Generative Design and the Reduction of Presence

Digital design/fabrication is slowly emancipating architectural design from its traditional static/representational role and endowing it instead with a new, generative function. In opposition to the classical isomorphism between drawings and buildings, wherein the second stand as translations of the first, the digital design/fabrication scenario does not strictly fall within a semiotic frame as much as within a quasi biological context, reminiscent of the Aristotelian notion of entelechy. For the digital data does not represent the building as much it actively works to become the building itself. Only upon sending a given file to a machine does the building begin to materialize as an empirical reality, And eventually a habitable space as we empirically know it. And until the digital data actualizes itself, the building qua building is no more than one single, potential possibility among many others. This new universe of digital design/fabrication does not only cause buildings to be produced as quick, precise, multiply-generated objects but also reduces their presence as original entities. Like cars and fashion items, built structures will soon be manufactured as routinely-consumed items that would look original only through the subtle mechanisms of flexibility: frequent alteration of prototype design (Style 2010, Style 2015..) and “perpetual profilingi (mine, yours, hers,..). The generic will necessarily take over the circumstantial. But this truth will be veiled since “customized prototypes” will be produced or altered to individual or personal specifications. This implies that certain “myths” have to be generated to speed up consumption, to stimulate excessive use and to lock people into a continuous system which can generate consumption through a vocabulary of interchangeable, layered and repeatable functions. Samples of “next seasonis buildings” will be displayed and disseminated to enforce this strategy of stimulating and channeling desire. A degree of manipulation is involved, and the consumer is flattered into believing that his or her own free assessment of and choice between the options on offer will lead him or her to select the product the advertiser is seeking to sell. From the standpoint of the architect as a maker, the rising upsurge of digital design and fabrication could leave us mourning the loss of what has been a personal stomping ground, namely the intensity of the directly lived experiences of design and building. The direct, sensuous contact with drawings, models and materials is now being lost to a (digital) realm whose attributes refer to physical reality only remotely. Unlike (analogue) drawings and buildings, digital manipulations and prototypes do not exercise themselves in a real space, and are not subjected in the most rigorous way to spatial information. They denote in this sense a loss of immediacy and a withering of corporal thought. This flexible production of space and the consequent loss of immediate experience from the part of the designer will be analyzed within a theoretical framework underpinned mainly by the works of Walter Benjamin. Samples of digitally-produced objects will be used to illustrate this argument

Physical Modeling: the Convergence of Cutting-edge Technologies and Miniature Tooling

When Rapid Prototyping and CAD/CAM technologies (including CNC and Laser Cutting) became affordable, ten years ago or so, their reception within model-making circles turned from positive to disappointing because of their incomplete adaptability to the making of architectural objects. Then it was discovered, just few years later, that many modelling details can only be worked out through the use of specific materials, accessories and miniature tools which neither fall under the CNC, Laser or Rapid Prototyping headings. This new situation has implied, among other things, that the status of the model is to be defined in terms of a convergence of particular technological possibilities. Using two specific models as examples, the present article will debate this convergence, which is now allowing a smooth and fluid interaction between several model-making techniques. The tendency of model-making to move closer to the real act of building will also be highlighted

Digital Design and Fabrication

The universe of digital fabrication does not only allow buildings to be produced as quick, precise, multiply-generated objects (prototypes) but also reduces, in a very specific way, their presence as original entities. This implies a radical disjunction between the past and the future of the building industry, with all the intrinsic changes and transformations that might affect both the architectural product and the maker. Drawing mainly on Walter Benjaminis work on technical reproducibility and information, but also on Barthesi theory of fashion, the present paper will try to analyze the theoretical and practical implications of these transformations

Crystallizing Design Intentions using CNC, Laser and Rapid Prototyping Technologies

The advances made in the Rapid Prototyping and CAD/CAM (including CNC and Laser) Technologies are now offering designers the privilege of building physical realities, at whatever scale, directly and automatically from computer files, with the explicit implications of speed, precision and flexibility

From the Advanced Model-Making Lab to the Construction Site

If the building industry wishes to take advantage of the extensive capabilities of CAD-CAM that have been exploited in the aeronautics/aerospace, automotive and shipbuilding industries, then it has to look at whatis happening in the advanced model-making lab. The current exploitation of cutting-edge technologies by modelmakers points to potential applications on the construction site, both at the constructional and organizational levels. 

Fabricating twisted towers

The miniature replicas of multi-billion dollar property development projects provide every year a spectacle of the vast imagination of architects and master developers at Cityscape Dubai exhibition. The technical aspect of the model-making industry component is a complex one in that it often engages the modelling of very subtle structures such as twisted towers. One illustration of these is the Infinity Tower in Dubai Marina (designed by SOM). To be completed in 2011, this 330-metre high-rise is composed of 80 floors and is intended to be the worldis tallest high-rise featuring a 90_ twist. Each floor rotates by 1.2 degrees to attain the full 90_ spiral, creating the shape of a helix. The paper discusses the physical modelling of this tower, with a description of both the digital and the constructive parts