Forward by DIA Director

Prof. Alfred Jacoby  Dipl.Arch.ETH, MA Cantab.

As this is the last publication under my directorship at DIA, I am pleased to write the introductory text to Karim Soliman’s book “Digital Fabrication”

It is a compilation of his work done at DIA as well as for the Faculty at large over the past six years.

Karim Soliman has provided important inputs to the field of Parametric Design which this publication attempts to show.

The book demonstrates his teaching method as well as the way it leads to good results.

The thesis project aims to propose a built structure entity for United Nations Headquarters in New York City conceived upon an intensive research and analysis on the nations, cultures, and people of the world on a span of time of the last century.

Featuring articles by Arie Graafland (TU Delft), Alfred Jacoby (DIA), Jasper Cepl ( DIA), Neil Leach (Harvard GSD), Liss C. Werner (TU Berlin), Henriette Bier and Sina Mostafavi ( TU Delft) Krassimir Krastev( DIA), Karim Soliman ( DIA), Carlos Campos (University of Buenos Aires).

Computation has already played an important role in improving techniques of architectural design. New software programs for modeling and testing form, and for controlling the whole process of design and construction offer substantial advantages over previous analog techniques. But the real potential of computation lies, surely, not simply in improving the practice of architectural design, but in revolutionizing it. As such, the introduction of new algorithmic techniques not for modeling form, but for ‘breeding’ form through the manipulation of code — techniques that have become known as “scripting” — offer us a tantalizing glimpse of an even more radical potential role of computation within architectural design.

“The book embodies two academic year’s work of analysis and design at the Dessau Institute of Architecture (DIA), part of the Graduate School of Architecture of Anhalt University, with its focus on critical reflection and implementation of a specific initiative centered on the city of Amsterdam. Till so far Amsterdam has mainly focused on housing projects for its waterfront, and is still staying away from prestigious office architecture alone. At its waterfronts you found mostly industrial sites, which formed a barrier between the water and the housing areas that have been there for more than a hundred years now.” – Arie Graafland