FABRICATE is an international peer reviewed conference with supporting publication and exhibition to be held at The Building Centre in London from 15-16 April 2011. Discussing the progressive integration of digital design with manufacturing processes, and its impact on design and making in the 21st century, FABRICATE will bring together pioneers in design and making within architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation. Discussion on key themes will include: how digital fabrication technologies are enabling new creative and construction opportunities, the difficult gap that exists between digital modeling and its realization, material performance and manipulation, off-site and on-site construction, interdisciplinary education, economic and sustainable contexts.
FABRICATE has emerged as the first in a series of focused events from the highly successful ‘Digital Architecture London’ Conference and ‘Digital Hinterlands’ Exhibition in September 2009. Organised by The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London in collaboration with The Building Centre London, this conference intends to frame discussion around the presentation of built or partially built works by individuals or collaborators in research, practice and industry selected from submissions through our Call for Works.
Representing the broad disciplinary spectrum from design to production, the presentation of built work will contribute alongside leading invited speakers from Australia, Europe, North America, and Asia. A significant and supportive context for the event will be provided by London’s extensive network of global creative consultancies, many no more than a short stroll away from the venue.
We welcome original, innovative and pioneering projects for the Call for Works and we would also encourage works in progress to enter too. Submission requirements emphasize strong and informative visual material with succinct analytical text and project synopsis. Selected conference submissions together with articles from keynote speakers will be featured in ‘FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture’ published by Riverside Architectural Press and launched at the conference.
Central to the aim of FABRICATE is to interrogate and disseminate difference, similarity and innovation across design and making practices in industry and academia. Submissions will be independently blind reviewed by two members of an international panel of experts. Selected submissions will be featured in ‘FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture’ published by Riverside Architectural Press.
The Call for Work deadline is the 20th of September 2010.
Submission Instructions
On our submission page, you will need to read and agree to our terms and conditions and provide the following information.
Author(s) Details
Fill in details of the author(s) and collaborators if any.
Project Title
The project title as you wish it to be published, followed by the site location if applicable and finally the year.
Keywords
Provide between three and seven keywords that help us choose appropriate reviewers from our panel of experts.
Synopsis (Between 500 and 1500 words)
Please pay particular attention to to this part of your submission. Synopsis should both introduce the project and focus on any specific innovations in the design and fabrication of your work. We are also interested in the development of the project including challenges and lessons learnt, conclusions on the approach you took, and where your practice goes next from this project. Furthermore, we ask you to add a paragraph at the end of your text where you can include any further details about your project that you feel are important e.g. you may wish to acknowledge sponsors, clients, contractors, universities etc.
Images (Between 5 and 15)
It is recommended that submissions include an appropriate range of images including concept sketches, early iterations, CAD and physical models, photography, manufacturing or construction information, scripting, test pieces, prototypes, parallel experiments, final assemblies, artifacts in use, revisions, renovations, and subsequent iterations. PLEASE NOTE images MUST be submitted as a single combined PDF not exceeding 30Mb in size. All images must be fully captioned, credited and dated in the PDF. The PDF with your images is the only part of your submission in the form of attachment. Everything else should be filled in in the appropriate fields of the online submission form.
The submission process is only online, no postal submissions will be accepted.
Multiple submissions are permissible.
Please note that this is a complete article submission. No pre-submission of abstracts is required. Ready to submit? Click here.
Oh brother, are you in hot water! Symetrics: the Dornbracht modular bath sysem.
As long-time aficionades of modular design, we might have finally found our Shangri-La, our Holy Land, our Nirvana – and lo, it is a bathroom. Yes, a bathroom, or more precisely, a line of bathroom fixtures and fittings based on a modular grid designed by the German company Dornbracht. Or more precisely still, a design system for planning, constructing and fitting out a bathroom, which the company has dubbed Symetrics.
