Ubiquitous customization: Utilizing rapid manufacturing in the production of design and architecture

Over the past few years the term and notion of ubiquitous customization has entered the parlance and discourse of the design and architecture related research disciplines. However, whatever its guise, much of what this has entailed is usually explored and formulated through a language that still seems to persist with production processes that aren't much different than those utilized over the last half century - the 'tools of the trade', when it comes to actually implementing a building, are more or less the same, resulting in the modus operandi becoming a question of logistics rather than something more original and reflective of the digital processes we nowadays use to conceive our designs . Over the last few years, however, a number of potentially fundamentally pioneering fabrication techniques have entered the picture. One of these, Rapid Manufacturing (RM), has a number of factors that innately lend themselves for such parametrically variable production suggested by the title. This rapidly evolving branch of fabrication and means of conception, that has one foot firmly rooted in the digital realm, the other one in the analog world, is already in the process of instituting a paradigmatic shift in the way we envision and construct our built environment. The defining taxonomies and semantic patterns that allow for such pervasive variability of making and thinking about our built environment, and all that that entails, are still in the process of evolvement, however, preliminary suggestions of how such methods might operate and appear can already be observed. The projects included reflect and partake in the evolution of this still developing manufacturing discipline.