Mission Statement

The shift toward more expansive forms of digital production within the design and construction industry affords opportunities of not only reconfiguring the relationships between the key players, but also incorporating industry sectors not typically associated with building construction. At the core of this shift is the integration of communication through various forms of digital networks, CNC fabrication being just one among many, with the ambition of developing a comprehensive, well organized, easily accessible, and parametrically adaptable body of information that coordinates the process from design through a building’s lifecycle. This is the broader context for the goals of the Avery Digital Fabrication Lab.

The intent of the new fabrication lab is twofold: first, to develop techniques for merging design and fabrication through digital networks (an organizational goal), and second, to develop new building systems using CNC technology for prototyping full-scale component parts that structure the logic of larger assemblies (a material goal). What distinguishes CNC technologies for architecture is the opportunity it affords to reposition design strategically within fabrication and construction processes such that what architects actually produce—drawings—shifts from loose representations of buildings to highly precise sets of instructions that are coordinated and integrated into a full description of a building. At a more modest level within this comprehensive organizational picture, CNC has also influenced design methodologies as architects begin to respond more directly to the conditions of digital production as a means for both pragmatic concerns like cost and efficiency and more conceptual potentials like variability and customization. These are the topics of research and experimentation for the lab.

During the past year, the Lab sponsored and participated in ongoing research for innovative fabrication techniques and building components through several projects.  In collaboration with Atelier Architecture 64, the Fabrication Lab worked on an installation as part of the AIA-NY Center for Architecture show Make It Work: Engineering Possibilities.  The Lab has also worked on a built project in Seoul called Living Light in collaboration with The Living NY (David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang) and Atelier Architecture 64, a pavilion designed and constructed in Italy for the Torino World Design Capital (in collaboration with Caterina Tiazzoldi), a project entitled Amphorae (with Mark Bearak, Dora Kelle and Adam Mercier) utilizing Ductal, an experimental concrete developed by Lafarge and Andromeda, a glass installation by alumni Josh Draper and Micha Roufa.  In addition, the Fabrication lab worked with Phillip Anzalone and Caterina Tiazzoldi to run the first furniture design and construction studio at the GSAPP, which earned a boot to present the work at the Milan Furniture Fair 2008.