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.

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.

Anna Dyson is the Hines Professor of Architecture at the Yale Schools of Architecture (YSoA) and Environment (YSE). She is the founding Director of the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (Yale CEA), a research initiative that integrates interdisciplinary labs across campus to collaborate on the research, development and deployment of novel architectural systems that are focused on the challenge of metabolizing energy, water and materials within architecture in radically new ways.

At the YSoA, Dyson has established a new model for PhD-level design research in Architectural Sciences which has received multiple honors for pedagogy, including the award for most innovative academic program from the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) and an Award of Excellence from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

Dyson has been directing design research programs that have competitively won awards and contracts from multiple sponsors such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), The New York City Dept of Design and Construction (NYC-DDC), NYSERDA, NYSTAR, NEXUS, and from private sponsors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Baruch Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, and others.

Recipient of the Innovator Award from Architectural Record, Dyson holds many international patents on building systems innovations for the collection and distribution of clean energy, water, air quality and material life cycle. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The World Future Energy Summit (WFES), and The Center for Architecture. Designs for novel systems have won many awards, including a 1st prize from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for the Climate Camouflage and Integrated Concentrating Solar Façade systems, Architect R&D awards for the Solar Enclosure for Water Reuse (SEWR) and the Active Modular Phytoremediation System (AMPS).

In 2007, Dyson co-founded the ground-breaking Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE) with Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM LLP) and RPI. Multiple systems are being deployed within scaled up building test sites: with SOM, the AMPS system was installed into the Public Safety Answering Center (PSAC II) in Bronx, NY and was included in the Best Architecture of 2017 by the Wall St. Journal, as the first full-scale test of the production of fresh air from within a building through plant-based air handling systems. In 2019, Yale CEA’s Ecological Living Module, demonstrating a nexus for on-site energy, water and agricultural production, was named as the #1 World Changing Idea, by the UN News.

FABRICATE 2024 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.

Overview of abstract submissions (now closed). 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.

Interested in being a part of FABRICATE?

We are seeking sponsors and donors at all levels and welcome the chance to discuss your involvement. 

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