Among the many intriguing aspects of the Symetrics initiative is that we have a rare occurrence of a manufacturer advancing a series of products linked not just by a few common details or surface characteristics, but by a larger context of formal relationships that guide the placement of the products in their setting. The glue that binds the various products together, of course, is the grid – an underlying vertical and horizontal mesh of 60 millimeter square cells in which can be fit any of the Symetric products.
In a languorous music-backed video on their website (link is below), a narrator tells us that the unifying effect of the Symetrics system concentrates the design focus “on the room as a whole, as opposed to the individual fittings”. Presumably our minds derive greater emotive pleasure when disparate things hold together by means of common measures and orientations than when they are randomly sized and capriciously oriented to each other. At least, that is the position of the rationalist school of design, to which not everyone necessarily subscribes.
At the end of the video Dornbracht’s tagline appears: “The Spirit of Water”, it says. On seeing this we were rather struck by the inherent contrast between the crisp, geometrically pure and eternally fixed square geometries that underlie the Symetrics system and the unpredictably fluid contours of water. At first we thought that the Dornbracht people were vulnerable to charges of being inconsistent in their philosophy and approach (or at least, in their tagline). But then we recalled the iconic image of the Vitruvian man, an ancient Roman icon that embodies the possibilities of reconciling organic nature and abstract geometry, the curvilinear and the rectilinear, the eternal and the ephemeral. So maybe the Dornbracht people have it completely right, in which case we may truly have found Nirvana after all.
Can you tell which is the real Scott Snibbe? Click on the image for the answer.
We frequently read about artists exploring the ‘intersection’ of art and technology, but Scott Snibbe realizes this concept more literally than most. Trained in computer programming and fine art at Brown University, Snibbe makes use of both skill sets by producing interactive digital programming for commercial as well as fine art applications. According to his company’s website, Snibbe Interactive has undertaken installations in more than twenty countries, which makes for a good start on his goal of developing his work product as a ‘worldwide communication medium’. Most of his portfolio derives from orchestrating the human body to come into contact with a digital sensing apparatus, which then translates the encounter into visual form for others to see.
Modular art, as we untiringly remind everyone, is by its nature an interactive and co-creative type of art, since it necessitates a collaboration between originating artist and collector, spectator or designer to achieve form (a cluster of connected modules) out of formlessness (a pile of disconnected modules). It can also be described as a generative medium, because each module has been designed by an artist to automatically generate a coherent whole when the modules are joined to each other.
Snibbe’s drawing apps for the iphone and ipad can also be described as generative insofar as their internal computer codings automatically produce a coherent visual form when a finger or other suitably shaped body part is dragged across the touchscreen. As with modular art, Snibbe the digital artist takes the process only up to a point, and then leaves it to others to consummate the work.
There are several aspects of Snibbe’s portfolio we find appealing. First, unlike some of the more purely abstract and digitized forms of generative art, Snibbe’s apps require the intervention of the human hand (literally) to produce the work, which connects them to the manual tradition of historical art. Second, like modular systems, there are no limits in the number of formal permutations that can grow out of the coding, which makes them highly economical in every sense of the term. And third, we find the idea of using a mass-produced object (the phone or tablet) to make contemporary art an exemplar of the democratizing capabilities of the digital era, and an encouraging sign of things to come.
Anyone who has either been a child or has the experience of parenthood is painfully aware that young people like to de-construct things. Naturally, since their knowledge base is still in formation, there is little discrimination as to what things may be subject to this impulse; one day it’s a ratty old doll that you had wanted to toss out anyway, but the next day it will be that miniature Rietveld chair from Vitra that you paid a pretty penny for and failed to put at a sufficiently high altitude to escape prying hands.
What can a parent do? Move everything of value out of the home and live inside rubber walls? Acquire only objects made out of cast iron with no removable parts? No, that does not seem practical. But there is an answer, at least when it comes to toys and other belongings dedicated to children’s play. As with so many of the challenges that beset mankind, the solution to the problem is – you guessed it – modular.
