Artengine Logo

Tom Bessai

Artengine's UNHANDED

In Tom Bessai’s engaging artist talk, he delves into the dynamic role of architects and designers amidst the advent of digital fabrication and technology. With a background in architecture and a deep involvement in technology, Bessai offers valuable insights into how these fields intersect and evolve.

Throughout his talk, Bessai covers a range of topics, starting with the essence of ideal digital fabrication projects, emphasizing the importance of geometry, order, and meaning. He then delves into the practicalities and challenges architects face, such as technology integration, workflow optimization, and the relationship between digital design and physical fabrication.

Another key aspect Bessai addresses is the emergence of a digital fabrication ecosystem, exploring how spaces, devices, and education intersect to shape the future of design and fabrication. He discusses issues like organization, accessibility, and the democratization of technology, envisioning a landscape where collaboration and experimentation thrive.

Bessai illustrates his points with examples from various projects and initiatives, showcasing innovative approaches to material testing, generative design, and machine feedback. He highlights the potential for collaboration between academia, industry, and the broader community, emphasizing the importance of shared spaces and resources in fostering creativity and innovation.

This presentation was part of the symposium Unhanded. In this panel we ask about the variety of new relationships with materials that emerging with the increasing ubiquitousness of digital technologies. With the increased complexity of tools we wonder how do we learn about materials? How do we get to know them? How do we share this knowledge? We can now know the molecular structure of wood or metal without touching it. Is this a more intimate relationship than working directly with our hands? Does it matter? If the objects coming out of digital and mechanical processes are more removed from our handywork, how might they carry the mark of the machine? Should we be able to read the machine in the material?

Tom Bessai, BA, BArch, MArch, OAA, MRAIC
Tom Bessai is a registered architect and an Assistant Professor at the Daniels FALD. He holds an MArch from UCLA and is completing a MSc from the University of Michigan’s Taubman College with a specialization in Design and Material Systems. His research and teaching explore computation and digital fabrication strategies for adaptive architecture. His essay, Ideal Models Vs. Hybrid Models will appear in the forthcoming publication, Paradigms in Computing: Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture, to correspond with the ACADIA 2014 conference, Los Angeles. Denegri Bessai Studio Architecture was established by partners Maria Denegri and Tom Bessai in 2008. Work from the office has won numerous design awards, and has appeared in a range of local and international publications. They have recently established DBS Fabrication, an on-site research and production lab. It greatly enhances the computing and prototyping facilities of the practice, and supplements teaching and research.

ther ideas, though, have started to kind of permeate notions of local response and minimum use of energy. Those that are interested in building science have been talking about these things. But really there’s another dimension to this that’s about the experience. So how do we start to make less generic spaces and more particular spaces?

Redundancy has become a really important kind of thing that people are looking for in this design world. How do we create systems that are playful, that overlap in various ways?

Futures Imagined

Developed in our Digital Economies Lab, An Artist’s Almanac is Suzanne Kite’s dive into artist solidarity through exchange and sharing. Kite discussed how she began from the DEL’s central focus on fostering artistic prosperity, and expanded toward questions about whether existing resources are going where they are needed most. Through her work on the project she builds a network of collaborators and fosters dreaming and imagining workshops as a path toward a better future.

READ MORE