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

These designer-makers are exploring how the manufacturing process can be
transformed into a ‘making’ process. The objects discussed above have been
made to exploit computer-based design and fabrication tools and this presents
the opportunity to reframe the activities, methods and knowledge of the makers
that produced them. These contemplative, functional and interactive objects
engage with innovative production syntaxes. The practitioners are actively
investigating and exploiting computer technologies to achieve innovation in
terms of both the conceptual design process and the designed objects produced.
By engaging with new sets of technologically driven, creative, cultural and
economic conditions they are stimulating intriguing alternative forms of
enquiry. The potential implications of this for current professional and
academic models are significant.
2.6.1 From productivity tools to opportunities for design
experimentation
As we have seen with the application of computer-based design and fabrication
tools, some practitioners are focusing on the exploitation of the unique features
of these technologies. Nonstandard means of manufacturing and new material
processes allow for the development of new skill sets and design methodologies.
This presents an exciting array of opportunities. However, it raises questions
for practitioners about the objects we are able to make and whether we should
do so merely because we can. Our industrialised culture is closely intertwined
with the production of commodities that have been designed and manufactured.
Computing technologies are rapidly proliferating and under these developments
many conceptual dichotomies like form/function lose their significance. The
challenge we are facing is not what shape an object should be or how we are to
make it but why would we want to make it in the first place and what are the
consequences of its making? If we have the capacity to deliver incredible
productivity, but are at loss to understand what to make and why (Thackara,
2005, p.189) we must look at the broader contexts of design and production to
better understand the things we choose to make.
The conventional use of these technologies within a commercial, industrial
context is concerned with the pragmatic aspect of increased speed and
productivity. The implementation of CAD/CAM in mass-manufacturing has
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