker. MAKLAB is open weekdays 10-5pm and on Saturdays 114pm. On Friday 14th & Saturday 15th September, were offering a drop in event tailored for architectural practices from all over Scotland, to visit the space at the Lighthouse in Glasgow and learn about whats possible. Saturday will feature guest presentations on Digital Fabrication and Live Build Projects in Europe, Africa & Scotland

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