Illegal Architecture, an experimental architecture network together with ONUP, organized yesterday a public lecture with Prof. Jim Stevens, lecturer at Lawrence Technological University, focusing on the digital fabrication technology and advanced parametric modeling software.

Digital fabrication is a process that joins architecture with construction industry through the use of 3D modeling software and CNC machines. These tools allow designers to produce digital materiality, which is something greater than an image on screen, and actually tests the accuracy of the software and computer lines. But just imagine an entrepreneurial opportunity out of this… and then you come to the point of understanding makeLab and Prof. Stevens, who yesterday in his lecture talked about theory and practice of design through technological and manual competences.

“I rented a space and purchased equipment, ran a lab and moved on to giving students real-world experience, by giving them the opportunity not just to design something but actually to build something that is applicable in the marketplace” stated Prof. Stevens in his lecture at the Auditorium of the Architectural Faculty of the University of Prishtina. He continued by approaching the presence of different CNC’s that are out there on the market and which cost a fortune, and then focused on how he bought equipment and started building a CNC to be used inside and outside of makeLAB, a place where students can design, make, reach and support.

“I’m doing something different, and I’m doing it on purpose” he said, explaining that he doesn’t want to build an expensive lab, but he want’s something out there on the market that can democratize the manufacturing. “It’s the job of students as young entrepreneurs to define what is out there in the market, but it’s not my job as a professor to predict that for the students”.

Stevens continued his presentation by demonstrating some of the projects done by students in the US and in Albania as well, where he held two workshops at the POLIS University. Stevens emphasized the importance of thinking globally nowadays, by explaining how students in Tirana planned and then crafted something in the US, and watched it online through Skype in just a couple of hours.

CNC vs 3D Printing

Stevens presented also the latest model of the CNC from makeLAB that fits in a suitcase, and can be carried through customs and create possibilities for students in different parts of the world to build something on their own.

On the other hand 3D Printing, that should come up to your mind when reading this article is focused on creating solid things out of many micro-thin layers of glue, resin or glued together powder that it builds up to whatever it was you wanted.