Greg Luhan, Architecture
"Aligning Digital Craft with Hand Craft: Exploring Digital Design at UK"
A new digital design studio model has emerged that allows for twenty-first century ways of thinking and making architecture that does not solely concentrate on its representation. This new model is inherently collaborative and integrated, much like real-world practice. The integration of computers into the studio setting initially sought to replace hand drafting, but the loss of individual expression and tactility cast doubt on this solution. The emergence of visualization techniques and strategies coupled with more comprehensive software programs and the use of rapid-prototyping hardware has challenged the conventional notions of teaching design, but the impact of these technologies has yet to revolutionize the studio format. The opportunity provided by comprehensively engineered models and user-friendly BIM (Building Information Modeling/Management) software aligned with full-scale fabrication offers a unique venue that could radically transform not only the studio, but also the practice of architecture. This paper presents a position that examines an interdisciplinary association that is paramount to architecture research and development initiatives tied to industry. Within this collaborative context, students work in multidisciplinary teams of engineering, architecture, interior design, and historic preservation design faculty, computer programmers, and fabricators to create a wide variety of architecture-driven design solutions. Direct CNC-fabrication from comprehensive and virtual object-based design models has become an invaluable venue for emerging pedagogical initiatives linked to research. The coalition of the academy to industry brings real-world problems into the studio enabling faculty and student-researchers to use cutting-edge technologies without losing traditional handcraft skills that are foundational to the design curriculum at the University of Kentucky, College of Design or increasing the financial burden on the institution or the students. This paper will present three cases studies where this pedagogy was utilized at the scale of full-scale constructions-either as installations or as inhabitations