Re-emerging designer-maker roles in digital design and construction with timber

The contemporary timber building design and procurement process has fragmented expertise creating numerous risk, knowledge and management interfaces. Fragmentation can lead to conservatism in design, material specification and material use. The university-educated and office-based designer is severed from construction practices and tactile material experiences. Opportunities to increase diversity and efficiency through digital design and fabrication processes from tree to completed building should seek to reconnect the designer with construction: concatenating the fragmented process into the designer-maker role. Contract tendering procedures often require generic solutions to be developed to prevent favouring one system or contractor over another which can stifle the partnering and collaboration that is required to maximise the benefits of the integrated designer-maker. This paper proposes that a multi-disciplinary team working under one contract best serves the emerging designer-maker role in timber. Educating and training designers and makers to be involved in the digital design and fabrication process requires exposure throughout the over-all project process from conception, through design, fabrication to erection. This paper proposes a pedagogical approach for the contemporary design-maker and presents a case study in which a timber structure was designed, prototyped, interrogated, fabricated, and erected.