Antoine Picon
Digital Culture in Architecture the
Rn rntroduct ron DesLgn professLons
2 q JUN
2010
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li, Birkhiiuser Basel
Introduction Pcoplc, Computero and Architecture: A Historical Oveniew
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of the socLetg of i.nformatLon rhe rLse of cotttputer epLstemoLogg tgblrnettcs Ln archLtecture and pLannLnS: patterns, sgstems and netuorks rhe
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rhe formaLLst turn Ln postmodernLsm and crLtLcaL theorg oLgLtaL cuLture, space and socLabLLLtg nrchrtecture as Lnterface
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From Tectonic to Ornament: Towards a Different
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2oro Birkhauser GmbH
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robot Lzat Lon take command? r64
The City in the Digital Spraw1 r7r urban features Ln the dLgLtaL age t72 n cLtg of IndLvLduaLs 171 nn augmented uIban reaLi"tg events, sLlnuLatlons and scenarL0s rouacds a sPLLntered cLtg?
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Conclusion 2o9
Beecl
P.O. Box r33, CH-4oro.Basel, Switzerland
Metcrial Qontinuity and the Derign Practicc
Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF Prlntcd in Gcrmany
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Editing, Henriette Mueller-Stahl, Berlin
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Layout and Cover Design, Sandrine Roodard, Paris Litho and Typography: T ticht&Tiefe, Berlin
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CONTCMPORRRY ICCHNOL I]OY
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Digital architecture's formal and cornpr.tt:ttior r:t l t'rpt li t t tt' l :, u i n r', 1' arable from a series of changes that h:rve:ilfcctcd tt'c'lttrolor',r' ttr llr, 1' , decades. These changes are not only a nratter of ittttov;tti,,tr', ltl ' rl,
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rnassive diffusion of digital tools, the developrnent of qcrrt'ti1
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oped countries has been accotrtpltttit"rl l,i , ,i transformations of the perceptiol) rlrr(l rrrrrl, r I r,,.! oftechnology. The shiftingcortter)t ol ttt.tl, rr rlrl crisis of tectonic and the risirrg irttpotl,rrrr r ,r , mental practices are atnollg thc pltt'ttorrr, tt t l,,, nect what is happening itt arcltitt't lttti t,, rlr, 1
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ing orthe newperspectives opctrctl bv tlrt t t'1,1,,, ,t,", ofnanoscale structures. Path brc:rkir)q:rr)(l \l)( ( I r, ,l ,, though these innovations nray btr, tltc1, .rri .ttlt 1',,r of a more global evolution that prestrrrts ,r slr( )r" , temological dimension. In other wot'rls. il i:, rr,,t,,,,1 the content oftechnology but its very tlt'lirrrt t.rr t has changed during the past decades. Wlt.rt rr, call technology diflers radically frorrr tlr, li, lrrr,,l, cal world that defined classical furtrts ol ttrrlrt.tr, ,l, tion, from early-nineteenth-centttry lltrr',l,rrr,l r,, r,,
twentieth-centurylJnited States,-frrprrrr .rrr,l (,, r r r,, Although we are not yet living in 11-1;lv lror,l ttt,l,, r ' societies, contraryto the assumptiott ttt:ttlt rrr l" sociologist Daniel Be1l,1 since inc-lttstrirrl lrt.,ltt, t t' ,, not so much disappeared as relocalizt'tl tr) ( (,rrrrrr' l, China, the rise of a ser-vice ccolt()tlr) trr rr rr' l'
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cars or airplanes.
In the cvcryclly
experience of technology, obj ct'ts are no longer as deternrining rrs they used to be. They have beerr superseded by more comPrehell* sive and at the same time abstract entities such as networks ancl
fields. Most of the artifacts that surround us today seem to
Possess
afraction only of the autonomy that machines ofthe industrial agc were imparted with. We tend to live among quasi-objects, connectors or terminals that exPress
lts il rilt(.nll)()r:lry o[tjccts or nttltcr rltrtrsi o[l.ict:ts ('llllll()t Lrc t:otlsitlct'ctl " rrr,lrvrrlrr;rls".1 Itt c'ollllllctc (:()lltrest t() lllxlly oIthcir tirrcrttttltcrs' sttt:lt charlctcr iD Enrile Zolrr's .r., tlrt. l()r.ttnrotivc thet:rppetrs as a fully-fledgccl effltlrcsce tlcc il,rrrt'1. I-rr lllttt F{uttainL:,a their existence appears as a l)lero
lil Nlil rtltltt
tlrt'livcrs of networks and fields' ,l.hc is probloss of relevance of traditional technological artifacts of importance ever-increasing of the .rl,l\, :rt tlrc core of the perception networks The chapter' last r rrttr:rlity, an issue thati will return to in the perceptible than .rrr,l licltls that are superseding them are less immediately actuobjects. They seem to generate possibilities awaiting an
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use without a phone Plan and provider's coverage. Interestingly, decades before the development of wireless communlcation, Richard Buckminster Fuller had already used the phone to illustrate the partial loss of relevance of objects in a society dominated by service. As he noted with great clar'w'hat mattered was to subiry, to own a phone had no real significance. scribe to a phone plan.2 Contrary to what the French philosophcr Georges Simondon stated in his classical book on technological artifacts,
no a
"individual",
2
See
t) t) Martin Pawley, Btckminster Fuller (London:' l'u'liil, l 0),
y'l
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I cantt)tlr;, llll'0 I ii
Ittttttdlttll lttYrrt rtl teclttxtlol;lr:ltl tr:itlllY
are nevertheless dePrived ofreal autonomy since they would be of
technolo1jical
ll;
llow:; ltitvtt
crystallize strong desires; but they
Photo: Phil Sussman,
tl lt ll
suporstttltxl ltitrillIrttttl arlllttt;ll; r;ttt;lt it:i tttacltitttt:; it:i lltrt
or fields, like the strength of the signal displayed by cell Phones' The case of cell phones is bY the way telling. Some of them, sucl't as the ever-newest smart Phone,
A traditional
lir;itt:llt
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properties belonging to networks
Locomotive.
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Wittllttlil; lttlttt ttttl inlottliilY ilt;ttlllr; llttt
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nefwork needs .rlrz.rtiott through quasi-objects like terminals' A wireless to its users' present fully l, I r r r rstallce computers or cell phones to become
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itlxttltlrrt\l, Mll, [);ttttlrtIlt1t,
l(..r.rtqr.iStrttrrttr/rrtt,l)ttMltrlr.rl,l]'ristr.rrt.cltcs()lljctsl.c..ltttitlltr.s(t\tris:Allliu,lI)(tl))' (,\lnill IluitIt'ity 1t"", lt)')t') I I.tttii lola, l,r ltcrr.llIrrr.rrrrc (l,,rrl,r lllt)0, l,t.tlitltttt|$lnlio,t N|rt''lirrl'r
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Ant>tlrcr firrrclarnetrtnl r:hunrr:tr:ristic: of'tltc Itcw tccltttologicll clrvirttrt ment that surrounds us is its scettrlcss l)ttllrc. Wirelt:ss ntrtwtlrks arc tltcrt: again emblematic of a world in which networks and fields scenl to lllcrgc in a more and more fluid way. This continuum explains the success of metaphoric uses ofverbs like "to surf', "to browse" or "to drift" whelt dealing with realities like the Internet. They convey something about the attitude to adopt in a continuous technological world. The smoothness of elegant digital architecture form can be read as a metaphorical transposition ofthis fluid character. The eye is supposed to su{ browse or drift on its sudace, enabling affects, in the sense discussed in the previous chapter, to pervade the space that extends between subject and object. In this environment, components oftechnological objects are less and less assembled according to schemes based on geometry and mechanics. Structures and engines, with their carefully designed elements that answered each other like the instrumental parts of an orchestral piece, used to encapsulate the fundamental principles of technological ingenuity. Nothing was more admirable than the systemic or synergetic arrangement of elements that characterized a Gothic cathedral or a bicycle. Computers and more general electronic equipments are no longer designed according to these principles. They appear as layered assenlblages of hardware and software. In these stack-like assemblages, systemic or synergetic organization is replaced by a different and in some ways looser type of relation based on intefacing. Interfacing has more to do with problems of code-writing and translation from one code to another than with traditional structural design. From another point ofview, the structural dimension is jeoparclizedby the rise of information. Indeed, structure used to be defined lt an intermediary scale between the microscopic and the macroscopic, From anirnal skeletons to buildings, structure was supposed to embocly a fype of order characteristic of a specific position in-between these two extremes. This specific position is challenged in a world in which inftrrmation seems to follow similar patterns at every level of scale. Tlril
t'xplairrs thc r:rrrblcrrmtic xrlc
plrrycd by fractals in nrany ('ontemporary discourses. No longer seen as geometric oddities, &actals are now perceived :rs embodying an essential t'ltaracteristic of a world ruled
by information, namely its irrdifGrence to traditional hier,rrchies and scales.s
Another disturbing .rspect oFthe present situation
is the blurring that often ()('curs betr,veen what used to hc infrastructural and what was ,
onsidered as superstructural.
