Digitalization of Craft Knowledge in Architecture: Translations and Transfers

Year 2024, , 163 - 182, 30.09.2024

Hülya Oral Karakoç

https://doi.org/10.53710/jcode.1505957

Abstract

Ongoing discussions about the circular economy and the rise of maker culture, driven by the widespread use of computer-aided design and manufacturing technologies, have sparked increased interest in crafts among designers and architects. The craft ethos, which includes designing, making, transforming, and repairing using existing and locally available resources, fosters innovative and sustainable design practices. However, there is a recognized need for new methods to adapt the labor-intensive, manual, and iterative processes of traditional crafts for industrial applications. In response, efforts are underway to document and record both tangible and intangible cultural assets and to integrate craft knowledge into contemporary design processes. These efforts are transforming design by incorporating insights and techniques from traditional crafts into new design domains.
In architecture, new methods are suggested to preserve and transfer the personal and local know-how that has developed over many years. Data sets to train generative artificial intelligence poses various challenges for intuitive processes such as crafts, where tacit knowledge is produced and transferred through the master-apprentice relationship. Thus, to implement craft knowledge to architectural design, this knowledge must be codified and formalized, that is, defined with parameters and rules. Craft processes are parameterized and digitized through translations and transfers of knowledge types such as embedded, explicit, implicit and tacit related to medium and craftsman. In this new ground called digital craft, it is aimed to create a hybrid design and production process based on learning-by-doing by combining computational design methods with the human factor. Therefore, all types of data, algorithms, tools and techniques used and simulated are defined as parts of the digital craftsman's making process as well as physical outcomes produced in physical making processes. Parametrization and digitization of craft knowledge enables open-source materials to be distributed and preserved through digital platforms called virtual guilds.
Creating new digital techniques and therefore mediums for digital craft processes is a new research area that needs to be examined by architects and designers. It has been observed that literature studies on the translations and transfer of knowledge types between digital and physical mediums in architecture are overlooked in terms of categorization of related studies. This article aims to reveal the possibilities of using these knowledge cycles in the digital craft processes within architectural design. The literature review shows that digital craft studies in architecture were carried out under three categories. These are the digitalization of craft knowledge in digital heritage studies, decodifying traditional craft processes to generate digital models and hybridizing the making process by integrating the human factor into the fabrication processes. The potentials and limitations encountered in digital craft processes will be discussed as final remarks.

Keywords

Knowledge Types, Parametrization, Tacit Knowledge, Digital Craft, Digitization

Mimarlıkta Zanaat Bilgisinin Dijitalleştirilmesi: Çevrimler ve Aktarımlar

Abstract

Bilgisayar destekli tasarım ve üretim araçlarına olan erişimin artmasıyla birlikte sonuç ürünün deneysel ve yinelemeli yapım süreçleri sonunda ortaya çıktığı zanaat üretimi, mimarların ve tasarımcıların ilgisini çekmiştir. Tasarım ve yapım ortamının potansiyelini yaratıcı şekilde kullanma olarak tanımlanan dijital zanaatta ise, sadece fiziksel değil dijital nesne, veri ve algoritmalar da dijital zanaatkarın geliştirip kollektif şekilde paylaştığı ürünler haline gelmiştir. Bu güncel zeminde, yeni dijital ortamlar kurgulamak günümüz mimar ve tasarımcıları için araştırılması gereken yeni bir alan olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Mimarlıkta dijital ve fiziksel ortamlar arasındaki bilgi türlerinin çevrimi ve aktarımına ilişkin literatür çalışmalarının, ilgili çalışmaların sınıflandırılması açısından sınırlı olduğu izlenmiştir. Bu makale kapsamında, mimarlıktaki yapım süreçlerinde işlenen bilgi türleri arasındaki çevrimlerin dijital zanaat bağlamında kullanım olanaklarının ortaya konulması amaçlanmaktadır. Bu makalenin özgün katkısı olarak; dijital miras çalışmaları, geleneksel zanaat yapım süreçlerinin çözümlenmesi ve hibrit yapım ortamları geliştirilmesi mimarlığın zanaat ile temasta olduğu noktalar olarak belirlenmiş ve örnekler üzerinden açıklanmıştır. Makalenin sonuç bölümde ise mimarlıkta yapım bilgisinin parametrik hale getirilmesi ve dijitalleştirilmesi konusundaki potansiyeller ve kısıtlar tartışılmıştır.

Keywords

Bilgi Türleri, Dijital Zanaat, Dijitalleştirme, Örtük Bilgi, Parametrelendirme

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