Digital Fabrication Laboratories Research Articles

INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL FABRICATION LABORATORIES AND COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN INTO THE ARCHITECTURE CURRICULUM IN TÜRKİYE

The discipline of architecture undergoes transformation practically, cognitively, and pedagogically due to the widespread use of digital design and fabrication technologies in design processes. This paper aims to eluctade the integration of digital fabrication and computational design with architectural design education at undergraduate level. For this purpose, this study examined the undergraduate course contents and spatial conditions of leading universities with digital fabrication laboratories under three headings: digital design, digital fabrication, and spatial reflections. In addition, this research applied semi-structured interviews with the relevant faculty members of three universities that have robotic tools to obtain more detailed information about their pedagogical approaches. According to this study, the curriculum and laboratories are rapidly changing. As a result, architecture departments are expanding their facilities by building laboratories and tools that have the potential for architectural education to fill the gap between practice and theory. However, there are economic limitations to implementing digital fabrication technologies in terms of the tools and materials used by hundreds of students. This research discusses the requirements, potentials, and limitations of theoretical and practical training through digital fabrication tools that should be included in these courses in the curriculum.

Opportunities of Digital Fabrication Laboratory Technology as Innovative Chemistry Pedagogical Tools: Trends and Pre-Service Chemistry Teachers’ Perspective

Opportunities of Digital Fabrication Laboratory Technology as Innovative Chemistry Pedagogical Tools: Trends and Pre-Service Chemistry Teachers’ Perspective

Third place social infrastructure, after and in crisis: insights from a local case study

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, Digital Fabrication Laboratories (Fab Labs) have become a common feature of the urban landscape in cities throughout Europe. An emerging body of literature suggests that Fab Labs go beyond providing access to digital fabrication tools, and function as ‘third places’ as they enhance social connectedness. Drawing on a case study of a Fab Lab in the English city of Coventry, this article utilises the concept of ‘austerity urbanism’ to understand the changing nature of third places in England since the 2008 global financial crash. In doing so, we argue that a confluence of austerity urbanism and digital advancements has influenced both the emergence of new third places (such as Fab Labs) while simultaneously undermining long-established third places (such as libraries). As a result, vital aspects of social infrastructure are being shaped and reshaped in the contemporary era. The article reflects on what these changes mean for individual and community well-being.

Challenges in starting to design and make together: Examining family engagement in Fab Labs: A nexus-analytical inquiry

Making in a digital fabrication laboratory (Fab Lab) using Fab Lab processes is generally challenging for novice makers, particularly for families with young children. We conducted a qualitative study on family engagement in open-ended digital fabrication activities in an informal Fab Lab setting, where families engaged in 2D/3D designing, laser cutting, and 3D printing. We observed challenging transformations when families moved from brainstorming to digital designing and, subsequently, from digital designing to machine-making a physical object. Fab Lab instructors’ work, parental approaches, and oral discussions, which were all intended to facilitate children's participation in the activities, were central in and intertwined with these transformations, and led to the engagement or disengagement of children. Through this study, we shed light on the challenges families faced and provide insights into how to reduce the complexity of digital fabrication for families who have no prior experience of it as well as into how Fab Lab instructors can help enable young children's participation in the related activities.

Enabling children’s genuine participation in digital design and fabrication: instructors’ perspective

Digital fabrication laboratories (Fab Labs) are accessible to the public, including children and families. However, a variety of technical skills, tools, and expertise are needed in these spaces, and Fab Lab staff—instructors working there—are in a key role in helping Fab Lab users. There is, however, a lack of research on how these instructors can inspire children's genuine participation in Fab Labs. We analyze the challenges faced by four instructors during two months of Fab Lab workshops with 7–12-year-old children. The children worked in child-only or child-parent groups on informal digital design and fabrication activities. Based on genuine participation principles derived from the literature, we designed our workshops, which included the creation of instructor guideline. At the end, we developed a post-workshop framework in which the instructors provided feedback about their performance and experiences. We provide recommendations to help instructors support children's genuine participation in digital design and fabrication.

CARTILHA INFORMATIVA: gestão de resíduos para laboratórios de fabricação digital

The maker culture, also known as “do it yourself”, emerged in the 70s, but in the last decade with the emergence of new technologies, digital fabrication spaces have increased increasingly. The idea of FabLab, digital fabrication laboratories, makes tangible a project, an idea, this movement that is already taking place in many countries and allows many people to create, share, and become protagonists of a small-scale manufacturing process FabLabs as design and materialization spaces generate a lot of waste due to the manufacturing processes and the various materials involved in the construction of models, prototypes and products, and their generation and disposal of waste. This article shows a documentary research on the problem of garbage, the case study in the survey of waste from a FabLab and as a result proposes a booklet with some measures to minimize the environmental impact and the generation of waste.

