Abstract
This research investigates traditional craftsmanship in architecture and potentials of its future. The aim is to introduce a new method for “safeguarding craftsmanship” with the focus on ceramics. While exploring craft in custom-designed ceramics for architectural purposes, our goal is to develop practical methods with which a contemporary designer could practice and experience ceramic making. This should be further followed by its utilization in the actual practice of design and production for contemporary projects. We aim to develop this method by embedding digital design and fabrication tools in its making process (so-called digital craft). We believe that through this integration of digital media with manual works, we can provide opportunities for contemporary designers and makers to pick up these techniques faster and with less effort, so it becomes less challenging and more inviting to be practiced. This will increase its utilization in contemporary applications of design, which will eventually safeguard its existence in our culture. UNESCO and other international organizations promote that a global effort is needed to preserve the world’s cultural heritage, local identities of people and existing expressions of cultures like rituals, dances, and craftsmanship (UNESCO; UNESCO 2003). The main idea is to preserve the cultural achievements of human civilization, to avoid their dissolution into the contemporary unified international lifestyle of the digital age (Lenzerini, Federico 2011). Following such a global agenda, this research is about craftsmanship in architecture, and we want to see the underlaying reasons that caused traditional ways of making bespoke ceramic products to be mostly eliminated. Now, in the age of digital design and fabrication with access to affordable fabrication machineries, we are searching the methods that we could develop to safeguard the craft, and push it further by providing opportunities for its contemporary practice and future reference.