The Impact of Digital Fabrication in Architecture

Abstract

The development of the digital technology has led to expand the design Capabilities of architects, especially in the field of generating curved forms with formal complexity which was unattainable with the traditional methods of construction, thus resulting in the need to research for new methods to realize them physically, so Digital Fabrication concept has appeared in architecture and its appear in a general framework that recognizes the concept and its beginnings in the other fields and the stages it went through to reach the field of architecture, for the purpose of reducing the limits of research to the specific frame which is summarized in (the role of digital fabrication as a link between the design process modeling and the realized architectural product which is represented by the fabricating of building parts), and thorough searching of studies which took into consideration the existence of the above-mentioned three-way relationship between (designing, fabrication, and production), the research problem was derived, which states that (the lack of a comprehensive conception describing how to achieve digital fabrication and its impact in contemporary architectural production) and thus to reach the aim of the research (creating a comprehensive conceptual framework regarding how to achieve digital fabrication in the field of architecture and its impact in contemporary architectural production), and achieving this approach requires forming a theoretical framework consisting of four main units; The methods of fabricated digital design generating, digital fabrication techniques, production strategies and to clarify its impact in contemporary architectural production, and by application these main units in three universal projects then, the research puts the results and its final conclusions, which represent the most important in displaying the most important criteria that the architect must take into his consideration when adopting digital fabrication in the production of his digital designs.