read 04: fabricating architecture

With CAD/CAM packages that rationalize complex forms comes the capacity for architects to ascertain greater control in the production process. However, traditional construction methods continue to present the discipline with challenges to technological innovation. Traditional methods are tried and true, and liability is mitigated by retaining lessons learned. In this climate, how is innovation cultivated?

Any software can be evaluated by what it affords within a project's production process. Practices like SHoP maintain a critical role in the development of projects by positioning themselves between design and product by way of intelligent computation and model organization. When material costs are cut as a result of such computational processes, as in SHoP's Porter House Condos, the "design" becomes transparent. Value is translated from a computational model to net gains within investor's bank accounts. Disciplinarily speaking, is this where architects hold the most leverage?

The language of efficiency indeed shapes design considerations, and will continue to do so as resources are exchanged. What these CAD/CAM packages ultimately do is open unforeseen communication channels among project participants. When the constraints are made explicit to all parties, the people versed in the software are able to simultaneously 1: make visible the governing constraints and 2: leverage these constraints toward greater ends.