Simplexity, the programming craft and architecture production

Abstract

In resent years, digital design tools have become prevalent in the design community and their capabilities to manipulate geometry have grown into a trend among architects to generate complex forms. Working as computational design consultant in an engineering firm, between architecture and engineering we often come across the problems generated by a superficial use of digital tools in both disciplines and the incapacity of the current system to cope with their byproducts. Here we will discuss the problems we see with the current system and the opportunities opened by digital design tools. Two guiding concepts are simplexity [the desire to fine tune and build a system that yields a solution to a specific design problem by collapsing its inherent complexity] and defamiliarization [a side effect of having to represent things as numbers]. They can both affect the designer as an individual who chooses to engage with digital media as well as the production system in which he/she is embedded since he/she will have to find new channels of communication with other parties. To demonstrate our strategy and the obstacles faced we will examine our involvement in the development of a computational design solution for a small house designed by Future Systems architects