01_ACADIA_pg 81_A topic that has been hotly contested since the turn of the 20th century is the role of human craft and hand in creation. The mind can conceive of any number of creativites, but few people possess the skills necessary to bring that vision to reality. In the article, the authors reference the fact that the lead stonemason began to use the 3D printing technology to prototype with fantastic accuracy, but that the process was slower than if done by hand. As a second annotation, the process also removed the ‘hand’ from the process, eliminating intuitive and subconscious learning from the modelers that would usually craft the piece.

This reminds me of the conflict in the 20th century between the arts and crafts movement and the German Werkbund in the face of modernism and mass production. What is the gained and what is lost with a shift to mass production, or indeed mass customization? What is lost or gained if we let programmable machines do the actual act of crafting? Is there a loss of ‘aura’ in a 3D print verses a model created by other means?

02_ACADIA_pg79_Tying into the previous comment, the article talks about the process of reiterative design being inherently lengthy, unable to be rushed. The use/development of ‘just-in-time’ construction comes from the business world and manufacturing processes, but is this fundamentally overlooking the importance of taking time to iterate? If deadlines are given even more importance and must be met, lest the entire project now fall to ruin, does this make the design better or worse?

03_ACADIA_pg84_The existence of a ‘codex’ of geometry by Gaudi, to be used after he is no longer able to participate in the process, is an interesting concept. Of course, architects have always left physical blueprints of work to be done while they themselves are not present; its the only way to get things done. But fundamentally, drawings are a means of communication. Construction drawings communicate what the finished product need to be, Shop drawings communicate how to manufacture individual components; but these are all consequential drawings of the design. This codex, as I understand it, is much more akin to a dictionary, or list of definitions within a program. It doesn’t communicate an end product, but instead a relationship.

With parametric design being utilized more and more, will the focus of an architects body of work be less on communicating final products, and more on communicating design relationships that lead to final products? Is this already, or has this always been, the case?

From Sterling’s  Shaping Things :

Q1:

Throughout the text, Sterling talks about the expansion of ‘object networks’ (An Internet of Things), and their ‘advantages’ (almost in a satirical manner). To what degree will these new “things” and networks replace our own agency? What are we giving up amidst the ‘advantages’ they provide? Is this the realization/question Sterling is approaching at the end of the text?

Q2:

What exactly is the difference between the ‘End-User’ and ‘Wrangler’? Sterling seems to allude to the wrangler as a being that is more integrated into, and moves with the system, whereas the End User still remains outside of the system, as a traditional ‘consumer’, as we know it. Is he saying that the former will eventually be overtaken by the latter, and everyone will become ‘Wranglers’?

Q3:

Although the ‘phases’ of products that Sterling lists (pg. 82) are not completely exclusive to each other at present, will the ‘SPIME’ begin to make certain ‘previous’ steps (like the ‘handmade artifact’) obsolete? He later references Borges’ parable when inferring that there are limits to how far the ‘SPIME’ can go. Would it be problematic to reach this limit, after allowing the ‘SPIME’ to overtake some other methods of production completely?

Shaping things
1.The main idea in this article is “How SPIME, arphid and barcode shapes our lifestyle.
Nowadays, the internet of Things penetrated into our lives in many way such as Belkin Wemo plug(2013), Amazon Echo(2014)and Google Home(2016)
The SPIME blur the boundary of country, and distance are no long exist in one country to another.

We usually heard people talks about “globalization” and “the world is flat”

How do people adapt to different situation of SPIME?

“The model is the message” this article remind me that when

we make a model there is no limit in computer, we should explore the possibility of model.

We use Rhino then sent the file to laser cut or 3D print, so the virtual become reality.

Is important to relate virtual with reality or not ? In the future will people all lives in virtual world ?

Sagrada Familia Rosassa
I love the article so strength forward to talk about how they solve the rose window problem.

I can see how precise the model became reality. Through the article, we know in the design process

we can use all soft ward to develop and help our concept,

after this process, all will back to Auto CAD to make the shop drawing,

so construction site can build the model.

3.”…that such incursions are better tested in

the academic laboratory than within a tight critical path in a real-world situation.” is every one agree this opinion?

Sagrada Familia Rosassa: Global computer-aided Dialogue between designer and craftsperson

1 – As the reading showed, the computational model was good at some things and not good at others. It facilitated rapid changes as site measurements were updated, and yet the rapid prototyping was still easier to do by hand with polystyrene. As digital modeling become more pervasive and technology improves, will it ever overtake the handicraft methods of rapid prototyping? Or will craftsmen still be making hand models because it gives them a much better sense of the shape and process?

