Architectural Geometry and Fabrication-Aware Design

Freeform shapes and structures with a high geometric complexity play an increasingly important role in contemporary architecture. While digital models are easily created, the actual fabrication and construction remains a challenge. This is the source of numerous research problems many of which fall into the area of Geometric Computing and form part of a recently emerging research area, called Architectural Geometry. The present paper provides a short survey of research in Architectural Geometry and shows how this field moves towards a new direction in Geometric Modeling which aims at combining shape design with important aspects of function and fabrication.