Architects have adopted digital tools as the industry standard, efficiently creating complex geometric forms and translating them into physical realms by means of digital manufacturing. Fast, efficient, precise, these tools have revolutionized the way we build and manufacture objects. Anticipating these modern tendencies The School of Architecture at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico has established a cutting edge fabrication laboratory fully equipped with the latest digital fabrication tools.

Much more than a model shop, the fabrication laboratory is characterized as the nucleus where manufacturing technologies and computerized design meets, providing students and professionals alike, with modern tools to develop their creative ideas into tangible functional objects. Students will be part of an enviroment where creativity and technology go hand in hand; an ideal setting for experimentation and academic development of valuable reprecusions in the eventual intersection with the modern workforce.

The Labs mission is to introduce students to a diverse world, where fabrication technology empowers architects with the ability to translate complex ideas into tangible, meaningful objects, thereby complementing design processes that are innovative and pertinent to our era, and represented in ways previously unattainable by traditional means.

EQUIPMENT

These tools will facilitate and enable the students in the production of three dimensional models that will allow them to have a particular approach to form and the spatial qualities of objects during the formulation of new concepts. The laboratory will allow the production of prototypes that facilitate the continuous exploration and validation of results, generated during class or during the process of a design exercise.

EDUCATE

The fabrication laboratory serves as an educational entity for students, professionals and the local community who are interested in learning about fabrication methods, technology and material properties.

MATERIALS LIBRARY

Innovative materials continue to be a great source of inspiration. We encourage our students to discover the material sciences by promoting an atmosphere of exploration, experimentation and implementation of their new found material knowledge into their creative processes.

The fabrication laboratory materials library is a rapidly expanding collection of diverse materials commonly used in the world of design and architecture, unique in its kind in Puerto Rico. The library is supported by a materials database easily accessible by all computers terminals inside the school, providing students direct access to information about thousands of material options.  Students can come and physically interact with a wide array of materials, helping them discover new innovative possibilities to their ideas, developing a mature sensibility for materiality and their practical application in architecture.