"Fabricating Customization: Prototype 2025" explored the intersection of architectural design and digital fabrication by engaging students in the prototyping of adaptive sports equipment and infrastructure. Throughout the semester, students designed two elements: a customizable sports item—such as a ball or racket—tailored to a sport of their choice, and an adaptive infrastructural element like nets, goals, or targets that spatialized and rendered their chosen sport operable. These assignments aimed to explore digital mass customization while applying theories of degrowth to envision alternative economies of production outside the industrial-sports complex. Class activities concluded with dedicated testing of these designs across various locations on the CMU campus, transformed into impromptu sports fields, courts, and rinks. The course built upon the architectural exploration of production and manufacturing to achieve greater affordability, customization, and sustainability. It introduced students to prototyping and design-for-manufacturing frameworks, emphasizing the reciprocal relationship between design and prototyping.
