Thinking + Making: Digital Craft As Social Project

Architecture Conference Proceedings and Architecture Presentations 2016 Thinking + Making: Digital Craft sa Social Project Shelby Elizabeth Doyle Iowa State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/arch_conf Part of the Architecture Commons Recommended Citation Doyle, Shelby Elizabeth, "Thinking + Making: Digital Craft as ocS ial Project" (2016). Architecture Conference Proceedings and Presentations. 87. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/arch_conf/87 This Conference Proceeding is brought to you for free and open access by the Architecture at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Architecture Conference Proceedings and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Thinking + Making: Digital Craft sa Social Project Disciplines Architecture Comments “That parametricism “goes social” is not a concession to the prevailing winds of political correctness (that divert and dissolve the innovative thrust of architectural discourse). Rather, it is a sign of parametricism’s maturity, confidence and readiness to take on the full societal tasks of architecture, i.e. it implies the inauguration of Parametricism 2.0… After 15 years of muscle flexing it is high time to put these innovations to more serious work.” Patrik Schumaker (Schumaker, 2015) The mor‘ e serious work’ presented here is the presentation of craft, and specifically digital craft, as a historic and theoretic framework that extends the agency of computational thinking and parametric design in the social project of architecture. Ultimately, this paper argues for the development of a more robust theoretical position about the social application of advanced parametric design as a means to expand architectural agency in the discourse surrounding parametric design’s relationship to large scale social issues. This conference proceeding is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/arch_conf/87 Thinking + Making: Digital Craft as Social Project Shelby Elizabeth Doyle, AIA Iowa State University ABSTRACT: “That parametricism “goes social” is not a concession to the prevailing winds of political correctness (that divert and dissolve the innovative thrust of architectural discourse). Rather, it is a sign of parametricism’s maturity, confidence and readiness to take on the full societal tasks of architecture, i.e. it implies the inauguration of Parametricism 2.0… After 15 years of muscle flexing it is high time to put these innovations to more serious work.” Patrik Schumaker (Schumaker, 2015) The ‘more serious work’ presented here is the presentation of craft, and specifically digital craft, as a historic and theoretic framework that extends the agency of computational thinking and parametric design in the social project of architecture. Ultimately, this paper argues for the development of a more robust theoretical position about the social application of advanced parametric design as a means to expand architectural agency in the discourse surrounding parametric design’s relationship to large scale social issues. 1 INTRODUCTION As the discipline continues to struggle with self- identity and the direction of its fragmented authority, Architect and theorist Stan Allen notes in his arti- craft remains the most valuable tool at the architect’s cle Artificial Ecologies that the practice of architec- disposal. This papers aims to define craft as it relates ture has always been in the paradoxical position of to architecture and the architect, to position craft as being invested in the production of real, concrete an agent of social and political change, and to identi- matter yet working with tools of abstract representa- fy digital craft as an extension of this agency. tion (drawings, models, computer simulations and so forth). The paradox charges the question: does thinking (and its associated abstractions) or making (and 2 DEFINING CRAFT its concrete matter) give architecture its agency? (Allen, 2003) The term craft is derived from the Middle English The capacity to craft, to think through making, craeft, meaning strength and skill. Craft can also be instills architecture with an explicit agency to en- associated with the professional affiliation of a guild gage outside of the academy and the discipline. The or trade association. Indeed, it first came into wide- introduction of digital craft into contemporary prac- spread use in conjunction with the advent of guilds – tice extends, rather than limits, this agency in the so- self-protective medieval associations or private clubs cial (or political) project of architecture. The process of artisans with formally cultivated talents rooted in of thinking through making and the accompanying innate and rare abilities. Craft creates intimate rela- non-linear methods position architects to identify tions between problem solving and problem finding, pathways of thought into contemporary issues, and technique and expression, play and work. (Sennett, then make visible that which remains unseen to oth- 2008) It brings to mind material, matter, repetition, er disciplines. Craft encourages imagination and talent, time, pride and dedication. Craft comes bur- through imagination the architect enters into the dened with accusations of nostalgia, luddite tenden- spheres of life, which are not immediate to personal cies and perhaps even a regressive attachment to the experience: the social (or political) project of archi- past and the pre-industrial. In the mid 17th century tecture. This imagination is a powerful agent as well. Denis Diderot spent the better part of twenty years The ability to imagine a better world equipped with identifying and documenting crafts. The result: The the capacity to act, is to craft an object with inten- Encyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Crafts, ex- tionality and purpose. haustively recorded how practical things are accom- plished and proposed ways to improve them. In The Encyclopedia Diderot, places manual pursuits on tory has drawn fault lines dividing theory and equal footing with mental labors, asserting that the practice, technique and expression, craftsman and craftsman’s labors were icons of the Enlightenment. artist, maker and user; modern society suffers He also scorned hereditary members of the elite who from this historical inheritance… “ did no work and so in Diderot’s opinion contributed Arendt’s argument has a greater subtlety to it than nothing to society. His definition of craft is as fol- Sennet allows. She casts labor as necessity and in lows: these terms to labor means to be enslaved by neces- “CRAFT. This name is given to any profession sity. It is this enslavement, which breeds the con- that requires the use of the hands, and is limited to tempt of Homo faber who has been freed from these a certain number of mechanical operations to necessities by Animal laborans labor. Simultaneous- produce the same piece of work, made over and ly Homo faber is aware that he has won his freedom over again. I do not know why people have a low by excluding Animal laborans from full participa- opinion of what this world implies; for we depend tion in the political process by granting him only on the crafts for all the necessary things of life.” enough time to labor. Denis Diderot, The Encyclopedia 1747-1765. But what then of the artisan? What of Ranciere’s As can be seen in Diderot’s explanation, the idea cobbler who discomforts the philosopher? The di- of craft and its embodiment of the thinking maker chotomy of productive (cobbling) and unproductive produced discomfort as it upset a social order where labor (philosophizing) has been a topic of interest thinking and making were separated and making for a range of scholars from Adam Smith to Karl subordinate to thinking. This separation is not new; Marx, who elevated labor above contemplation, re- it extends to the very foundations of philosophy. As versing the traditional hierarchy. Arendt as well doesn’t let Homo faber escape freely with his vision Jacques Ranciere demonstrates in his book The Phi- losopher and His Poor: “So there is only one princi- of separateness from the labor of Animal labors. She ple of exclusion (from political life). Plato’s Repub- holds Homo faber in contempt, not innocent of but lic does not decree that one cannot be a shoemaker complicate in the acts of his counterpart, since he and a citizen at the same time. It simply establishes (Homo faber) invented the artifice, which initially that one cannot be a shoemaker and a weaver at the spawned the labor. (Arendt, 1958) Kenneth Framp- same time…” (Ranciere, 2004) In doing so Plato ton picks up Arendt’s argument in his essay “Inten- sets forth that the shoemaker has only been given tion, Crafty and Rationality” from Building (in) the enough time to do one thing and therefore cannot Future: Recasting Labor in Architecture. He further encroach on the monopoly of thought and leisure elaborates upon Arendt’s distinction by quoting that the philosopher enjoys. The thinking-maker dis- again from The Human Condition: rupts the neat hierarchical social order which prefer- “If the Animal laborans needs the help of Ho- ences the philosopher, as thinker, over the artisan, as mo faber to ease his labor and remove his pain, laborer. and if mortals need his help to erect a home on earth, acting and speaking men need the help of Homo faber in his highest capacity, that is,

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