Co-led with Augusto Gandia, with support from Andy Payne (McNeel Associates)
October 2023
This three-day workshop introduced ‘Hybrid Making’—later developed as ‘Cybermodeling’—as an architectural modeling practice integrating analogue and digital systems through microsensor technology. Participants constructed sensor-embedded physical models capable of transmitting environmental and haptic data to animate parametric systems, reframing design as an exchange with “live” objects that respond to both context and manual manipulation.
Using Firefly, Arduino, and Grasshopper, students replaced conventional digital inputs (mouse and keyboard) with material interactions that engage human embodied intelligence as a driver of computational form. Structured across three intensive sessions, the workshop moved from sensor configuration and circuitry, to embedding sensors in modeling materials, and finally to producing fully functional hybrid models.
Drawing participants from a range of technical backgrounds, the workshop format fostered collaborative experimentation and critical discourse around design tools and agency. Rather than optimizing for production, Hybrid Making emphasizes the conceptual development of early design phases within computational making—aligning with architecture’s disciplinary method of ‘making-as-analysis’.
