Convivial Fabrication: Towards Relational Computational Tools For and From Craft Practices
🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses a critical limitation in current computational fabrication tools, which treat materials as passive entities and overlook the dynamic interplay among craftspersons, tools, and materials—a relational practice central to many artisan communities. Through in-depth interviews with woodworkers, fiber artists, and metalsmiths, the research proposes a “symbiotic agency” framework that systematically articulates a three-tiered model of immediate, mid-range, and extended relationality. Grounded in qualitative analysis and human-centered design principles, this framework reconceptualizes computational tool design across individual, communal, and institutional levels. It yields key design principles that support material dialogue, collective knowledge sharing, and shared ecological responsibility, offering both theoretical grounding and practical pathways for developing more inclusive and context-sensitive fabrication technologies.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Computational tools for fabrication often treat materials as passive rather than active participants in design, abstracting away relationships between craftspeople and materials. For craft communities that value relational practices, abstractions limit the adoption and creative uptake of computational tools which might otherwise be beneficial. To understand how better tool design could support richer relations between individuals, tools, and materials, we interviewed expert woodworkers, fiber artists, and metalworkers. We identify three orders of convivial relations central to craft: immediate relations between individuals, tools, and materials; mid-range relations between communities, platforms, and shared materials; and extended relations between institutions, infrastructures, and ecologies. Our analysis shows how craftspeople engage and struggle with convivial relations across all three orders, creating workflows that learn from materials while supporting autonomy. We conclude with design principles for computational tools and infrastructures to better support material dialogue, collective knowledge, and accountability, along with richer and more convivial relations between craftspeople, tools, and the material worlds around them.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
convivial fabrication
relational practices
computational tools
craft practices
material relations
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
convivial fabrication
relational design
computational tools
craft practices
material dialogue
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