The studio emerged at the intersection of materials and technologies in the and aimed at exploring the relationships between humans, apparatus and the act of making itself. We discussed the importance of the act of making as a process in itself.  The metaphor of an architectural kitchen suggests the experimental nature of the studio, with a perpetual emphasis on making, regardless of its success or failure, not unlike a kitchen. The studio began with each participant’s experience with making in any context or form which helped expand the concept of making as a forward process, in an ongoing generative movement that is at once itinerant, improvisatory and rhythmic, and may or may not have a finished end result; rather than a backward process from a finished object to an initial intention in the mind of an agent.

Through readings like ‘The factory by Villem Flusser’ and ‘Are we human by Colomina Wigley’ the ideas of agency and apparatus were opened up through an historical review of tools, artefacts and their cultural relevance. Historically, the acquisition and transfer of knowledge is located through scriptures and other forms of literary records. Flusser believes an alternative approach of reading history through the spaces of manufacturing along with the artefacts and their making process itself holds a richer understanding of the culture, revolutions and life itself. Here, the hand is the most primitive tool known to humankind which not only held its own agency in making but also ensured that the process of making happened with a constant engagement between human, environment and culture. With technological innovations, tools, machines and robots became subsequent simulations of the human hand. But the agency of humans here shifted to the programming and coding of the machines and robots whereas the agency of making became of the simulations. This human and non-human agency was discussed and explored through both research of existing practices, cultures and crafts; and material experimentations.     

Continuing researches and experiments done in the previous years of the studio and the school, broadly two material experimentations were undertaken namely, the glass fiber and resin composite; and material mixtures of clay, cement, mud etc. Four studies were undertaken simultaneously in the studio: 

• Experimentation with the glass fiber and resin composite. The intent was to explore form derivation of a suspended surface with only the force of gravity and minimal external forces.

• Experimentation with various material mixtures of clay, mud, cement etc. The intent was to study patterns, textures and forms created by the acts dropping the mixture from an apparatus or pre-defining a path of deposition, with the intent of exploring a manual method of 3D printing.

• With the aim of experimenting with digital generative tools, a subsequent simulation, in the evolutionary chain of hands, with its own agency and autonomy in the making process; an attempt at assembling a delta 3D printer by repurposing parts from a cartesian 3D printer was made.

• A research study exploring relationships between apparatuses and cultural life; and its intersection with built forms. 

Text by :  Rachit Raj Somani, Dushyant Asher