Early Stages of the Fablab Movement: A New Path for an Open Innovation Model

FabLabs, also known as digital fabrication laboratories, are a groundbreaking phenomenon that is contributing to the democratization of innovation and technology. Despite their potential influence, this emerging area has received little attention in the literature. This paper examines the initial stages of the FabLab movement using a mixed-sequential exploratory methodology. Qualitative methodologies were employed to identify relevant dimensions and establish research hypotheses, while quantitative methodologies were used to evaluate and validate these hypotheses and generate a predictive model for the innovation process through binary logistic regression. The information obtained through the participation of 124 laboratories in the online FabLab Global Survey was used. The results indicate that collaborations with large companies and a majority focus on research in FabLab projects promote the development of innovative projects compared to those laboratories affiliated with educational institutions or primarily used by students.

A STEAM Learning with Digital Fabrication Laboratory on Cloud Computing Model to Enhance Creative Product

This research developed a model of steam learning with digital fabrication laboratory on cloud computing model to enhance creative product. The objectives of the study were: 1) To create the model, and 2) To evaluate a model. This research method was two parts. The first part about the design’s model had four subs: 1) to study and synthesize the relevant documents in this research such as steam, digital fabrication laboratory, cloud and creative product. 2) to develop a process in the model, 3) to present the process model with experts to get it approved to be able to hold in-depth interviews, and 4) to create the tools for assessing the model. The second part is referred to as model evaluation. The sample group has five experts who consist of Information Technology and Instructional Design. Then, this research uses means and standard deviations to analyze data. The process’s model has nine procedures in three components. The experts assed of the model overall found were a good level that the model could help learners in building creativity skills.

Poetic and Artistic Aspects of Digital Fabrication in Architecture

New production techniques and digital design tools allow new possibilities in architecture and digital fabrication laboratories provide an environment for these new opportunities. In addition to its potential in terms of science and technology, digital fabrication creates many opportunities for artistic aspects of architecture. Therefore we aimed to make a theoretical discussion and try to provide a new perspective for an evaluation of the phenomenon in the context of artistic and poetic aspects. From this perspective, to clarify the artistic aspects of architecture in the context of digital fabrication technologies and to understand how the subject is covered in the literature clearly, a comprehensive literature review has been made. Initially, the literature review was limited to the themes of digital fabrication and architecture to extract from out-of-context articles and 197 peer review journals written in the last 10 years were examined. Then, a pre-coding schema was prepared from two authors and extended after a detail literature review. The extended coding schema was grouped in terms of their semantic distance and these groups were used to make an assumption about papers. The software MAXQDA, which is commonly used in the social science, assist us to identify the semantic codes related to the research context without any omission. Articles were investigated with the keywords created after precoding. The remaining 51 articles on the field of Architecture were analysed through these codes. Our aim is not to prove if there is sufficient paper that discuss the artistic aspects of digital fabrication. However this methodology helps us to understand the focus of the papers and the tendencies as an approach in this context. In general, the subject of digital fabrication in architecture is studied more about materials, structures, processes, technology and how to use digital fabrication tools instead of why it was examined in the literature. From perspective of artistic dimension, the reviewed papers mainly emphasize ‘characteristic, identity, variety, style, concept, customization, subjective, subjectivity, formal, composition, tectonic, geometry, form’. On the other hand, ‘aesthetic, beauty, expression, art, stereotomy, craft, artifact, are less discusses codes. Words directly related to art and craft are not discussed in the articles and there is less discussion on the aesthetic values of digital fabrication. ‘Sense, experience, perception, intuition’ are also less discussed codes even if these are strong relationship with architectural context. Although not included in the academic literature, the issue of digital fabrication has begun to be discussed in the context of experience, through art installations in 1:1 scale produced by digital fabrication tools. In a nutshell, the issue of art is at least as valuable as the most frequently asked question of how in digital fabrication, and this aspect should be given more place in scientific research.

Architectural Prototyping in Architectural Education: How design knowledge is constructed within physical-digital hybrid environments

Overview In the last three decades Architectural Prototyping (AP) has been reinstated as a useful teaching tool by a growing number of architecture higher education institutions. These institutions are using AP within two main frameworks: designbuild courses and Digital Fabrication Laboratories (DFL). These frameworks are characterized by intensive technological and hybrid digital-physical environments, and they promote an alternative teaching and learning approach to mainstream architectural education. However, the ways in which learning is constructed within these frameworks is yet to be fully understood. Therefore, this research aims to explore how AP affects the ways in which architectural knowledge is being constructed in contemporary architectural educational settings. Our multidisciplinary research is positioned at the intersection of three research areas: architectural education, craft practice, and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). It adopts the ‘enactivism’ epistemology and investigates the cognitive processes behind the craft of architectural prototyping within the context of entangled social-material and digital learning environments.

