STUDIO AIR

TOBYWOOLLEY

389110

ARCHITECTURE AS DISCOURSE

I am Toby Finnian Woolley. I am 21 and a third year Architecture stu-dent. I originally came from Tasmania, and my Family is still liv-ing there. I am not well versed in computational design. I have used Rhino in previous semesters for Virtual Environments and Stu-dio Water, however am relatively new to Grasshopper and Para-metric Design and currently ignorant to the possibilities it offers.

architectural DISCOURSE

ARCHITECTURE AS DISCOURSE

The etymological origins of the word dis-course began in Late Latin with the word discursus, meaning ‘conversation’. Fittingly, the discourse of architecture is the process of understanding, processing, and thinking about the conversation that is Architecture. For Architecture to be a discourse it needs to be a conversation.

It is this that allows for architectural study to be a perennial part of the human psyche, culture and identity. It is responsive to place, climate, culture, society, economy, emotion, reaction, and spirituality. It is an ever evolving physical response to the human condition.

Discourse in architecture differs by how one achieves solutions for architectural prob-lems. It is the architectural language one speaks in conversation that defines ones beliefs and outcomes in practice.

The brief given by Wyndham City Council-states:

’The Western Gateway should propose new, inspiring and brave ideas, to generate a NEW discourse’

To try and understand how one generates a ‘new’ discourse I shall analyse two archi-tects - Peter Zumthor and Greg Lynn. Peter Zumthor is fundamentally addressing how people ‘dwell’, through the importance of craft and tectonic considerations. Greg Lynn is interested in technological advances and what that can ‘offer’ in the creation of space, relying on computational discovery to vali-date architectural form and function.

This opposition of how architecture is gen-erated and importantly for what reasons it is generated, can allow for the conversa-tion of a new discourse to begin. Looking at the fundamental aspects of architecture - COMMODITY, FIRMNESS and DELIGHT - and how through forming new connec-tions, parametric connections, adaptable connections, inspiring connections - a new discourse can be theorised and attempted, that looks at both the past and the future for inspiration.

peter ZUMTHOR

All of these words describe the discourse that Zumthor follows, it is not grounded in the ephemeral, but in its existance. It fights against bombastic ideas of digital flourish and grounds itself to place and emotive connections to history, memory, smell and touch. Never defined by the architectural tools that allowed for its creation, but by the atmosphere and history of the place and story of its purpose.

It is a tectonic expression of space and place.

From Patrik Schumacher’s attempts to de-fine discourse (ADD REFERENCE) none cor-rectly define Zumthor’s Architecture. A type of Architecture that can only be applied to a select set of Architectural works, that place emotive concerns above economic ones. An architecture that prides itself on the craft of construction and what that craftmanship offers to the experiential qualities of space.

From the AR series THE BIG RETHINK, by Peter Buchanan, Zumthor is seen to be grounded in craft and not artistic frivolity. He adresses construction across scale, from the individual building component, (such as the connection of the bricks at Kolomba museum, referencing layers of earth and history) to the relationship the building has within the precinct it dwells within. His Ko-

lumba Museum, uses light and shadow to bring about emotive responses to space, creating mystery and intrigue.

It is a tactile architecture, one where you see his past, his original education as a cabinet maker, where the scale of detail is evident at the micro yet expressed within a grand scale in every brick, creating a poetic composition .Architecture that is in the details. It is an ar-chitecture that is full of delight, that element that turns structure in to architecture, that defines architecture from construction, man from computer.

An architecture whose parametric qualities, - its ability to change and react to human involvement- are not based on physical mal-leablity but on the manipulation of light and space and the human element. It does not need to validate itself through the use of the tools designed to create it.

It would be ground breaking if one could achieve the poetics of Zumthor through al-gorithmic, generative, parametric, iterative design processes, creating an exciting new discourse in architecture.

“I believe that they [materials] can assume a poetic quality in the context of an architectural object, although only if the architect is able to generate a meaningful situation for them,

since materials in themselves are not poetic.”

Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, A Way of Looking at Things

Timelessness, materiality, tectonic, place, truth, craft, phenomenology, atmosphere, ART.

