Re:Crafting Tradition
Re:Crafting Tradition is an immersive workshop designed to explore the evolving dialogue between digital manufacturing and traditional craftsmanship. In a moment when design culture is rapidly shifting toward automation, optimization, and algorithm-driven processes, this activity invites participants to pause and reconnect with the tactile, imperfect, and deeply human dimension of making.
The workshop is built around a simple yet powerful idea: a digitally fabricated object becomes more meaningful when it is touched, shaped, and transformed by the human hand. Participants begin with a 3D-printed ceramic form—a neutral, machine-produced body that acts as a canvas. Using a curated set of traditional ceramic and carving tools, each person will intervene on the surface, modifying textures, creating patterns, carving gestures, or subtly deforming the geometry.
Throughout the session, participants will experience how a standardized object can evolve into a unique, expressive artifact, gaining both material depth and emotional value through manual techniques. This process highlights a core principle of digital craft: the machine provides precision and structure, but it is the hand that introduces identity, authorship, and character.
While the activity is accessible to all skill levels, it also introduces key concepts relevant to contemporary design practice:
– the role of digital fabrication as an enabler rather than a replacement of craft;
– the importance of hybrid workflows that merge automation with manual intervention;
– the potential of surface manipulation to transform perception, function, and meaning;
– and the growing relevance of customizable, small-scale productions in a sustainable design culture.
More than a technical exercise, Re:Crafting Tradition is an invitation to reflect on how we produce, value, and relate to objects in a world increasingly shaped by machines. It demonstrates that craftsmanship is not lost in the digital age—rather, it is being redefined. When technology provides the base and tradition provides the touch, the result is a new form of contemporary craft that celebrates both innovation and heritage.
About the artist:
Gianluca Pugliese (@im.Gippi) is a designer, digital artisan, and founder of LOWPOLY, a studio pioneering sustainable large-format 3D printing. Known for merging advanced manufacturing with traditional craftsmanship, he develops innovative materials from waste —such as MOKA® and Tyrex®— and collaborates with global brands and cultural institutions. His work redefines contemporary craftsmanship through technology, circularity, and hands-on experimentation.
Marion Vincey is a multidisciplinary designer and a final-year design student at IE University. Guided by curiosity for technology and culture, she explores the intersection of innovation and tradition across product, graphic, service, and strategic design. Her projects investigate new relationships between craftsmanship and emerging technologies through the creative use of sustainable materials and contemporary fabrication methods, aiming to redefine how design connects creativity, responsibility, and human experience.