Representation + Fabrication: Connecting Descriptions and Artifacts in the Digital Age

This paper considers the question of new modes of linking the representation of a thing to the actual process of physical making through advanced parametric CAD and digital construction technologies to reformulate existing construction logics; in other words considering parts, relationships, and actions. This approach implies the refinement of the traditionally understood idea of CAD/CAM, or digital manufacturing, and begins to formulate a new intellectual direction of Digitally Augmented Making [DAM] paradigms where anthropological design and fabrication activities are enhanced through digital means. The case study presented in this paper is framed through the lens of rethinking complexity and potentiality in variable concrete masonry systems and processes.