Block party: contemporary craft inspired by the art of the tailor

Block Party: contemporary craft inspired by the art of the tailor, is a new touring exhibition from the Crafts Council curated by Lucy Orta - Professor of Art, Fashion and the Environment at London College of Fashion, and renowned visual artist whose own practice fuses fashion, art and architecture. Block Party explores the alchemy of the centuries-old skill of tailoring by presenting work by 15 UK and international artists who push pattern-cutting beyond the fashion garment. The artists Lucy Orta has selected take pattern-cutting as a starting point to produce sculpture, ceramics, textile, moving image and collage. Through experimentation the artists have found new ways to assemble pattern shapes, not to create garments but to manipulate shape to realise new outcomes. Block Party focuses on three themes; Storytelling, Embracing the Future, and Motif and Manipulation. In Storytelling artists use pattern-cutting as a means of expression. Turner Prize-nominated Yinka Shonibare MBE presents a child mannequin, dressed in a historically accurate Victorian outfit crafted from African fabric to reference culture, race and history. Claudia Losi’s 24m whale made of woollen suit fabric was transported around the world to stimulate discussion and storytelling before being deconstructed and transformed into jackets in collaboration with fashion designer Antonio Marras. In Embracing the Future existing pattern-cutting methods are manipulated and challenged through the use of innovative processes and technologies. Simon Thorogood’s patterns are created using digital programmes whilst Philip Delamore of the Fashion Digital Studio at London College of Fashion seeks to apply the latest developments in 3D digital design to the garment making process. In Motif and Manipulation the beauty of the paper pattern block is the visual inspiration. Ceramist Charlotte Hodes directly incorporates these familiar shapes into her ceramics whilst Raw Edges re-appropriate the use of a pattern block by creating a flat paper pattern of a chair which is then filled with expandable foam to create the 3D ‘Tailored Wood Bench’

Expert systems and the emergence of teledesign

This paper considers the extent to which the amateur use of expert systems for home design challenges traditional views of the design process. The issues are examined in the context of competing definitions of design. The emergence of a design process characterised as ‘teledesign’ is then considered, wherein retailers provide a CAD/CAM service to consumers, allowing the latter to use expert systems to modify template designs and get products fabricated to their own specifications. Such a system may be seen to empower consumers as designers, rather than just selectors of products, and would differ considerably from established paradigms of design, manufacture and consumption, such as that given by Baudrillard

Thinking on the Correlation Between Bauhaus and Computational Design Education

This study assesses that there are similarities between the Bauhaus movement and computational design. The similarities are discussed under the titles of hands-on activities, interdisciplinary studies and relation with technology for both Bauhaus and computational design. Digital technology is changing rapidly, and to catch the developing technology up the education system must be updated. Bauhaus can be a pathfinder for computational design education. Within this context, three educational organizations, KTU CODE FAB, IAAC and ICD, which were experienced personally, are examined. As a result of the study, it is reduced that; the innovative spirit of Bauhaus, which focuses on doing and hands-on activities, is also important for computational design education. The well-trained architects that accustomed to the new technology can be graduated with the integration with industry, similarly to the Bauhaus system

Influential Pedagogies Using Digital Fabrication Laboratories onArchitectural Education

Innovation in advanced architectural design is imposing a revolution in ways to materialize contemporary buildings of geometrical complexities. In the professional field, such trend is demanding a constant update on the tools required to execute jobs. At the academic level, digital fabrication laboratories are becoming a place to fuse ideas with rationalized principles of construction in addition to helping students visualise the future challenges in the architectural practice. This paper tries to argue the influences on architectural education by the leading function of digital fabrication laboratories, with the prospect of presenting practical assessments of transforming digital information into analogue materiality, along with logical explorations to rationalize fabrication processes. A historical assessment of applied cases in architecture is included, in addition to a description of digital fabrication laboratories, and to an association between instructive approaches in digital fabrication and engineering laboratories. The impact of the introduction of such labs on architectural education is reflected in the conclusion

Digitalization meets improvisation: Developing a personal way of dealing with the rising digital presence in design

As design and production practices are becoming more digitalized, designers are expected to adapt to the changing circumstances straight away. From the perspective of young designers who appreciate working hands-on, these changes may pose challenges and therefore finding ways to tackle them are needed. This thesis addresses the pointed out matter and arises from the effort of a young designer striving to position herself within the digitalization of the product design field. In this open-ended process where research, production, and personal experiences are intertwined, I enter into a self-dialog that enables me to question the ambiguous meaning of digitalization and my own standpoint. Through this, I acknowledge that it is needed to maintain an open but critical manner towards the changes in the field in order to perceive alternative approaches. Rather than fearing or ignoring digitalization, designers should find means of dealing with it. In my case, handling digitalization becomes possible through exploring a new dialog between a designer and an unfamiliar digital machine, 3D clay printer. This computer-based yet imperfect medium presents an ideal ground to investigate the designer’s position between digital and hands-on since the process involved both of these aspects. Along the way, as I recognize that the machine has an agency of its own, I accept it as my partner who I improvise along. Exploring improvisation as a tool for adapting to changing situations, embracing mistakes and spontaneity, leads me to overcome the unfamiliar process I enter. Through this practice-led research, I explore how to be open towards digitalization and it becomes apparent that not every prejudice of mine was truthful. I discuss that the level and quality of approaching changes in design can be personal. For instance, in my empirical study, the bridge I find between digitalization and improvisation enables me to find a means of working hands-on within a digital process. This thesis highlights that developing a personal approach retaining the connection to the designer’s own way of working is fundamental for dealing with the rising digital presence in design

Pop-tech-flat-fab

This paper for the EAAE / ARCC 2008 addresses the theme of simultaneity between the digitaland analogue by examining the production of two projects. These are: a pair of prototype busstops built in Sioux City1 and a shade structure for downtown Phoenix in the USA. The conceptual basis for both these projects coincides with the question of how "phenomenon attached toa certain locality”2 might be created through advanced methods of digital fabrication. Both projects offer an apology for rapid prototyping techniques applied to an understanding of "contextualism”3.Both projects are presented first as a contextual and symbolic response to an interpretation of"locality” and then re-appraised in technical terms. In both projects these technical aspects aim to advance not only the methods of physical production but also the transition of design methodsto 1:1 fabrication. In the case of the Sioux City Bus Stops this idea is represented throughan analysis of two-dimensional cutting techniques and developable surfaces. In the case of thePhoenix Shade project this idea is then developed through fully associative digital models. Togetherthese projects attempt to accelerate the physical production of their symbolic and contextualcontent through a discussion on parametric modeling that allows an efficient productionof a set of different permutations. By associating the symbolic/contextual with the parametricthese projects suggest and alternative procedure to the traditional and prevalent trope of "digitalarchitecture” and its co-dependence upon explicitly biomorphic, computational and quasinaturalistic language.