Rethinking Digital Construction: A Collaborative Future of Humans, Machines and Craft

Abstract

The vast majority of construction industry processes are labour intensive, and often fraught with errors due to non-exact assembly tolerances and dimensions. Digital fabrication can mitigate or remove the potential of these anomalies occurring by negating or reducing human site-participation. But there is another side to the digital fabrication coin – the transition to more automated processes will liberate humans to become more collaborative and creative with machines both virtual and actual. Daniela Mitterberger, an Assistant Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture, and Kathrin Dörfler, Assistant Professor of Digital Fabrication at the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Munich, highlight the evolving advantages of these new relationships.