Homo Faber 2.0: politics of digital in Latin America (original) (raw)
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HOMO FABER DIGITAL FABRICATION IN LATIN AMERICA CAAD FUTURES 2015 > the next city
After more than ten years spreading the word about digital fabrication applied to architecture in Brazil, it is a big honor for me to introduce this exhibition. The whole idea started when I attended the last CAAD Futures conference in 2013, held in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The local organizers put up an exhibition titled "Digital workshop in China", which showed images of the many parametric design and digital fabrication workshops that were contributing to change the architectural practice in the country. It reminded me of all the digital fabrication laboratories that were being created in Brazil in many architecture schools; they could also be seen as a movement that was already influencing education from the bottom up. When professors Bauke de Vries and Tom Kvan kindly invited me to chair the next CAAD Futures in São Paulo, I imediately thought about inviting Prof. David Sperling as a co-chair for the conference and as a curator for the exhibition. During his master degree thesis in the early 2000s Sperling had already experimented with rapid prototyping techniques and he was also aware of the new labs that were popping up in the country. When Sperling suggested that we could expand the exhibition to other Latin American countries, the name of Professor Pablo Herrera, an early supporter of digital tecnhologies and fabrication techniques in architecture, came naturally to our minds. I would like to thank Professors Sperling and Herrera for their fine work designing and organizing this exhibition and, above all, for giving an underlying logic and a precise meaning to what would otherwise be just a collection of beautiful objects.
Blucher Design Proceedings
This paper approaches the literature that combines the fields of Architectural Computing and Architecture and Urbanism produced in Latin America during the first two decades of the 21st Century. The main objective is to map the advancement of Digital Technology in Architecture and Urbanism in the context of the Third Industrial Revolution, in order to identify perspectives towards a Fourth Industrial Revolution. As methodology was applied a chronological survey of the literature produced in book format, predominantly printed in the 21st Century by Latin Americans researches in leading digital themes. At last, it can be verified that the production is still very scarce and still has not incorporated, in a significant way, the themes related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Migratory Movements of Homo Faber: Mapping Fab Labs in Latin America
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2015
The present paper is a mapping study of digital fabrication laboratories in Latin America. It presents and discusses results from a survey with 31 universities' fab labs, studios and independent initiatives in Latin America. The objective of this study is fourfold: firstly, to draw the cultural, social and economic context of implementation of digital fabrication laboratories in the region; secondly, to synthesize relevant data from correlations between organizational structures, facilities and technologies, activities, types of prototypes, uses and areas of application; thirdly, to draw a network of people and institutions, recovering connections and the genealogy of these fab labs; and fourthly, to present some fab labs that are intertwined with local questions. The results obtained indicate a complex "homo faber" network of initiatives that embraces academic investigations, architectural developments, industry applications, artistic propositions and actions in social processes.
Latin American universities and digital craft: reaching out to regional development
2019 IEEE Sciences and Humanities International Research Conference (SHIRCON), 2019
This research identifies and analyzes the interaction between universities and craft experiences, with communities in different cities and towns in Latin America. These interactions use as link two technologies: digital fabrication and, as an emergent alternative, computational design. Case studies reveal interactions from the universities, specifically schools of architecture, design or engineering, to regional communities, and from them back to universities. We emphasize in advantages, lacks and problems, to be taken into account for future sustainable implementations. Processes establish links with regional production, seeking to empower it through the incorporation of new technologies, framed by teaching-learning experiences. Universities set passive assistance aside, to opt for a real collaborative learning that benefits students, teachers and societies.
DIGITAL FABRICATION IN LATIN AMERICA CAAD FUTURES 2015 > the next city
The HOMO FABER exhibition is an event related to CAAD Futures 16th Conference, "The Next City". The exhibition maps, in an unprecedented way, digital fabrication laboratories and other initiatives linked to the architecture field in the context of Latin America. As a sample of the recent yet already effervescent scenario of digital manufacturing in the region, the exhibition presents the production of 25 laboratories of universities, research groups, architecture studios and independent researchers. Based on the understanding that manufacturing is to inform the matter, the works exhibited show a range of interests and means, as well as openness to experimentation in processes and results.
The aim of this work is to analyse the topic of professional associationism in the fi eld of design. This is a phenomenon which has contributed in defi ning several aspects, not just in regulatory terms, of the "trade" of designer, encouraging its rapid dissemination in the contemporary society and making it one of today's most appealing professions at international level. Its priority is to see whether there is a Latin tradition which has historically marked the evolution of associationism. We will also try to understand whether the contamination between the sphere of design and the world of art and craft can be considered among those constants that can be used to interpret the issue. Lastly, but equally important, we will analyse the possibility of creating a system of shared connection based upon current information and communication technology, in order to build up a relationship between many subjects. We think that the use of an "institutional" tool (such as university research) to read and understand the phenomenon, can help to shed light on the different aspects of the discipline.