Architecture = Design?The increasingly strog link between 3D modeling and automated manufacturing

3D models have always been used to study and control complex shapes. The Luca Pacioli's vacuous models and Gaudi's funicular polygon are the best way to study geometry and to represent complex architecture. The 3D digital model offers advantages over the traditional material model, in fact it is able to simulate the perceptive dimension, to verify structures, but we can build from it, prototypes or architectural components too. The relationship between digital model and construction is very close, now we can produce prototypes, models or elements of construction using CAM technology, CNC systems or rapid prototyping. Development of these tools is increasingly approaching Architecture to Design not only regard on the forms, but regard on the design method. The new tools are profoundly changing the processes of design and construction and the boundaries between architecture, engineering and production methods are increasingly blurred. To examine the relationship between 3D modelling (real or digital models) and production methods, in our research we rebuilt 3D models of some very different study cases in which the relation between the real model, digital model and the construction of building's components are reversed.