A Hybrid Continuum: Scaffolding Design Logic from Manual Making to Digital Fabrication

Contemporary design pedagogy faces a tension between analog-making traditions and digital technologies, often resulting in fragmented skill development. This paper examines a scaffolded pedagogical model that connects precedent analysis, hand drawing, material prototyping, digital modeling, and fabrication within a continuous learning sequence. The study is framed as a design-based qualitative workshop study conducted with 11 multidisciplinary participants. It analyses process observations, intermediate artifacts, and final outcomes across four workshop phases inspired by Giò Ponti's tile designs. Rather than claiming statistically measured improvement, the paper identifies how students' engagement with design process logic became visible through rule extraction, iterative translation, peer explanation, material testing, and digital reconstruction. The findings clarify three pedagogical thresholds: moving from visual appreciation to compositional rule recognition; from two-dimensional pattern to material relief; and from tactile form-making to digitally explicit geometry for fabrication. The paper concludes by proposing a carefully staged extension toward AI-assisted generative tools, arguing that analog and material foundations remain necessary for critically evaluating AI outputs in terms of geometric coherence, material feasibility, and fabrication readiness.