Some reason that popped up:
Fetish with forms in the last fifteen years;
Unpredictability of new behaviours related to new technologies.
It has to do with the economics of R&D.
Architects do not invent very often because it is expensive – we are the end user, the last in line, we usurp, and at best when we invent we appreciate and marshal the technology that exists to suit an architectural vision, whatever that may be.
What does R&D have to do with being visionary? Clients typically do not like to pay for inventions, and envisioning the future becomes very pragmatic. Whereas the experience grounds the professional attitudes, systems do not deal with architectural issues of space, many research initiatives are not being led by architects and there is a lack of architectural clients involvement (research in a buble).
Other reasons are:
Architecture cannot afford the research of mass-production that we fund in automotive, industrial design and products; When smart homes are mass produced they need to be economically feasible and the technology is borrowed (f.e. KB Kaufman Broad HOMES, where they are not architects).
Architectural research does not have the funding of the military, geriatrics or the disabled;
The research happens outside the field of architecture and then the architects grab it and try to create a future.
New creative originators are:
Artistic explorations;
Academic initiatives;
New commercial trend, as home automation.
Corporations outside of architecture bring in architects to understand systems within a whole and understand behaviours.
The fetish of the forms: we now have architects as consultants in this area to other architects (Gehry technologies, Red, etc.). They are architects who understand the technologies that exist and can help other architects invent. The min point however is that the architects understand that technologies exist, but they understand that the tools can be invented, and they can be malleable to idiosyncratic designer needs.
Busan Tower, Korea - Axel Kilian, Michael Fox, Elite KedanBreaking it down in two types of needs:
Pragmatic needs: adaptability and optimization (safety, security, spatial efficiency and energy efficiency). This is basically looking how space or objects is doing something and how it can do it better:
Make economic sense
Works for gerontechnology;
Works for disabled;
Works for private interests;
Works for sustainability.
If a space would actively mediate our needs and the environment, its demand on physical resources could be slashed;
If it would transform to facilitate multi-uses, its function would be optimized.
Humanistic needs are a little more difficult. It comprehends sociology, psychology, and human behaviours, sensing of place, understanding of space, control to space and attachment (bonding) to space. It is much harder because we cannot very well predict new behaviours that are altered by new technologies.
“If an environment would adapt to our desires, it would shape our experience.” It was a quote from Fox (1) used to use. He does not agree with it anymore. If we are not visionary with respect of behaviours, we will design specifications that demand new modes of behaviours.
Intuition is nothing but learned experience and our behaviours are intuitive.
Architects are not citizens, nor computer scientists out to direct this development. Architect ought to understand human interactions with the built environment enough to:
Be predictive in order:
To facilitate “conversations”
To design spaces and objects that adapt to behaviours
To foster human interactions.
But not to demand new behaviours!
New modes of designing:
Tools and heuristics: understanding system attributes with goal of communication
Virtual modelling (simulation and visualization)
Physical modelling (looking for mechanical things)
CNC fabrication
Robotics
Prototyping
A pedagogical approach which looks for new modes of design that can understand these tools as malleable: Prototyping is a key, making things full scale, understand how people interact with then. New conceptual issues of human and environmental interaction that comprises other problematic views of unpredictable types of behaviours.
Understanding new conceptual issues of human and environmental interaction:
Person and built environment (local+remote)
Person and person (local + remote)
Person and exterior environment (local and remote)
Human and environmental interaction:
What are the factors that the system is responding to:
Data sets:
Physical factors: acoustics, sunlight, temperature, wind, direct physical interaction, direct virtual user interaction via a particular website; internet activity (input data sets) human activities of a particular group in a particular place (input data sets).
The space knows who you are, where you are and what are you doing.
spatial behavioural patterns (adaptive control)
The space can physically re-configure itself according to changing needs.
(dynamically ready)
The space deliver (translate/interpret) the environmental change to users.
(temperature/ views/ translated affect)
Profiles of the future
Smart materials
Nanotechnologies
Bioinformatics
Autonomous self-maintenance
Robotics (digital clay)
Future generations of architects need to understand tools as malleable and develop new heuristics with the goal of communication. That means not being experts but communicating behaviours and how to use those types of places.
(1) My summary about Michael Fox Lecture from the Center For Visual Architecture, The Institute for Distributed Creativity, and the Architectural League of New York.
(2) Related links:
2 comments:
que linda esta 'escultura' chamada Busan Tower!
eu adoraria vê-la no alto da praça do papa, quem sabe até, ocupando a própria praça... rs
um abraço procê!
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