Week 10 - Digital Fabrication and Robotics

The digital world of architecture evolved due to many factors, one of which according to Mark Wigley presented a discourse that prosthetics played a significant role in developing.

Wigley explores the prosthetic as a tool used to expand the ‘human ecosystem’ into the digital framework. Specifically, the computer mouse was this prosthetic that connected the user in a digital realm allowing the exploration of new spaces. This effectively works through the graphic interface as the user can see the transitioning movement within the virtual space. Close engagement with the tool provides a portal as though they are embedded into this reality, a connection is created between the body and the computer. To which there is no boundary defined and the simulated is believed as reality.

Douglas Engelbart created the mouse in 1946 as he claimed that it was inevitable that humans required the act of communicating with each other in real time in order for human intelligence to drastically increase. This idea grew into a concept that involved the growth between computers and humans to become submerged within each other so that the human would metaphorically become the prosthetic. Which therefore led to the development of the mouse as an initial attempt at ‘co-evolving’ into this futuristic concept.

To further progress this idea, in 1968 Engelbart used an example of a piece of paper which represented the screen interface of a computer. As a mouse moved across the screen through the human’s arm movement, the user gains power to draw in this space of information. This demonstration evidently allowed him to express his vision that in the future, architects will have the ability to design amongst these interfaces and ultimately progress into manipulating such structures of information embedded within the computer. The realisation that there was an ability to access and reshape multidimensional structures, re-created this connection of architecture between the body and the brain as such a tool as the mouse radicated the impossible to become possible.

Wigley, M. (2010). "The Architecture of the Mouse." Architectural Design: EcoRedux: Design Remedies for an Ailing Planet 80(6): 50-57.

Week 9 - Materiality

Architectural design and construction is progressing into using advanced technology due to its improvement of being more accessible from the growth in the economy (Hyde 2012). Due to this accessibility, the experience for the modern day designers and architects have been transformed dramatically as they explore materiality as a way to facilitate the design through its own properties, rather than have the design be facilitated by the materials in order to become a reality in the physical world. As a result, just as Kolarevic states, “the effective digital exchange of information is vital to the realization of the new integrative capacity of architecture” (Kolarevic 2008). Designing and manufacturing have realised a new potential in architecture, reiterating the traditional relationship that also determined the way in which architecture was designed and developed; where the architect previously pre-determined the design prior to acknowledging the material in the process.

It is this combination of the material properties that emerge new design opportunities, which ultimately redefine the relationship between the material and digital technology. Such processes as rapid manufacturing make it “possible to materially realize complex geometric organizational ideas that were previously unattainable” (Kolarevic 2008).

This was only made possible through digital modelling, coding and visual scripting, as designers and architects are able to collaborate with other professions in order to understand material composition and simulation accuracy. Thus an integrative process is required to enable “design innovation as well as driving better outcomes” (Kolarevic 2008). Which in turn repositioned the notion of materials within the process to be as significant as the primary structure of a building as it in fact plays a massive role in the performance of the building.

It is therefore that we must first understand the importance of materials as a significant driver of the early stages in architecture. It’s aesthetic values and psychological notions may be what traditional architecture defined its value, however, it is only through exploring the possibilities emerging from within the material properties can architecture be pushed to its greatest potential.

Menges, A. (2011). Intergral Formation and Materialisation: Computational Form and Material Gesault. Computational design thinking AD reader. A. Menges and S. Ahlquist. Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons: 198-210.

Trummer, P. (2011). Associative Design: From Type to Population. Computational design thinking AD reader. A. Menges and S. Ahlquist. Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons: 179-197.

Kolarevic, B. and K. R. Klinger (2008). Manufacturing/ Material/ Effects. Manufacturing material effects : rethinking design and making in architecture. B. Kolarevic and K. R. Klinger. New York, Routledge: 5-24.

Bernstein, P. G., A. Inc and Y. University (2008). Thinking versus Making: Remediating Design Practice in the Age of Digital Representation. Manufacturing material effects : rethinking design and making in architecture. B. Kolarevic and K. R. Klinger. New York, Routledge: 61-66.