lrr a transportation company,
tlrc software application used t() manage the fleet is often
rrrore important than the vt'hicles themselves. In a similar way, to change one's operating system, rwitching from'Windows to Linux for instance, represents a more fun,l.rrnental move than to buy a hew computer. In many instances, the hardrv:rre is actually the softerpart ofthe organization. The history ofthe Interr r('t perhaps offen the best illustration ofthe blurring between infrastructure rtl superstructure, for the
network
backbone a few times ,ltrring the first decades ofits existence, suggesting that its real infrastructrrrll level was that ofthe users connected to it, as ifthe small branches and tlrt' leaves ofa tree were situated at a higher hierarchical level than its trunk.6 The crisis of architectural tectonic that will be evoked here must l',' replaced in this context. Another factor adds to the evolutions listed ,rlrove: the radical redefinition of the limits between the natural and the ,r r tificial that is taking place simultaneously, a redefinition epitomized ,rr
1') \, ftfiul l\vir: ltliluutdtior,
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has changed its
Patricia Pkx;hrlrrl, Protein Lilllkxl Subset Red, Porltilll,
1997, Dioltal r; lylrrr photograph, 0(nI l(]:ry Patricia Pkrclrrlrrl, Which oilr) hi lll0 more arllfk;ill: llrrr transgenio mrru;rr trr
the modcl'/ llollt ilit\/ be
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by the possibility of taking I pirter)t fbr-livirrg o.g"rirrrrr. With these changes, we are confronted to a technological world that is no longer easy to grasp using univocal categories' We live in a
Iechno-natural environment that is closer to what philosophers like Bruno Latour or Peter Sloterii.lk describe in their essays than to the traditional ,rision of a human sphere circled by a foreign rlatvte.T
Although system analysis has known
a
recent return to favor, this environment can no longer be approached using systemic analogies' A system is almost always a collection of discrete parts or Actors the relations ofwhich can be charicterizedin terms of information processing and feedback loops' Despite their appeal to designers'
0r cybernetics or neo-cybernetic models are probaRev6lutign bly no longer relevant to understand contempotechnologicat sysrem, like historians rary technology. More iraditional systemic approaches l:tT":'T:?1.:'I:. (eoltor)' fl/sru/re ues - ' nn.,*+.I.i,c nr ';;';;:irir; Bertrand Gille's attempts to clescribe technologior Rcrrrrr Lewis Mumford's sibiiothdqr.oe lu ., .rrolution as a series of systems are even less satisfying. While the
simplilied diasram the First lndustrial
Pleiade, 19/u. (9 Edirions
calimard. First Industrial Revolution could indeed be described
According to
the
iJ:ffiilr'J'J:T;J,
First
as a
system based
coa1, iron and on the interactions between three fundamental elements: there is the steam engine, as Mumford and Gille argued convincinglv, that can in a comparable way summarize our ,"I of
no lirnited "l"m"rtsenwironment'8 [:H:Xl3i[i',$ff,. sprawling technological use was based on the ' Dlaling witha seamless technological world' it is tempting to this interactions between 1 and history' For anarytical catelories borrowed to landscape theory three fundamentat transitions' has smooth and presence elements: coal, iron environment, with its pervasive Its neta system' with steam the than and more features in common with a landscape engine. sllcn a . quasiby analogous to a topography punctuated simplified sysremic works and fields are by description is hard t0 obiects like terminals, just like an ordinary countryside is animated be misg.irr", and cottages. But mentioning the countryside here may Giile, the
.
uclirrg, bct::rusrr 111q 1:llrrtr'rrrporary tcchnologiclrl lnrrclsc:apc is firndlrrrrcntally urben, alrnr>st identical to the city. Even ir: the nrost relnotc: places, in secluded mountain valleys for instance, some of its most ernblematic devices like computers and cell phones can generate an urban bubble, a kind of "instant city" rcpTacing its users in the metropolitan rhythm like Archigram's eponymous project.e To envisage the ciry as a landscape has become moreover one ofthe most promising paths towards the much-needed renewal of urban thinking.tolust like key technologicaT artifacts, beginning with the computer, appear less and less as geometrical and mechanical assemblages, the city is no longer manageable in terms of urban composition or even urban zoning. Its future seems le
to lie in approaches merging seamlessly different and often contradictory dimensions, like the visually disordered and the carefully planned, or the productive and the pleasurable. Contrary to the critical distance or disinterestedness that was presupposed by former landscape aesthetics, by Kantian theory in particular,11 the contemporary technological landscape does not imply a neutral distance on the side ofthe subject that perceives it; it requires to the contrary a commitment from him. This landscape is indeed inseparable fi'om the redefinition that affects the subject. 'W'e have already seen a number of possible characterizations of the new subject that is emerging today, like the cyborg that presupposes a link bet\,veen man and technology so intimate that it leads to their hybridization. The cyborg hypothesis might very well represent a convenient starting-point to simultaneously reexamine technology and the city.tz Notions of spatially distributed subjectivity and affect rnay clearly indicate why Kant's disinterestedness is clearly out of the question when dealing with contemporary technological landscape. How could today's individuals contemplate from outside a scene that is in continuity with their inner self? l)igital architecture and its advocacy of mediated and distributed sub.iectiviry is in that respect paradigrnatic of the new relation that prevails lretween man and his technological and urban environment.
3:l[H#,'x,, technolog}/.
7 8
kwk
seeJor instance:
MumJord,rechnics and
*,ir?i,",T03"i:r;:;;:ri;7,;:r:":";1:;::;:;:;r,;;::;i,tr?,,::z;;;i
civiliz*ion 1N"*io'u'
uo'*'t'f'rfrfrfnf,';,'3i"?;!"K"4""7*:r"l::i*r\':r';!
glnstantCitywasthenameoJalg6SprojeamadepossiblebytheGrahomFo,undation.PeterCook(ed.),Archigrarrr oJ this proiect - *rli;:::lr:::,t:!r::i:r.*::;,:; vista, 1922), p 86 in plartkular. 6n'the paradigmatk ch)rutter
(London: studio
l0
Charles Waldheim (ed.), Tlr,e Landscape IJrbanism Reader (Neu York: Pinceton Uniuereity Pres, 2006). Coat Trait6 du Ptystge (Pais: Callimanl, 1997). l2 On the cyborg and its releuance to architectuml and urban questiorc, see Antoine Picon, La Ville Teritoire des Cyborgs (lltstttyrt: l.ts Editions de l'Impimeur, 1998), WilliamJ. Mitchell,Me++t The Cyborg Self and the Networked City (Carltril,gt, A,lusachusetts: MIT Pres, 200i), Mdttheu Candy, "Cyborg (Jrbanization: Complexity and Monstrosity in the Conturlnrary Oit1,",
ll
SeeJacques Roger,
irr frrtcnrationalJournal oflJrban and Regional Research, uol. 29, no.1, 2005; Eik Suryngedouw, "Circulatiols unl (llybrirl) Natures and (Cyborg) Cities", in Science as Crkrre, vol. 15, no.2,June 2005, pp. 105-121.
Mtiltlitn'
THE CRISIS OF SCRLE RND TECTONIC One of the most striking features of the contemporary architectural scene
productions. Its most conspicuous source is the blurring of the traditional distinction between infrastructures and buildings that has given birth to programs like giant airports or super-shopping malls. Renzo Piano's Kansai Airport, Norman Foster's Chek Lap Kok Hong Kong Airport or Maurice Sunderland's'W'est Edmonton Mall, are emblematic of this trend that challenges the traditional definition of architecture. Digital culture and the various computing tools that come with it do not only make these gigantic projects manageable by architectural is the crisis of scale that seems to affect some of its most emblematic
$l
ofEces. They also create the appropriate cultural context for their recep-
tion. This context bears the mark of the profound incertitude about dimension generated by computer imagery. On computer screens, forrns without definite dimension. Frangois Roche's neo-cybernetic urban megastructure, "I've Heard About", looks for instance like a midsized coral formation. The same incertitude is detectable in games and films that make an extensive use of computer images. Take the second Star Wars trllogy.13 Its supposedly colossal architecture is actually without clear scale. It evokes both the sublimity ofthe pyramids and the skyscrapers and the precision of reduced scale models. One is torn between contradictory impulses to step back in order to get the full picture ofa giant architecture seem to float
Foster
+
Partners,
Chek Lap Kok Hong Kong lnternational
Airpod, aerial view, Hong Kong,19921998. @ Dennis Gilbert
i
VIEW
arld at the same time look closer at the minute details of a reduced model. The impression produced oscillates between awe and
curiosity, thus adding to the incertitude regarding the scale of the spectacle.
lj
Ceorge Lucas (dir.), Star'Wars, Episodes
I, II, AI G999, 2005, 2008),
"l've Heard About",
From early blobs to more recent elegant design, the innovative character of many digital projects geometry also contributes to the cri'Whereas sis of scale. the eye has been trained since the Renaissance to appreciate the length, width and depth of rectangular shapes, it is far less accustomed to evaluate the size of smoothly warped surfaces and volumes. Flence the impressionthat rcdtzations like Asymptote's HydraPier
in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands, or Zaha Hadid's BMW Central Building inLeipzig, Germany, are like momentarily landed futuristic spaceships. With spaceships they share a streamlined appearance, and above all an enigmatic scale that appears as a consequence of their nonconventional geometry.
Courtesy R&Skr(rD, The comprrirrr generated lrnll{I, does not rovoal llr{} exact scalo o[ tlllli urlrrtt
megastrU(ilrilo,
r
tural prirrciples and tectonic played an organizational role even when they were reduced to a mere spatial ordinance. They were instrumental in conveying the plastic and expressive dimensions of architecture, even to the extent that structural detail progressively replaced traditional ornament during the first half of the fwentieth century. Their key aesthetic and symbolic function was to attain its climax with Mies van der Rohe's ornamental use of tectonic articulation in projects like the Illinois Institute ofTechnology (IIT) campus. 'When the use of the computer began to spread throughout the architectural world in the mid-1980s, it was expected to reinforce the predominance of structure and tectonic in architecture because of the new possibilities it offered to pass almost seamlessly from the first sketches to detailed technical solutions. The smooth process it promised to establish seemed at the time synonymous with a deeper degree of coherence between design and structural decisions. This coherence was also supposed to benefit from systematic parametric exploration. A new field was unfolding under the eyes of
the designer, a field where multiple solutions couldbe envisaged
in order to
reach a perfect
Mies van dor Roho,
Alumni Memorlal Hall at lllinois lnstltuto of Technology, detall of
corner beams arll bricks, Chlcago,
TAprll 194/, HB-09969,4, Photographor Hedrich Blossln0, @ The Chlca0o History Museun'r. Tho
constructivo detoll possesses somothhll
almost ornamental.
fit
between form and technology.
In many Anne Couture, Haarlemmermeer, The Netherlands,
2002. Photo: Courtesy Christian Richters.
what
has
happened is the opposite ofthese
Asymptote: Hani Rashid and Lise HydraPier Pavilion
cases,
'
Along with the crisis of scale goes a gradual loss of relevance of structure as a guideline for design. To put it differently, one can invoke after Kenneth Frampton the notion of tectonic that corresponds in broad terms, beyond Gottfried Semper's somewhat idiosyncratic definition,la to structure translated in architectural terms, that is, structure as spacedefining dimension. Ifwe are to follow Frampton, tectonic was a guiding principle of modern architecture.ts It is certainly true that many modern buildings freed themselves from the strict rules of structures, beginning with some of Le Corbusier's major realizations.16 Yet struc-
14 On Sempey's interprctdtioft oJ tectonic, see Harry Mallgraue, introdrction to GottJried Semper, Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics (Its Angeles: The Cetty Research Institute, 2004)' pp 1-67. reJerenes made to Semper by contemporary architectwal theory, the common underslandin! tf rcrtofric is quil( Despite the Jrequent
dillrcnt.liom 1-i
Kuntth l;rttnplott,
his
qprooir
h)
lh(
overoptimistic scenarios. ManY signature buildings are marked by l striking discrepancy between architectural forms and tectonic. According to the architect's initial statements, Toyo Ito's Sendai Mediatheque was supposed to ervoke a liquid milieu in which weeds floated. Although the realized building has retained part of
I h 'l'his k Jor instance the case with the Convent of lt Toufftte. See Sergio Fcno, Chcnf Kebal, Philippc ( lrrrlrrrsicr: I-e Couvent de La Tourette (Marcillts: I'aruthlxs' 1988)
notit n
Strrtlics irr 'l'cr'lrrttic (lttltttrc.