Now, you are probably thinking we have gone overboard in our faith in the salubrious effects of modularity. But think about it: when it comes to enabling a child to decompose material objects – which is, after all, a necessary phase in their mental development – wouldn’t it make more sense to start with the part and end with the whole, rather than the other way around? Eureka – of course it is! And get this: not only will we reduce incidents of mass destruction among the smaller set, we would also be encouraging in them the brain-building, life-affirming act of using their hands and minds to make form out of formlessness. It’s a win-win all around.
To aid in this quest, we are presenting here a roundup of some of the more appealing modular toys currently on the market, organized by type. Let the games begin!
Bricks and Blocks
The granddaddy of all modular products, LEGO is perhaps the most well-known toy in the entire modular universe. What’s less well-known is that it was largely invented by an Englishman who patented it in the 1930s, when modularity was gathering steam as a production method in industrial design. But it would be the Danish company whose name (an amalgam of ‘play well’ in Danish) would become synonymous with interlocking building blocks. What goes around, comes around, though; a Japanese company is marketing a product called Nanoblocks which to our eye are the spitting image of LEGO. Another variant is Bristle Blocks, whose connection architecture is formed from dense, short spikes; the same design appears under various brand names, including Stickle and Nopper Bricks.
Not far behind LEGO in historical longevity are Lincoln Logs, invented in the 1920s by the son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Given their pedigree, it’s not surprising that these blocks derive from an architectural theme and are largely used to construct buildings and objects of engineering, like fences and forts. Similarly architectural in character are Froebel blocks, devised by one Friedrich Fröbel in the 1840s. It just so happens that Herr Fröbel coined the term kindergarten and was among the first to codify its educational program, including – you guessed it again – the use of his blocks.
Turns out there is more of a connection between Lincoln Logs and Frobel blocks than meets the eye. There’s a legend that Daddy Wright was given a set of Froebel blocks when he was nine years old, a life-changing event which led him to become what he later became – an egomaniac in love with himself who happened to be a great architect. Okay, maybe just the architect part. One might also read some psychology into the fact that son of Wright invented a modular block system with a retrogressive perspective evoking the frontier days of early America, while the geometrically simplified Froebel blocks are now considered an icon of modernist design. Perhaps we’ll just leave this to the psycho-cultural crowd to sort out.
Of similarly modernist sensibilities are the numerous wood block systems currently offered by Naef, a Swiss company specializing in hand-crafted, high quality, non-motorized toys for infants and children. These handsomely designed ‘objects of art’, as their manufacturer prefers to call them, are among the few products here that would look equally at home in an adult environment as in a child’s.
Naef also happened to sponsor a design competition for a wooden toy which was won by a student at Virginia Tech; her modular design (above) uses magnetics to join together a single recurring shape in a variety of configurations.
Marble Blocks
Once assembled, building blocks tend to be pretty static affairs, which is understandable given that a principal goal in their composition is to not fall down. So what do you do if you want to inject an element of dynamism into the mix? Modify the blocks with a groove on one face sufficient to direct a marble down its path, that’s what. Once again the Swiss are on top of this game with their Cuboro wood blocks, launched in 1997. But the concept must have been around earlier, because in 2007 an American named Andrew Comfort designed a modular suite called Q-BA-MAZE made from plastic, apparently inspired by playing a marble maze game with his grandfather as a boy.
Vehicles
One of our favorites and a recent entry into the modular pantheon is Automoblox, a system of re-combinant cars and trucks made out of wood and brightly colored plastic. Beautifully designed and crafted, they are as much a delight to look at as they are to play with. The story of their creation and eventual success is nicely documented by their inventor in a series of web articles, which we recommend as reading for anyone crazy enough to want to bring something of quality to the market.
We might also put into this category all the electric train and car sets in which the tracks – and in the case of trains, the cars as well – come in interlocking segments that can be freely configured by their owner. Of the many such products Lionel trains stands in as similarly an exalted status within its category as LEGO does in its. Unlike the ongoing LEGO business, however, Lionel essentially ceased manufacturing in 1969 and was officially defunct by 1993. The divergent fortunes of these two icons of the toy industry make for an interesting comparative study as to why some products live on and others fade from view.
