Experimental design practice ‘sixteen*(makers)’ based at University College London have been given a prime position in the architecture room at this year’s Royal Academy Summer Show. Curated by Sir David Chipperfield, over 200 exhibits from many of the UK’s leading design practices have been selected by the award winning designer “to shed light on the common language on which all architects draw”. The work by sixteen*(makers) presents an exported high resolution view from a 3D scan of their recently completed building known as 55/02. The scan was captured on a FARO Laser Scanner Photon 120 currently on loan from FARO to UCL for collaborative research in engineering and architecture. 55/02 was designed as an experimental collaboration with steel fabrication firm Stahlbogen GmbH for a remote site within Kielder Water and Forest Park, Northumberland UK. The work was completed in June 2009 with many of the final design decisions made in the process of manufacture without revising the drawn model. Equipped with the Photon 120 the designers returned to Kielder early this year and captured the projects final iteration as a scan. Bob Sheil, senior lecturer at UCL and partner in sixteen*(makers) says “In construction, the as-built is invariably different to the as-designed. Changes and alterations are made in the course of assembly by numerous agencies, some deliberate, some accidental, some circumstantial. In this regard, 3D scanning offers both the designer and the maker a powerful tool to understand the invisible traces between the ideal and the real. It becomes even more fascinating when these differences are understood and exploited”.

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