Week 2 - Design to Production

As designs for the unprecedented are more complex, the challenges of constructing these buildings left designers engaging with fabrication more closely than ever before. Branko Kolarevic's 'Information Master Builders' explores the notion of the need for architects to become more engaged with the processes of building through digital technologies. This is mainly because if we continue to limit ourselves with contractors who are hesitant to practice 'un-buildable' experimental objects, architects will no longer be able to resolve design problems, especially with the analog norm.

This history of disassociation started in the late Renaissance where the medium of communicating information about buildings were made through perspective representations and orthographic drawings to communicate information through plans, sections and elevations. As a result, the progressive disassociation of architecture from the rest of the building industry will not cope with responding to challenges and opportunities of the Information Age. Therefore, architects must take the lead in the inevitable digitally-driven restructuring of the building industry in order to not be left behind.

Frank Gehry is a perfect example of an architect who stands as the "coordinator of information" between the various participants in the design and construction of building. This was effectively done through engaging with digital technology right within the process and ultimately fluidly amalgamated the production, design and construction with the CAD program CATIA. In 'Materialising Complexity', Scheurer presents to us that this change for innovation began in the mid 1990s where French car industries used CAD softwares that could easily produce splines and NURBS curves which would have been a very labour-intensive nightmare.

Unfortunately, for us, the challenges that are faced within legal codes of practice, is the sharing of digital data amongst various parties in that with greater responsibility, comes increased reliability. But just as Kevin R. Klinger explains in 'Relations: Information Exchange in Designing and Making Architecture', it is only through the reflective process-oriented crafting of shared information can there be an effective means of communication and information exchange that is vital to the achievement of new methods for design and production for an architecture aligned with the spirit of our age.


Ultimately, as the Machine Age progressed into the Digital Age, collaboration at earlier phases of the design process has become the norm. As a result, more time is committed to the design phase to produce various iterations compared to years ago.

Scheurer, F. (2014). Materialising Complexity. Theories of the digital in architecture. R. Oxman and R. Oxman: 283-291.

Kolarevic, B. (2003). Information Master Builders. Architecture in the digital age : design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon Press: 55-62.
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Klinger, K. (2008). Relations: Information Exchange in Designing and Making Architecture. Manufacturing material effects : rethinking design and making in architecture. B. Kolarevic and K. R. Klinger. New York, Routledge: 26-36.