Digital Design and Fabrication of Freeform Concrete Blocks The experience of ‘Cobogo Trança’ Veronica Natividade 1 1 PUC-Rio 1 veronica.natividade@puc-rio.br This paper describes the methods and results of an experimental workshop held at the Department of Architecture of PUC-Rio devoted to exploring design alternatives and digital fabrication techniques to produce concrete façade elements for the Consulate General of Portugal building in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The workshop aimed the adoption of advanced computer-aided design and production methods within a rare and innovative university-industry collaboration context in Latin America. The paper aims to discuss contemporary concrete casting methods and its applicability, as well as the achievements and pitfalls of the adopted technique. The results are discussed under the light of Antoine Picon's notion of contemporary ornament and Branko Kolarevic's perspectives on digital imprecision. Keywords: digital fabrication, free-form concrete block, design education, interdisciplinary collaboration INTRODUCTION Digital fabrication is unquestionably the main force behind architectural innovation in the past two decades. It has been enabling architects and en- gineers not only to solving existing problems more rapidly and efficiently but more than that to inspire professionals to address new design issues. Every day, new researchers on digital design and fabrica- tion technologies are stimulating the development of a broad range of interests and strategies in order to materialize increasingly complex and customized solutions in architecture (Duarte et al. 2004). Tectonic and material aspects have been at the center of most recent discussions, considering both innovative and traditional building materials. De- spite the growing interest in new materials, rein- forced concrete still is the most widely used in con- struction today. Throughout its history, concrete has been subjected to massive research addressed to in- vestigate performance aspects as a construction ma- terial, aesthetic expression and tectonic potential in architecture (Peters et al. 2017). In addition to its sig- nificant impact on building culture worldwide in the last hundred years, reinforced concrete is a frequent structural material choice since almost any shape can be achieved by pouring concrete into a formwork. In contrast, the zenith of the concrete shell struc- ture is long gone (Peters et al. 2017). The world- FABRICATION | Design & Application - Volume 1 - eCAADe 36 | 743