“Designing is inventing. When I was still at arts and crafts school, we tried to follow this principle. We looked for a new solution to every problem. We felt it was important to be avant-garde. Not until later did I realize that there are basically only a very few architectural problems for which a valid solution has not already been found.”— Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, A Way of Looking at Things, p. 21

Photos by Leigh Woolley Architect

greg LYNNdigital, arbitrary, parametric, difference

“It’s a language of surfaces and a language of spatial plasticity, meaning continuity and change.”

Greg Lynn. European Graduate School

Greg Lynn, is almost diametrically oposed to the type of Architecture Zumthor gener-ates. His concerns and solutions are of a global response, tectonic considerations are dismissed over surface based form find-ing. Mutatable blobs that deterritorialise ma-teriality and address structural organisation and construction as a malleable process.

Lynn discusses Symmetry as occuring not due to perfection but through a loss of infor-mation, he sees optimisation as something that should be dismissed, using computa-tion and calculus to create works. His use of parametric considerations can be seen with his Korean Presbyterian Church, in Queens New York. The building ignores modularity, but adheres to repitition. This can be seen with the external stair component (top left) that consists of five roof like structures, that are made up of different dimensions of ma-terial, unique angles and distances between structures, a process Lynn believes could not be achieved without computers. It is the antithesis of optimisation, of reduction, of the common practice of fabrication.

His use of parametric, algorithmic design, is evident in his proposed renovation of 500 housing units in Amsterdam (top right, mid-dle right). His use of parametrics is through the 122 individual, unique structural trusses,

that support the building diagonally, and as the building moves and alters so do all of the individual truss supports. Lynn sees this algorithmic alteration as a harmonic syn-thesised relationship between the buildings elements. Even though construction, fabri-cation, risk management, problem shooting are all increased by this approach.

He talks about ‘complexity’ and the blob in his article Blob Tectonics, or why Tectonics is square and Topology is groovy, describ-ing the issues of tectonic architecture, of anthropomorphic architecture, he presses the need for adaptive, global, maleable form, but does not explain how to achieve it. His architecture seems to be based in the digital realm, harking back to inspiration from calculus but not responding to current construction beliefs and techniques. Seeing ‘surface’ and ‘curve’ as generators, form defining change, with program being an in-sert.

Lynn’s architecture goes against those fun-damental ideas of ‘commodity’ of ‘firmness’ and of ‘delight’. It is a digital way of thinking, an arbitrary way of designing through a for-mal logic. Even though as his quote shows on pp. () he really hates that idea.

http://archinect.com/blog/article/21452029/255th-dream-song-of-john-berryman

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/greg-lynn-korean-presbyterian-church-of-new-york/

The way I used to justify forms that were happy accidents – now that’s embarrassing. The fact that this has become the pedagogy that I’m as-sociated with is really very, very, saddening to me. That I hate. I hate seeing students today making their own versions of these animation techniques I used to do, I really hate that – and I’m ashamed of that. But everyone has got to go through that amateur phase. Now, there are no happy accidents.

Lynn, Greg and Carson Chan (Interviewer). “Greg Lynn: Curve Your Enthusiasm.” in: 032C. from Issue # 15, Summer 2008.

http://www.worldarchitecturemap.org/buildings/new-york-presbyterian-church

http://glform.com/buildings/transformation-of-the-kleiburg-block

http://glform.com/buildings/transformation-of-the-kleiburg-block

COMPUTERISATION

COMPUTATION

computing in ARCHITECTURE

The development of the ‘architect’ has been a pro-cess of continual evolution, evolving with societal, technological, and cultural advances.

It has not been since the birth of the 2D architec-tural drawing in the rennaissance period, that archi-tecture has had such a dramatic change in its con-ception and documentation as it is facing today with the computerisation of architecture. (pp.3)

The computer has largely been seen over the past 30 years as a replacement for manual documen-tation techniques, a computerisation of ideas, as opposed to computer generated ones. Utilising computers as a analytical tool, as opposed to a generative one. It is this lack of creative ability, that defines the computer from the mind.