Week 8 - Visualisation and the Image

In  Walter Benjamin’s reading “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, he explores the shift of perception in 20th Century film and photography. This was discussed through the introduction of lithography which was surpassed by photography. He defined photography as a process to reproduce aspects of the original capture that weren’t attainable to the naked eye. However, technical reproduction also positions the copy of the original out of place and therefore denotes that even the most perfect reproductions of a work of art lacks in one thing: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. The aura which Benjamin represents tells us that the originality and authenticity of a work can never be reproduced.

Architectural conception and realization usually assume a one-to-one correspondence between the represented idea and the final building (Perez-Gomez 2007). This idea is further extended in Peter Eisenman’s reading ‘Architecture After the Age of Printing’, as he discusses digital mass customization as an effective process in small scale, but not on a full scale construction. Even though BIM is a family software developed to exchange information among others, it is limiting in the amount of standard geometric notations and thus inspiration. As a result, architecture has traditionally envisioned the concept of a space within four walls, a limited way of organizing space and the relationship between the elements within the space.

But through the introduction of advanced softwares such as BIM, objects in the 3D world environment has progressed into the integrated approaches of streamlined highly photo-realistic renderings that are published straight into the cloud. This process successfully saves time and money with the beneficial ability to accurately present high quality images. Detailing, lighting, materiality and daylighting are very important factors to consider when producing graphics for clients, but also for the designer or architect who require constant feedback on details such as solar access into the building via simulations and diagrams. We begin to become aware of this ability to reassess and change the design which therefore also progress into simultaneously streamline a traditionally tedious process.

Ultimately, the future of visualisation and the image will become more immersive as we turn towards realistically rendered 3D environments. Game rendering softwares such as Unreal Engine, Cryengine and Lumion are a few of the many tools which are continuously being updated for realistic reproductions that allow for real-time interaction between the spaces and thus bridge the gap between a concept to a reality.

Week 7 - BIM

Looking into Scott Marble's Introduction, he states that traditionally, the architect was the author, the sole creator of a design. The tools that were used then had only one purpose of facilitating the need for the designer in terms of accurately drawing by hand. But Scott Marble's experience with experimenting with the popular CNC machine as seen all over architecture schools at the time (which was the 90s) has led to redefining the relationship of architecture from design to production.

Here, we can see that to change from hand drawing to CAD, took 12 years to fully adjust to that form of design to production. However, the time it took for CAD to change to BIM as the new industry standard was 6 years. So you can see how not only is it more streamlined, but more efficient as a design to production process.

In David Benjamin's reading "Beyond Efficiency", he has created a graph through his own proven research into showing the shifts of using BIM and the amount of productivity that resulted. The dotted line labelled 4, shows the least amount of effort over the course of a project once BIM was implemented.

To clarify, Scott Marble has emphasised three specific workflows that are developed around three largely independent themes, and they are:

- Designing Design: which reflects on the procedural issues as well as the logic that is placed between creative thinking and calculated output in order to simulate, analyse and optimize processes producing integrated, parametric Building Information Models.

- Designing Assembly: focuses on the material as architects have direct links to tools and techniques, they have the role of extending beyond the representational towards the instructional process with material properties influencing their design concepts.

and finally,

- Designing Industry: which addresses the multiple disciplines and its drive towards an efficiently integrated process. Organizational models such as BIM and IPD systems become the support and culture of collaboration as the architect is seen as to either manage teams of specialists or a team of architects, engineers and contractors which have become a redefined system of design and production.

Specifically, it was the file-to-fabrication process in Scott Marble's reading that enhanced immediacy that now with the use of digital information formed new complex communication workflows. Architects, engineers, fabricators and builders now communicate digitally which has dramatically altered the way they work as well as the relationship to the tools we use. This has ultimately led to the restructuring of organisations as well as the traditional autonomous processes to integrated collective workflows.