2 – In the conclusion, they say that “the innate precision of the digital environment is sometimes costly within the relatively crude tolerances of the building industry”. Will the building industry begin to work more and more with tighter tolerances to match the new digital fabrication and design processes, or will the tolerances of digital modeling have to relax to match the building industry?

Meet the Spime

1 – In the section on “Arphids” he talks about adding identity to objects, even down to our dog. This facilitates the production and distribution industry in moving around large amounts of objects, by increasing efficiency and tracking its movement. Does this increase in efficiency have any relation to our disposable consumable nature? Does the speed with which they can supply us with these make them more disposable? Or when everything can be tracked, monitored, and report back to us will we begin to keep things longer and think of them as less disposable?

Sagrada Familia Rosassa: Global Computer-aided Dialogue between Designer and Craftsperson (Overcoming Differences in Age, Time and Distance)

1. Just-in-time construction is a process where the construction takes place a portion of the project while the other portions are still in detailed design phase. The design team was able to break the window components down into component pieces for cutting and shaping on the other side of Spain. “The issue here was a maximum weight to suit the cranes at both end of the operation,the sizes appropriate for trucking across Spain, and the maneuverability of the pieces when suspended at the working zone many tens of meters above ground level. ” Just-in-time construction tries to accelerate the building process but does the transportation and site issues require more time to figure out the building components? How much does just-in-time construction outweighs the disadvantage of its limits?

Meet the Spime

1. “At the end of its lifespan the Spime is deactivated. removed from your presence by specialists, entirely disassembled, and folded back into the manufacturing stream. The data it generated remains available for historical analysis by a wide variety of interested parties.” Are people aware that all their data are kept in record forever? Does this affect how we use technology?

2. Bar codes are heavily embedded in our society. In the case of the lost dog example, these dogs have a “machine-readable identity” or the Radio Frequency ID identity chips. The society and people are changing in such fast pace. Can the machine-readable identity updates itself fast enough to match the changes? If not, does this system still remain workable?

1.“Just-in-time construction is a relatively new process where construction takes place for one part of the project while others parts are still having the detailed design finalized, and is a recent initiative taken by the Junta Constructora as one more means to advance the completion of the church by accelerating the building process.” If we are designing as we are building, how to solve the difference between the final work and the original expectation? Such as the Sagrada Família, the way it looks now may not be the way Gaudi expected. Also, the different feelings/ styles that exist in two facade of one building?

2.The idea of “Just-in-time” involved experts from many aspects in a very long period, in today’s society with the concept of mass production, can this building while designing method be popular and functional? Since the mass production is focus on the fast speed of producing, the building while designing is slow process. How can we combine the mass production with mass customization or it is impossible to combine them.

3.As Sterling said in the article, the internet of thing will inventory all information that we need, so our brain will be “free”. The internet of thing combines with a search engine, it become the micro “brain” which function like smart catalogue that keep track of all things. What is the relationship between us and the objects that we own? Sterling argued that the relationship will be simpler and immediate, but I think it will be simpler but not immediate. The simplicity causes separation of the relationship.

1. In the Sagrada Familia article, there’s mention of how the original intent of Gaudi is being preserved through his notes and sketches. But the authors also acknowledge that there are places where the original notes are simply sketches. This question of intent vs execution is becoming important in conservation discussions as well. Is it more important to use the original materials and methods of craft in recreating a space or an artifact, or is a replica that does the job just as well (or better) suitable and appropriate? How does one make the decision between the two?
2. RFID technologies are already pervasive, part of our daily experience. I’m not so concerned about the individual tracking that this enables (the convenience of swiping an ID card to enter my building in downtown Brooklyn outweighs the hassle of talking to security guards everytime I want to enter my office in Manhattan), but in the aggregate there are security issues. Looking at subway use, payment information from my phone, building access, etc. these digital breadcrumbs are information that can be used to identify me and monitor my life. We want interoperability across systems, but we want to retain control of this information as well. How do we strike a balance between the two?
3. With the ability to rapidly produce objects from 3d models with plotters and 3d Printers and laser cutters, what use is there for traditional crafts? Do we ascribe more “meaning” or significance to an object that is made my hand vs one that is created through digital fabrication (whether it is an edition of one, or an assembly line object)? Why is this, and does it matter?

Shaping Things:

Bruce introduces the phenomenon of SPIME as the birth of object processing. He stresses on emergence of a transparent product lifecycle that will lead to sustainability.

