Jeffrey's Response to Model/Prototype/Archetype

From "Models, Prototypes, and Archetypes", Mark Burry asserted how digital fabrication is not exactly speeding up the design process, which most people would argue, but changes the way that we look into design. Burry used his work and studies on Sagrada Familia to explain how digital fabrication has not eliminated but changed the role of the model, the prototype, and the archetype.

While many people think it might be unnecessary to have model, prototype or archetype as we can just machine print a design, Burry argues that they still exist in design process. Burry expressed that even we have digital fabrication to makes the production process quicker, but math and programming in the digital design are actually adding complexity of the design process . Thus the design process is still here not in the form of building by hands but switched to other parts of the whole design process. Same applies to model, prototype and archetype. Right now with digital fabrication, Model, as a usually miniature physical representation of an idea, can be easily built in the real scale then it can also act as a prototype. This actually could make observations of the idea much easier. In Burry's work on Sagrada Familia, he also claims that the prototype that they build can also work as a Archetype as it is the first product that the other copies and variations would be based on.

It is really interesting to see how digital fabrication has been blurring the definition of these design tools yet able to redefine and make them more efficient to help designers and even architects to make decisions throughout the design process. There would always be struggle in the designing and we can see how struggle switched from one part to another.