‘computers contribute their superb rational and search abilities, and we humans contribute all the creativity and intuition needed to solve design prob-lems’ pp 3

However, it is this symbiotic relationship that gives computers such a powerful place in the future of design conception. Where a pencil is a physical extension of the hand and marks down the mental processes of the user, a computer can be a tool where mathmatical, analytical processes are being performed while the design is being conceived. This can be without the user knowing how that analysis is being performed, and in conjunction with and re-sponding to the design process.

It is this symbiosis that defines computers as a pow-erful tool for architectural conception and creation. The computer has only recently become powerful enough and user friendly enough for the architec-tural industry at large to utilise this shift towards computational design as opposed to computerisa-tion of design.

It was Frank Ghery’s Guggenheim Museum in Bil-bao, that Kolarevic defines as the zeitgeist of the digital information revolution, that challenged de-sign conception, as well as the manufacturing and construction of architectural design, on a scale not seen since the industrial revolution. (pp 3). The de-signs inception was still created outside of the digital realm, however its optimisation, manufacture and construction would not have been possible, both temporally or economically without the use and aid of computers.

Thus, computers have since been seen as a tool that has allowed for forms and construction pro-cesses not economically possible to become viable design outcomes, opening a plethora of computa-tional tools to become available to aid in the op-timisation and creation of architectural forms. For example the creation of digital performative archi-tecture, such as Norman Foster + Partners, GLA Headquarters, whose form was generated by an optimisation of its energy efficency, via a reduction of the surface area that came in contact with the sun(pp 25. Kolarevic). This performative approach, that utilised year long sun pattern diagrams to opti-mise the form, while also reducing the surface area but retaining the volumetric capacity, shows the power of digitally generated design processes as a way to reduce construction cost while increasing energy efficiency, therefore creating more sustain-able design solutions.

This shift in architectural thought, away from com-puters simply being a tool for refinement and docu-mentation. Becoming a generative component in the design process, allowing performance feed-back, thus creating a generative design process, held within the digital realm but responding to physi-cal, structural, economic and environmental factors.

computing in ARCHITECTURENorman Fosters GLA Headquarters, a true example of digital analysis defining form and program.

Frank Ghery’s Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao - the zeitgeist for digital information modelling

Specialist modelling GROUPWhen architects have a sufficient understanding of algorithmic concepts, when we no longer need to discuss the digital as something different, then computation can become a true method of design for architecture. pp.15 computational works - the building of algorithmic thought

This statement resonates strongly with me, it is this view of ‘the digital’ vs ‘the physical’. The need for computation to develop to a point where one is not seen as designing digitally but simply ‘designing’. When this occurs it will mark the coming of age of the computer as the prima-ry tool for design concep-tion and creation in the ar-chitectural profession. The physical process as a point of creation will become the exception, while computers become the convention.

One of the most innovative and pioneering Architec-tural practices for sustain-able design and computa-tional design research is the Foster + Partners affiliated Specialist Modelling Group. This group provides the Foster + Partners with ex-pertise in computation, ge-ometry and fabrication (pp 19, computational works).

It shows potentially the worlds most famous archi-tectural firm has embraced computation as an integral part of design conception and construction.

The National Bank of Ku-wait Head-Quarters is an example of an integrated computational design pro-cess, where parametric modelling was used from initial design conception, for rapid prototyping of form, allowing a feedback look between design teams and SMG, while also al-lowing form to be guided by various performance parameters. These pa-rameters were responsive to design, structural, envi-ronmental, functional and operational requirements.(pp.34 computational works) The projects major architectural expression are the major vertical fins than act as sun shading devices, while also defining form. Through Parametric modelling and design be-ing parametrically realised from conception, the build-ability, function, program, form, geometric realisation, and visualisation could be-come a fluid process. (pp. 35 Computational works) Where analysis and recon-figuration does not require design rethink but design refinement.

The obvious power this pro-cess holds, in an age where optimisation, sustainablity, constructability, efficiency in form and function, in ma-teriality and construction is paramount to successful ar-chitecture. These tools allow for this to occur on a level not seen before, and from incep-tion of the design process. This is where I see the power of computational design. Inte-gration equalling information. Complexity becoming com-petency. Design remaining paramount.

Right: Parametric model of Na-tional Bank of KUwait Head-Quarters, showing parametric controls and considerations.

