Members of the ADD+F research hub teach and coordinate graduate and undergraduate coursework with a computational design and technology-driven focus at the Melbourne School of Design. You can find a list of subjects below showcasing the diverse design research undertaken by ADD+F staff.
Digital Design & Fabrication Electives
The Digital Design and Fabrication Electives offer students the opportunity to gain expertise and competence in the understanding and application of contemporary design tools – informing students’ design process, making, and thinking.
Design Making – Making Design is an interactive Augmented Reality (AR) and poster exhibition featuring new designs developed by students in the Digital Design and Fabrication Electives: Experimental Furniture Futures Lab, Bespoke Timber Furniture Lab, Spatial Intelligence Lab, Digital Fabrication Lab, and Made by Robots Lab at MSD.
During the Melbourne Design Week 2023 exhibited as poster and Augmented Reality exhibition, to be found across 40 locations in inner Melbourne.
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R_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90412)
R_Lab introduces students to the use of robots in the design and fabrication of non-standard more-than-human habitats. Students will develop knowledge of 3D clay printing and test their designs on-site, at the McGeorge Bequest, a University of Melbourne-owned site at Darebin Creek, near the Yarra River.
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F_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90222)
In F_Lab students consider materiality, anthropometrics, and timber fabrication techniques as part of their design process. Students will use a wide range of making techniques to design and fabricate a bespoke furniture piece that is highly individual and of novel aesthetic and material qualities. A resulting final piece will highlight students’ experimentation process, demonstrate exemplary craft, and creating a novel furniture piece.
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Ex_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90361)
In Ex_Lab students investigate how digital technologies can play a role in experimentation, iteration and making of future furniture. Body tracking and 3D scanning are harnessed to generate, interrogate, and provoke performative relationship between the human body and furniture artefacts. Students will use temporal sensor data for design development and explore 3D printing technology for the fabrication of Experimental Furniture Futures.
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Si_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90422)
SI_Lab introduces students to advanced 3D scanning, photography, and mapping, developing critical approaches to site and place. Students will build skills in the use of LiDAR, photography and representation of digital data, developing knowledge in observation and mapping through field trips to significant Australian landscape contexts.
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DF_Lab: Semester 1 2023 (ABPL90378)
In DF_LAB students explore architectural design through making, at the intersection of craft knowledge, advanced technologies, and non-standard materials. Traditional timber techniques will be re-invented through computer aided design and manufacturing technologies. Emerging tools such as 3D scanning, algorithmic modelling, and CNC fabrication will allow to integrate natural geometry and material behaviours into the designed form.
Building Information Modelling Electives
The BIM Electives aim at developing students’ understanding of available innovative technologies and methodologies, particularly BIM, as crucial elements to the future of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry.
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Building Information Modelling
This subject will introduce BIM principles and break down the jargon in the BIM context. During tutorials, students will work with popular BIM software to develop and coordinate building information models including 3D, 4D and 5D BIM models.
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Building Information Management
In this subject, students will explore typical workflows of implementing BIM within organisations and on construction projects managed by multidisciplinary teams.
Previous Electives
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R_Lab Semester 2 2022 (ABPL90412)
We live in an era of mass extinctions, biodiversity loss, and growing urbanisation. In addition to protecting and restoring existing habitats, we can also design places for non-humans in our cities.
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F_Lab: Semester 2 2022 (ABPL90222)
This semester, F_Lab will introduce students to explore the properties of wood as a material for furniture making. Focusing on the theme of ‘the body at rest’, students will design and prototype in pairs to produce two artefacts designed to relate to each other.
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Ex_Lab: Semester 2 2022 (ABPL90361)
Resources, Waste, Re-cycling, Life-cycles, and Re-use are topics which are explored from industrial production, building construction to craftship and arts. Upcycling is a creative process.
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DF_Lab Summer 2022 Intensive (ABPL90378)
In this Summer Intensive students will be joining a team of researchers from ADD+F Research Hub to develop a modular street fixture for outdoor ambient cooling. Students will have the opportunity to take part in the design and making of a structure that supports an evaporative cooling system.
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Si_Lab Semester 1 2022 (ABPL90422)
SI_Lab (ABPL90422) introduces students to the use of advanced spatial information tools that allow architects and designers to better observe and represent buildings, objects, and environments.
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R_Lab Semester 1 2022 (ABPL90412)
Non-human habitats will be the focus of the R_Lab elective during Semester 1, 2022. In the age of the Anthropocene we need to care for other species. R_Lab students will design habitats for non-humans close to a creek in Melbourne.
Graduate Research
Design and Creative Practice research are actively supported in the Melbourne School of Design and the University of Melbourne through the PhD model ‘Thesis by Creative Work'. Academics in the ADD+F research hub have the capacity to supervise PhD research projects, especially those with a design and creative practice focus.
