fabricate.org | Design & Making

CALL FOR WORK

SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!

DEADLINE 12 JUNE

We are excited to announce the Call for Work for FABRICATE 2024.

FABRICATE2024 marks a watershed moment. Collectively, we stand at a juncture where conventional methods of resource acquisition and industrial production are recognised as primary contributors to ecological disruption. New research-led approaches for responsible fabrication and production are required to rethink how resource is deployed, its intensity, its socio-ecological origins and sensitivity to environment.

FABRICATE2024 calls for radical departures in architectural design and production and offers a chance to reflect upon how, and for whom, we design.

Over the last 12 years FABRICATE has consolidated a large and diverse global inter-sector community with power and capacity for real change making. For FABRICATE2024 we want to focus this capacity on the following questions:

What is the future of fabrication in a resource challenged world?
How might we rethink the role of computation to reshape fabrication in response to new resource streams, waste upcycling, novel renewables and challenged supply chains?
What are the methods and tools that can effect these changes?
What are the scales of change needed and how do we address the ethical implications of building fabrication culture as a globalised practice?

The FABRICATE2024 call seeks paper submissions that offer perspectives and tangible efforts to address these questions through the optic of fabrication, demonstrated through built or work-in-progress projects. Our aim for FABRICATE 2024 is to interrogate, debate, and document the plurality of cutting-edge and disruptive models of design and production that are emerging in response to these challenges and questions.

The submission system is now open. At this stage we are asking authors to submit a short abstract (max. 600 words) and 10-15 images. Please use images that you would be able to provide in high resolution should your work is selected for inclusion in the publication. Any image references and copyrights have to be cleared by the author prior to submission.

We strongly encourage that all those who are interested in making submissions to document their work at publication quality. This is particularly important for site-based and lab-based imagery of process.

Core to the approach of FABRICATE is to present and publish at very high visual standard, we have learnt over the years that opportunities for key imagery arise at every stage of every project. Images of completed projects are always easily obtainable, but those one-off images of a project under testing, construction, and assembly are essential for mass dissemination.

All submissions should be anonymous, submitted on EasyChair and will be peer reviewed. If your work is selected for the next stage, you will be asked to submit a full paper and full resolution imagery in the Autumn.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Terms & Conditions

In an era where we are witnessing one of the biggest paradigm shifts in the conceptualization, making, and construction of buildings, FABRICATE celebrates and debates the most cutting-edge innovations in digital fabrication to impact architectural pedagogy, trans-disciplinary research, and applied professional practice in a changing world.
Jenny Sabin, FABRICATE 2020 co-Chair
Thank you for inviting me to FABRICATE. I had a great time and hope to come back for the next one.
Carl Bass, Autodesk
The event was outstanding and I enjoyed it greatly! Counting the days until the next edition...
Martin Bechthold, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Such a pleasure to be a part of this extraordinary event.
Edoardo Tibuzzi, AKT II
Thank you for running such a wonderful event. I had a great time and learnt a tremendous amount. I look forward to exploring fabricate.org in the future!
Richard Maddock, Foster + Partners
FABRICATE is the most enjoyable and exciting conference, a superiorly successfull event. It has a unique and exceptionally well-working formula, making it a pleasure to channel the best of efforts. The free ebook version of the proceedings is a great addition which will help both increasing the already unparalleled impact of the conference, as well as fuelling the appetite for 2020.
Asbjørn Søndergaard, Odico

TIMELINE

4 April 2023

Call for Work opens

12 June 2023

Deadline for abstract submissions

18 August 2023

Notification of accepted abstracts

2 October 2023

Full paper submission deadline

30 October 2023

Deadline for final edits

6-12 November 2023

Notification of accepted papers for conference and publication

November 2023

Early bird registration begins

4-6 April 2024

FABRICATE 2024 conference, CITA, Royal Danish Academy

FABRICATE 2024 will be hosted at CITA, Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark, 4-6 April 2024.

