Digital Material

The Digital Age & Architecture: An Exploratory Essay I was young when computers started to remodel the world; I remember my mom yelling at me to turn the internet off so she could answer the phone. At that time, I had no idea that a new Digital Paradigm Change was underway, revolutionizing how the world operated. This paradigm change is the biggest since the Industrial Revolution, with digital technologies making advancements all over the world. As part of the Millennial Generation, I grew up with computers, making it hard to think what the world was like before such technology. Learning from a young, I started my Architecture Degree with an astute aptitude in digital technologies.

Prior to the Industrial Age, most architecture was created by the master craftsman or within the vernacular trades where " design " and " making " were aligned. The Industrial Age, and most recently the Information Age, shifted the role of the architect away from that of the " master craftsman " to the professional " knowledge worker. " As a result, a divide between design and making in the practice of architecture occurred. This shift impacted an essential part of the architect's process by degrading the symbiotic relationship between mind and hand and limiting the immediate design consequences that only making can provide. But, recent technological developments have changed the economic model of design and making in architectural practice and re-established this lost connection. Most importantly, it has provided new opportunities for craft, design, and architectural practice to align. The purpose of this paper is to examine these new opportunities, define what constitutes the digital vernacular and demonstrate its place in the future of making. The paper will seek to define the digital vernacular by evaluating each of the following variables: materials, knowledge, and tools. Using normative practice as a control, the paper will conduct a comparative analysis of these variables by examining economic viability (cost-to-wage ratios), logistical feasibility (training & facilities), and skillset availability within the domain of architecture (insourced versus outsourced). Using this data, and resulting guidelines, the paper will demonstrate the successes and failures of a practice using the digital vernacular as its primary project delivery methodology and how the digital vernacular enabled new makers. The focus of this research is not to build an inventory of equipment and methods; rather it is to develop a higher understanding of what constitutes vernacular practice within the digital age.

Feminist Review, 2019

As architecture intersects with computer science to engage with large-scale data sets and informational systems, this demands new skills, competencies and commitments. Informed by the findings of an online survey, this article explores how, who and to what extent those in the profession of architecture are investing in technology knowledge and skills, and under what material conditions this occurs. Survey data collected from five large-scale architecture practices in Sydney, Australia finds that while technology-related skills are highly valued in the profession, more men than women are engaging with computationally intensive software and technology skills building remains a largely unstructured and often self-directed enterprise. Drawing on feminist technology studies and digital labour perspectives, it is argued that the drive to computationalise the profession of architecture rests heavily on discretionary, aspirational and invisible labour practices that disadvantage employees w...

The use of digital tools in architecture has led to the definition of a new formal " style ". Increasing complex spatialities can now be modeled and built using contemporary software and digital fabrication tools. The future seems to appear devoted to the " digitalization " of all architectural processes: from building design, construction, and management. An unstoppable enthusiasm about these new technologies seems to pervade the practice of architecture especially among young designers. However, what is the real impact of digital architecture on the society? Its " spectacular " expressions are enough to respond to the occurring globalization of society and cities? At the moment most of the digital research is concerning geometrical/structural exploration which were often not possible to be implemented in the past using analogic tools. Therefore, the result is inevitably the production of " objects " which usually do not establish relationship with their context other than the depiction of their own " iconicity ". In this paper I will describe the contemporary philosophical tendency to understand technique as self-referential purpose instead of being a tool to achieve a goal, I will then examine precedent moments in history where such architectural " styles " were at the center of the architectural discourse but quickly outdated, and finally, I will argue about the necessity for digital architecture to overcome its apparent " futility " in order to achieve a significant contribution for the spatial necessities of the contemporary society.

In : Architecture and the Machinic : Experimental Encounters of Man with Architecture, Computation and Robotics. Edited by Arie Graafland and Dulmini Perera, Köthen : Hochschule Anhalt, Hochschulbibliothek, 2018, pp. 38–44. (urn:nbn:de:gbv:kt1-3735)

Conference Proceedings. Paradox to Paradigm. Architecture in the Age of Network Society, 2018

Technology advances as 'progress' and efficacy, while danger builds. This danger is conflict in humanity and conflict with nature. This is proposed as similar to architectural value in conflict with the technicist value proxy to question the profession. Network Society as information technology in the space of communication, forming virtual spaces that transform social space is exemplary of this conflict. Architects define the space of Network Society's emerging social order. This emergence is another opportunity to understand the need for and to 'turn' the profession to its original paradigm. Architecture appears as paradox in Machine Ages and its Network Society. It's original superordinate programme is in conflict with its means. Human consciousness has a role that architecture supports. This paper outlines the parameters for the inevitable transition that reveals this role as the conflict in practice turned to means to reveal and become that original paradigm.

