Full Scale and Boundless: Performed Labor Between Design-Build and Fabrication

Architects coordinate large numbers of people and quantities of material through technical and aesthetic design decisions. These decisions are always connected to the labor needed to execute those decisions during design, manufacturing, or construction. Educating architects on the relationship between decisions made during design and the labor required to actualize material construction remains challenging for architects as coordinators of those physically constructing the material project. To address this, a seminar course titled Full Scale placed students in a manufacturing facility to work alongside a professional industry partner to realize full-scale mock-ups of a scalable building element. Students focused on the exterior envelope, arguably the most critical and scalable building element architects retain expertise over.1 The course’s objective was to teach students to appreciate the architect’s role as coordinator of construction and manufacturing labor by directly participating in the manufacturing labor of a serial and scalable building component.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.111.39

Volume Editors

ISBN
978-1-944214-41-8