Below: Design variation and form discovery through parametric modelling.

4d CONTROLThe ultimate goal becomes to con-struct a four-dimensional model encoded with all qualitative and quantitative dimensional information necessary for design, analysis, fab-rication and construction, plus time-based information necessary for as-sembly sequencing. The result is a single, cohesive, complete model that contains all information neces-sary for designing and producing a building.

Branko Kolarevic, Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing (2003). pp 8

Electronics now rule. The architectural profession can face this new condition as an increasingly irrelevant, resistant rump—insisting on materiality and prac-ticing a nostalgic modernist revivalism while potential clients vote with their feet. Theorists can take solace in Heidegger, and construct loftily disdainful texts about all things technological. But it is more productive, and certainly a lot more fun, simply to retire the exhausted dogma of architectural composition and construc-tion as our world is rewired.

Mitchell, William J. (1998). ‘Antitectonics: The Poetics of Virtuality’, in TheVirtual Dimension: Architecture, Representation, and Crash Culture, ed. byJohn Beckmann (New York: Princeton Architectural Press), pp. 204–217

This rejection of the past, of craft, of tectonics, of tradition, of place, of culture is a futurist ideology. To disconnect from the physical and the tactile and to embrace only the digital and the pixel denies that human phenomenology, the sensual qualities inher-ent with humanised architecture. Heidegger was questioning the temporality of our explanation of a building, thus challenging what we see the earth, the sky, mortality and divinity to be. (G.L.Walker. pp.4 1993) Denying architecture of its intangable qualities is stripping it down to commodity, to struc-ture and to function.... 1998 is 15 years ago, and the intangible is more fundamental than ever. With-out delight the architect would be dead.

Gerald Lee Walker, “Heidegger and modern architecture” University of Pennsylvania (January 1, 1993).

This quote, written in 2003 by Branko Kolarevic is in essence describing BIM. BIM modelling such as Revit, has allowed for building informa-tion to become a coherent singular development, where design, analysis etc. can be developed as a cohesive progression of building construction. The idea that follows that this will allow Archi-tects to regain their original standing as ‘master builders’ is an exciting thought. That digital tech-nology can give power back to the architect, to not just develop form, function, program and hu-manise space but to take a building from incep-tion through to construction is a really exciting idea, and retains the architect as a fundamental profession for the future.

4d CONTROLLeft: Volume of Walt Disney Concert Hall, showing a 4D model developed in 2003. Still the ‘idea’ or de-sign intent was devel-oped externally from the computer, a com-bination of comput-erisation using com-putation to physically realise the concept.

Right: Internal photo of completed Walt Disney Concert Hall

Computation is a term that differs from, but is often confused with, computerization. While computa-tion is the procedure of calculat-ing, i.e. determining something by mathematical or logical meth-ods, computerization is the act of entering, processing, or stor-ing information in a computer or a computer system. Comput-erization is about automation, mechanization, digitization, and conversion. Generally, it involves the digitization of entities or pro-cesses that are preconceived, predetermined, and well defined. In contrast, computation is about the exploration of indeterminate, vague, unclear, and often ill-de-fined processes; because of its exploratory nature, computation aims at emulating or extending the human intellect. It is about rationalization, reasoning, logic, algorithm, deduction, induction, extrapolation, exploration, and estimation. In its manifold impli-cations, it involves problem solv-ing, mental structures, cognition, simulation, and rule-based intel-ligence, to name a few.

Terzidis, Kostas (2006). AlgorithmicArchitecture (Boston, MA: Elsevier),

Computation seems to be the future of computer aided design, It allows for the tool being used to become a generator of ideas, not just a facilita-tor. The Knowledge Centre, which is part of the Masdar Institute of Sci-ence and Technology is an example of computation being used to create a feedback loop between design development and fabrication techniques. (pp.26 computational works) The Glulam structural members were de-signed to be able to create a universal mould for all beams, even though their dimensions changed, this process allowed the design team to then rationalise the design, creating a design that was responsive to fabrica-tion prior to development, it was a generator of form, and structure, while aiding in its fabrication. Fabrication rationalised the designs generation, instead of post rationlisation reinterpreting it.

