Week 2 | Design to Production

Design to Production will discuss the reconnection and streamlining of the design to construction of the built environment. The lecture will review the positives and challenges of the process through successfully completed design to production projects.

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With the introduction of contemporary modelling tools and 3D computational software, the arts of critically designed architecture has become more efficient and expansive throughout its industry. With the further advancement within the digital age, “Parametric CAD systems and Digital fabrication technologies has left its traces in contemporary architecture. It ops new prospects, but at the same time generates new challenges, mainly due to the immensely increased amount of information that needs to be handled in the planning phase." - Scheurer, F( 2014) Pg. 290 Paragraph 2 [1]. Evidence clearly stated in the readings suggests that, the utilisation of parametric design has become simpler and much more automotive to design and produce various forms of material. As Scheurer states within the readings, this new technological standard brings about both a negative, but mainly a positive fulfillment aspect to it. Designs are able to become more complex, as the fabrication process is much easier, but at the same time more information and considerations are required in the process. Designers and artists such as Frank Gehry have adopted this new trend whilst also sustaining traditional means of design. For this, Gehry’s method of design resides on, “the digital technologies are not used as a medium of conception but as a medium of translation in process that takes as its input the geometry….. and produces as its output the digitally-encoded control information which is used to drive various fabrication machines” - ­Kolarevic ,B (2003) Pg. 40-41 Paragraph 1 [2].  It is to this instant that modern day technology has proven to revolutionize the production industry, both for the architect, who focus on traditional means, and to the individuals who focus on the contemporary means of design. Parametric design has become increasingly popular due to its flexibility and automotive behaviour within complex and simple design strategies. "Selection input parameters during the design process can be made lightly or in greater detail, however, must be articulated at the outset”. ­- Klinger, K (2008) Pg.28 Paragraph 4 [3] It is evident that through the digital age, the availability of contemporary design tools and fabrication methods have revolutionized how designers and architects conceptualize their designs and begin to consider the various challenges that come while bringing their designs into the physical world.

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r e f e r e n c e s

[1]: Scheurer, F. 2014. ‘Materialising Complexity’ Theories of the digital in architecture. R. Oxman and R. Oxman: Pp. 283-291.

[2]: Kolarevic, B. 2003. ‘Digital Production’. Architecture in the digital age: design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon Press: Pp. 40-68

[3]: Klinger, K 2008, elations: ‘Information Exchange in Designing and Making Architecture’. Manufacturing material effects, rethinking design and making in architecture, B. Kolarevic and K. R. Klinger. New York, Routledge: Pp. 26-36.

Week 1 | Analogue to Digital

The lecture will include a review of analogue methods used in design – eg: hand drawing, perspective, diagramming, physical models, and collage. This review will be provided to demonstrate how analogue methods are continuing to be used in everyday practice integrating with digital methods.

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The History of architectural practices’ disassociation from building begun in the late Renaissance, “with the introduction of perspective representation and orthographic drawings as a medium of communicating the information about buildings” - Kolarevic, B (2003), Pg. 70 [1]. With the need of external information for contractors, additional analogue methods including; orthographic abstractions, such as plans, sections and elevations were developed as they believed drawings were “a means to explore ideas, to develop theories, to speculate on matter and use, and a space in which to dream and research”. The same notion applies today as the architectural practice remains true to some traditional methods. However, at the same time, architects are choosing to “shift their attention from drawing production to digital information authoring” - Kolarevic, B (2003), Pg. 74 [2], as in this way, the adoption of more contemporary methods increase efficiency and design freedom. Frank Gehry’s office stands as a great example which explores the familiar design worlds of the analogue and the digital. In their work a more specialised and controlled design world is essential as with an extensive shape vocabulary, used in conjunction with geometric transformations, shape algebra is developed. Thus, with a more specialised vocabulary, they are able to focus “on worlds that entail high-complexity derivations” - Mitchell, W (2003), Pg. 85 [3], and provide the architectural world with complex architectural masterpieces such as the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao. It is with this correlation we can establish that the practice of design and the art of architecture, can establish that "Whenever we attempt to speak, write or otherwise represent aspects of our experience and understanding of physical reality we are entering into a modelling relationship with the world" - Starkey, B (2005) Pg. 265 [4] to which connects what we envision digitally to what exists within our physical realm.

Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

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r e f e r e n c e s

[1] [2]: Kolarevic, B. (2003). Information Master Builders. Architecture in the digital age : design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon, Press: Pp. 69-74

[3]: Mitchell, W. (2003). Design Worlds and Fabrication Machines. Architecture in the digital age : design and manufacturing. B. Kolarevic. New York, NY, Spon Press: Pp. 83-88.

[4]: Starkey, B. (2005). "Architectural models: material, intellectual, spiritual." Arq : Architectural Research Quarterly 9(3-4):Pp. 265-272.