Scripted Narratives As Architectural Process
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Scripted Narratives as Architectural Process A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Interior Design of the College of DAAP by Andrew Sheeks B.S. Arch, 2008 November 14, 2013 Committee Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Nnamdi Elleh, Ph.D 1 Abstract Scripting has become a buzzword in architecture, quite literally to architectural form. By analyzing existing partly due to the proliferation of algorithmic and (constant) spatial conditions and introducing (variable) parametric design techniques in the field. While the contextual forces, a sequential process is constructed, influence of digital technology within architecture which through a series of diagrams, narrates the logic is without question, it can be said that the genesis of operations. of logically driven architectural processes greatly precedes the digital revolution. A comparison can be made between digital processes and how Fordism favored the assembly line process over product. Fordism and assembly line production methods were influential to architects during the first half of the twentieth century, as these designers emulated the aesthetic and formal qualities of industrially produced objects. The system Ford invented had impact across all disciplines, including in architectural profession, and it resulted in the architect being delinquent as the creator of form, and becoming the controller of design processes similar to the assembly line. As architecture sought a means of expressing how it had been made, the diagram as a generative device became a prevalent method of expressing inherent logical operations. This thesis takes the position that architectural objects are representations of inherent logical processes contained within them. These systems form abstract diagrams, or body-plans, which ultimately translate 2 (BLANK PAGE OR COPYRIGHT NOTICE) 3 Contents 1. Fordism and Process 2. The Architect in the Information Age 3. Top-down versus Bottom-up Process 4. The Abstract Diagram 5. Design Response 4 Illustrations 1.1 Contained System (body-plan), Andrew Sheeks, 2010. 1.2 Event-chain, Andrew Sheeks, 2010. 1.3 Animated System, Andrew Sheeks, 2010. 2.1 Palladio and Corbusier (Colin Rowe), Andrew Sheeks, 2010. 2.2 The Manhattan Transcripts (series), Bernard Tschumi, 1976. Kipnis, Jeffery. Perfect Acts of Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2001. 2.3 House IV (Peter Eisenman), Andrew Sheeks, 2010. 2.4 Kubus (series), 3xN, 2007. http://www.3xn.dk (accessed May 14, 2010) 2.5 Museum Plaza (series), REX, 2005. http://www.rex-ny.com/work/museum-plaza (accessed May 14, 2010) 2.6 Bergen Fish Market and Square(series), Julien De Smedt, 2009. http://jdsa.eu/bgn (accessed February 8, 2014) 2.7 Book Hill (series), Ja-Ja, 2009. http://www.ja-ja.dk/app/webroot/infofiles/projects/slideshows/bookhill_lecture.html (accessed May 14, 2010) 2.8 Seattle Public Library, Rem Koolhaas/OMA, 2008. 2.9 Phototropic Response information housing distribution,Parametric Set-up, Maria Bessa, 2008. Bessa, Maria. “Unit Factor: Algorithmic Design. 5 1. Fordism and Process The first half of the twentieth century saw technological the process is a singular, contained system. Within innovation in industrial manufacturing that was that system exist individual tasks, each positioned manifested in the automotive industry in particular. This strategically in front of and behind another. Lastly, there era is so associated with Henry Ford’s development are influences lying outside of the contained system of the assembly line as a method for mass production that drive the physical flow of materials through the that the ensuing economic system is now referred to system. In terms of Ford and Model T production as Fordism.1 Fordism is most commonly associated specifically, the contained system was manifested by with mass production, mass consumption, and the Albert Kahn’s factories at Highland Park and River standardization of products, task specialization via an Rouge, Michigan. The factory provided not only assembly line and the elimination of skilled labor in the housing in which these processes were carried out, but process.2 In what has become most influential to field represented the avenues and limitations through which of architecture, Fordism introduced a spirit of favoring the system could run. Workers, tools and machines process over product.3 A systemic production method at each stage along the line ultimately form an event constitutes an embodied sequence of operations chain, or sequence of operations. Forces driving the similar to an algorithm or body-plan, concepts that event chain include, among others, financial factors, are prevalent within architecture discourse nearly one consumer demand and temporal aspects as set by hundred years later. managers. With these structures running in unison, the process was carried out inexpensively and efficiently. The Fordist system brought with it a profound change in the method of making, or the material process. Inexpensive and efficient automobile production, or Contrary to a traditionally crafted object, in which case more likely the processes which made this possible, an artisan assumes top-down control of the production was of significant influence to progressive architectural process, utilizing an array of tools to complete a thinkers of the era, ultimately becoming the impetus task, Fordism ran on the speed and efficiency of an for the Modern movement. The appeal to architects assembly line system, whereby individual tasks were of this period was the fact that for the first time specialized and positioned strategically within a linear commercially produced automobiles were being made process. Within that process exist different hierarchies widely available for the average person, embracing of relationship between elements. At the broadest level, the technological zeitgeist, while buildings were still 1 (Smith, 1993) 2 (Tolliday 1987, 2) 3 (Gartman 2009) 6 The term script evokes multiple interpretations when discussed within architectural discourse. On one hand, the word script refers to a codified set of instructions, or an algoritm, which is authored by a designer and entered into a particular peice of software. In this scenerio, the script is used perform operations which extend beyond the original functionality of the program as intended by its original creators, and/or to perform complex operations of which the human mind is incapable or comprehension. 7 1.1 contained system (body-plan) 1.2 event chain 1.3 animated system 8 being designed in historical styles and with the inherent innovations have always been influential to architectural bias of the artist-as-genius. The notion that buildings (and all cultural) objects, the Fordist era contributed could be produced in the same way that automobiles influential theories to the process of making that would and household objects were thus represented a way remain relevant within architectural discourse even as for and avant-garde architecture that was free from relevant contemporary technologies would evolve and the shackles of tradition and historicism. Ford’s Model change. The notion that buildings could be designed T production ultimately became the symbol of this as if machines produced them was novel at the time, movement as the desire for freedom through mobility and certainly influential to latter historical periods when became the essence of modernity.4 Le Corbusier buildings could in fact be designed by machines. adopted it wholesale in the book Vers une Architecture by illustrating how the assembly line could be a model for building production. It can be said that the Modernists were not initially interested in ornaments as it reminded them of the ancient way of practicing architecture. Thusly, the Modern aesthetic became free of ornament and decoration, as if they had been derived from a processes informed by the same economic and utilitarian considerations as an industrial product. The Fordist-era architect’s preoccupation with the industrial process thus represents an initial step away from the artist-as-genius notion and top-down form-making (prescribed aesthetic and formal conditions are of primary concern) and toward bottom-up form-finding (process is primary, form/aesthetics are secondary). While it is without question that certain technological 4 (Gartman 2009) 9 2. The Architect in the Information Age Fordism as the dominant economic system would information and communication technologies.3 If the eventually be replaced, but preoccupations with mantra of Fordist society was the standardization of systemic process and artistic concessions given to the product, the mantra of post-Fordism would be machine participation would remain relevant. The that of flexible specialization, “characterized by new 1960s saw architect change their objectives from principles in production, including specialist units of formal expression driven design to process driven production, decentralized management and versatile pursuit in design. technologies and workforces, to satisfy increasingly volatile markets.”4 By mid-century, the Fordist system was at a crisis. Increasing demand of consumers for diverse and Modernism had evolved from a desire to express changing goods was lowering labor productivity the freedom of mobility that inexpensive automobile and increasing production costs.1 Coupled with production had promised. On