The quote by Kostas Terzidis (right) has helped me understand and quan-tify the power of computational design. its ability to interconnect, interpo-late and then extrapolate information in a complex system, responding to design considerations, creating feedback loops as seen in National Bank of Kuwait Head-Quarters, that allow for parametric responses to complex issues, connecting design to digital, and inturn the pixel to the physical. A purely rational approach to design descovery and problem solving.

Branko Kolarevic, Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing (2003). pp.8

Left: The Knowledge Centre, part of the M.asdar Institute of Science and Technology. Developed by SMG

parametric PARAMETRICISMparameters of discovery

Zaha Hadid’s form informing Urbanism...http://www.core.form-ula.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/zaha_hadid.jpgLast accessed 26/03/13

patrik PARAMETRICISMparameters of definition

patrik PARAMETRICISMThere is nothing new about parametric thinking in architecture. Great archi-tecture has always been aware of its social role, and has consequently been informed by multivalent parameters. Farshid Moussavi - Architectural Review - viewpoints: Farshid Moussavi on the need for parametric thinking. September 2011

One must not view ‘design’ pa-rameters as a contemporary ar-chitectural discovery. Parametric considerations and parametric constraints have been applied to architectural design since hu-mans began to create shelter. Parameters of material, of con-struction, of weather, of sun, of shade, of culture, of history, of society and of economy. Thus ‘parametricism’, this confusing modern term -(Patrik Schum-acher in his text for AJ ‘Let the style wars begin’ attempts to define as a style)- must run deeper than stylistic and cat-egorial considerations. If form is what is dictating parametric de-sign (as a stylistic interpretation would suggest) then parameters are not there for architectural consideration but purely sculp-tural realisation. Parametricism as a stylistic genus.

Then what is true architectural Parametricism?

In his lecture on Parametric De-sign, Daniel Davis, defines his prefered definition as one by Weisstein 2003, 2150:

a set of equations that expre-ess a set of quantities as explicit functions of a number of inde-pendent variables, known as ‘parameters’”

This defiintion then dictates parametric design as being something far more logical, mathmatical and algorithmic than an artistic or stylistic con-sideration.

Fluid, sinuous forms and organ-icism, must not be assumed to define ‘parametric’. One needs to look at parametric as a path of creation not purely for formal-istic outcomes (however desired forms may result) but as a way of creating a solution that is repon-sive to architectural problems, that then allow for one to define and constrain. Input parameters that define and inform output, then creating a new input.

In Patrik Shumachers’ book, The Autopoiesis of Architec-ture, Shumacher attempts to stylise a new ‘discourse’ called ‘Parametricism’, it is important to note (as Peter Buchanan’s quote to left shows) his definition of parametricism is not paramet-ric modelling, it is a stylistic inter-pretation of form being a driver for program, an aesthetic func-tionalism. His reasoning behind a universal term for ‘parametri-cism’ is as clear a path of self in-terest as the Corbusian Modulor, an attempt at monopolisation of architectural thought and out-come - thus income.

Therefore, for the purpose of clarity and perspicuity the term parametricism shall be ignored, and I shall use parametric mod-elling as a prefered definition for the use of algorithmic param-eters.

This allows for future emphasis and creation of discourse to not be emblazoned with pre exist-ing labels of parametricism. Not allowing aesthetic beliefs to pre determine judgement of ‘dis-course’ and architectural out-comes.

parameters of definition

‘Rejecting Parametri-cism.... does not imply a rejection of paramet-ric modelling. This is an immensely useful... part of any architects reper-toire... the sculptural and scale-less forms typical of ‘Parametricism’ are not necessarily implied in parametric modelling, they refrence the person-al aesthetic preferences of the designer.’ Peter Buchanan in response to Patrik Schumacher’s stylistic explanation of ‘parametricism’ - Peter Bu-chanan The Autopoiesis of Architecture: Dis-sected, Discussed and Decoded. AR March 2011

toyo-ito PARAMETRICISMparameters of the box

<http://www.pritzkerprize.com/sites/default/files/gallery_images/toyo-ito_taichung-opera-house-03.jpg> last accessed 26/03/13

toyo-ito PARAMETRICISM

Architecture has to follow the diversity of society and has to reflect that a simple square or cube can’t contain that diver-sity - Toyo Ito discussing Taichung Metropolitan Opera House

Toyo Ito, 2013 Pritzker Prize winner and world renowned Japanese Architect, has employed the use of parametric modelling to create the double-curved, continuous, internal, interconnected surface that defines the horizontal and verti-cal space of the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House.

