Autodesk and Digital Fabrication + Building Information Modeling

Autodesk and Digital Fabrication. At Autodesk University 2011 in Las Vegas Autodesk CTO, Jeff Kowalski, discussed five waves of technology disruption including digital fabrication in his keynote presentation.



Jeffrey McGrew of Because We Can discussed his experience with digital fabrication. Click here to begin the video with Jeff's presentation (if the link doesn't work simply move ahead to 23m 38s in the keynote video). Jeff also gave a presentation on Five Common Pitfalls and Misconceptions of Digital Fabrication from BIM at the event but it wasn't recorded. Jeff's 20 page presentation from Autodesk University 2009 "From Fabulous to Fabrication: Real-World Digital Fabrication and BIM" is available here.


Mark Hatch, CEO of Techshop, discussed the democratization of digital fabrication and the open-access chain of workshops Techshop is opening across the country. Click here to begin the video with Mark's talk (if the link doesn't work simply move to 29m 37s in the keynote video). Here is a post on Mark's talk from Core77.

And here is Autodesk CEO Carl Bass speaking with Vivek Wadhwa about Innovation and Manufacturing at a Singularity University event in January 2012.



The entire interview is almost an hour long, jump to minute 47:25 for Carl's answer to "How does new manufacturing change architecture?" Direct link to his answer here:

http://youtu.be/Chaj7iK-lt8?t=47m25s

Fabricators know this. And are collaborating with innovative architects interested in building the future - and the future of building.

And here is a link to a video with Autodesk Labs VP Brian Mathews showing a 3D printed motorcycle.

Autodesk does offer a "Using BIM for Fabrication" as a BIM Workshop in the "Extending BIM Beyond Design" series which references many other resources including relevant websites like this linkedin group, "BIM + Digital Fabrication = Smart Building"

Also see some of the Customer Stories at the Autodesk - Building Products, Equipment and Fabrication page and this post from Cadalyst on BIM and Digital Fabrication (1-2-3 Revit Tutorial).

If your interest is the digital fabrication of buildings, I highly recommend this video with Fabian Scheurer of Design To Production on

How to Fabricate

Fabian Scheurer (Design To Production) at the Digital Crafting Symposium 1 from CITA on Vimeo.

I also recommend the video below by David Fano of CASE from the Autodesk Yale University BIM Symposium

Geek Architects in love - with robots - finally!

Installed in the UK at the Fabricate! conference which took place on April 15-16. More on Digital Manufacturing in Architecture from Lara Carim.



We have had a long-term and committed relationship with cnc robotics for years. Take a look at this video showing our process on a residential project we did in Tahoe (one of over 1,000 fabrication projects we have worked on in Europe and North America).http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif




And for those intrigued with advanced (and very fast) cam/cnc I recommend watching the video below.



Update: and here is "Robots in Architecture" association.

Practical BIM-to-CNC Workflow: Big Empowerment for the Small Firm

Jeff McGrew of Because We Can does a great job of introducing BIM to CNC work flows to architects in this short video.



In our video we show how the process and software work on a large-scale residential project






Here are photos of the fabrication, the on site assembly and the finished home in the Lake Tahoe region in California.

And finally, here is a short video showing a CNC Hundegger K2 in action



I also suggest joining the linkedin group "digital fabrication and design" for more related discussion with about 600 other members.

Prefab Architecture by Ryan Smith

A review by an experienced fabricator.

We added another prefab book to our large "prefab" library. I just started reading this new book by Ryan Smith, Director of the University of Utah's Integrated Technology in Architecture Center.


UPDATE:In my view as a partner at a fabrication company with experience on over 1,000 building fabrication projects in 10 countries, I very much wish I could make this book required reading for any architect, builder, or real estate developer even considering prefab.

Click here to read the first chapter, courtesy of John Wiley & Sons. And please comment here or elsewhere on the web to keep the conversation moving forward.

The Swiss and German wood engineers I work with constantly ask me why architects in North America continue to fail to recognize that working with fabricators is the best(some say only) way to cost-effectively build high-performance buildings. When one considers that the majority of the wood-framed buildings constructed to the strict Passivhaus performance standard (25,000+ buildings in total) and the Swiss Minergie standard (20,000+)are fabricated using these same integrated systems, how long can the North American building market remain willfully ignorant of the potential of these proven technologies?

Ryan emphasizes repeatedly throughout the book that designers must collaborate with fabricators and builders from the beginning of a project. Unfortunately this almost never happens. Thank you Ryan for doing what you can to open the conversation.

Another prefab company, Triumph Modular, adds a very supportive review and also confirms our experience that the industry is full of inefficiencies with a lack of early communication among architects, fabricators, and builders being a major problem.

Ryan added a very good and long article/introduction to Randy Deutsch's blog with a lot of great information - but I still highly suggest reading the entire book - prefab is complicated and the "oldest new idea in architecture" has a long history of failure. Randy is a great advocate and prolific blogger and speaker for BIM, IPD and VDC, but I find his blog to be too focused on revit. As a builder/fabricator I am more interested in discussions involving architects, fabricators, and builders discussing process and discussing real projects. I like Revit, we use it everyday, but REVIT=BIM is simply wrong - ask a fabricator, they will make this very clear immediately. And this software = BIM design perspective goes against almost everything in Ryan's book, and in the BIM Handbook, and the BIM guide by Deke Smith of buildingSMART. The building industry very much needs an open conversation among architects, fabricators, and builders to move beyond what Vladimir Bazjanac of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab refers to as the "Convince-Build-Pray" modus operandi. We all have very much to gain by collaborating and nothing to loose except the inefficiencies which continue to hurt our industry. You can also find another extended article at the KA connect website.

I also highly recommend Colin Davies' classic book The Prefabricated Home and for those unwilling or unable to purchase either book, I recommend Harvard student Jonathan Caputo's 87-page research paper on industrialized home building.

And peruse the recent SmartMarket Report from McGraw-Hill on "Prefabrication and Modularization: Increasing Productivity in the Construction Industry." It was released on May 11, 2011.

Now here is a thought-provoking article from the April edition of Metropolitan Mag on "Prefab: The Dream that refused to Die."

It all comes down to the absolute necessity of actually involving fabricators in any substantive discussion of prefab. Now there is a new idea for the design world.

And for designers/architects who believe that collaborating with fabricators will negatively impact or constrain design?!? I refer you to Steve Jobs of Apple and this quote, "I'm as proud of the factory as I am of the computer." Go ahead, argue with Steve about design.

CAM CNC fabrication in Cascadia

We finally have the CutMyTimber blog live. Here it is with some great photos of a timber frame project we cut in Oregon.

CutMyTimber : Digital Manufacturing: Paperless from FIM model to CNC mac...

Here is a great example or integrated design and manufacturing. The video is only 12 minutes long and is a great case study for real integrated project delivery.

IDEAbuilder in Sustainable Industries magazine

The March issue of Sustainable Industries featured an article on European green building by Justin Moresco. Both Stefan and I were extensively interviewed for the article and much of the information we shared with Justin was included. You can read the article here.