Craft in architecture is closely tied to detail, which is also
being redefined with digital technology. Architectural detail, an
architect's means of introducing craft into buildings, is largely a
product of the relationship of design to industry. If the modernist's
detail was based on negotiating tolerances between pre-manufactured components that were then assembled, today's details are based on the management and organization of information, where
tolerances and even assembly procedures can be numerically
controlled and parametrically integrated during design. Although
these new methods of production do not put architects in the
field literally working with their hands, it does reconnect them
with making-through information and through a more symbiotic
relationship between human intelligence and machine intelligence.
Craft does not disappear but rather expands to include not only
actual making but design processes. The resistance of material, so
much a part of traditional craft, can be part of a knowledge base
developed through feedback, both real and simulated, that puts
this information in the hands of designers who in turn work with it.