ARC3721H F
Instructors: Zoe Coombes & David Boira
Meeting Section: L0101
Thursday, 9:00am - 12:00pm

Along with the development of digital tools for making, has come unique aesthetic sensibilities reflective of 21st-century making. Architects often legitimize the look and feel of computational design based on an assumed appreciation for mathematical rigour and respect for the designer's ability to master complexity. However, it is perhaps worth our time to remember that architects are exploring the limits of technological advances against a cultural backdrop that is as excited as it is distrustful of machines. How can design thrive in a world dominated by opposing emotions about the new? Secondarily, how can an expanded palate of form, interact with culturally sticky problems?

Students will be asked to work in pairs to produce a series of objects that are as modest in scale, as they are rich in atmosphere. Discovering ways of moving back and forth from the computer to the shop is a central activity of this elective. By moving from screen to object and back again, we will think about how to navigate from the familiar to the unfamiliar, the conceptually new to the materially timeless. Introduction to contemporary practices that wrestle with these tensions will accompany this structured process of making. Students will gain a foundation in the logic of the 3 axis CNC mill, and begin to see connections to wide variety of contemporary and historical tools for the construction of Architecture.

Conceptually, the course will expose students to debates within architecture about the role of the object. Through readings and discussion, students will wrestle with views that are at times at odds with one another and contemplate their validity in the face of their own process of making.

Students will leave the course with both machine skills as well as exposure to conceptual ideas that surround digital logic of making. Students are expected to have a basic understanding of surface modelling. Most importantly, students must bring a sincere interest in learning the logic and opportunities presented by the fabrication facilities at Daniels.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: By the end of this course, a successful learner will have improved their familiarity with the three axis mill at Daniels and have a better understanding of its relationship to other parts of the fabrication facility. Students are expected to engage with the traditional shop and to see the newer, digitally driven tools as an extension of traditional ways of making rather than as a set of practices entirely divorced from all other ways of production.