Instructor: Andrew Holder
Type: Teaching / Research
Location: The Southern California Institute of Architecture
Year: 2008

Course Objectives

Traditionally, architecture has understood the laser cutter to be a fabrication technology with a limited set of possibilities for working in three dimensions: sheet goods (paper, plywood, plastic, MDF, museum board) fed into the machine produce more sheet goods, only with an intricate set of cuts. Conspicuously absent in this conception of the laser cutter is any ambition to change the state of materials, to alter their physical properties through the act of subtraction. The action of the laser cutter itself becomes transparent and inconsequential, replaceable, if necessary, by an army of x-acto wielding interns.

This seminar aims to radicalize the operation of the laser cutter by subjecting sheet materials to a more carefully considered set of subtractive operations that drastically alter their performance; allowing them to droop, sag, fold, and drape their way into three dimensional space. Critical to this use of the laser cutter is the idea that the act of resisting gravity itself can become a richly aesthetic, affective operation preoccupied with balance, stance, poise, and posture as materials are deployed in the service of a programmatic agenda. As sheet goods become loaded with these potentials, they necessitate a shift in understanding away from the joining of flat planes toward that of aggregate and form-active structures such as nets and clouds.