Imagine No. 04: Rapids: Layered Fabrication Technologies for Facades and Building Construction (Imagine: Rapids) - Tapa blanda

Technology has made a deep impact on design possibilities and the control of production logistics, enabling feats such as freeform architecture and increasingly precise elaboration. Alternately, Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Manufacturing Technology now provide the opportunity to create one-off components and elements for architecture. We now have the opportunity to design and construct without the disadvantages of production resistance and assembly needs--to realize genuine IT-driven architecture.

Two volumes of the Imagine series are planned annually. Façades and Deflateables are available. Performance Driven Envelopes and Rapids will appear at the beginning of 2009.

Processes of construction are related to available technologies of production and assembly. IT has made a deep impact on design possibilities and the control of production logistics – enabling feats such as freeform architecture and increasingly precise elaboration. Alternately, the idea of Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Manufacturing Technology provides the chance to create one-off components and elements for architecture. We now have the opportunity to design and construct without the disadvantages of production resistance and assembly needs – to realize genuine IT-driven architecture.