John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

helping practitioners from many areas to bring their ideas to fruition with
increased speed and productivity. Over the past decade we have witnessed an
unprecedented development and increased accessibility of CAD/CAM
(Computer Aided Design/Manufacture) technologies.
In ‘Computer Aided Manufacture in Architecture’ Nick Callicott covers both the
origins of CAD/CAM and explores - by case studies of his own projects with
sixteen*(makers) 3 - the potential for future applications outside conventional
manufacturing (Callicott, 2001). Callicott shows that industrial manufacturing
has historically compelled a separation of design and production which resulted
in producing large numbers of standardised products displaying minimum
variation. More recently, digital technologies have afforded alternatives to this
model. Techniques explored by Callicott include both the rapid prototyping of
contemplative, functional and interactive objects within the design studio; and
large-scale examples within manufacturing industry using Computer Numerical
Controlled (CNC) machining. By placing CAM within the context of both
traditional craft and mechanised mass production, this book seeks a revision of
the understanding of production and how the manufacturing process can be
transformed into a ‘making’ process. Callicott argues that full exploitation of
these technologies takes awareness of their relationship with existing practices
of designing and making.
Art and design practitioners that have adopted 3D modelling software, CNC
machines and rapid prototyping and manufacturing (RP&M) technologies have
unprecedented opportunities. They can design objects and structures that can
be realised by new materials and building techniques which circumvent
traditional haptic, craft-based skill sets. The spread of these technologies has
brought about the opportunity for practitioners with no background in
engineering to make use of these them. The practical aspect of increased speed
and productivity in the use of these technologies is important to all users.
However, the conceptual realisations and the possibility of making innovative
types of object for new forms of audience or market (Attfield, 2000, p.62) are of
equal importance but are perhaps less immediately obvious. These tools
confront practitioners with decreased concerns of 'how' to make something. At
3 http://www.sixteenmakers.com/
- 16 -