But is this idea of combining technology and design well thought out?

Here, we can see that there are a series of programs and softwares that are interconnected by the requirement of modelling, documentation and fabrication processes in any given project. These include BIM vs CAD vs documentation softwares and rendering softwares, etc. When drawn out as a diagram, we can clearly see that it becomes an organised mess. But this should change. Fabian Scheurer gave a talk recently about the digital workflows just like these that should instead resolve this issue of adapting, and instead believes that everything should be interconnected without having to change file types to increase speed and flexibility. But instead, BIM should become a cloud-based process such as github, which may be the future that provides an easier interoperability between all disciplines in the design to production process. To further emphasise this point, instead of having multiple file types, everything in the one project would be associated with the same file format that is connected parametrically by code and is easily accessible. And for that reason, BIM is seen to be a stepping stone to that possibility.

Furthermore, to continue questioning whether the combination of technology and design is well thought out:

The Pareto Efficiency introduced in David Benjamin's reading, which is mainly associated as an economics concept,  suggests that "a society where nobody can be made better off without somebody else being made worse off" is an idea where in design terms means that "An optimal design does not necessarily equal a good design." By relying so heavily on technology, architects may end up struggling to balance the power of computation with the need to maintain control throughout the exploitation or exploration of the design.

The software that architects use are defined by computer scientists which makes it quite limiting to them. But the "sheer fact of using architectural software means already to operate like an engineer". So perhaps this could change, where the architects are now understanding, even authoring some of the algorithms that influence their designs.

Which is why scripting/coding has played a significant role in architectural design. Or in other words: Designing the Design.

Processing as we all know, is an example where designers author their own software.

But is this change from traditional hierarchy to an integrated collaborative approach easy to adjust into? NO.

But why is that? Well in Dominik Holzer's Reading, “BIM’s Seven Deadly Sins”, he introduces 7 ideas that prove that BIM has its many downfalls. And they include:

- Technocentricity (which is to focus on the software instead of the design culture)

- Ambiguity (which is the quality of being open to more than one interpretation) In other words, clients aren't very familiar with the change as well as what it may provide as new costs may be added to the project from using BIM related services. So understanding the difference between 4D, 5D, 6D and 7D BIM

- Elision (which is the idea that you cannot create BIM files towards the end of a project, but rather it must be created in the early stages so that changes are made easier and less costly to accommodate)

- Hypocrisy - the IPD excuse

- Delusion - asking for 2D while requiring 3D work

- Diffidence - denying the need for process change since there are substantial costs for software licenses and training staff

and finally

- Monodisciplinarity - which means that current BIM tools still barely support early design collaboration across various disciplines.

Even though BIM is making strong progress as it is increasing its uptake in the industry, few of the downsides are rooted in misconceptions and the rest is due to the unwillingness for practitioners in design and construction to swiftly adopt the advantages of BIM due to cultural reasons. But it is only through close engagement and collaboration in practice based research is everyone more likely to succeed in managing the challenges ahead of them.

Bibliography:

Holzer, D. (2011). "BIM's Seven Deadly Sins." International Journal of Architectural Computing 9(4): 463-480.

Benjamin, D. (2012). Beyond Efficiency. Digital workflows in architecture: designing design -- designing assembly -- designing industry. S. Marble. Basel, Birkhäuser: 14-25.

Marble, S. (2012). BIM 2.0. Digital workflows in architecture: designing design -- designing assembly -- designing industry. S. Marble. Basel, Birkhäuser: 72-73.

Week 2 - Design to Production

As designs for the unprecedented are more complex, the challenges of constructing these buildings left designers engaging with fabrication more closely than ever before. Branko Kolarevic's 'Information Master Builders' explores the notion of the need for architects to become more engaged with the processes of building through digital technologies. This is mainly because if we continue to limit ourselves with contractors who are hesitant to practice 'un-buildable' experimental objects, architects will no longer be able to resolve design problems, especially with the analog norm.

