Glass + Digital Making

Since the mid-1970s, 3D printing has been used as an ideation tool by industry. Recently, broad access to 3D printers and other digital manufacturing technologies has delivered these tools to artists, designers, crafters, and makers, enabling us to expand, develop, and challenge our concepts of approaches to cultural production. This design study looks at new production paradigms emerging from access to digital manufacturing, and explores approaches to creating in the digital manufacturing context. This study focuses on emergent modes of creation using glass, in particular how 3D printing not only provides room for innovation with material production, but also extends the poetics of materials. The bases for these conclusions are founded in a practice-led study, which developed workflows that incorporate both 3D printing and traditional glass working techniques. This practice-led study led into a course-led study which used the previously gained material knowledge to develop a new approach to digital manufacturing, taught in a third-year design course at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. A reflective practice throughout these studies served to inform the codification of an emergent method and approach to glassmaking within the context of digital manufacturing.