AR-assisted brickwork

Craft and Technology

Just over a decade ago Richard Sennett offered a critique of the notion of “the craftsman” within the context of nascent Computer-Aided Design (CAD) which, he feared, was dislocating the designer from tacit, embodied knowledge of construction practices.¹ For Sennett, the distinction between the designer/architect and the people on site making a building was exacerbated by CAD because it brought about a “disconnection between head and hand in design.”² In his view, the use of computers in architecture means first addressing the challenge of “think[ing] like a craftsman in making good use of technology.”³

Since 2017, a design-research team at the University of Tasmania has been collaborating with industry to work through this problem. Currently, we are studying the emerging technology of Augmented Reality (AR) as it is used to modify centuries-old building practices and enable new modes of collaboration between the designers and makers of architecture. We are curious, hopeful even, that this new tool might offer new ways of working together to make architecture in the twenty-first century.