Designing and Manufacturing Architecture in the Digital Age KOLAREVIC, Branko University of Pennsylvania, USA

Go contents 05 Designing and Manufacturing Architecture in the Digital Age KOLAREVIC, Branko University of Pennsylvania, USA http://www.upenn.edu/gsfa The paper describes and examines the implications of the recent developments in the architectural application of the latest digital design and fabrication technologies, which offer alternatives to the established understandings of architectural design and production processes and their material and economic constraints. It offers a possibility of a revised understanding of the historic relationship between architecture and its means of production. Keywords: Digital design, digital fabrication, CAD/CAM. Introduction industries, is opening up new dimensions in “Having abandoned the discourse of style, the architectural design. The implications are vast, as architecture of modern times is characterized by “architecture is recasting itself, becoming in part an its capacity to take advantage of the specific experimental investigation of topological geometries, achievements of that same modernity: the partly a computational orchestration of robotic material innovations offered it by present-day science and production and partly a generative, kinematic sculpting technology. The relationship between new of space,” as observed by Peter Zellner in “Hybrid technology and new architecture even comprises Space” (1999). a fundamental datum of what are referred to as It was only within the last few years that the avant-garde architectures, so fundamental as to advances in computer-aided design (CAD) and constitute a dominant albeit diffuse motif in the computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technologies figuration of new architectures.” have started to have an impact on building design Ignasi de Sola Morales (1997) and construction practices. They opened up new opportunities by allowing production and construction The Information Age, like the Industrial Age before it, of very complex forms that were until recently very is challenging not only how we design buildings, but difficult and expensive to design, produce, and also how we manufacture and construct them. In the assemble using traditional construction technologies. conceptual realm, computational, digital architectures The consequences will be profound, as the historic of topological, non-Euclidean geometric space, kinetic relationship between architecture and its means of and dynamic systems, and genetic algorithms, are production is increasingly being challenged by new supplanting technological architectures. Digitally digitally driven processes of design, fabrication and driven design processes characterized by dynamic, construction. open-ended and unpredictable but consistent transformations of three-dimensional structures are Digital Architectures giving rise to new architectonic possibilities (Kolarevic The new digital approaches to architectural design 2000). The generative and creative potential of digital (digital architectures) are based on computational media, together with manufacturing advances already concepts such as topological space (topological attained in automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding architectures), isomorphic surfaces (isomorphic Architectural Information Management – 05 Design Process 3 117 Go contents 05 Figure 1. Isomorphic architectures: Bernard Franken’s BMW Pavilion in Munich. architectures), motion kinematics and dynamics heterogeneous, yet coherent forms of the topological (animate architectures), keyshape animation architectures computationally possible and their (metamorphic architectures), parametric design construction attainable by means of computer (parametric architectures), and genetic algorithms numerically controlled (CNC) machinery. (evolutionary architectures), as discussed in Isomorphic architectures (Figure 1), based on (Kolarevic 2000). New categories could be added to isomorphic polysurfaces, represent another point of this taxonomy as new processes become introduced departure from Platonic solids and Cartesian space. based on emerging computational approaches. For Blobs or metaballs, as isomorphic polysurfaces are examples, new methods could emerge based on sometimes called, are amorphous objects constructed performance-based (structural, acoustical, as composite assemblages of mutually inflecting environmental, etc.) generation and transformation of parametric objects with internal forces of mass and forms. attraction. They exercise fields or regions of influence, In his essay on “architectural curvilinearity” which could be additive (positive) or subtractive published in 1993, Greg Lynn offers examples of new (negative). The geometry is constructed by computing approaches to design that move away from the a surface at which the composite field has the same deconstructivism’s “logic of conflict and contradiction” intensity – hence the name – isomorphic polysurfaces. to develop a “more fluid logic of connectivity.” This The surface boundary of the whole (the isomorphic new fluidity of connectivity is manifested through polysurface) shifts or moves as fields of influence vary “folding,” a design strategy that departs from Euclidean in their location and intensity (fig 1). geometry of discrete volumes represented in In animate architectures, design, as described by Cartesian space, and employs topological, “rubber- Lynn (1998), “is defined by the co-presence of motion sheet” geometry of continuous curves and surfaces, and force at the moment of formal conception.” Force, mathematically described as NURBS, Non-Uniform as an initial condition, becomes “the cause of both Rational B-Splines. What makes NURBS curves and motion and particular inflections of a form.” According surfaces particularly appealing is the ability to easily to Lynn, “while motion implies movement and action, control their shape by manipulating the control points, animation implies evolution of a form and its shaping weights, and knots. The NURBS make the forces.” In his projects, Lynn utilizes an entire 118 Architectural Information Management – 05 Design Process 3 Go contents 05 repertoire of motion-based modeling techniques, such generative process. A number of similar forms, as keyframe animation, forward and inverse “pseudo-organisms,” are generated, which are then kinematics, dynamics (force fields) and particle selected from the generated populations based on emission to generate the initial architectural form. In predefined “fitness” criteria. The selected “organisms,” his House Prototype in Long Island, skeletons with a and the corresponding parameter values, are then global envelope are deformed using inverse crossbred, with the accompanying “gene crossovers” kinematics under the influence of various site-induced and “mutations”, thus passing beneficial and survival- forces. enhancing traits to new generations. Optimum Metamorphic architectures rely on generative solutions are obtained by small incremental changes techniques such as keyshape animation over several generations. (metamorphosis), deformations of the modeling space What is common to all these approaches is an around the model using a bounding box (lattice almost exclusive use of topological geometries, which deformation), a spline curve, or one of the coordinate appear to be almost de rigueur regardless of the system axis or planes, and path animation, which underlying computational foundation. “Topology is the deforms an object as it moves along a selected path. science of self-varying deformation,” observes Brian In keyshape animation, changes in the geometry are Massumi (1998). Topological space opens up a recorded as keyframes (keyshapes) and the software universe where essentially curvilinear forms are not then computes the in-between states. In deformations stable but may undergo variations, giving rise to new of the modeling space, object shapes conform to the possibilities, i.e., the emergent form. Designers can changes in geometry of the modeling space. see forms as a result of reactions to a context of forces In parametric architectures, it is the parameters or actions, as demonstrated by Lynn’s work. There of a particular design that are declared, not its shape. is, however, nothing automatic or deterministic in the By assigning different values to the parameters, definition of actions and reactions; they implicitly different objects or configurations can be created. create fields of indetermination from which unexpected Equations can be used to describe the relationships and genuinely new forms might emerge— between objects, thus defining an associative unpredictable variations are generated from the built geometry—the “constituent geometry that is mutually multiplicities. linked” (Burry 1999). That way, interdependencies The capacity of digital architectures to generate between objects can be established, and objects’ new designs is therefore highly dependent on behavior under transformations defined. As observed designer’s perceptual and cognitive abilities, as by Burry, “the ability to define, determine and continuous, dynamic processes ground the emergent reconfigure geometrical relationships is of particular form, i.e., its discovery, in qualitative cognition. Their value.” generative role is accomplished through the designer’s Evolutionary architectures propose the simultaneous interpretation and manipulation of a evolutionary model of nature as the generating computational construct (topological surface, process for architectural form. In this approach to isomorphic field, kinetic skeleton, field of forces, design, according

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