The Demise of the Identical Architectural Standardization in the Age of Digital Reproducibility

Abstract

The theory of non-standard architecture is the latest avatar to date of the digital revolution in architecture, now early in its second decade. In its simplest technical definition, non standard seriality means the mass reproduction of non identical parts. This, however, implies a complete reversal of the mechanical paradigm that we have been familiar with up to very recent times. In the mechanical world, mass production or serial reproduction generate economies of scale on the condition that all items in the same mechanically mass-produced series be identical, as in a traditional assembly line. On the contrary, digital technologies applied simultaneously to design and manufacturing may generate the same economies of scale while mass producing a series where all items are different; but different within limits.

This paper will discuss some aspects of the present debate on non-standard architecture, particularly with regard to some visual, tectonic, economic, and social implications of digital design and manufacturing in architecture.