This history of disassociation started in the late Renaissance where the medium of communicating information about buildings were made through perspective representations and orthographic drawings to communicate information through plans, sections and elevations. As a result, the progressive disassociation of architecture from the rest of the building industry will not cope with responding to challenges and opportunities of the Information Age. Therefore, architects must take the lead in the inevitable digitally-driven restructuring of the building industry in order to not be left behind.

Frank Gehry is a perfect example of an architect who stands as the "coordinator of information" between the various participants in the design and construction of building. This was effectively done through engaging with digital technology right within the process and ultimately fluidly amalgamated the production, design and construction with the CAD program CATIA. In 'Materialising Complexity', Scheurer presents to us that this change for innovation began in the mid 1990s where French car industries used CAD softwares that could easily produce splines and NURBS curves which would have been a very labour-intensive nightmare.

Unfortunately, for us, the challenges that are faced within legal codes of practice, is the sharing of digital data amongst various parties in that with greater responsibility, comes increased reliability. But just as Kevin R. Klinger explains in 'Relations: Information Exchange in Designing and Making Architecture', it is only through the reflective process-oriented crafting of shared information can there be an effective means of communication and information exchange that is vital to the achievement of new methods for design and production for an architecture aligned with the spirit of our age.


Ultimately, as the Machine Age progressed into the Digital Age, collaboration at earlier phases of the design process has become the norm. As a result, more time is committed to the design phase to produce various iterations compared to years ago.

Scheurer, F. (2014). Materialising Complexity. Theories of the digital in architecture. R. Oxman and R. Oxman: 283-291.

Kolarevic, B. (2003). Information Master Builders. Architecture in the digital age : design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon Press: 55-62.
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Klinger, K. (2008). Relations: Information Exchange in Designing and Making Architecture. Manufacturing material effects : rethinking design and making in architecture. B. Kolarevic and K. R. Klinger. New York, Routledge: 26-36.

Week 1 - Analogue to Digital

Designing and making were often defined as very different practices, and even to the point of being very separate elements of one common subject: Architecture. 'Transgression from Drawing to Making' by Bob Sheil explains that the role of the architect has drastically changed from Pre-Renaissance Architects providing the role of having a very strong knowledge in building, a close association with the craft and gave verbal instructions to builders which ultimately honoured him the status of 'Master Builder'. But Post-Renaissance Architects sought a superior position through the comprehensive nature of drawings that projected both imaginative and material meanings, and instead the ideas themselves are presented as a drawing - the product of the architect. Then during the industrial revolution, the divisions of responsibility and specialisation established formal distinctions between the professions of building and architecture, where they had the role of creating a document of legal status and restricted content. 

However, due to the modern world undergoing drastic changes in technological tools, William J Mitchell's article, 'Design Worlds and Fabrication Machines', he discusses the opportunities that lie within using CAD as a form of investment, especially when using code. The use of computers as a way to model complex buildings are part of the new instantiation processes that enable more geometric freedom for designers to explore more parameters with efficiency and accuracy. It is further enhanced by Bradley Starkey's text, 'Architectural models: Material, Intellectual, Spiritual', where the CAD technologies allowing for three-dimensional modelling reveal the notion of an observed external or original reality, where the model is a description or representation of that reality. This therefore means that the drawing should no longer be a static document, but an "evolving bank of parametric data that requires connections between independent professions working together." Especially when clients, contractors, fabricators, suppliers and architects require a medium to communicate and generate ideas, designing and making should be blended together to understand the final product so that the architectural models are easily understood by those without architectural training or experience in spatial thinking in combination with the materiality of making.

Mitchell, W. (2003). Design Worlds and Fabrication Machines. Architecture in the digital age : design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon Press: 73-80.

Sheil, B. (2005). "Transgression from drawing to making." Arq : Architectural Research Quarterly 9(1): 20-32.

Starkey, B. (2005). "Architectural models: material, intellectual, spiritual." Arq : Architectural Research Quarterly 9(3-4): 265-272.

Week 1 Tutorial Sketches: