FROM PREFAB TO FABLAB: A TECHNOLOGICAL HISTORY

ARC 342R / ARC 388R

This course traces a history in architecture that has been present but latent for over 150 years - a history from prefabrication to fabrication. This course draws out this history, outlines its many social, political, and cultural forces, and attempts to describe this history on terms greater than the sum of its constructional parts or innovative toolings. Throughout this course, students will be asked to critically consider the relationships between technology and architecture culture, and the broader definitions by which we consider architecture as a discipline. While presented in a somewhat linear fashion, students will be called upon both in writing and in discussion, to make the modern history of fabrication present, and if possible, permeable and de-privileged. Writing assignments will be short but cumulative, and highly specific to the matter medium chosen by the student.