Book description
With scripting, computer programming becomes integral to the digital
design process. It provides unique opportunities for innovation,
enabling the designer to customise the software around their own
predilections and modes of working. It liberates the designer by
automating many routine aspects and repetitive activities of the design
process, freeing-up the designer to spend more time on design thinking.
Software that is modified through scripting offers a range of
speculations that are not possible using the software only as the
manufacturers intended it to be used. There are also significant
economic benefits to automating routines and coupling them with emerging
digital fabrication technologies, as time is saved at the front-end and
new file-to-factory protocols can be taken advantage of. Most
significantly perhaps, scripting as a computing program overlay enables
the tool user (designer) to become the new tool maker (software
engineer). Though scripting is not new to design, it is only recently
that it has started to be regarded as integral to the designer's skill
set rather than a technical speciality. Many designers are now aware of
its potential, but remain hesitant. This book treats scripting not only
as a technical challenge, requiring clear description, guidance and
training, but also, and more crucially, answers the question as to why
designers should script in the first place, and what the cultural and
theoretical implications are.
This book:
- Investigates the application of scripting for productivity,
experimentation and design speculation.
- Offers detailed exploration of the scripting of Gaudí's final
realised design for the Sagrada Família, leading to
file-to-factory digital fabrication.
- Features projects and commentary from over 30 contemporary
scripting leaders, including Evan Douglis, Marc Fornes, Sawako
Kaijima, Achim Menges, Neri Oxman, Casey Reas and Hugh Whitehead
of Foster + Partners.
Mark Burry is Professor of Innovation (Spatial
Information Architecture) at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, where he is
also Director of the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory and
Director of the Design Research Institute. He is an Australian
Research Council Federation Fellow and Member of the Advisory Board of
Gehry Technologies in Los Angeles and has collaborated with leading
international architectural and engineering practices. Burry is
probably best known for his work on Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família in
Barcelona, where he is Executive Architect and Researcher, and has
been working for thirty years on the realisation of the completion of
Gaudí's vision through computer-aided techniques.
www. wiley. com/extras/scripting
