University of Virginia
School of Architecture

Spring 2005

Monday/Wednesday
12:00-1:30 p.m.
Campbell Hall Room 135

Instructor:
Eric Field
[emfield@virginia.edu]
Room 134, 924-4033

Arch549 CNC Fabrication is a seminar about computation and the physical making of architecture. The course centers on student research into computer-controlled fabrication techniques, including extensive hands-on experience and testing of available machine technologies. We will focus on the making of objects and systems at real-world scales and on the invention of strategies that link architectural form, computational geometry, and fabrication and material processing. Lectures and lab sessions provide a conceptual basis for understanding CNC and its impact on architecture and industrial design, as well as the practical knowledge for using the machines. Fabrication exercises then allow students to test these theories and explore the capacities of computation coupled with machine fabrication.

Each participant in the seminar will ultimately take on a focused project of research to explore and develop a particular strategy of making using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technologies, and its link to design thinking. Students will use the school’s laser cutter, 3-D milling machine, and 3-D router, and CAM software for their control. We will also visit local fabrication shops to explore – and perhaps use – CNC technologies not available within the school.

Beyond a greater understanding of craft and hands-on access to the tools, the pedagogic focus of the course is on harnessing processes of making and the ability to describe process, form, and system through computation as problem solving devices for designers. Students will use their research as a means to figure out how to describe and build something, and to propose ways of thinking about that thing – what it is, how it relates to formal ideas, and how its means of making is related to the form and use that it takes on.

Requirements
Students are expected to participate fully in class discussion. Class participation, weekly readings, and additional research count toward 10% of the final grade. Five fabrication projects provide the bulk of students’ work in the class. The first four exercises cover 10% each. The final project completes the remaining 50%.

Readings
Architectural and other industry periodicals provide the majority of readings.
Further reference books, manuals, and articles are available in the CNC lab.