Aconcagua Fablab: Learning to Become with the World through Design and Digital Fabrication Technologies

AbstractWe reflect about the role of creative and innovative design/fabrication technologies in processes of learning to become with the world and understanding our place as humanity within nature. In particular, we present part of the work of Aconcagua Fablab, a mobile design and digital fabrication laboratory. We situate it in relation to the Fablab movement, highlighting its focus in generating processes of ecological understanding, immersion and literacy, working in association with BioGeoArt, an action‐research project inquiring about humanity‐nature relationships in Chile. Unfolding this discussion, we present two workshops developed by Aconcagua Fablab with children and young people, focused in designing / fabricating artefacts and occasions for the exploration of more‐than‐human languages in territorial expressions and immersion in sensitive landscapes – one of them focused on biomimesis and filotaxis; the other one on soundscapes. In doing so, we discuss digital fabrication technologies from a convivial conceptualization, in relation to a more‐than‐human geographical understanding of nature, and concepts such as relational agency, intra‐action, more‐than‐human languages and representation, and situated knowledge, arguing for the role that these technologies and arts in general can play, when used within creative and collaborative learning processes, in awakening ‘the curiosity about life on earth that we will need to limit the destruction we call Anthropocene and protect the Holocene entanglements that we need to survive’.

KOSMOS: An Open Source Underwater Video Lander for Monitoring Coastal Fishes and Habitats.

Background: Monitoring the ecological status of coastal ecosystems is essential to track the consequences of anthropogenic pressures and assess conservation actions. Monitoring requires periodic measurements collected in situ, replicated over large areas and able to capture their spatial distribution over time. This means developing tools and protocols that are cost-effective and provide consistent and high-quality data, which is a major challenge. A new tool and protocol with these capabilities for non-extractively assessing the status of fishes and benthic habitats is presented here: the KOSMOS 3.0 underwater video system. Methods: The KOSMOS 3.0 was conceived based on the pre-existing and successful STAVIRO lander, and developed within a digital fabrication laboratory where collective intelligence was contributed mostly voluntarily within a managed project. Our suite of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering skills were combined with ecological knowledge and field work experience. Results: Pool and aquarium tests of the KOSMOS 3.0 satisfied all the required technical specifications and operational testing. The prototype demonstrated high optical performance and high consistency with image data from the STAVIRO. The project’s outcomes are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA license. The low cost of a KOSMOS unit (~1400 €) makes multiple units affordable to modest research or monitoring budgets.

A STEAM Learning with Digital Fabrication Laboratory on Cloud Computing Model to Enhance Creative Product

This research was conducted to study and develop a model of a STEAM learning with digital fabrication laboratory on cloud computing model to enhance creative product. The aims of this study were 1) to create a STEAM learning with digital fabrication laboratory on cloud computing model to enhance creative product, and 2) to evaluate a STEAM learning with digital fabrication laboratory on cloud computing model to enhance creative product. The research method was divided into two phases. The first phase involved the design of a model: 1) to study, analyze, and synthesize the con-tents about steam, digital fabrication laboratory, cloud and creative product. 2) to develop a process model of a STEAM learning with digital fabrication laboratory on cloud computing model to enhance creative product, 3) to pre-sent and show the constructed model to advisor and experts in order to get it approved to be able to hold in-depth interviews, and 4) to create the tools for evaluating the appropriateness of the model. The second phase is referred to in the model evaluation. The sample group in this re-search consisted of five experts in the fields of Steam, Information Technology and Instructional Design. Then, the data were analyzed using arithmetic means and standard deviations. The process of developing a model has 3 components that include 9 procedures. This model increases product creativity skills of learners. The experts agreed with the overall model that was shown at a good level.

Strategic Planning of Digital Fabrication Laboratories in the Field of Information System Using Togaf 9.2

Strategic Planning of Digital Fabrication Laboratories in the Field of Information System Using Togaf 9.2

Aplicações da fabricação digital em arquitetura, design e construção: processos de apropriação tecnológica e adequação sociotécnica em experimentos na América do Sul

O artigo apresenta uma taxonomia de projetos relacionados à aplicação das tecnologias de fabricação digital na arquitetura, design e construção, desenvolvidos no contexto da América do Sul. Como parte de uma pesquisa em andamento, o material remete aos temas da apropriação tecnológica, adequação sociotécnica e inovação social. O objetivo é elencar alguns dos experimentos projetuais identificados durante a pesquisa, para apresentar uma perspectiva local das estratégias de produção. Os métodos utilizados englobam a revisão da literatura e revisão sistemática, mapeamento, questionário e estudos de caso. O contexto recente de instalação dos laboratórios de fabricação digital, iniciado em 2007, foi se ampliando nas instituições por meio do ensino e pesquisa, além da consolidação do modelo Fab Lab. Os resultados práticos são muito heterogêneos, ainda limitados em escala e fortemente baseados na articulação híbrida entre o analógico e o digital, devido aos materiais disponíveis, tipo de maquinário acessível e da especialização técnica necessária para produzi-los, mas já direcionados às dinâmicas de solução de problemas no aspecto social.

