The role of the new technologies Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen

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Implementing Advanced Knowledge

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The arrival of digital tools in the architectural sphere has supported a strong revolution in many of its fields. However, its apparition has also opened some question marks: To what extent does computational representation change our way of working? On which fundaments do the relations in between the modes in which we think, represent and build architecture base themselves? How can we use digital technology in order to improve our material comprehension? And, above all: Which is the place of poetics in architecture?

Through digital tools, our architectural representation has completely changed, and, therefore, the way in which we understand and design it has also been transformed. In this sense, the advance of technology plays a crucial role, in understanding it not as a practice mainly destined to optimise a technical activity, but as a research field to develop: it is fundamental to understand how the computational phenomena changes our way of representation.However, in the last 20 years there has been a key shift in the computational comprehension role: if during the 90’s the dominating impression was that the digital phenomena was moving us away from reality in order to submerge us in a mere virtual trivialisation, it seems that in the last years this relation has been inverted, and computational use allows us to have a much more precise

The role of the new technologies(IaaC Lecture Series 6th november 2012; synthesis by Jordi Vivaldi)

Cover - Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and Karin Bech (CITA)Figure 1 - Tulip Umbrella, Detail.Figure 2 - Tulip Umbrella, Making.Figure 3 - Strange Metabolisms (2007) Is a research collaboration between Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (CITA) and Toni Hicks, Constructed Textiles, University of Brighton.

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and rigorous contact with reality. It means that our comprehension of the structure and the behaviour of materials becomes extremely realist, which opens to us a universe of possibilities that will definitely change the way in which we operate as architects.

Therefore, digital fabrication clearly leads us towards a new use of the materials. The opportunity to insert sensors in material in order to receive real time information about its behaviour, allowing us to develop constructive strategies radically opposed to the traditional: many architectural exercises developed by CITA (Center for Information technology and Architecture) have experimented with concepts as “join” and “element”, demonstrating to what extend can the first be simplified as soon as the behaviour of the second one is deeply comprehended. It exists, therefore, a conversation in between material and structure, understanding and operating with both concepts as if they were a single one.

In this sense, it is important to underline an influential change in the role of the materials that, without any doubt, is going beyond being a simple step further. Traditionally, materials have been framed in a “hylomorphique” scheme, in which its role was mainly passive and receptive, ready to be informed by an external agent that would formally qualify it. The material understood in this way, was an abstract continuum, neutral and undifferentiated, a kind of generic working mass prepared to receive all its singularities from external inputs. However, nowadays and through the possibility of inserting sensors inside his molecular structure, the material

abandons its previous “hylemorphique” paradigm in order to become an active and intelligent subject, capable of gathering, processing and transmitting information and ready not only to react but also to actuate with its own initiative.

It involves, indeed, a completely different conception in relation to the previous material comprehension, but, in any case, calls to develop at least three more breaks with the traditional thinking:

Firstly, the use of an inter- scale procedure, capable to studying how the behaviour of a particular element in a micro scale affects the macro ensemble, showing the interactive and interdependent character of all the elements of the system in between them and with the own logic of the system seems inevitable. Secondly, the traditional representative systems are not able to aggregate in their description the behaviour of materials. In this sense the geometry is no longer anymore the single parameter to represent and, therefore, it becomes necessary to use new methods of representation that can show simultaneously other parameters as the flexibility, pressure or movement.

Finally, the result of all this process will never be completely finished: the system will always be collecting and sending information, so an architecture is no longer going to be delivered as a resolved, definitive and merely descriptive project, but as a open system of potentials, active, intelligent and open to receive answers from the information that it is producing and communicating by itself.

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From here on, many research lines exist in which the work can continue, but overall we need to insist on two essential aspects as the relation in between the macro-scale and the micro-scale, and the concept of representation as a essential tool in order to implement all this theoretical framework. Indeed, the relation in between scales of opposite dimension allows us to understand the consequences that a change of extensive (dimension, weight) or intensive (density, pressure, colour) properties can have in the scale of an object. Here lies the idea of understanding architecture as a living being, although it is capital to extract from this paradigm a new kind of intelligence.

On the other hand, at the heart of this system, we can find the representation systems. It seems obvious that in a scenario like this it is not enough with geometrically represent our study objects, but it is necessary to add to the representation other layers of information that let us understand the parametric complexity in which we operate. However, this technological revolution cannot and should not forget that architecture is not only moving in the technic domain. Architecture deals also with fields that are not explicitly technologic, as the case of poetics. Therefore, beside studying the spatial consequences derivate from this new mode of thinking and proceed originated by computational technologies, but, above all, it is necessary to consider to what extend al those spatial changes can transform the way in which we inhabit the world and we relate in between us as a collective. In this sense it is crucial to establish a horizon of values and targets that we can use as a compass in order to orientate all the technological progress that we are adding to our list, and because of this we cannot forget that our final goal is to dialogue with a human being that stands out by it sensible and emotional character.

Figure 4 - Slow Furl, Textile view.Figure 5 - Collaboration with Philip Beesley (Waterloo) and Mette Ramsgard Thomsen.Note - The pictures here presented are a selection done by the editorial team.

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IAAC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:Nader Tehrani, Architect, Director MIT School Architecture, BostonJuan Herreros, Architect, Professor ETSAM, MadridNeil Gershenfeld, Physic, Director CBA MIT, BostonHanif Kara, Engineer, Director AKT, LondonVicente Guallart, Architect, Chief City Arquitect of BarcelonaWilly Muller, Director of Barcelona RegionalAaron Betsky, Architect & Art Critic, Director Cincinnati Art Mu seum, Cincinnati Hugh Whitehead, Engineer, Director Foster+ Partners technology, LondonNikos A. Salingaros, Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio Salvador Rueda, Ecologist, Director Agencia Eco logia Urbana, BarcelonaArtur Serra, Anthropologist, Director I2CAT, Barcelona

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