Dillenberger, Hansmeyer, And the Parametric Grotto

https://www.archdaily.com/868540/this-mysterious-3d-printed-grotto-challenges-boundaries-of-computational-geometry-and-human-perception

Dillenberger & Hansmeyer’s 3D printer grotto is a perfect representation of that possibilities that computation and digital fabrication can bring to architecture. Inhumanly complex and detailed, its Gaudi-esque surface was generated using algorithms and built in sandstone using 3D printers. It leaves the limitations of the human ability to craft and even to design in the dust, relying purely on the now super-human abilities of our machines.

Works such as this one inevitably force people like me to ask hard questions about what design is worth. These algorithms and machines designed and built an object much more complex than I ever could, even given another thirty years to master design and a team of master stonemasons to work with. If this is what can be done with machines alone, what in what space are people like me left to work?

-Robert