Digital Craft in Architecture
Partner Programme
Artist Statement
Digital Craft in Architecture works at the intersection of computational design, digital fabrication and traditional craftsmanship. Building on the school's vernacular architecture research, the cluster blends craft knowledge with emerging technologies — robotic manufacturing, mixed reality making, and hand tooling — contextualised through critical theories of computation, culture and building technology. Work is developed in a practice-led environment at Grymsdyke Farm's digital fabrication labs, in direct collaboration with craftspeople, fabricators and industry partners. The cluster's projects pursue material efficiency, circularity and longevity, forging architectural progress through deep material knowledge and respect for place.
Work Statement
The work presented is drawn from Digital Craft in Architecture's design-research studio, where computational tools and traditional craft are brought into a single making process rather than treated as separate stages. Projects begin with the properties and constraints of a real material — earth, stone, reclaimed building components — and develop through parametric analysis, algorithmic form-finding, mixed reality guidance and robotic fabrication, tested at full scale through physical prototyping. The aim is not digital form for its own sake, but structures that are true to their materials and designed for longevity and disassembly. Circularity, material efficiency and craft knowledge are treated as design premises rather than afterthoughts.
Work by Digital Craft in Architecture (a research cluster at Oxford Brookes University) was presented in Mind × Body: Catalyst Phenomenon Archive, organised by the Reality Intelligence Association as part of London Design Festival 2026.
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