ABSTRACT
CNC milling has been utilized in an explorative was by a number of architects including Mark Burry, Greg Lynn and Bernard Cache who have developed a number of projects that engage with the physical output from the computer in the final constructed form in addition to their pioneering projects which use customized algorithms to generate form. The work of Mark Burry on Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona started using CAD as early as 1990 to generate and define complex 3D form [Burry 2004]. More recently Burry has used rapid prototyping models to develop and communicate designs, across continents, and in the last few years CAM technologies have been employed in construction process used to shape granite blocks. In the area of CNC milling, Greg Lynn’s experimental Embryological House project (1998-1999) shows extensive use of this process for the production of hundreds of scale models of non identical domestic houses [Lynn 2006]. In 2000, Frank Gehry utilized this technology, on a large scale when he used CNC machined Styrofoam blocks, 2.4 meters wide by 3.4 meters high, as formers for pre-cast concrete panels for the Neue Zollohf complex in Dusseldorf [Friedman 2003].
