Sambo Reconfigured
ARCH 5500-007 Course Listing
Course Description
Viewed through the lens of Eliadean philosophy, this research full scale fabrication seminar uses Charlottesville as a laboratory, while taking advantage of UVa’s fabrication facilities and using Catia’s versatile parametric environment as new cognitive opportunity. Computer-aided design and manufacturing methods have extensively permeated fabrication environments for the production of architecture. Symbolic representations in architecture, on the other hand, have widely become obsolete in the unanimous understanding of our globalised society, to the detriment of traditions and heritage. This seminar introduces students to the fundamentals of CAD/CAM, with a particular focus on the function of myths and subsequent applications in architecture, tectonic details, interior furnishings and the realm of products. The research will result in a full-scale installation, which distinguishes itself from an architectural model investigation, which is usually meant to be scaled up and study predictability, in that it captures the behavior or DNA, if you wish, of our present society in a one to one scale representation. The installation will speculate on the cross pollination between CNC fabrication and utilitarian, landfill materials, between the old and the new, between the avant-garde and the archaic. A rather pristine structure illustrating parametric modulation will be invaded by what some would consider disposable, throw away material insertions, seen as leftovers of human behaviors that have somehow embedded traces of contemporary mythology and mark time as consumption. The ideas explored encompass transiency and decay, while almost creating an archeological site, a repository for the release, or discharge of symbolic content. No previous knowledge of CATIA is required. Assistance will be provided to all. Previous experience with MasterCAM is a plus.