Electronics
For the mad scientist in your life, there is Snap Circuits, a modular system of interlocking parts which, when properly connected, perform all sorts of nifty electrically driven functions. Among them are a wind turbine, solar powered meters, an FM radio and motion detectors. We can attest from experience that boys go absolutely Lady Gaga for this kit of parts; in fact, they go so gaga they have a tendency to disassemble the handful of components within the system that are vulnerable to dismemberment. Thankfully there’s a brisk market for replacement parts, so science will continue to move forward despite their efforts to the contrary.
Dollhouses
Lest we suggest with our selection of categories that modular toys are predominantly oriented to boys, we include here some modular Dollhouses – not that we prescribe to outdated theories about gender of course (some of our best friends are girls). Still, as most of us are aware, dollhouses were traditionally oriented primarily to the lassies, who would presumably become acquainted with their future domestic duties by practicing them at a small scale. In most cases the dollhouse came already constructed or was first assembled by the Pater, since construction was as stereotypically a male skill set as interior furnishing and maintenance were female. Such neat gender divisions are nicely blurred when it comes to modular dollhouses, however, since the task of constructing the shell of the house out of the available parts becomes part of the user experience. Interestingly, many of the examples we show here were designed by architects, which might explain the prevailing mechanistic aesthetic, exemplified by a dollhouse in the form of modular shipping containers!
Sound Instruments
Music and modularity are closely intertwined, so its appearance among these categories should come as no surprise. Still, we were not entirely prepared for the charming device created by PKNTS called AMK (anagrams ‘r them). This is a modular sound toy designed for preschool children which, according to the designers, works in combination with a computer to transfer single sounds and sound sets to sound blocks, called Klangbausteine. Die Kinder can play independently with each module, or combine sounds by plugging blocks together.
Recyclable Toys
We conclude our survey with a neat and unexpected version of a modular toy. In 2007 Design21, a social design network, sponsored a design competition for a child’s toy with a requirement that it embody sustainability principles. Italian designer Barro de Gast came up with a terrific double whammy: he designed a packaging system for yogurt which, once the contents were consumed, could be transformed into a variety of children’s toys by means of interlocking tabs. Bravo Barro!
First of all, we’d like to know who said interior walls had to be flat as a pancake? Sure, it’s fine if you want to place a piece of furniture against them (although there’s usually a gap back there anyway because of the baseboard or chairrail). Sure, flat is good if you need to hang framed or canvas artwork on them. And sure, if you want to apply wallpaper to the wall, well, it really does need to be flat.
But let’s say you want to turn the wall into a piece of low-relief sculpture – after all, you’ve got enough painted and papered walls elsewhere in the space or building, and you really, really need some relief. Something to catch the eye by a dramatic play of light and shadow five, ten, twenty feet high, and just as long or longer. Something that would keep the eye moving up and down, left and right, in the way all good design should.
Left: “Uh, honey – I forgot to wear my pants today…” Middle: “I told you we were in a bubble!” Right: “Hey, looks like you lost a little weight there…”
Baby, what you could use is the modular wall surfacing system developed by modularArts, a Seattle-based company that started making this product in 2002. They offer over twenty different designs of modular panels, each thirty-two inches square and cast out of non-toxic mineral material. The panels interlock by means of a proprietary system of steel joints, and the company now offers a low VOC installation kit to further ensure sustainable building practices. Panels are light-weight and applied to sheetrock, so they can be installed by a finish crew using standard tools. The company has recently come out with a smaller scale module for use in residential contexts and for jobs smaller than typical commercial applications.
Being modular, of course, means the panels are flexible in terms of the overall size and configuration of the installation. That the modules are ‘pre-designed’ also brings an economy to the job insofar as it eliminates the need for costly customization while allowing for the creative disposition of the panels within the space.
The designs are on the whole abstract and freshly contemporary in appearance, with a taste of mid-century modern in a few of them. We also rather like that they’re uniformly white, which keeps the eye focused on the effects of light and shadow rather than be distracted by color or secondary patterns.
