Crafting decisions : integrating design, fabrication, and assembly for six-axis robotic arms

Within the contemporary practice of architecture, what we design determines how we make it. Digital fabrication provides designers the opportunity to directly link digital models with CNC equipment such as robotics. While beneficial this direct link eliminates the ability for a craftsperson to adjust forms on-site using their knowledge of material and process. To reintroduce the flexibility of the crafts process and take advantage of material and tool capabilities, it is necessary to embed this craft knowledge into the design model itself in a series of craft decisions. Such craft decisions include both the "live" choices made while making, which pull from past experiences, material behavior, and tacit knowledge, and the choice of how one formalizes descriptions of making. The act of making consists of both how material is shaped into parts and how these parts come together to participate as a whole.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Mason, Molly,S.M.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Axel Kilian and Lawrence Sass.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127874

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127874