Digital urbanization of remote rural cities through design as a catalyst for sustainable development: The case study of Puerto Williams, Chile

This article presents the firsts phases of interlocking between community, city and digital manufacturing infrastructures, focused on the case study of Puerto Williams, Chile, the southernmost city of the world. Its process of digital urbanization for sustainable development based on technological education for the local school and community, by combining digital fabrication for the design and production of local solutions. Located in Navarino Island, Puerto Williams has no high-speed internet connection, and it does not produce any energy and goods, being utterly dependent on ships that bring liquid gas, products and raw materials. In January of 2019, a fully-equipped Digital Fabrication Laboratory opened, and fibber optic internet expected to arrive by the end of 2020. These conditions establish the basis of digital urbanization process for rural, pre-digital and isolated communities.

Influence of process parameters on the interlayer bond strength of concrete elements additive manufactured by Shotcrete 3D Printing (SC3DP)

Shotcrete 3D Printing (SC3DP) is a novel robot-guided AM technology developed at Technische Universität Braunschweig in the environment of the Digital Building Fabrication Laboratory (DBFL). For successful automation, it is crucial to understand and redefine the entire concrete spraying process with all its interdependent parameters. This paper presents the basic principles of the SC3DP technology together with the results of a comparative study on the influence of the two concrete printing techniques extrusion and SC3DP on the interlayer bond strength. In particular, the effect of different time intervals between the deposition of two adjacent layers regarding mechanical properties (bond strength) is investigated. As will be shown, the SC3DP method allows convenient mechanical properties although the printed samples exhibit distinct anisotropies. The reasons are discussed based on investigations of the air void distribution by micro CT and mechanical test results.

Enhancing Social Inclusion in Higher Education through Open Access to Digital Fabrication Laboratories

Enhancing Social Inclusion in Higher Education through Open Access to Digital Fabrication Laboratories

Design, simulation and testing of a cloud platform for sharing digital fabrication resources for education

Cloud and IoT technologies have the potential to support applica- tions that are not strictly limited to technical fields. This paper shows how digital fabrication laboratories (Fab Labs) can leverage cloud technologies to enable resource sharing and provide remote access to distributed expensive fabrication resources over the internet. We call this new concept Fabrication as a Service (FaaS), since each resource is exposed to the internet as a web ser- vice through REST APIs. The cloud platform presented in this paper is part of the NEWTON Horizon 2020 technology-enhanced learning project. The NEWTON Fab Labs architecture is described in detail, from system concep- tion and simulation to system cloud deployment and testing in NEWTON project small and large-scale pilots for teaching and learning STEM subjects.

Modelling and Simulation of a Cloud Platform for Sharing Distributed Digital Fabrication Resources

Fabrication as a Service (FaaS) is a new concept developed within the framework of the NEWTON Horizon 2020 project. It is aimed at empowering digital fabrication laboratories (Fab Labs) by providing hardware and software wrappers to expose numerically-controlled expensive fabrication equipment as web services. More specifically, FaaS leverages cloud and IoT technologies to enable a wide learning community to have remote access to these labs’ computer-controlled tools and equipment over the Internet. In such context, the fabrication machines can be seen as networked resources distributed over a wide geographical area. These resources can communicate through machine-to-machine protocols and a centralized cloud infrastructure and can be digitally monitored and controlled through programmatic interfaces relying on REST APIs. This paper introduces FaaS in the context of Fab Lab challenges and describes FaaS deployment within NEWTON Fab Labs, part of the NEWTON European Horizon 2020 project on technology enhanced learning. The NEWTON Fab Labs architecture is described in detail targeting software, hardware and network architecture. The system has been extensively load-tested simulating real use-case scenarios and it is presently in production. In particular, this paper shows how the measured data has been used to build a simulation model to estimate system performance and identify possible bottlenecks. The measurements performed show that the platform delays exhibit a tail distribution with Pareto-like behaviour; this finding has been used to build a simple mathematical model and a simulator on top of CloudSim to estimate the latencies of the critical paths of the NEWTON Fab Lab platform under several load conditions.