Making to Learn

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of artefact making in the design practice of architecture. The investigation is focused by the question - what is the value of creating objects in the design process? Furthermore how can architecture promote and develop material intelligence in the public realm? New Zealand’s DIY slogan shows that a tradition of making physical objects is ingrained within the nation’s identity. In the context of the architectural profession, the importance placed upon the making of artefacts has diminished due to alternatives presented by digital technologies. These developments in digital technology, however, have been a crucial catalyst in the revival and growing popularity the maker culture, communities centred around fabrication. In recent years the substitution of computer labs for workshops has displaced the space and equipment required to develop the embodied knowledge of making. Current prevailing notions of learning through making directs and confines its practices into designated specialist art and design educational institutions. This insulates the knowledge of materials and its value in society. In acknowledgement of this, this thesis seeks to establish a design methodology that employs making as a primary and integral driver. Models become the medium to analyse and understand design issues and opportunities as well as the means to convey the design outcome. The resultant model is a fragment of the embodied knowledge developed through the design process. These concerns of making and learning are explored in the design proposal of the City Central Shed, a civic workshop in Auckland, located in proximity to the city’s other civic buildings. Designed as a place for making physical objects for the city’s populace, the building addresses Auckland’s lack of a production space at a civic scale. Both the ultimate architectural proposition and its means of conception and development, create evidence of a unique value in learning through making for individuals and communities.