126
1.r,7
l\tti(, Oyrillc Sintonrt,l t
'l'he conclusion
the irtitial tlllbitiolt, it is lt:ttrally made ofhc:rvy-duty steel plates thrt evoke ship construction, as ifdesigrr choices were to a large degree inde-
whatever the cost. Beside Frank Gehry's architecture, there are many other instances of indiffert:nce to or even rejection ofstructural con-
by
between the soft fabric suggested the initial digital presentation and the constructive realiry ofthe building can be observed in the case of
Associates, Sendai N,4ediatheque, 2001
the Yokohama Terminal by Foreign O{fice Architects. From
straints. What is at stake is also a critique of the rype of legibility that these consrraints imp1y. This critique is present in Michele
Sendai Mediatheque to Yokohama
Snee's
Terminal, there seems to be no alternative than to radically distinguish the domains of architectural form and tectonic. This distinction is at work in many other contemporary signature buildings. Zaha Hadid's Phaeno Center all-concrete external aPpearance is for instance contradictory with the structural importance of the floor and roof steel girders grids. In that case also, one notes a discrepancy between form and tectonic.
There is something paradoxical to observe that the computer indeed allows, as initially expected, to articulate intimately conception arld realization, while at the same time it recreates a striking distance between architectural imagery and the reality of building techniques. This is indicative of a present state of suspension or even crisis of traditional tectonic assumptions, a situation closely related to the incertitude that affects scale, for it was scale that granted to structure its foundational
role. Frank Gehry's practice probably constitutes one of the best illustrations ofthis crisis with its spectacular buildings in which architectural form comes first and foremost with little regard for structural constraints.
new fagade for the Drugstore Pub-
licis in Paris in which the undulating g)azing is in complete contrast with the rigid
liame of the original building. Although tl're deconstructivist agenda has stalled as a whole, its rejection of traditional structural
organizing rules is stil1 very much present
today. Revealingly, such an attitude is like Cecil Balmond who see it as a quest for an alternative tectonic based on "non Cartesian" or "inforshared by engineers
rrral" principles.lz Engineered by Balmond,
with its complex maze ofposts and beams tlrat defies conventional structural understanding, Herzog & de Meuron's Beijing t )lympic Stadium appears as an illustration of this quest. It often uses randomness, or at lcrrst
what appears
as
such, as a countermea-
srlre to tectonic habitus. Randomness seems
,'specially conspicuous in another structure tlcsigned by Cecil Balmond in close coop-
I
l2r"l
of
conlplex geometries and at the same time provides the structural engirreer and the contractor with the necessary information to build it -
pendent from the technologies of their realization. A similar distance
Toyo lto &
seenrs to be that the computer makes the realization
fi.rnrr possible, even if it is far from optimal in structural terms. The use .lcatia enables the designer to give a rigorous definition to the most
/ ( itil
I .t,, )
llalmond. Informal.
Michele Saoo, il0w faQade ol llxl
drugstore Publk;ll;, Paris, 2004
Iuyu llu & Arirlx;iitIri, wlllt cnlylttrrrt 0rx;ll Brrlrrxrrrri, S0rJ){nrllrx) (irrlllry t'ilvillrrr, London,2002.
crati()ll with urr ilrcllitcct, Toy() Ito's 2002 Serpcntinc Pavilion in London. Randomness also explains the success of schemes Iike Voronoi tessellations which offer important latitude ofvariation in the size and shape of their cells. Defined by the distances to a discrete set
ofpoints,
a Voronoi tessellation may indeed appear as the result of the cast ofthese points like dices
haphazardly thrown on a sur-
Herzoq & de Meuron, National Stadium, Beiiing, China, The Swiss architects led, in cooperation with
engineer Cecil Balmond, the quest-for an alternative, "nonCadesian" tectonic order.
rrral choice into a viable constructive assemblage reinforces the possibilities offered to the architect to play with forms without worrying about
their structural implications too much. Given the financial limitations that weigh on much of the everyday building production, such a possibiliry is of course lirnited to relatively expensive commissions like those entrusted to Ito, Foreign Office Architects, Gehry or Herzog & de Meuron. For reasons of cost control, traditional structural guidelines still rule the building industry at large. But projects like Ito's Sendai Mediatheque, Foreign Ofiice Architects' Yokohama Terminal, Gehry's Guggenheim Museum or Herzog & de Meuron's Beijing Stadium are the indicators of an ongoing shift.
The new requirements linked to the quest for sustainability concur to this shift. Sustainability is indeed relatively indifferent to the
frre. Relayed by theorists and practitioners as diverse as Neil Leach, David Turnbull orJesse Reiser, the search for an alternative tectonic, however, proves to be ambiguous.18 One may indeed wonder whether it is truly tectonic in essence. If one puts aside Balmond, who remains undoubtedly an engineer preoccupied with structural calculations, what seems at stake most ofthe time is a new poetics based on a ballet of forms yet unheard of, a poetics that has not much to do with considerations of loads. The tendency to break away from traditional structural guidelines must be considered within the broader frame of a technological world in which the distinction between structural and non-structural levels is becoming increasingly porous. As a cultural production, architecture reflects trends that extend far beyond the scope ofthe building industry. Closer to the realiry of this industry, recent technological developrnents enable practicalTy anything to go. With the new possibilities offered by advanced welding or glues many a traditional rule of 'V7ith
18 Neil Leach, Dauiil Tumhull, Chis Williams (eils.),Digltal. Tectonic,Jesse
^rU.,
,rll1,3ir+:llli:l
l.]0
t.l
I
I
Alisharr lorrrlrl Routes, liriwilrr,
2003, podostrlrrrr brklgtr,
their increased per{ormances, materials also play a crucial role in this evolution. Epitomized by Gehry's architecture, the capacity ofthe computer to transform almost every forassemblage can be disregarded.
Jessc llolsor
Nakano Utnorrrolu,
ltllll,
'J'hcrrcfirrc, thc crisis of tcctorric: principlcs of'orgarrization is rrot r l cccssl rily syll on ynlotls with thc denrise of stru ctllrel constrair r ts, clcspitcr
soundness of load-bearing trajectories and the translation of structural choices into legible tectonic. It involves factors like ecological footprint
or dynamic energetic behavior that obey another type of logic, a logic that involves the entire environment instead of remaining within the limits of the built object like traditional structural requirements.le There again, the computer is instrumental in enabling designers to identiS, and
tlrc glib attitude ofmany a contemporary digitaldesigner towards thenr. further, one may even suppose that some new tectonic princi-
( i
Thus the weakening of structural considerations is linked to a more general shift in the understanding ofwhat matters in the physical world, what represents challenges not yet addressed by human ingenuity. It does not mean however that mechanics has lost its relevance, but rather that its status is changing. Mechanics and structural requirements used to be at the cutting edge ofman's science and technology. In comparison with biological and ecological stakes, they are slowly receding into the background. But this background is more constraining than what it might seem at first; one can even consider it as a new limit, of a different nature than the one that cutting-edge science deals with. Two examples rrray facllrtate the understanding of what this status means in practice. The first is hard disk mechanical failure. In the domain ofhardware, pretty much everything can be fixed except a hard disk mechanical failure because of the difficulty to restore the exact speed at which the disk used to rotate before the accident. The second example is provided by the potentially dramatic consequences of the poor shape of civil engineering works in the lJnited States. The scope of the problem was suddenly revealed by the New Orleans catastrophe.2o In both cases, the mechanical and structural dimension represents a new kind oflimit. By extrapolation, one may very well imagine a world in which structural achievements are no longer synonymous with advanced technology, while structural factors remain determining, more determining in some ways than cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements the applications of which are less pervasive. After all, before displaying "green" characteristics, a building must still resist static and dynamic
will emerge
'e itr is
not only structural legibiliry that finds itselfjeopardized; the link
at some point, even ifthe present altematives to straightlirrward structural rules are not totally convincing. There are strong reasorrs that lend credibiliry to this hypothesis, such as the relation that used to exist between tectonic expression, memory and monumentality, a lation on which I will return in a moment. 'with the crisis oftectonic,
master these factors.
&i,
lrlcs
[rc,g1vss, architecture and memory is also compromised.
FROM MEMORY
IO OBLIVION
'l'lre issue is part of a more general problem, namely the loose character .f the relation between digital culture, memory and history. Although prradoxically part ofit is actually an archive, the Intemet is typical of the tendency to be oblivious ofmemory and history. On the web, the fluidity of circulation generates an impression of levelness adverse to historical depth. More generally, the "flat" world of globalization evoked by Thomas L. Friedman in his bestselling book is also a world in which lristorical trajectories seerh to matter less than before.21 Beyond dtgital t:ulture proper, the new technological landscape that is unfolding under oLrr eyes seems relatively indifferent to the flow of time and to the historical changes brought by it, as if this landscape was bathing in an everlasting present. This is a somewhat disconcerting situation, for traditional tcchnology, despite the cult ofprogress that had become associated with it on the dawn ofindustrialization, was actually inseparable from memr>ry, let it be the remembrance oflong-practiced productive gestures and .perations or the awareness that time had brought drastic changes to techniques of fabrication and organizatior, of labor.zz
loads.
19 SeeJor instance on that theneJacques Ferier,Useful: The Poetry of Useful Things. Utile: La Po6sie des Choses Utilcs (Bael, Boston, Berlin: Birhhduser, Paris: Ante Pima, 2004). 20 Nkolai Ouroussof, "How the City Sank",ln The New York Times, Sunday, 9 October, 2005, sect. 2, p, 1, 35,
J I 'l'homas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History oil Oiroux, 2005).
2) ()n tha rclation betwaen technology and nrruory, scc Banmrd Slieglcr, Technics tnlbnl : Snmfrtrd ( hiwrsity Prrss, I 9() 8).
