As I sit and write this blog post from my flat in Leeds, I was supposed instead to be in London attending the Fabricate 2020 conference. Unfortunately, but understandably, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this has been postponed.
Promotional poster for Fabricate 2020
Fabricate is a conference that happens every three years, first happening in 2011, organised by the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL. It focuses on giving a platform to researchers and designers who are at the cutting edge of new manufacturing and building methods and technologies. Prototyping methods and computational design tools are particularly celebrated.
Coinciding with each iteration of the conference, a Fabricate book is published as well. I have used the 2011, 2014 and 2017 ones a lot as references and inspiration last year, as Keith Andrews was particularly keen on them as a resource, and they fitted well into the rationale of the Abstract Machine studio that he led and that I was in. The 2020 book has yet to be released, to my knowledge, but I will keep my eyes open as I believe that they plan to release it freely as PDF once it is ready.
The three Fabricate books so far – 2011, 2014 and 2017
Whilst it is a shame that the conference is not happening right now, I am glad that it is only postponed and not cancelled, and therefore it will stay as something exciting on the horizon, to go and enjoy after I conclude my masters studies, whenever it is eventually staged (it is currently pencilled in for some time in the autumn, I believe, but this is presumably dependent on how the COVID-19 situation continues to pan out).
Comments