The reading this week, "Models, Prototypes and Archetypes" examines the role of the model within the digital age. Author Mark Burry expands upon this idea relating it to his progressive work on Antoni Gaudi's famed Sagrada Familia. The intricacies of Gaudi's work, specifically referring to the Passion Facade Portal, provides a strong basis for the use of digital fabrication for both small scale representation and 1:1 prototyping. Burry integrates the laborious practice of traditional stone cutting with the 5-axis robot, drastically reducing the time and effort used to produce models. With the implementation of digital fabrication the design becomes a process, thus allowing for responsive design and full scale rapid prototyping. This new process of prototyping ultimately led to a better understanding of Gaudi's original design intentions.
Digital fabrication practices have become a standard method for the production of representation, leading Burry to question the role of the model and prototype in architecture. The digital age has found numerous ways of blurring the notion of the model as a form of representation, becoming more about the complex process of production. Referring back to the stone cutting process, we can see this as a method for blurring the definition of model and prototype. Through digital fabrication the large stone model becomes the representation of process, the development "how it was created" and how it can be geometrically realized. The prototype acts as the final representation, a culmination of the modeling process, proving the feasibility of the architectural model. Blurring the lines between model and prototype can be seen through the mainstream use of digital fabrication, ultimately shifting the role of the architectural model.
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