,\t
132
of the Twenty-Fint Century (Nrrz yorh:
t.]3
ancl
Tinrc
(l\ui::
litrru,
Strrrnts
1994, litlglitlt tntrltrirut
lrr tlrc urcltitct:ttrrrrl rcalrrr, tlrt. strong connection betwc.c,u tcrcl-r n ol o gy lu cl nr c rrr t>ry found a privileged expression with tectonic. Indeed, tectonic had to do with questions like the origin and the development of the art of building. This had been made clear by various theorists like the French abbot Marc-Antoine Laugier whose mid-eighteenth-century Essai sur I'Architecture was centered on the link between tectonic and the emergence and development of architecttre.23 The question would remain fundamental, dealing for instance with the interpretation of Greek Doric and its alleged lineage from wood construction, an issue upon which nineteenth-century theorists r
rrrrrrrbcrs, thltt tcr:torric rchtcd to tiure, histtlry atttl tttclltory. Thcsc rlrtr(:tll.ttiorrs lracl sourcthirrg to do with the way the humau body was utrclerstoocl rrt the time oftheir design, a link well conveyed by the Spanish struc-
(rlral cngineer Eduardo Torroja when he declared that "vain would be tfie undertaking of he who hopes to succeed at laying out the structure without having assimilated, all the way to the mar:row of his bones, the principles that govern all the phenomena of internal equilibrium-"2+ Through the analogy with the body and his skeleton - an analogy that has become more problematic today - tectonic held firmly to a temporality
hrlrrll lirtlxttl (1733 l8()ll),
I
"lmaginary Vlcw ol lhtr Grande Galurlo of llttt
a
direct and unambiguous manner the issue ofthe ruin brought up ofthe relation between architecture and time. 'What the ruination process ultimately revealed was the tectonic dimension Marc-Antoine Laugier,
E$ai sur I'Architecture, 1755, frontispiece. Laugier traces the origln of
architecture back to the tectonic organization of the primitive hut.
of buildings. Often deprived of their former omaments, the bare walls and columns and partly collapsed vaults bore testimony ofthe dissolving effects of centuries. Imbued with an expressive power almost equal to the human skeleton, the ruin epitomized the flow ofhistorical conditions. Like the skeleton, it conveyed ideas of death and mourning. But it could carry also notions of rebirth and regeneration, hence the frequent use of ruins as the setting of nativiry scenes in order to symbolize the redemption ofpagan humaniry with the advent of Christianity. Above all, it was through its arriculations, through the interplay of vertical, oblique and horizontal parts, between supporting and supported
2
j
Wofgang Hermann, Laugier and Eighteenth Century French Theory [andon: Zwerume4 1962).
134
1 7,(]11,
Parls, I ottvrtt,
1,14x
1,4{)
m 0t
20(X), Whlt(r lmagos/Srtrtlrt,
Ilotottt:tt'
sharply disagreed. Tectonic had another connection with
memory through the theme of the ruin. In
[ouvro lrt llultts,"
24 Erluardo Tonoja, Les Structures Architecturales. Leur Conception, leur R6alisation (Burgos, Madid: 1960' French translation Park: Eyrolles, 1971), p. 28. I am translatingJrom French into Etrglish.
135
q;,
e
marked by notions of birth, growth, clecline and rcttcwal, :t tctttpor.rlity in profound accordance with the dimensions of mernory ancl histttry. Even though tectonic articulations, at the time of their broad recog nizance as a fundamental characteristic of architecture, did not constitut(' strictly speaking a language, they followed a kind of syntax. For thcir designers as well as for the public accustomed to decipher the interrelations of structural parts, they held a discourse on the very possibility t
tion, substitution and scaling of parts."z0 Not only do smoothness and elegance lead to forms that lack immediately recognizable scale; they are adverse to syntax-like tectonic expression. From the nineteenth century on, the link between architecturc and memory was often doubled by a connection to writing as the privileged medium of memory and history. Despite Victor Hugo's famous statement in Notre-Dame de Paris that "ceci fitera cela",27 meaning that writing and printing had replaced architecture as the privileged instrument of collective memory, nineteenth-century architecture was still trying t
25 Eugine-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Entretiens sur l'Architecturc (Pais: A. Morel E Cic, 1 I63- 1 tl7 2), I )rwitt l\tnolsky, ()
2TVictorFfu(o,Notrcl)rrucde
l'rris(/',rrirr lllll,rrttltrlitiottl\trit:l.tl.itrcrltl\tlt,
lt)')fi) 1t..lli't
( )n llr:rl
lr
1,;l
,rrurtl .rlso, lltt'
('s('nt tligrl.rl
! ()n(
r:rsI
.rr r'Ir
itct'trrllrI t'xprcssiort
rnrit
l)r
rs
strik
rrrr,,.'l'orluy, writirrg is irrtlt't:tl !\'
l)r'('s('nt. irr various projccts, btrt rrrost of tlrc tirrrc it is rclrtccl to
l,rlltrorrrcl like displays oltrrcws irr r, ;rl tirle or akin to an ornrtrren'Writing seelns to t.rl practice. t
stltrlish a connection to the
lrrcscnt rather than a relation to lrrstory that would raise issues of
rIl('il1ory and commemoratiorr. \urrtrltaneously. the very notion , rl'nronument, that is, a building
l\
rl
ll ll
Il Il tt II II IT
llllllI ltilt
lllllrl
tlnt n
has a strong relation with rcruory and history, has become
I
of Herzog & de Meuron or /,rrha Hadid truly monuments? Despite their cultural appeal, one nr:ry rr rtlced wonder what they are commemorating. To celebrate culture arrcl
,'lt.gant design is certainly not the same as to remember, a dimension that rrirrcteenth-century architecture had tried to preserve even in its n,rost ,,.rlrowly udlitarian equipments. This state of oblivion represents perhaps one of the strongest argu rrrcnts in favor of the reemergence of an architectural dimension akin to tcctonic. Beyond Balmond's or Leach's proposals, the issue is probably lrrrked to the question of the body and its senses. How can we rec()n ';t nlct a dense web of intuitions and analogies between digital architccrtrrc and our physical experience of the world, intuitions and analogi..s rlrlt may enable us to rebuild an understanding of how architcc:ttrrc rt'lates to our individual and social destinies? As we will see lltcr, tlrc ,rnswer might lie in a new notion of r.r'rateri:rlity that is crrergirrg urrtlcr I )rtr cyes.
ri/r,rry,LAlliri,,rrctlrl).rlrrrrrorrrr'(t\nir:l.t\ttril.
Iltti I ;rlrrll' ll
tlclltil rtl lltc l;rr.rrri,,,rl
,rrrrbiguous.2e Are the spectacular projects
'1t(tttltttrrliottrltttottrttrtrttl,\\'lt'tt.\tti\t
lt
l,),).')
llrrt lltlrltrrllrrrlr
r,
Iiltlttlr: ( irlrvrlvr,. l'iilrrt, I11',l I ollowttrr; I ;rlrrrrLr,l,' vllt i{)ur;
illlrllll
tlll
r0illilry;itr ltlr!
l'
illr;rilrrrrl ll l', ol llttttotir; lrlriIrr rrlrl lr
wtllcl; lnrl ;ulr llrrr lltc wirl|; ill lrl)r,ilrr". lttttl tt r,:r,tttrl
Souorbruch ftutbn, PhormEcologlc!
nassarch Leborutodet lllltutirr;h, (ior rrrury, ?{)0! Plroloi O l)llhrrl,ro(ll.rln
RCINVCNTING ORNRMgNT Among the consequences of the suspension of traditional tectonic assumptions, one finds a spectacular return of ornament as something disdoes not with the concept that prevailed before the dawn
finct from tectonic arliculation. Today's architectural omament have much in common
ofmodernity,
{e
concept that presented sculptural and above all symbolic dimensions. In conjunction with the new importance of surface, the omament is today generally conceived as an integral part of a pervasive condition that brings it closer to a pattern than to a sculpted decoration. Sauerbruch Hutton's Pharmacological Research Laboratories in Biberach, Germany or Office dA's Obzee Headquarters project in Seoul are a
typical of this reinterpretation. Even when the ornamental element is actually an image or a series of images, like on the fagade of Herzog & de Meuron's Ebenwalde Technical School Library in Germany, the overall eftect is that ofpatterning or tessellation. In the past years, an abundant literature has been devoted to the return or rather the reinvention of ornament. Among this production, a special mention must be made of Farshid Moussavi's and Michael Kubo's book, The Function of Ornament, because ofthe clarity with which its states some of the assumptions currently associated with the ornamental trend.3o The first assumption is that contemporary ornament is not associated to a symbolic meaning exterior to architecture. In the name of a global culture that can no longer recognize necessarily local and particular symbols, Moussavi and Kubo particularly reject the postrnodern obsession with historicist and vernacular significations. The crisis ofmemory that we just pointed out is also a crisis of some of its rec-
ogrrizable ornamental markers.
In direct connection with
the
performalist trend at work in today's architecture, their second assumption is that ornament should actually be considered as a fully operative, or to use their vocabulary, a functional dimension of architecture. One should, however, keep in mind that what they call function is actually much broader than what was implied by traditional functionalism.
30 Cf. Farhid Moussavi, Michael Kubo,'Ihe Function of Omament
(Barcelona: Actar, 2006).
138
r.ii, :tit:
()llkn lur Muhr4roliLut Ar;ltilu,lutrr (t)MA), Nlw,Jrttltlitlt lltlutttalkrtul Altpotl (l(nrl{riy 0l llto t)llk:ri furt Mlltr4xrlihttt Att;ltlktt;lttttt (0MA). l)r(rrx)1, 2001). I lrrl cxplir:ll tolrlrtttr;rt kt llttllliotttl rtltlr[; ittt;ltiI;r;ltttrr :i(x)nri I0 rx)llra(lt{il lvl0lljsavi't; itttd Kttbo'l; t;lltittt lltitl (t0tlllttlll)0rilly 0rnarnent is no loilgcr syrnbolic,
ttltivc tlttot:ttiorts of
rt sornc:wltltt fictional culturel past likc thc irrtri-
t-...* *' I F. H:Et lIi;3..r i:*rlit, )' ,' --:-\ --i-si' "**Y *s.s;iit1;* i3-i;tr.i;it **';;
cate embroideries
w *"
f,-:**
project or the moucharaby-like skin ofSkidmore Owings
rlll's
2OO7 Bahrain.
L.