Since its inception, FABRICATE has welcomed thousands of international delegates to conferences over two days in London (2011), Zurich (2014), Stuttgart (2017) and Online (2020) acting as a global forum for the exploration of the radical new opportunities for design in manufacturing, computation, material science and assembly.

From more than 1000 submissions in total, only 32 projects are selected for each conference publication, and 16 for each conference event. The publication series is Open Access and collectively all existing four volumes have been downloaded over 270,000 times from UCL Press. Uniquely, recognising the multiple interconnected challenges facing academia, practice, manufacturing, construction, and industry, only built projects are accepted. FABRICATE is thus a truly diverse and inclusive endeavour, seeking to share results from world leading collaborative teams from across the built environment.

Co-Chairs
Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen & Phil Ayres

The last 12 years of FABRICATE provide a record of incredible critical creativity and community consolidation that reflects and celebrates the pushing of boundaries of fabrication within the built environment. We are delighted to be given the opportunity to frame a contribution to this record through co-chairing FABRICATE 2024 at the Royal Danish Academy.
Our vision for FABRICATE2024 is to address the pressing need to develop new models for architectural production that rethink how resource is deployed, its intensity, its socio-ecological origins and sensitivity to environment. FABRICATE2024 will provide a unique forum for discussing and showcasing radical and creative departures in the design and making of architecture and to reflect upon how, and for whom, we design.

Mette and Phil

FABRICATE 2024

Co-Chaired by Professors Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen and Phil Ayres of CITA, FABRICATE 2024 will build upon and extend its legacy as a prime place of exchange on the cutting edge of new forms of design and construction and material thinking in architecture, engineering and building.

As core members of the FABRICATE community, Mette and Phil have profiled deep-seated interests in the infrastructures of computational modelling producing novel methods of computing, fabricating and designing architecture for over two decades. With special focus on inter-sector dialogue and knowledge exchange, their aim for FABRICATE 2024 is to question what the future of computational design and fabrication can be. They ask how the pressures for a new sustainable design agenda will challenge the AEC industry. They ask how cutting-edge computational design can inform the emergence of a new sensitivity in which renewable, regenerative and restorative design logics are prioritised, and they aim for particular focus on questions of resource consciousness and bio-based design and fabrication strategies.

Co_Organised by

Supported by

The Carlsberg Foundation is an industrial foundation that supports basic scientific research within the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities conducted by Danish researchers and international researchers connected to Danish research environments. The funds for awards mainly come from the profits of Carlsberg A/S, in which the Carlsberg Foundation has a controlling interest. The Carlsberg Foundation was founded by Brewer J.C. Jacobsen in 1876.

KEYNOTES & CHAIRS

FABRICATE 2024 Keynote
Indy Johar

Indy Johar is focused on the strategic design of new super scale civic assets for transition – specifically at the intersection of financing, contracting and governance for deeply democratic futures.

Indy is co-founder of darkmatterlabs.org and of the RIBA award winning architecture and urban practice Architecture00 – https://www.architecture00.net, a founding director of open systems lab – https://www.opensystemslab.io (digitising planning), seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) – https://www.wikihouse.cc and Open Desk (open source furniture company) https://www.opendesk.cc.

Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub https://bloxhub.org (Denmark Copenhagen) – the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization and was 2016-17 Graham Willis Visiting Professorship at Sheffield University. He was also Studio Master at the Architectural Association – 2019-2020, UNDP Innovation Facility Advisory Board Member 2016-20 and RIBA Trustee 2017-20. He has taught & lectured at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New School.

Most recently, he was awarded the London Design Medal for Innovation in 2022.

We are very excited to announce Indy Johar as our first confirmed Keynote for FABRICATE 2024. We are inspired by Indy’s ground-breaking work investigating infrastructures for social innovation and transition. He sheds light on the importance of rethinking the role of infrastructural and legislative frameworks as a precursor to changing how we design and fabricate architecture to create truly equitable and sustainable building culture.

Mette & Phil