Q) Though Bruce’s utopian view is comforting, what could be some unintended implications of this. Could it lead to over consumption and shorter product lifecycle considering the ease of logistics and a detachment from the material attributes of product itself?

Bruce defines SPIME as objects that are plantable, trackable, findable, recyclable, can be uniquely identified and generates digital histories.

Q) How does an addition of these functions to everyday objects, affect their material attributes? Does it change them into an electronic objects that exist as a node in the network of internet of things, or these would just function as trackable labels without altering the materiality and meaning of these objects?

(Page 100)

“It is not a question of designing an internet of things to meet my so-called needs. Its vastly cheaper and simpler just to enable automatic information generating devices and processes, then search them mechanically and cybernetically, to figure out what i need.”

Q) What could be some social implications of everyday objects getting transformed into information generating devices? Will constant tracking and gathering behavioral data lead to an altered user behavior that is controlled by the image of projected self?

1. Sagrada Familia Rosassa, Global Computer- BURRAY

“That haptic engagement has its own rewards within a process ultimately as hand-driven as the craft of cutting stone” 

Burray heavily emphasizes the process of reiteration throughout the passage and how it was encompassed throughout the making of the church. With the introduction of rapid prototyping, associative design (parametric design), collaboration, he seems to really tries to push how successful (yet difficult) this new methodology of associative geometry design can be a new alternative for topology. But at the end of the passage, he says the statement above on how essentially designing by hand and designing by Associative geometry can be the same. I pose the question if this is actually true or does one method more then the other. A parametric design might be the new wave of designing but there is always going to be this nostalgia to doing things by hand (craft). WIll one be phased out or can both work together?

2. Meet the SPIME- STERLING

pertaining to “ARPHIDS”, When sterling uses the example of “Lost Dogs” and how to prevent these incidents from re-occurring is by inserting chips into the dogs themselves so when astray, they can be found. Chip technology of magnitude is not new but will these technologies / smart materials be inserted into humans as well? will it eventually be a new way of living with embedded technologies in us?  Will “Machine-Readable identity” be accepted by our future generations as a social norm? Can RIFD injections be seen as humane? Do these methodologies project humanity as a whole or does it cripple us?

3. Meet the SPIME- STERLING

Sterling uses the example of a bottle of wine and not simply just mentions it as an object but also mentions the sequence and step by step process of how and why it is made. Stemming from the time the seeds were on the ground to when it is packed up, labeled and shipped off to be sold. The bottle of wine was mentioned as a “Congregation of material and material flow” was this to deconstruct the bottle of wine to what it simply was? an “artifact and or Product”.  SPIME was mentioned as not an object but an installation” can this be related to the example of the wine bottle?

1. Sterling / Shaping Things – (pg86) Sterling spends a large part of the reading talking about bar codes through time and their place in our continually more quantified world. He gives the example about dogs in Belgrade being injected with RFID’s and how it would create a hierarchy of dogs, either elite with the code, or considered undesirable or illegal. This example cant help but be projected onto humans, where the government or health insurances administer human RFIDs. At some point does our desire (and with new technology, ability) to label and quantify all things become a societal problem? When human data is completely quantified and bar coded, we are reduced to products and numbers. Is there a point when these technologies, which are framed around making life easier for humans, ends up decreasing quality of life? These technologies are trying to turn life digital, which is cold and calculated, but humans are not built this way.
2. Sterling / Shaping Things – (pg95) In the section “the model is the message” Sterling talks about creating a 3d model without “the burden of weighty physicality”, where the digital realm is advantageous due to lack of gravity, friction, and material. There are writers who i think would disagree with this statement, such as Josef and Anni Albers who talk about the truth in material, and the craftsmen relationship to working with and understanding that material. Have the times changed with new technologies that we no longer hold the physical and real at the highest level? Is a digital model just as valuable as a physical model? Certainly for making iterations, the digital model is choice and fast, but eventually ideas need to enter the physical realm, as stated before – we are humans of the physical realm, not computers.
3. Burry & Fauli / Sagrada Familia – This reading covers the fabrication and process of designing the Rose window of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in the context of “just-in-time” and parametric deign. They go into detail about how various parts of the 30 meter tall window was being designed and coordinated all over the world including Spain, Galicia and Australia. Is this a new way of considering globalization? When that term is described by Kenneth Frampton, he speaks negatively on the subject, as he felt it will lead to international styles which have no cultural richness, among other things. But here is an example of architects and data from around the world coming together to make a very site specific and culturally saturated building. Does “just-in-time” design overlap with globalization?