&Mer-
North Mosque
in
Moussavi and Kubo are much more convincing when they relate contemporary ornament to sensation and affect. In their book, sensation and affect are in their turn connected to the growing importance of materials and textures as defin-
r-, * q! :
ofOMA's 2005
NewJeddah Intemational Ailport
-t -,
ing dimensions of contemporary architecture. That ornament has
to do both with digital
techniques and with materialiry is especially evident in the case of Herzog & de Meuron's recent work. From the Basel Schaulager to the San Francisco De Young Museum, ornament becomes a pervasive surface condition, the Even ifwe live in a provisory state of historical oblivion, is it possible to totally leave the symbolic aside? In a penetrating article published in the spring/summer 2008 issue of Harvard Design Magazine, architect Robert Levit stresses the ambiguiry ofsuch a position.:1 Symbolic meaning, he argues, always comes back in a way evocative of the Freudian return of the repressed, and the attempts made to check it often lead to
31
Robert
Lcvit, "Contemporury '.ornament': The Return oJ the symbotic
Replii,
variations ofwhich are based on levels ofpixelTization, a technique directly linked to the use of the com*
puter to determine the grain of the materials employed.a2 The new link that has emerged between omarnentation and materialiry may explain why ornament often appears as more foundational than traditional tectonic. Such a situation also accounts for the strange impression to be facing a giant jewel-like ornament that is conveyed by
12 l:or a penetrating study oJthat qilestion, see
*il"itr7iir:;;:tr x:r;;i;,
I'hl)
Rimi Rouyer, Architecture et Procds Technique: Les Figurcs tlc I'lrrrrgirr:rirc
disscrtation, Universitb de Pais l-Sorbonne, 2006.
# s:tvi, '1 7rr' l:rutrtiort pf Iiorttt, r't'vt';rls tlrt'lirll s< opt'ol'tlrt't orrlirsrorr. Irr tlrrs cssry, irrtcnrlccl lrs ,r sctyucl t<> 'l'lrc l;ttrttliort ol-( )ntttttrtrl, strtrt'trrr;rl Iirrnrs Ito lt>ttgcr:rl)pr:ar rs lr:llcl bcering, lu iurprcssit-lr rcirrfirrccd [ry tlrc sr:rplrit' codcs usecl to rcprcscnt thern.13 They are interpretecl in geornctric: tcrnrs strongly renriniscent of those used by Moussavi to characterize onrrrrnental effects and alIects. Ultimately, the function ofstructure seellls t() be strikingly similar to the function ofornament, thlrs making their par
tial mix-up unavoidable.
R DIFFCRENT MRTCBIRLITY The term materiality that I have used already a number of times in this essay dcserves at this point some clarification. To the unabashed positivist mind, materiality seems to be determined by the sheer organization of the physical world, by the laws that govern it and rule the relation we have with it as human beings. In this view materiality is Herzog & de
Meuron, night rendering of National Stadium,
Beijing, China, Copyright Hezog & de l\,4euron.
a realizatior, like the Beijing olympic Stadium, as if the alternative tectonic order researched by Balmond was actually ornamental. There is perhaps no better illustration of the multifarious inversions between infrastructure and superstructure characteristic of the contemporary world than this gigantic piece ofarchitecture whose real scale is blurred rather than revealed by random-looking oblique posts and beams. Its precious aspect is evocative of the similarly jewel-like appearance of some of the global maps of the Internet. 'Why not consider the Internet, or at least the web as a giant ornament? In a world in which web pages and their design ofien matter more than the hardware organization ofthe server that hosts them, ornament confuses the perception ofwhat is infrastructural versus superstructural, ornamental versus tectonic. Another theoretical essay by Farshid Mous-
objective, based on nature and nature alone. But the word nature should immediately make us cautious in an age marked by the proliferation of ambiguous hybrids of nature and technology. For nature is partly a cultural construct bearing the mark of a specific, historically determined vision ofthe physical world. This vision is partly shaped by our concrete experience of our environment, frorrr immediate sensations to sophisticated scientific experiments like those
conducted in the field of genetic engineering today. In that respect, nature is dependent on objective though changing factors. But the vision we develop ofthe physical world is also perneated by cultural representations and values. To give an example of the latter dimension, our earlythird-millennium interpretation ofthe world tends to rely on the notion of information. According to this dominant paradigm, biotechnological creations are ultimately DNA manipulations analogous to decoding and coding practices.3a By contrast, the nature that contemporarics of the First Industrial Revolution were dealing with had much nrorc to
l.l l\rrshirl ,t/rrtt-wrll, Thc Ftrrt-tior of forrr (Iirrclrlrt: Aotr, 2009). l'l *t Lily I(ay, Wlro Wr()t( llr( liroli ol Iili: A llistory ol'Llrc (lcrrcLic Oorlc
Hl
(St,irr/i,r/r
.\tutlrt,l Itttirtt'ir1
do with ettergctit: c:ottsitlcrlttiolts. Energy was often seen as thc sourcc of life. In Mary Shelley's famous novel, Frankenstein's creature was for instance animated through an electrical discharge. And ifone goes back to the time ofthe seventeenth-
century scientific revolution, prior to industrialization, one rediscovers another nature, based primarily on movement. Movement was indeed central to Copernican astronomy or
nrlrtcli:rl usctl to [)('rlr()r('< orttplt'r. Mcrr livt'tl itt:t worltl irr rvlrit'lr tlrt'rt'
wls lirst ot-1ll rro t'lc::rr t:rrt tlcrrr;trcrttiott linc bctwt't'rt tltt'ittorgrtrtit'rttttl the organic, or bctwccrt a lcvcl of orgalrizati()lr (:harllctcristic of':r Ittlttcr ial and a lnore strrlctllfal level. Today, wc are probably rctttrttitts to rl conception closer to the pre-industrial one, with all the rese:rrclrcs ort composite and smart materials and the tendency to solve more and nlorc problems at the level of material design rather than structural design. Thus, the very definition of what we consider as a material opposecl t<> what we interpret as a structure is a cultural construct. Materials are culturally and socially constructed at many levels. Their properties, for
Cartesian physics.35
From nature, let us pass to as an important step towards the question ofmaterialiry proper. At first sight, materials too seem defined
materials
almost exclusively by objective physical laws. Even when they are artificially produced like concrete or plastics, they follow for sure these laws. But already the very notion of
material is dependent on cultural factors. For instance, the implicit
Ren6 Descartes, vortices, from
Principes de la Philosophie, 1647
definition of a material that was comrnon at the time of the First Industrial Revolution was based on presented a relatively low degree oforganmaterials that the assumption ization, when compared to rnore sophisticated natural or human structures- Steel was a material in that sense. The case of wood was more ambiguous because of its organic origin and its fibers, but a beam was clearly made of something less structural than the assemblage that con* stituted a roof. Now, in times before the industrial era the notion of FranEois Hennellique, experim0lltill llLlll(l0l ll ylll(l (rl I I'lirrr .1897 lBgB. Fotlds Iltlltttll; ilrrrl('rii | []rrlrllri(1rr'
lMarche, Paris,
35 This
theme
k
studied inJean-Pierre
Siis, Machine et Comunication (Pais:
Vin,
CNAM/DAF/CII6 de l'architecltttrr ul tltt ltltltittto tlrr / /\tr lttvlr, d'architecture du XXe siCclt:. A ltitttlirt:t ol ltriltltttt:trtl t rrtlr tll, construclton, llettttrthitlltl; ttr;tll; lllil; lyltt: trl ltttltlit; lrxlrrtttttrrttl ltr l(xlilillli/0 lll0 llli0 0l lllil ll|w lll,lli'lr,rl
1987)
t,t.l
!''
''. &
' .
instance, appear as the result olcr>rrrplcx rrcgotiati
itttprlrtlrtt ortcs. Nr>t orrly tlo
irrstnrn.rcrnts ancl nrachiues pr
ri(rlsory experience as well as the words and notions used to convey its strtrstance. In order to make that point clear, let me return to the case of tlrc automobile that I briefly mentioned towards the end ofthe first chaptcr. The case is especially interesting insofar as the automobile has been oflten accused to lead to an impoverishment of everyday experience. It is quite common to oppose, for instance, the richness of walking to the sirnplified sensations one feels during a car ride. A loss of materiality seems to be expressing itself through this simplification, leading to :rbstract notions of space and time.38 Those accusations bear a striking similarity to some of the critiques that have been made against the use of the computer in the past decade.
Jantos l)oolIr, "Highway
0ilnvilli, 72" x 1 ltl", Courtesy Kuplln l)ol Bio Galkrry, I orr Anqolos, 0A
to materiality. Instruments and machines embody some of the most
i6 A
Jound ln Antoine Picon, "Construction History: Between Terhuologkal aul Cultural History", ir Construction History, rol. 21, 2005-06, pp. .l- l(). 37 M{chael Baxanilall, Patterns of Intention: On the Historicai Explanation of Pictures (New Harcn, l-ondon: YilL'llilifttsity more detailed dkctssion of these questions can
be
I'tts,
l()ti.5),
y.
.)8 See.for instance Man Desportes, (l'ark: Gallimard, 2005).