It is a study in form and program being interlinked, defining walls as ‘interncon-nected space’ a homogenous massing that questions the rigidity of modernist programme. His quote above allows insight into his belief and reasoning behind this projects disregard of rectilinearity (even though the building is contained by a rectangle.....). What is important about the project is that spatial connections -views through space, interactions between users, and building functions- have been parametrically constrained (Andrezej Piotrowski, 173, 2011) and have al-lowed for an interconnection and complexity of program (thus form) that could not have been realised without its use.

The complex spatial organisation is defined by a digital prcoess of spatial cre-ation. This process divided a membrane in to A and B between two surfaces, these surfaces are then pulled apart, creating two homologous spaces, seperat-ed only by the double curved membrane. (ArcSpace 2006) This process is then repeated from above and below, allowing two horizontal and vertical spaces to develop, all connected via the structural membrane. (ArcSpace 2006) This pro-cess of evolution of space was made possible through digital generative tools, that allowed for manipulation of surface and volumetric considerations to take place in response to each other, allowing what Toyo Ito describes as the ‘Emerg-ing Grid’ (Ito 2010, p.172) This ‘emerging grid’ is a series of intersecting tubes that relate at 90 ° angles, allowing for the volumetric and building program to be constrained, while also allowing for the parametrically modelled surface to blur the buildings spatial understanding through a fluid relationship between its parts. Thus, the buildings form, program and structure all dependent on, and a result of parametric modelling.

parameters of the box

hadid PARAMETRICISMparameters of form

http://www.architectural-review.com/home/innovators/riverside-museum-by-zaha-hadid-architects-glasgow-uk/8616624.article

hadid PARAMETRICISMparameters of form

To the majority of people, Zaha Hadid and her firm ZHA, are the zenith of ‘para-metric’ ‘digital’ architecture. A sinuous, form based and stylistic architecture. Architecture that is immediately recognisable as coming from ZHA and whose conception was derived via digital means.

Originally Zaha Hadid developed her architectural ideas through manual design conception, from paper models to expressive painting. However in the past decade the firm has moved towards the use of digital technology as a driver for form based design conception as opposed to more manual modes of discov-ery. ZHA is where the agenda of ‘Parametricist’ Patrik Schumacher, is played out in real time.

The RIverside Museum by ZHA in Glasgow Scotland is a prime example of parametric architecture dictating form over context, and homogeneity over ar-ticulation.

(need to discuss the use of parametric tools to design roof that responded to river) (discuss lack of scale) (a scaled up digital model) (homogenous form means major construction to create form is not understood) (materiality is non existant) (use of site context to generate form parametrically) (compare with ZHA urban design work, striking from above, as effective from ground level?) (Offer another ZHA project that works well) (is ZHA style architecture what Wyndham needs? - brings attention to place, striking etc.)

wyndham PARAMETRICISMparameters of brief

Photo courtesy of Kirrily Barnett. <http://cargocollective.com/kirillybarnett/Point-Cook> last accessed 26/03/13

Parametric modeling... Rather than the designer creating the design solution (by direct manipulation) as in conventional design tools, the idea is that the designer establishes the relationships by which parts connect, builds up a design using these relationships and edits the relationships by observing and selecting from the results produced. The system takes care of keeping the design consistent with the relationships and thus in-creases designer ability to explore ideas by reducing the tedium of rework.pp.24 Elements of Parametric Design. Woodbury 2010.

DISCUSS ROLE OF PARAMETRIC DESIGN AS A POINT OF DISCOVERY FOR WYNDHAM. (discuss ex-isting urban fabric -or lack there of-) (lack of landscape, discuss architectural culture and history)

(discuss choice for parametric stream I have chosen to persue - support in relation to brief)

(redesign indesign document)

(make bibliography....)

wyndham PARAMETRICISMparameters of brief