Implicit Fabrication, Fabrication Beyond Craft: The Potential of Turing Completeness in Construction"

This paper addresses the limited shared vocabulary of landscape architecture and architectural design, evident in the application of terms such as “spatial design” and “spatial planning.” In their current usage, such terms emphasize the visible, terrestrial, pedestrian-perspective level, often to the absolute exclusion of a spatial, i.e., volumetric comprehension of the environment. This deficit is acutely evident in the teaching of landscape architecture and architecture and discussion of these fields’ shared ground. The dominant document type for mapping such analysis and design is the plan, or three-dimensional representations of the same, restricted to an extrusion or height map. GIS techniques in spatial design tend to be weighted toward visual, surface-based data (slope analysis, exposure, viewshed, etc.). Within this domain, our goal is to transform aspects of the intangible—the characteristics of open space itself—into a form that is legible, quantifiable, and malleable.