107.
t,1(,
l'llrol," ur
(19U6), oll
141
Paysages en
Mouvement. Transports et Perception dc I'Espacc XVlllc,XXc Siir
lc
By comparison, and contrary to the computer, we have almost a century of car use behind us. 'What this century-long history teaches us is that the situation is far more complex than what anti-automobile ideologues rypically assume. Infact, instead ofbeing synonymous with a dematerialization of the space we inhabit, the automobile has trans-
formed our notion of materiality. It is not my intention to enter here into a detailed discussion ofthis transformation. I wouldjust like to insist on some of its key aspects that can be transposed to what is currently
i&t"
happening with the computer. First, in a car, we do not perceive the exact same objects as when we walk. Seen from a freeway, a building is generally different from the vision we have when we stroll by. Above all, at the speed of the automobile, objects regroup in order to form new perceptual entities. Our contemporary urban skylines are for instance qtpical products of the automobile age, just as the landscapes produced by the rapid succession of billboards along major urban highways. The automobile experience is also synonymous with a series of sensations, from the accelerations and decelerations to the feeling provoked by the wind. Some of these sensations are intimately linked to the use of the engine. 'We have become so accustomed to horizontal acceleration that we tend to forget that the sensations it creates were almost unattainable in former non-mechanized societies, where slow and regular movement was the rule. In our mechanized environment, between the exhilaration of speed and the perspective of accident, we have both an impression of power and a Geling of vulnerability. James Graham Ba_llard's famous novel, Crash, is centered on this new status ofthe human body, or rather ofthe hybrid being composed ofthe body and its mechanical extension; it is a hybrid being both empowered and vulnerable, making nothing of miles and always on the verge ofbeing bruised. In Ballard's perspective, this m6lange ofpower and r.rrlnerabiJity is heavily sexually connoted. For his characters, the accident, the fatal crash that gives its title to the novel, is comparable to a new, technologically mediated
39James Craham
form of coitus.3e
Ballail, Crash (Inndon:
The very notion of space is altered through the
redefinition of perceptual
entities, through sensations like acceleration and the change in the existential status of our entire body that we
experience while riding a car. Roadmaps reflect this altered
spatiality just as the various signs that help us ro orienr ourselves when we drive. The most important feature ofthis situation is perhaps the subtle changes that the use of the automobile infuses in our everyday experience of space. Even d.uring walking, the driving experience is always there, as a linrit that defines other modes of apprehension of space. In short, the automobile has not diminished ourphysical perception of the world. It has modified it. It has displaced the content and boundaries ofmateriality. Using the automobile as a metaphor, it is now tempting to interpret the computer as a new vehicle that induces another displacement of physical experience and materiality. The computerassisted architect is perhaps like a driver or a passenger embarked on a journey that generates a new type of experience, an experience symp_ tomatic ofan evolution ofthe relation to the physicar world that extends far beyond the realm of design. what are the salient features ofthis experience, how do they relate to the broader picture of an emerging new materiality? one should, of course, avoid taking the metaphor too 1iterally. But the automobile analogy is not without interest to approach the digital world and some ofits consequences regarding ,,rr..irtiry. Just like the automobile, the computer presents its users with new perceptual entities and objects. In various contexts, beginning with
Cape, 1973).
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enablo$ usofti I construct larllsr;itpr
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capturorl il rorr time usin1l ir lirllrr
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rrncl sn.roothness, thus transli.rrrrrir'rg
to geometric flows. Defor-
tlctile exercise. The accent Put oll surface and ornatuetrt by coutertr*
mations acquire a kind ofevidence that traditional graphic means of representation did not allow. They can indeed be generated and followed in
porary digital architecture appears as a direct consequence ofthese new possibilities oflered to the designer. Light and textures can, of course, be defined in extremely different ways, from mere superficial e{fects like the "hypersurface" projections made possible by the factthatin the digital world any form can be textured with any image, as Stephen Perrella puts it,41 to the mathematically more substantiated creations of Bernard Cache and his Objectile practice.a2 The computer can also be used to program light and textures as part of a responsive environment. Again, what all these approaches have in common is the accent put on surface and sensory conditions, with theirpotential for omamental effects, as opposed to volumetric and
real-time on the screen. In that respect, the use of computers to produce and manip-
ulate shapes and volumes is strangely close to practices like clay modeling, and it is
no coincidence if
Mark Goulthorpe, dE00i; Aesis Hyposurlace,
Birmingham, UK, 1 999-2001 . Photo: Mark Burry, The
faceted metallic surjace can deform physically in response from stirnuli from the
environment such as movement, sound or light.
architcctuntl clcsigrt itrto rut lltttt>st
clcsign, static lbrnts give way
various
some dimensions like
attempts have been made to couple the latter with three-
the superficial conditions
dimensional manipulation.
become essential, others appear more
Especially significant in that respect is the work ofHiroshi Ishii and his Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. Ishii and his colleagues have been able to associate physical interaction with variouS materials, including clay and sand, with realtime production of computer data.a0 The possibility to design deformation constitutes a new source of dynamic architectural effect or rather affect since it can give birth to responsive environments in which surfaces and volumes change shape in relation to the activity of the public. Mark Goulthorpe has been among the first to explore in a systematic way this possibility with his 2001 Aegis Hyposurface. With the computer, beside flows and deformation, other phenomena become so easy to manipulate that they assume the status of quasi-objects for the architect. E{fects of light and texture are among them. The computer allows intensi$/ing or dimming ofthe light, varying its parameters, playing in a similar way with degrees of roughness
40 See Jor instance Hiroshi Ishii, Cailo Rattl, Ben Piper, Yao Wang, Assal Bideman, E. Ben-Joseph, "Bringing Clay and Sand into Digital Design - Continuous Tangible User lnterJaces", inB'I TechnologyJournal, vol. 22, no. 4, October 2004, pp. 287-299.
150
have
problematic. In the case of the automobile, the emergence ofnew pertinent objects is accompanied by the loss of the ordinary sense of distance in favor ofthe notion of accessibility. The crisis ofscale and tectonic epitornizedby digital architecture may be interpreted in a similar way. Again,
computer imagery is in profound accordance with a world in which information and complexiry are to be found at every level, a world organized according to fractal instead oftraditional geometry. In such a world, there is no fixed scale at which things must be deciphered in prioriry.
41 Stephcn Penella, "Elcctronic llaroEtt. Hypcrsufoce lI: Autopoiesis", in Stephen Penella (cd.), "HypmwJaa: Arehitrcltrc I1", Arcltitcc(uril I)csi1;lt, pp. .5-7.
t5l
moro gonorally tho proportlotrallty betweon caoBe
abstract considerations.
-While
Loronz athoctor, Ail emblemath llgunr ol a physlcnl world lrr whlch scnlo on(1
s[d
effect aro no longot ovlrlont,
Xefrrotaroh (Herniirr D[az Alonzo),
Arl
Hotel, Playa Grande,
Dominican Repulllic, 2006. Courtesy Xefirotarch.
'l'his displuccrttcrtt is irtscp:rr:r[rlt'fiorrr :r r-t'tlr'lirritiorr ol rlr'srgrr pr',r cedures. The digital world rccluircs a rrcw vistrrl pr:r< tit't' lr:rst'rrs lrctwccrr tlrc glolr:rl and the very local, the general definition of thc pro.;cct arrd thc sr>rrrc times minute, sometimes dramatic changes brought on paralretric v.rri ations. In this world, the smaliest change may affect the design as a wholt', just like the famous fluttering of a butterfy in one part of the world rrr:ry cause a storm
*
in another, according to popular presentations ofchaos
theory.a3 The sensibility generated by this dependence on parametrit' variations is again not without analogy with the heightened sensory experience ofsomebody driving at full speed on an uneven surface whcrt' the tiniest obstacle can be full of dramatic consequences. As Marc<:ls Novak puts it after he has compared the digital to a liquid state of things: "the operations associated with the idea of the liquid suggest that parameterization leads to radical variabiliry within a continuum implied by a thing and its opposite."++ Computers plunge us into a fluid, eminently variable world that gives a special intensity to some ofour sensations an(l the decisions they lead to. Its fluidity is well expressed by the projects
of Hernin Diaz Alonso's architecture firm, Xefirotarch, like the Art Hotel in Playa Grande, Dominican Republic, or the Busan Concert Hall in South Korea, in which supple organic forms merge seamlessly like joining streams. Of course, the automobile is only a metaphor that should not bc taken too literally. Although it comes first to the mind, the objection linked to the disproportion between the millions and millions of car drivers and the relatively small number of computer-equipped architects is not the most decisive one. For designers appear in many ways as pioneering users. Their engagement with the digital world announccs broader evolutions beginning with the systematic use of computcrimagery. The very nature of their work raises important issues such as the articulation between physical and virtual realities. Other differences must be taken seriously. Contrary to the line:rr track followed by the automobile, the digital world that unfolds untlcr
ti''*
* ffiIdtr _{9." L,/
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,
.
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4jJames Gleicl<, Chaos (Ncu York: Vikitt.q l'nv, lt)fii) 44 Marcos Norat, op. cit., p. 72 irt 1t,ttti,trl,n
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the eyes of the computer user is multidinrensit>rral. It fkrws in all dircctions; it is also, at least theoretically, fully reversible, in contrast with the irreversibiliry ofphysical movement. But the most important and valid issue in the comparison with the automobile remains the contribution of the computer to our changing notion ofmateriality.Just like the automobile, the computer has become inseparable from the way we experience the world as a totaliry involving the senses and the perceptions associated with them. Obviously this way of seeing things is in complete contradiction with what has been for a long time the dominant take on the machine. For decades, the computer has been presented as a mere extension of the mind, a super-memory, a calculator and an enhanced tool for logical exploration. Such was for instance the way the French anthropologist Leroi-Gourhan approached it in Le Geste et la Parole, a spectacular evocation of human progress through the use of technological tools,
from the Neolithic period to the twentieth century, from the first trimmed and polished stones to the early computers.as For LeroiGourhan, human progress was marked by the gradual externalization of It all began with stone knives and axes that extended the capacity of the hand. The final stage was the extemalization of mental functions like memory with the computer. There is no doubt that the computer has something to do with the extension of the mind. But beyond that, the computer alters our perception of objects; it extends the realm of our sensations.'With the new interfaces that are developing today, it will soon a{fect our motor schemes. It is already striking to observe how the mere use of a mouse has created new kinds of gestures. Among teenagers, the development ofvideogames has fostered even more speci6.c kinds ofreflexes, an evolution that has led some neurologists to wonder whether our mental maps have not evolved with the abiliry to make a virtuoso use of computer keys and joysticks. -With films llkeJohnny Our perception of space is already affected. Mnemonic, The Matrix or Minority Report, cinema has repeatedly envis-
functions through tools.