2013

The paper introduces and discusses current developments in architectural discourse, design theory, digital design models, techniques and their relations to design pedagogy. The evolution of design knowledge in architectural theory and praxis is explicated and its implications for required changes in design education are presented. The theoretical influence of architectural concepts is presented through historical references in digital architecture. This structure of design concepts is proposed as a medium of design education. An experimental design studio on: „Design as research: the exploration of digital architectural concepts‟ is presented as a pedagogical framework for educating the digital architect and a series of research and design programs carried out in an experimental design studio demonstrates this framework. Digital architectures are profoundly changing the processes of design and construction. By integrating design, analysis, manufacture and assembly of buildings aroun...

2021

In the field of architecture, new technologies are enabling us to promptly simulate, quantify, and compare multitudes of design alternatives and consider an ever more expanding list of environmental and economic parameters within the early design phases of projects. However, architecture today veers further towards non-neutral technologies, changing our culture, introducing new values, and (re)shaping our social ideals. The change of media, from the manual to the digital, has deeply transformed architecture and city design. There is undoubtedly progress, but what are we losing in this automation, virtualization and over-digitalization? Are architects-creators of space, human experience, and cultural capital-starting to occupy the role of technicians? Sustainable architecture is a field that is already experiencing tensions between the quantitative and the qualitative, the optimum and the ethical, and the parametric and haptic methods. Yet the rapidly evolving CAAD technologies overlook many of the nonquantifiable values of these binaries. Gains in speed and efficiency in the design process with the help of parametric design may be challenging the designer's reflection-inaction process required for critical architecture while ethical, cultural, and human dimensions can hardly be modelled algorithmically. Similarly, computational thinking and digitalization in architectural education, have yet to come to terms brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Concordia University Research Repository 2 A. SOULIKIAS, C. CUCUZZELLA, F. NIZAR, M. HAZBEI, & S. GOUBRAN with the loss of analogue ways of learning that favour a more diverse and inclusive classroom environment. Instead of keeping the analogue and the haptic practices away from the immaculate realm of CAAD, this paper argues for hybrid technologies that recognize these practices and their value in sustainable design and incorporate them. Film animation, as a branch of architecture's most expressive means, film, can serve as a paradigm of a feasible disruptive technology, but most importantly, as an indicator of the hybridity between the handmade and the digital and its effectiveness in expressing vital elements of sustainability that are otherwise dismissed.

2020

Architecture and context are the inseparable elements of the scene of existence. They determine its nature and its perception. Architecture does not exist without context, and itself creates another context. The progressing digitalisation of reality begins to create a virtual layer, understood in many ways, existing in the non-material space of zeros and ones that build a new global context for a given object. Buildings are no longer recognized in-situ, but through their (often distorted) image. The image and the essence of the space come apart, disturbing perception, and the surfeit of media and interactivity leads to blurring and relativisation of truth about architecture and its context. The chaos of meanings coded in architectural forms escapes human perceptive abilities, and this may result in reducing architecture to meaningless noise.

Conference: International Conference on Architectural Research - ICAR 2012Volume: Proceedings - ICAR 2012, 2012

The unprecedented contemporary expansion of knowledge brought forward a requirement to adopt a new mentality and a sense of urgency in bridging disciplines which, by the middle of twentieth century, gave rise to multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. Mankind has always used intelligence to address problems that life and society have generated. The same planet with the same resources needed to support the life of an exponentially growing population. In response to these requirements, the science and the technology have also grown exponentially, giving rise to cybernetics, mathematical theories that aim to translate the nature at macro and microscopic levels and theories that had the potential of being useful in generating new solutions in architecture. The emergence of computers, of digital technology, of complex graphics and visualization techniques streamlined the approach to architectural solutions and proved useful in satisfying both the pragmatic constraints that make architecture a science and the features that make it an art. This paper investigates the design of digital processes and how they can improve the thinking process at the project concept stage and the rethinking of the relationship between architecture, sciences and, inevitably, a highly technological society. Also present is a sub textual issue as to what extent these current trends are found in Romanian schools of architecture.