Design intercalated: The AtFAB project

This paper describes tools, concepts and workflow used to develop AtFAB, a digitally fabricated, customizable furniture system, and apprehensible model for employing simplicity, interconnectivity and adaptability in architecture. The investigation deploys parametric modelling, interaction design, and digital fabrication to develop a multi-agent system that recasts the roles of designers, users and fabricators and re-imagines the architect's role of balancing user needs alongside other generative agents. It proposes that innovative design thinking might replace our discipline's prevailing focus on the transactional and object-cantered capabilities of technology with an emphasis on its ability to facilitate the design of systemic and networked relationships.