The seminar focuses on the unique merge of digitalisation, material performance and craft. Through processes of material manipulation, Digital Woodcraft explores the possibilities of (robotic) fabrication of wood structures. The aim is to analyse and materialize the potential of wood-work within a framework of computation and fabrication towards sustainable design solutions.
The Timber is one of the oldest building materials and its central role in many craft and construction traditions is obvious. But it is also a fickle and complex material. Its biogenic origins are at the root of this difficulty: long cellular growth in layered and branching fibre topologies results in highly anisotropic behaviour and a very heterogeneous distribution of material properties. Its nature must be understood in order to effectively wield it towards ambitious architectural objectives.
The modern timber industry can be characterised by automation, scale through glue-laminated aggregation, off-site manufacturing, and the pervasive flow of digital information. Digital manufacturing has enabled the precise shaping and forming of timber elements and their assembly into complex and demanding configurations.
This seminar focuses on the challenges and opportunities of digitally fabricating timber architecture. Students will engage with the current state of the art in timber design and digital fabrication in order to begin the development and articulation of an individual material practice. Through hands-on work and digital modelling, they will explore how digital processes can be used to craft wood elements, addressing the complexities of its behavior and variability. Students will develop a deeper understanding of wood as a material – its affordances and constraints – and apply this knowledge to create physical prototypes of speculative architectural conditions. The translation of architectural concepts into machining strategies will be the basis for a reconceptualization of wood craft as a skillful manoeuvring of variable material behaviour and precisely structured data.
At course completion the student will:
investigative research into creating a catalogue of joinery methods, varying in complexity and geometries. At the same time, integrating a new workflow of design to mill fabrication using new components such as D2P & TasMachine to create sophis`iticated digital models and manage complexity. precedence first day / manual studies on our first day, we picked … Read more
The idea of ‘craft’ for us is a blend of traditional hands-on skills and modern digital techniques. The experience reinforced that craft is an evolving dialogue between hand and machine, where both bring unique strengths to the process. PROCESS – JOINT PROTOTYPES JOINT 1 (CNC) JOINT 2 (CNC) JOINT 3 (CNC) JOINT 4 (MANUAL) JOINT … Read more
Hybrid Joints explores the line between craft and art through a collection of digitally and manually crafted joints. Using Grasshopper instead of CAM software, we modeled directly in 3D and iterated quickly. We found that digital woodcraft is a craft itself, requiring not just technical knowledge but also strategy, adaptability, and problem-solving. Machines alone weren’t … Read more