45 Andri t*roi'courhan' Le Geste et 1a Parole '
i,;,*;;; ii\;:z:; ,)i,'r:^ il::;',ii,"',i,'rf;,tilrii,'
lgccl thc changcs irr thc pcr-
(:cption of ordinary space that can be expected with the development of increasgly sophisticated interfaces
in
blurring the distinction between the physical and the digital.+o The notion of augmented realiry is insepa-
rable from the notion of a different materiality made possible by the hybridiza-
A cottoolrl furt iur
tion of three-dimensional
augmotttori rrrrrllly
and electronic realities. This hybridizationis not yet firlly there, but some features of the displacement of materialiry can aTready be observed. For instance, visual codes are changing at a surprising speed. 'W'e no longer marvel at the capacity of digital media to create effects like zooming in and out with a simple mouse click, and we tend to perceive
our ordinary three-dimensional realiry as if it were the result of a provisory compromise, or rather the product of a middle-range lens focus between the very small and the extremely large, between atoms or rather
pixels, and galaxies. Regognizable forms and objects apper at this middle-range scale while surface and texture effects predominate at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. Forms and objects are so to say suspended or caught between closely looked at sufaces that evoke some kind of abstract art, and equally abstract satellite*like views. The curious status ofform in the digital age, both eagerly sought after and somewhat distrusted for being unavoidably imperfect, is to be put in this perspective. Form has not only become relative, dependent upon geometric flows, it has also turned provisional because of the permanent option to zoom in and out. Is this development sustainable in the long terrn? Will we get adapted to a totally clickable or zoomable world in which every configuration
46RobertInngo(dir.),JohnnyMnemonic Srcucn Spielherg (dir.),
Minority keport
(1995),LanyandAndyWathowski(dir,),'lhcMatrix(1.991)), (2002).
mohlkr ltlrrrtrr Photo: l-oonarl I ow,
provisional, suspetrclcc.l botwcclr lrrrgcr ;trrtl srrr:rlle r irrst:rrrt:t:s? A rrccrl for stability might very well arise and call for thc rcirrvcrrtion, et least ftrr certain purposes, ofnon-clickable or no zoomable entities. A ncw forrrr ofauthenticity could go along with this non-clickable or non-zoomable status; after all, paintings in a museum are not clickable, neither Leonardo's Mona Lisa at the Louvre nor Vel6zqu ez' Las Meninas at the Prado can be viewed at every possible scale. Conforming to the impulse to click or zoom, but also ready to see this impulse frustrated, the new materiality that is emerging under our eyes will not be simpler nor more homogeneous than the state of affairs that it is gradually superseding. The instabiliry of form, as discussed above, can be related to the cultural context created by globalization. Globalization can indeed be understood as a strange short-circuit between the local and the general, a short-circuit that destabilizes middle-range institutions and practices.4T Irr is
*
Satellite image over Berlin. Courtesy NASA.
our global world we
things either from very close or from an extremely distant point ofview, a phenomenon mirrored by the use of Google Earth: despite the variety ofscales it prosee
poses
to its users, the attention
is
usually drawn towards local details
or general geographic features. lt certainly no accident, ifthe computer has been instrumental in the process of globilizaaon. Zooming might be a mere consequence of the crisis of the traditional notion ofscale that is related both to computer-use and to globalization. The specific form of perceptive instabiliry that it generates is an is
inherent feature of digital architecture that again finds itself in profound accordance with the world that is unfolding around it.
47 Cf. Piene Vehz, Mondiaksation, Villes et Territoires: L'Economie d'Archipel (Paris: PUF, 1996)
Such irrstability seems to blur the distinction between abstracti<>tt .rntl r'
"llrcir" music when referring to the content of their iPod,
even
if part
rl'this content has been bought on commercial websites like Apple's r'l'trnes or Amazon stores. The digitally processed has become thus indistrnguishable from the deeply experiential. Digital design targets a similar blurring of abstraction and con( r'cteness as it becomes more and more immersed in programming, up to tl.re algorithmic level, while at the same time seeking to maintain an .rlrrrost tactile relation to the spectator. Architectural affect, a fundament;rl notion of digital architecture, is not only meant to bridge the gap lrr'tween subject and object, as discussed above, it is also supposed to lrring together the abstraction inherent to computing and the concrete,
of architectural experience. From the crisis of scale and tectonic to the reinvention of ornarncnt, many aspects of digital design are related to key features of the difli'rcnt materiality that is emerging. Its exploration is among the most rnportant tasks imparted to digital designers. Form, despite its spectac'W'hen dealing rrlur character, comes only second to this exploration. w ith issues of materiality, digital architecture expresses broader trends at work in the architectural discipline. This is where computer-aided r
rt'ss
cutting-edge projects meet with larger neo-avapt-gardist and even with 'W'hen it comes to materialiry, archiparts of mainstream production. tecture shares this agendawith various other domains, from the digital arts to sectors ofscience and technology. Such a convergence between the disciplines is perhaps at the core of a new interest taken in design by scientists and engineers. Today, design is no longer supposed to contribute to scientific production only
through the conception of buildings meant to foster intellectual
W
exchange, like the MIT Stata Center. Design procedures and methods represent a source ofinspiration for branches ofscience and engineering dealing with problems of creative conception.48 Issues of design in this creative meaning are also fundamental to the emergent materialiry. The dense web of relations that connects today's arts and architecture to science and technology rnay remind us of the Renaissance period.
The Renaissance was also a moment ofprofound redefinition ofmateriality, a redefinition epitomized by the invention of perspective'
MRTCfi]RLS BY DESIGN The intimate relation between emerging mareriality and the design dimension is especially evident dealing with materials. Today, materials can be totally designed at all scales, for the first time perhaps in history. Even for classical materials like concrete, the nano-threshold will soon be reached.ar The capacity to zoom in and out applies especially well to material design. This should not be a surprise since digital technology plays a fundamental role in the affair. State-of:the-art composite or smart materials are designed with the help ofall sorts ofcomputer equipments. There are various ways to approach this evolution. The first one is to focus on the development of composite and smart materials that combine properties that used to be mutually exclusive.s0 The transparency of glass, for instance, went with poor insulating and load-bearing capacities, while a composite-product glass can be transparent, insulating and even load-bearing, lending itselfto sustainable faqade design.sl Composite and smart materials challenge received notions of products like fabrics.52 They also blur the distinction between structures and materials, since they possess a strong degree of organization in contrast with the vision ofmaterials that had prevailed at the dawn ofindustrialization. They are instrumental in the progressive shift from structural to material design that has taken place in a series of domaini. One of the most striking illustrations for this shift is the radical change in the concept of autornobile bumpers. Formerly designed
Frans l-lolthuyson,
"Skyllno" Plasma otchlng. Courtosy FranB
Holthuys6n-"Makln0 the lnvlslble Vlslblo"
/
Electron MicroscoplBt Phlllps Rosoarch Laboratorloe, MiPlaza, Moro and m0re pr0c0sss8 csn be carrlod nt nanoeealB,
as structural protections, automobile
bumpers are now made of a composite material that limits car-body damage by absorbing alarge part ofthe energy generated by a collision.
Another way to make sense of material evolution is to relate it to the
48 On the contemporary relations between design and science, seeJor instance Peter Calison, Emily Thonpson (eds ), Mdssachusetts: MIT Pres, 1999), Antoine Pimn, Alessandra Ponte (eds ), Architcctttrc ancl the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors (New York: Ptinceton Architectural Pres, 200j), Akos MotauLnszk'i', Ob W Fischer (eds.), Precisions: Architecture berween sciences and the Arts (Berlin: Jouis, 2001t). ,,Biton: IJne Entrie en Matiire", inJean-ltuis Cohen, C. Martin Moellet (eds,), Architccturcs clrr ljltott: 49 Franz-Josef LIlm,
The Architecture ofscience (Cambridge,
Nour"ll"sVagues,NouvellcsRecherches
(NewYork:2006,Frencht'flnslationPais: I-t'Monitaur,200{t),pp 2l7-221'
.10 Sea for instance Ezio
MI'l- Prcs,
Manzini, The Material of Invention (Milan: 1986, Englkh translatktt Canilritlgr, Mtssndu$lt: Ncw Tcchnologics firr thc Arr:lritct:trrrc lrrrl
1989), Mkhallc Addington, Danial Sr[odc&, Snrart Matcrials and l)rofcssions (Ox.litrd : Arrhitt'tturt Prcss, 2005 ).
(Nuu York: l'rirut'tot Ardtiktlnrul l\tss,
2001t).
l)rigrr
krrttttlrlV,'( V|rlI lr nr(:lrlhr:llrtr!, ll;r{rk
[>roadcr c()r)tcllrp()rary s(:tell
tific and technological ct>rrtcxt. Based on multiple collabora-
tions between specialists of mechanics. physics, chemistry and computer science, material design is typical of the trend towards interdisciplinarity and heterogeneity that characterizes the scientific and techno-
logical environment or better landscape. A paradigmatic field
of activity, material design presents a definite epistemological turn.s3
For the designer, the impact ofthis evolution on his practice is still unclear. On the one hand, there is an evident connection between what has Neri 0xman, "lnfiniteD" BIACS Art and Design Biennial, Seville, 2008, Courtesy Neri
oxman. An exploration of
material organization using computer simulation, Beside the attention paid to parameters such as structural loads and environmental conditions, the sensory dimension is extremely present,
5i
happened in the field ofmaterial science and material design and the renewed interest of architects for materials and their sensory effects.sa Beside its contribution to the investigation ofthemes like autoorganization and performance, Neri Oxman's work is also noticeablc for the interest taken in this issue.ss On the other hand, in contrast with domains like aeronautics, the use of advanced materials by the building industry remains limited despite the progressive diffusion of composite concrete or glass. Above all, some fundamental questions are left with-
out answer. Should designers themselves invest the field of material design instead of relying upon researches of others? A practice likc Kennedy & Violich Architecture has initiated such a move with projects like the "Give Back Curtain", but this kind of engagement remains rarc'
On the epktemological dimension oJ contemporury mateial scienre and mateial design, see Bemadette Bensaudc-Vinttul' Eloge du Mixte. Mat6riau Nouveaux, Philosophie Ancienne (Pais: Hatfuttt, l9t)ti) 54 See Toshiko Moi (ed.),Imaterial/Ultrmaterial; Architecture, Design and Materials (Canbidge, Massachusrtts: I lmwl Design School, New Yorh: Ceorgt Bruzillcr, )00)) l.i Scr Neri Oxman andJesse Louis Rosenberg, "Mateial-based Design Computation: An Inquiry into Digital Similtlkvt ol l'hyi,,tl Milt,rid l>ropt:rt:it,s a.r Drsiql Cclcrators", ir IntcrnationalJournal of Architcctural Computing, uol.5, ntt.l, 2007, py )f 'l'l
Tltc tttlilt tlttt'stiility to rcirrverrt sorrrr. thing akin to tcctonic principlcs. I)espite their tcudcr.rcy to substitr-rtc themselves to structLrral organization, contemporary materials poirrt toward the reemergence of such principles. Tectonic is based on prescriptions regarding the proper use of materials. Greek trabeation or gothic vaults correspond to specific interpretations of the best way for stone to carry loads. Nineteenth-century industrial architecture's tectonic principles are intimately linked to the use of iron. The properties of composite and smart materials call for the institution of new rules, rules probably very different from former tectonic guidelines. These guidelines were based on antinomies that are no longer relevant, like the opposition mentioned above between transparency and load-bearin g. Emergent tectonic principles will have to recognize
their compatibiliry.
