Third-Year Fabrication Models

Marco Frascari’s “The Tell-the-Tale Detail” claims that any architectural element defined as detail is always a joint; the unification of construction (logos of techné) with construing (techné of logos). Material or formal, extra-small or extra-large, functional or aesthetic, details are much more than subordinate elements.

Students in Assistant Professor Kristin Washco’s third-year lab were tasked with designing an architectural detail in the first weeks of the semester, thinking about what experiences take place when two or more elements come together. The students studied fabrication and material constraints as well as how the detail relates to the human body by creating prototypes at a 1:1 scale in the chosen material.