Measure, Modulation and Metadesign: NC Fabrication in Industrial Design and Architecture

Abstract

Abstract Just as the capabilities of machine tool design influenced the aesthetic form of streamlined industrial design products during the mechanical age, the embedded curves and splines of digital software employed by architects today originated in the offices of automobile and aeroplane manufacturers from the post-war era. The use and reproduction of smooth, curvilinear forms would not appear in the field of architecture until many decades after their development within industrial design. The current relationship between architecture and industrial design is forged through the innovative use of Computer Numerical Control fabrication and the parametric procedures and software invented for its use. This article investigates the history of designing and fabricating complex, curved surfaces in industrial design and architecture in order to establish the technological and theoretical links between these two fields. It involves the transfer of technological knowledge amongst a diverse cast of designers, engineers and architects from multiple continents that took place over a period of 40 years. Moreover, this research claims that the origins of parametric architectural design can be found in this moment of developing and programming numerically controlled machines.