The precedence given to surface and af{ect represents another motive ofdeparture from traditional tectonic principles. -W'hereas the metaphor of the skeleton was the best way to understand what tectonic was about, the analogy with the skin may convey something about what is awaiting us in terms ofits reinvention, provided that the skin is not considered as a mere envelope but as a complex, often load-bearing system of exchange between an interior and an exterior. Such an anil,ogy also carries
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r r
tr)rjlx)llilvo ltrnly tttrtIoIIrI, tr]ltrtIIitr:httlrI by Wall lrrlcrnllitrrrirl Kerttttxly & Vkrllr:lt
Arclrltucttuo, I lrr; r:rrtlirlrr rulrrrrrs l11;lrl
inlo a ril)iloo itll0t (liltk[{]r;ri ilt I lv{Il llIor r!ll I pltosplxrtosr;orrl riyori and whlte I I l)s, Ari
suggosl(xl l)y llri namo, tho nralrrrl;rl
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the possibility of a new relation between architccturc and thc hurrran body, a relation that is not based primarily on the correspondence between structural parts and human limbs but on the identification of supposedly similar functions of architectural surface and human skin.
DgSIGN STRRTEGIES
At each stage, arrthorizations to access and modify the clraracteristics of the building stored in the database must be given or refused. At certain points, decisions must be made to freeze some of these characteristics, let them be geometric, structural or energetic, in order to enable the project to move forward. Contrary to what the notion of a totally fluid digital world tends to suggest, this rype of decision is becoming more and more crucial. Just like a given geometry must be selected among a myriad of alternatives, many technical choices must be solidified past a
RND
PROFESSIONRL PERSPECTIVES &
certain stage.
Can design procedures remain the same in the broad context depicted in this chapter? Of coune not, but one may still wonder about the extent of the changes to expect, even ifone leaves aside the altemative between form deterrnination and algorithrnic creation that was discussed in the previous chapter. The most immediate transformation will probably be linked to the need to make design procedures more explicit than in the past. Computers require a precise set of instructions at each stage of a project. For architecture, this will represent a major change since design procedures were seldom fully formalized despite their crucial importance in the definition ofthe discipline. In most Renaissance and baroque architectural
treatises, the methods used by authors to layout plans and fagades remained hazy, in contrast with the abundance ofdetails regarding orders and their proportions. Even Beaux-Arts composition, one of the most constraining design methods ever put together, was based on a large
amount of tacit know-how.s6 The need to make design procedures more explicit will be further increased by the evolution towards a systematic constitution of a cornmon pool of data, often referred to as a Building Information Model, to be shared by the various actors involved in a project. Often presented as the unavoidable future of architecture and construction, Building Information Models require a better identification of all steps that are to be taken from the initial sketches to the final technical specifications.
56 For a more iletailed dkcussion
oJ the issue, see
Antoine Picon, "The Chost
oJ
Architecture: The Project and its Codi,fication", ir Perspecta, no. i5, 2004, ytp. 8-19,
l(r2
In such a context, the designer's ultimate competence becomes more and more about when to make certain states ofthings irrevocable. By contrast, detailed processing of geometric or technical characteristics looses part ofits former importance; in many cases the machine can run by itself and propose various geometric and technical solutions. Another way to put it is to consider that design is becoming more focused on the global vision, the strategy, and less on details that the computer is
making easier to address.
The architectural profession is not the only one to move towards 'W'ith more pronounced strategic turn. the spectacular progress of software based on finite elements methods, structural engineering is registering a similar evolution. For the engineer, the problem is no longer to go through tedious calculation. For him also, part of the challenge lies in the determination of the best way to proceed, following organizational schemes that are no longer to be confused with traditional structural intuition.sT Given this evolution, one may wonder whether the traditional identities ofarchitects and engineers will not have to evolve in order to adapt to the new context created by the computer. Various conflicts of competences may arise in the meantime. The very existence of a Building Information Model raises the question of who will be ultimately in charge of its management. Beside architects and engineers, there are a
other candidates such
as professional project managers. The computer is not the only factor that must be taken into
57
I
Conuarsation with Bemard Vaudeville, senior partner oJ TESS
(r.l
Ateliq d'Ingtnieie , on 20 Ocktbu,
20011.
B
account in this evolution. In conjunction with its use, sustainable requirements will play a more and more important role. For the architect as well as for the engineer, it means a drastic departure from an attitude ofrelative irresponsibility. In a world in which more and more thinp are designed, beginning with materials, it is no longer possible to be indifferent to the broad issues raised by the built environment. As Toshiko Mori puts it, "architects and other citizens must actively make choices about where to build, what to build, how to build, and with what to bui1d." 58 One should probably add to the list "when not to build", since a lot of possible developments appear less and less desirable in the light
ofthe quest for sustainability. The different materialiry that is emerging entails a higher degree of awareness about the implications of design. It implies to redefine the attitude of the designer in terms that include environmental and social responsibiliry. The success of a designer like Shigeru Ban and his sustainable structures might very well lie in the articulation he proposes berween a concern for materiality and technological innovation and a social concern.
hJILL ROBOTIZATION TRHE
COMMNND?
The evolution ofprofessional competences is inseparable from the transformation ofbuilding techniques. The computer is not only at the center of a sprawling set of conception tools; it appears also as the hub of a wide range of computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines, 3D printers, laser cutters, mills and routers, meant for rapid prototyping and fabrication. Various questions arise in this context. The first regards prefabrication, one ofthe oldest pursuits ofmodernity,se the content ofwhich is in need of a complete reassessment. With the development of digital conception tools, prefabrication elements can be determined in new ways allowingfor amuch greater diversiry than before, a diversity illus-
58
5e seeJor
instance Barry Bersdofi, peter
Toshileo
Mon ftd.), op. cir., p. xv.
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trated in realizations as different
Plono Huyghcrwlllr Mlchaol [/6r€dlth,
Michael Meredith's temporary Puppet Theater atHarvard [Jniversity Carpenter Center, ZahaHadid's Hungerburg Funicular or'William Massie's American House 08. This as
led theorists and designers like Bernard Cache to propose a new charrcteization of digitally-fabricated architecture as "non-stan dard", a term tpplying both to form and the non-repetitive and often complex prelabricated pieces that it can be made of One of the current limitations ofgeometric complexity lies in the problems ofpackaging and shipping. AsJordan Brandt puts it in a dochas
toral dissertation defended at Harvard Graduate School of Design, "unique components require unique packaging and curved elements clon't stack as well as flat ones."60 As Brandt argues, some of these limitations may be overcome by the development ofon-site prefabrication,
MOS, Ptippel Thootor, 2004. Photor Florlfln
Holzhorr, l hle tomporary Blrucluft,
was bullt for fl puppot p6rfonnfiI(i6 by artlst l)k,il0
liuyoltn,
(iriilIir,,ril & [olt[,t. "1iltttr Itrt;ll (lrr tll;rllotIr, V|iltr r, ;'{l{l/ ,'01)ll ,, r /\lr,rir,,ilrllit llrllo
lll ' llrrr l;rrlltrlrlirl W;rll,' I lll (ir;urir/iri ti Krrlr[rr / I
/llrirlr Kolrk;r.
;'()()ll. ( ) (lrinril/ro & LIII lLtttclt
btrt tlrc ()fl'sitc versus ()rI siLc ;rltelrr:ttivc far fronr bcing dcciclccl toclly.
lVartin Bechthold, Harvard Graduate School of Design, use
of robotic arm for surfacing effects, 2008. Maftin Bechthold. With the robot, a great diversity of effects of texture and light can be obtained from a single material.
is
Another major lirnitation could stenr from the possible robotization of the build'Will ing industry. geometric complexiry be compatible with automated assemblage? Although robotization still belongs to a relatively remote future, the issue needs to be raised in relation to the multiple experiments that are taking place all over the wor1d.61 The day it will take command might very well correspond to new changes both in the characteristics of digital architecture and in the professional competences mobilized to design and build it. Among the changes that may affect digital architecture, one finds the possibility ofa return to discrete elements with relatively simple and repetitive forms, a perspective recently explored by an architect like Greg Lynn with his Blobwall. Easier to assemble using robots than complex customized geometric components, these elements could play a role similar to bricks in traditional masonry. Such an orientation would make digital architecture certainly truer to the fundamentally discrete nature of digital tools than the smooth continuous surfaces it displays today. But despite its technical and conceptual appeal, nothing guarantees that this orientation will prevail in practice. More generally, the long-terrn consequences of digital fabrication and construction robotization on architecture are far from clear, despite researches by designers like Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who try to integrate their findings on robotized fabrication and assemblage at
61
See
Jor instance the online proceedings oJ the 25th lnternational Symposium ofr Autofrdti()l and llohotks it (visilcd on 7January,2009). Construction, http://m.iaarc.org/extunal/isan2008
*
Br.r
t thc cqnccption level.o2 At Harvard (]racl-ratc School of I )csigr r, M:rrt irr llt't'lr tlroltl is :r lstr investigating the possibilities offered by robots with a special acccnt pttt on strl-fltc:ilrg efFects. There again, the possibilities are wide-ranging, but many interrogations rcrtt;titt. The present incertitude is well conveyed - in the same ironic vein as his M(l']i) Bar - by Franqois Roche in another of his projects for the extension of the collection of the Fonds R6gional d'Art Contemporain of Orl6ans, France, a museum of contemporary art. In this 2006 project conceived in association with artist Pierre Huyghe, a robot is gradually producing a recycled-glass additional layer to an existing building. Without recogrrizable shape, comparable to a stack, the project questions the very notion
Iiotl",('r tll:rt
lirt lltr't't'tttvt'sttttt'rrt ol'tlt'srrt'irr llrc lrrt.t'lr:rrristit s((.n.ur() iruugincrl [ry tlrt'tlt'sigrrr'r-. Irr-rur1'ois I(ot'lrc is lrt.rlr:rps riglrt irr lris:rsst.ss nrcrrt of whlt:rw;rits trs. []t:yorrtl firrrrr, thc firtc of'tligit:rl ;rrt.lritcctrrr-t. rrright very well lic in thc lrnclerstarrcling
tiorr robr>tization :rnd clesire.
of architectural form, while
the machine becomes "the vector, the vehicle, for a constructive subjectiviza-
Extension for the Fonds R6gional
d'Art Contemporain of Orldans. Couftesy R&Sie(n).
62 Fabio Cramazio, Matthias Kohler, Digital Materixlity irr Architccture (Basel, Boston, Berlix: Birkhiiuwr, 200lt)
6) http://rttut ttrrilotits.rut/uu,lostit.htn
(l)ilsult(,1
orr
Jtnuary 7, 2009).
