Lecture date: 2008-02-26
We regard architectural design with digital fabrication methods as a forward-looking challenge. The technological developments of recent decades are having a fundamental effect on the conditions for the production of architecture. They influence the way in which architecture is conceived and implemented. We are therefore involved in specific explorations into the interaction between digital data and physical material, between information and construction and examining the influence of charged production conditions on architecture. In digital fabrication processes, the production of building parts is now directly controlled by design information. In order to research the potential and relevance of these methods, we have developed a fully flexible fabrication installation. This installation is used for the targeted generation and development of building parts and for charging the materials with information we postulate digital information-based architectural design. For this, we develop the necessary design and production tools and discover new methods for the conception of constructed reality.
Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler are codirectors of the architectural practice Gramazio & Kohler based in Zurich. Both teach at the ETH Zurich where they conduct research into digital materiality under the rubric Architecture and Digital Fabrication.
