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590 THE VALUE OF DESIGN Fragmentation and Interrogation as an Approach to Integration KARL WALLICK University of Cincinnati MICHAEL ZARETSKY University of Cincinnati INTRODUCTION The fragment as a pedagogical device is meant to reinforce that our work as architects should This paper tracks an attempt to embed the complex- have extended relevance beyond the primacy of ity of teaching building systems integration within a single object. In other words, that architecture a design studio context by removing any expec- extends across sites, histories, and cultures not tation of building completion on a comprehensive as singularities, but as vast interrelated systems scale, and instead interrogates existing case study that have individual characteristics articulated buildings and the students’ own projects through within the whole. For our students, their work is a series of fragmental design explorations. Our in- to bring expression to those fragments while still tention is to assist students in developing and ap- accommodating the overall system of forces and plying architectural and technical strategies across to consider strategies for technics1 as part of that multiple scales of a building project. To do so, we integrated fi eld. In addition to comparing the types have adopted a pedagogical strategy that focuses of knowledge generated by the fragment, we must on building fragments as a device for encourag- ask: how does this knowledge compare to the ing fl exible thinking when integrating the complex discipline2 rooted questions pursued in practice? technical systems prevalent in contemporary con- Does fragmentation as a pedagogical instrument struction. This manner of schematic development further perpetuate the segregation of structures, in the SEC studio encourages generative construc- environmental technology, and construction as tive thinking at multiple simultaneous scales rather distinct knowledge and technologies? Or does than design as a closed linear problem solving pro- acceptance of the fragment encourage the cess. Design is not seen as the creation of objects, development of more integrative design processes but as the guidance of multiple, simultaneously in young architects as they coordinate disparate acting forces into an integrated assembly. The co- specialties in contemporary practice? Furthermore, requisite technical course (SECtech) also embraces what are the qualities sought through this piecework fragmentation for the purposes of interrogation: method and does technical awareness provide three professors provide three different technical suffi cient linkage between various fragments at (structures, environmental and construction) and multiple scales? conceptual viewpoints for three distinct building pairs. Various forces within those building pairs Our premise is that, by designing discrete moments are compared to illuminate strategic thinking for of their own projects deeply, the student gains comprehensive building design. The intense focus greater technical knowledge and more conceptual on selective systems within these building pairs is design fl exibility than they might through the broad intended to support the same development of inte- design of an entire building project. By fl exibility, grative strategic thinking in the studio. we are referring to the weekly integration of new FRAGMENTATION AND INTERROGATION AS AN APPROACH TO INTEGRATION 591 technical information from the Technology course ollary courses for SEC Studio entitled SEC Tech 1 into their studio design process. Our expectation and 24. These courses were taught for the fi rst time is that students have constructed a set of deeper in academic year 2007-2008. investigations at multiple scales within an integra- tive building strategy. Examples will demonstrate The previous iteration of SECstudio was in many that as a teaching tool, fragmentary tactics can be ways, a typical comprehensive studio project. useful for preparing students to engage with the Students were assigned a program, site, and re- multiple technical and compositional forces within quired levels of technical and formal development architectural project. to which they were to conform. Overall design strategies were generated from a combination of BACKGROUND: INTERROGATING contextual conditions and theoretical forces of the INTEGRATION student’s own selection. However, three criticisms had been noted by the faculty: one, that given re- “I took it for granted that the WHAT and WHY of cent changes in the structure of architecture cur- architecture could, without saying, be assumed and riculum (including the development of a Master of that in my lessons, the main thing was to teach HOW one can design.”3 (Bernard Hoesli) Architecture program), additional intellectual rigor was needed to satisfy this more mature group of While not intended to be mimetic, the lens of frag- thinkers. The second criticism was the need to en- mentary focus is similar to the habits of contempo- courage median students to see the integration of rary practices with complex building design mod- technology as more than an expedient task but els tracking multiple streams of information, large as a transformable opportunity for their design task-specifi c teams, and fast-track construction work. Many students, having worked hard to de- schedules. Architects are expected to work quickly, velop initial strategies were reluctant to revise or to exhibit a holistic understanding of the architec- truly develop their design work in an opportunistic tural goals as well as deep knowledge for their own way upon receipt of new information. We sought a limited scope of responsibility in collaboration with teaching structure that would encourage the de- colleagues across multiple scales of the building velopment of strategies that were malleable to the project. There are still practices that maintain sep- multiple formal consequences brought by the man- arate design and technology teams just as in aca- ifold streams of technology5 they were expected to demia. This way of conceptualizing separate roles integrate into their work. Thirdly, our own fourth is a false dichotomy avoided by fi rms that capital- year undergraduate students lacked knowledge of ize on the relationship between technology and de- architectural precedents critical for elevating the sign. Firms such as Morphosis, KieranTimberlake, studio discourse and for the production of tech- Saana, and Renzo Piano Building Workshop seek nical and formal strategies. In most cases, those to establish more systemic practices within the projects of which the students were aware had not transactional opportunities afforded by conceptual been deeply interrogated beyond a formal appre- and technical modes of practice. Many contempo- ciation. Perhaps these criticisms speak more to the rary modes of design resolution in architecture are diffi culty of combining the two different populations primarily expedient in nature whereas this studio, of undergraduate and graduate students, but it was through the lens of fragmentary focus, endeavors the curricular scenario we were presented with and to exploit complex moments as potential sites of our objective was to address the students’ complex integrative design. needs within that existing structure. The capstone to the undergraduate curriculum is This studio has been revised to consist of a two- the Structures / Environment / Construction (SEC) quarter studio sequence with a co-requisite Studio taught in the fourth year of the undergradu- technology lecture. Students develop and articulate ate architecture program and the second year of diverse strategies for design at multiple scales and the graduate architecture program. During a cur- projections within the studio. The expectation is ricular assessment in 2003, it was decided that that the pedagogy supports manifold exploration there needed to be a greater focus on technical paths; that multiple scales generate multiple systems within the comprehensive studio model. design strategies and that each scale of thought The proposed solution was the development of cor- may inform, but does not necessarily coincide 592 THE VALUE OF DESIGN with the others. With this structure, we have attempted to slow down the rush to a singular conception so that multiple systems and forces can infl uence the project ordering. The open nature of the schematic development in the fi rst quarter of the studio encourages generative integrated constructive thinking rather than detailing as a closed linear problem solving process. For instance, if an architectural strategy is mutable only as an evenly scalable form, it would be a less useful strategy than one that can withstand asymmetrical scaling. Students are encouraged to critique their intentions by seeking not shapes, but vectors6. They are encouraged to question whether there are sympathetic alignments between constituent architectural forces. RESEARCH AS DESIGN: INTEGRATING SYSTEMS, FORCES, AND FORM “An architect can not construct a building without a theory of construction, however simple-minded that theory might be. Construction is not mathematics; architectural construction is just as subjective a process as is architectural design.”7 (Edward Ford) “But this new understanding will not result from the development and deployment of new techniques alone. The continued dedication to a technical Figure 1. student case-study analysis of Commerzebank interpretation of performance will lead to nothing Frankfurt.(above) and Kunsthaus Bregenz more than an
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