MAKING media: Industrial + Handcraft + Digital

Abstract

MAKING "IN THE SHAPE THAT CHANCE AND WIND GIVE THE CLOUDS, YOU ARE ALREADY INTENT ON RECOGNIZING FIGURES: A SAILING SHIP, A HAND, AN ELEPHANT…” - ITALD CAVIND, INVISIBLE CITIES. How do we re-program our intent to take a different approach? One solution suggests incorporating the traditional models and all allowing for a rigor of investigation. As we embark on the 21st century, marked with the ever-evolving technologies, we can no longer view handcraft, industrial and digital medias as separate and distinct. Their rich intersection and integration are necessary to the processes of making and design. The indeterminacy of where one media crosses over to the next is a hybrid place where materials, tools, and methods of fabrication align. How can this alignment help us to better understand craft? ...Or technology? Can traces of our hand, or our body, be evident in the transition between the imagined and the physical, or ideas/designs versus the built artifacts? And more importantly, how does this emerging architectural paradigm shape the urban environment as an act of building? The thesis seeks to reveal the spirit of making. It revolves around the idea of a master builder as architect, builder, product engineer, and materials scientist. How does this inspire a rich immersion in design through the intermixing of handcraft, industrial, and digital medias? Furthermore, how does, Detroit, a city rich in the traditions of innovation and production/manufacturing during the industrial revolution, serve as a historical context that helps to shape and inform the energy of building in a new century?