Week 2 - Reading 1

As Sheil put it, "most architects do not make buildings - they make information for buildings."

Ian David, Intensive Care, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, London, 2004 (Reading one, week 2)

"The work presents a dense cluster of unique fragile plaster-castings where each piece
is either suspended or supported from precarious stainless-steel rods.The work
recognises the present sense of delicate decay as the hospital slides into a weak
and hazardous condition. The castings randomly smash to the floor as slight changes
in temperature or air circulation disturb their environment".

In this reading, Bob Sheil, guest-editor of Design Through Making, outlines the
ideas behind the issue and how they have prompted intriguing and impassioned
responses from a diverse array of contributors.It investigates how making is associated
with definitions and methodologies of architectural practice.

TECHNIQUE 

•  When the ideas turn into built form the transition can cause some ideas to be change, to be included or excluded.

EXPERTISE 

• With the new technology of digital fabrication the making and design process is broadened. Mass industrial to Hand making techniques are now reappearing alongside as a new complex automation technology offering exciting potential to readdress everything. The digital expertise of designers and practitioners must also be revolutionised with the evolution of digital fabrications. The principle aim is to change in a broad context of theory, culture, history and craft. 

DRAWING

•  Histories in the practice of architecture based upon drawing as the primary product of the architect. Hill highlights the multiple applications that drawings serve, the drawing as analogue,drawing the immaterial, and drawing through making.

TOOLING

• In some instances, such as the torque ellipse forms by Richard Serra, the production of form is entirely dependent upon finding the right tool. Chard implies that in order to act as innovative designers, we must design appropriate tools as a continual by-product of the investigation.

ADAPTATION

• The catalyst of change, building fabrication indicates to us that the drawing and making buildings are both inseparable entities. 

"If architectural designers do not grasp the centre of building production by taking command
of the art and craft of construction, when now they are offered the chance, who will?"