Protocols, Pathways, and Production

Difference and repetition are a recurring thematic within architectural discourse. Through the championing of digital techniques (algorithmic, associative or other) and numerically controlled fabrication methods, contemporary practice seeks an expansion of the linear and highly standardized protocols of industrial production. Algorithmic design methodologies, when coupled to robotic fabrication, enable an explicit and bidirectional traversal of the modern division between design and making (Fig. 1.). This paper describes one such method which modifies the familiar marching cube algorithm to take advantage of its latent possibilities for fabrication efficiency.