Sagrada Familia Rosassa: Global Computeraided Dialogue between Designer and Craftsperson (Overcoming Differences in Age, Time and Distance) (2001)
article⁄Sagrada Familia Rosassa: Global Computeraided Dialogue between Designer and Craftsperson (Overcoming Differences in Age, Time and Distance) (2001)
abstract⁄The rose window ‘rosassa’ in Catalan recently completed between the two groups of towers that make up the Passion Facade of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona measures eight metres wide and thirtyfive metres in height Figure 1. There were four phases to the design based in three distinct geographical locations. The design was undertaken on site, design description in Australia some eighteen thousand kilometres distant, stonecutting a thousand kilometres distant in Galicia, with the completion of the window in March 2001. The entire undertaking was achieved within a timeframe of fifteen months from the first design sketch. Within this relatively short period, the entire team achieved a new marriage between architecture and construction, a broader relationship between timehonoured craft technique with high technology, and evidence of leading the way in transglobal collaboration via the Internet. Together the various members of the project team combined to demonstrate that the technical office on site at the Sagrada Familia Church now has the capacity to use ‘justintime’ project management in order to increase efficiency. The processes and dialogues developed help transcend the tyranny of distance, the difficult relationship between traditional craft based technique and innovative digitally enhanced production methods, and the three generational age differences between the youngest and more senior team members.
