A+U 595 Computational Discourses

Description

This issue of a+u examines the application of computational design and digital fabrication across a spectrum of scales – from a free-form high-rise exoskeleton, to bio-mimetic wearables for the body, to the printed structure of a nonstandard brick – taking its conceptual cues from Charles and Ray Eames’ 1977 film, Powers of Ten. Selected here are 14 projects by individuals and entities working in cross-disciplinary ways, that suggest what “thinking digitally” can do with the means of our present time.

For each of the issue’s projects, the shaping and organizing of various materials, via computational methods, serve as our starting points. Supporting them are texts by Jenny E. Sabin, Patrik Schumacher, and Achim Menges. Through the relationships drawn from this iterative collection of work, we hope to make the unfamiliar more familiar, and to provoke questions about the relationship between natural systems, digital technology, and the shaping of the material environment.