Digital Workflows in Architecture: Design–Assembly–Industry

The assimilation and synthesis of digital communications among architects, engineers, fabricators and builders is dramatically altering how we work and our relationship to the tools we use. New digital capacities are restructuring the organization and hierarchy of design from autonomous processes to collective workflows. The historical role of the designer as an author, a sole creator, is being replaced with semi-autonomous, algorithmically driven design workflows deeply embedded in a collective digital communication infrastructure. This is creating a number of pressures on the discipline of architecture to reorganize around the opportunities, and risks, of these changes. 
Organized around the themes of Designing Design, Designing Assembly and Designing Industry, this book presents essays and case studies on digital technologies as key factors in architectural design, fabrication and workflow organization. Contributors include Ben van Berkel (UN Studio), Shane Burger (Grimshaw), Thom Mayne (Morphosis), Frank Barkow & Regine Leibinger (Barkow Leibinger), Fabian Scheurer (designtoproduction), James Kotronis (Gehry Technologies), Phil Bernstein (Autodesk Inc.), Neil Denari (NDMA) and Paolo Tombesi (University of Melbourne) among others .