Control and Collaboration: Digital Fabrication Strategies in Academia and Practice

The integration of digital tools currently being used in many schools and offices with Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) hardware, has allowed architects to exert a far greater degree of control than they have previously been afforded. It is precisely this control that enables greater collaboration during design phases between architects and fabricators. However, the impact of this integration on academia and small practice is unknown. Several questions remain to be answered regarding teaching fabrication techniques and identifying strategies suitable for adoption in small firms. This paper investigates digital fabrication not as a software-specific set of capabilities, but as a design methodology that can allow schools to graduate young practitioners who can use these concepts to design and manage projects in more sophisticated ways. We outline six control and collaboration strategies and present several projects that explore those concepts through analog, digital, and hybrid methods.