Technology in Architectural Practice

Has anybody taught a digital fabrication course or taken one? I'd be curious if you would share some notes.

• Pros, cons, what worked, what didn't work?
• What was the mix between hands on shop time vs lecture?
• Assignments that worked and those that didn't work
• Was the course a series of small experiments or did it focus on one semester long project?

Any insight would be appreciated. 

I took a course while I was in school where we designed a chair in Rhino or SketchUp that would use one sheet of 4'×8' plywood. We then cut the pieces on the CNC router and assembled the chairs. It was fun to walk around the classroom and test everyone's designs. I thought it was a great intro to how to utilize the CNC!

Has anybody taught a digital fabrication course or taken one? I'd be curious if you would share some notes.

• Pros, cons, what worked, what didn't work?
• What was the mix between hands on shop time vs lecture?
• Assignments that worked and those that didn't work
• Was the course a series of small experiments or did it focus on one semester long project?

Any insight would be appreciated. 

Has anybody taught a digital fabrication course or taken one? I'd be curious if you would share some notes.

• Pros, cons, what worked, what didn't work?
• What was the mix between hands on shop time vs lecture?
• Assignments that worked and those that didn't work
• Was the course a series of small experiments or did it focus on one semester long project?

Any insight would be appreciated. 

Back in 2018, I co-taught a class at NC State School of Design that was split into two distinct halves. The first eight classes covered computational design, while the second eight focused on fabrication and the creation of a final project. Looking back, I would definitely not recommend this structure because it proved to be too much material to cover effectively. My biggest lesson learned was that it is better to select just one of these topics to focus on rather than attempting to do both.

Because the students were already focused on casting for their studio, we tailored the fabrication portion of the class to that specific method. Consequently, we did not touch on the broader world of digital fabrication, such as working with sheet goods, bending techniques, or various types of joinery.

Regarding resources, I have a syllabus that was adapted from another professor, as well as photos of the final projects, which I would be happy to share if you email me at rjohnson clarknexsen.com. They only really fabricated the one project in the semester that were around 3' in size. Also the way that NC State's shop worked back then, a lot of the digital fabrication tools needed to be fabricated by the people who ran the shop. 

I am also guest lecturing at UNC Charlotte School of Architecture next week for their computational design class that is mostly focused on computation, but does have a few classes that talk about the fundamentals of digital fabrication (like joinery)-something that I now realize would have been very valuable to cover for students. Let me know, and I can connect you with that professor. (This is his youtube page Parametric - YouTube where some of the content that he teaches is covered in there - for example the video on 'minimal surface strips'. )

I'm sure you already have this covered, but if it were me, I would focus on breadth rather than depth. I'm not a professor, but my gut says it's better to expose students to a variety of tools at a surface level rather than diving deep into just one. Instead of a single large project, I'd suggest having them make small tabletop mockups to learn the ins and outs of each process. For example, they could use a laser cutter to study folding flat things into 3d objects, a 2-axis CNC for joinery studies, or 3D printers for moving parts. That way, they learn the pros and cons of different workflows on simple objects-though I'm no expert on pedagogy, so take that for what it's worth! Base on people struggling with computation, I would even consider having things kind of preworked out for them so they are struggling with the fabrication part and learning form that and not struggling from the computation part. 

2 books i would highly recommend - nice photos and examples:
Material Strategies in Digital Fabrication by Christopher Beorkem
Digital Vernacular by James Stevens and Ralph Nelson

Has anybody taught a digital fabrication course or taken one? I'd be curious if you would share some notes.

• Pros, cons, what worked, what didn't work?
• What was the mix between hands on shop time vs lecture?
• Assignments that worked and those that didn't work
• Was the course a series of small experiments or did it focus on one semester long project?

Any insight would be appreciated.