Bartlett Professor's New Book Examines the Evolving Role of Computation in Design

‘Beyond Digital: Design and Automation at the End of Modernity’ reviews the long history of the computational mode of production, showing how the merger of robotic automation and artificial intelligence will stop and reverse the modernist quest for scale. The new publication includes research that Prof Carpo carried out at The Bartlett.

In examining the development of the computer’s involvement in architecture, Prof Carpo investigates and predicts the shift from industrial mass production to nonstandard, intelligent, adaptive fabrication, including the advent of automated, artisanal microfactories where things are made only where and when they are needed. The book discusses how attitudes toward computational design and automated manufacturing are evolving in the face of recent developments in AI and of the global challenges that confront us all, from the Covid-19 pandemic to the climate crisis.

Prof Carpo was awarded a grant from the Architecture Research Fund to write the book. Some of the material in the book is developed from his teaching at The Bartlett, and it includes design work from some of the Bartlett's Master’s programmes.

Prof Mario Carpo is Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History & Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is the Programme Director for The Bartlett’s Architecture & Digital Theory MRes and MPhil/PhD programmes as well as Architecture and Digital History. His research focuses on history of architectural theory and history of cultural technologies, with focus on the early modern period; contemporary digital design theory (1990 to the present); and theory and criticism of contemporary architecture. He is also Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Applied Arts (die Angewandte) in Vienna.

'Beyond Digital: Design and Automation at the End of Modernity’ is available now, published by MIT Press, and is available in paperback for $29.95 at major bookshops, or as an e-book through Penguin Random House.

More information

• Buy 'Beyond Digital: Design and Automation at the End of Modernity’ through MIT Press and other vendors
• Visit Prof Mario Carpo’s profile
• Learn more about Architecture & Digital Theory MRes
• Learn more about Architecture & Digital Theory MPhil/PhD
• Find out more about funding studies and research at The Bartlett

Images: 1: Agrivoltaic Pavilion by Sabin Design Lab at Cornell University in collaboration with the DEfECT lab at Arizona State University - from Beyond Digital: Design and Automation at the End of Modernity (MIT Press)
2: MIT Press