It was only recently that we stumbled on the work of Charlotte Posenenske, a German artist who was born in 1930 and survived life in Nazi Germany during World War II despite her partially Jewish heritage. Posenenske’s story is remarkable in a number of ways, not the least of which is that she is best known for a tiny body of work produced in just two years of a truncated ten-year career in visual art. That her tenure as an artist was relatively short had nothing to do with her passing in 1985 from the effects of cancer: rather, she had deliberately walked away from the art world seventeen years earlier, in 1968, never to look back again despite invitations for her to return. Instead, she spent the last part of her life pursuing a career as a sociologist, studying the effects of industrialization on organized labor.
Her choice of an alternative vocation, however, was not quite as disconnected from her preceding artistic pursuits as might seem the case at first glance. For in the sculptures for which she is now celebrated are interwoven some of the very same themes she would take up in her new profession: industrialism and its relationship to art and craft; how things are made and who is equipped to make them; and how we value objects in the marketplace. Imagine our excitement when we discovered that someone had been exploring several of the very concepts that interest us at A.R.T. today – only a half-century ago. Sure is hard to have an original idea around here!
The principal sculptures which we and others particularly admire were assembled by Posenenske from pieces which she designed to resemble ventilation ducts, such as one might find inside a building. Pieces were either of a rectangular, square or transitional section, and could be attached to each other with screws. Her choice of materials was limited to galvanized sheet metal and corrugated cardboard, with no hand-finishing or post-production treatment to pretty them up and belie their industrial origins.
As visually appealing as they may be in a purely formal sense, an important distinguishing feature of her duct sculptures is more conceptual than visual: that is, the pieces were designed by Posenenske to be re-configurable, meaning they could be detached and then re-attached in a myriad of different configurations. In other words, they were modular.
Posenenske put the fact of her sculpture’s modularity into practice by leaving it to curators to arrange the pieces as they saw fit when exhibited in galleries or curated spaces. By implication collectors and spectators would also be empowered to install them to their own specifications. For one event Posenenske herself choreographed a performance piece in which a crew of assistants dressed in white Lufthansa jumpsuits re-arranged a set of modules suspended from a ceiling in order to reinforce her ideas about the fluidity of their composition.
But her preferred environment for their display were public spaces, especially transportation nodes – airports, traffic islands, train stations. In part this stemmed from her political sensibilities; keep in mind this is all happening in 1967-68 when the counter-cultural wave of democratization and anti-establishmentarianism was about to reach a crescendo. The socially conscious Posenenske did not want her work to be the object of market speculation by collectors banking on their appreciation in value for reasons of a limited supply and the rising reputation of the artist. Besides physically locating her sculptures in more ‘democratic’ contexts than the privatized gallery space, Posenenske also intended for them to be produced in open edition and sold for the cost of their production.
If you’re familiar with some of the thinking behind the portfolio of work we offer through A.R.T., you can see immediately why we feel such a strong affinity for this fascinating figure.
Happily, public interest in Posenenske’s work seems to be rising again with a new book and catalogue, an exhibition at documenta 12 in 2007 and now, at the Artist’s Space in New York, a series of events and films (left) organized around the Vierkantrohe Series (Square Tube Series) of sculptures that we have focused on here. Part of the program at Artist’s Space faithfully reflects Posenenske’s attitude regarding the non-static character of art: four living artists have been invited to position the modules in the space to their liking over the course of successive weeks. Listen, if she was okay with some guys in Lufthansa suits playing around with her tubes, what harm could a few artists do?
Henry Ford, move over – the era of mass production has come to a close! Personalization is the name of the game now. People want a role in shaping the physical world around them to suit their individual needs, tastes and resources; to satisfy that goal they're looking for works of art and design that are reconfigurable, interactive and scalable. This blog explores how creatives are responding to the quest for customization, as well as the impact customization is having on the creative disciplines themselves.
