'From Structural Systems to Systemic Structures: An Overview
of the Architects' Pedagogy of Structures'
Dr Maria Voyatzaki,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of
Architecture, Greece, mvoyat@arch.auth.gr
ABSTRACT
Architecture, by its very nature a cultural creation, has
always striven for the unconventional, the original, the novel and for
something different to what has preceded it as a reflex to the changing needs
of the society the architect is called upon to serve. Technological limitations
can indeed hinder this pursuit, whilst technological advances can enable and
enhance it. The originality and novelty of architectural proposals often lies
in the importance of materiality. Materiality has been transformed in accordance
with the value systems defined in the history of architecture; at times it has
referred to the precision or the elaboration of detailing the sensory
properties of materials. One of the various aspects of materiality that has
concerned architects has been the way buildings stand up. The present paper
will focus on the changing perceptions of architecture and the design process,
as well as of structures and the impact these changes have had on architectural
education.
Key Words: pedagogy, paradigm shift, systemic structures.
1. Introduction
Architecture as a cultural expression is about creating
spaces which reflect the values and aspirations of the societies for which
these spaces are intended. Architectural creations are material forms. Architects
shape this materiality guided by the views, values and aspirations related to
human beings and their integration with society and the natural world. Educating
an architect is about providing him or her with the means to assure his or her
competences in formulating architectural ideas and competences by turning these
ideas into built forms. This helps to explain why architectural education is
founded upon two main pillars, which support the act of creation: the
humanities, which support the formulation of ideas; and engineering and
technology, or the sciences, which supports the manipulation of the
materiality.
Architects play the role of the sole agent in the eternal
and perpetual loop between the fulfillment of human needs, beliefs, values and
aspirations on the one hand and technological innovation on the other. The
interconnection between ideas and building technology has been central to the
core of architectural thinking throughout the history of architecture. Architects
have always been challenged by this bond as a way of achieving this goal while
negotiating with and compromising less in regard to their original inspiration
when actually delivering the form of a building. The need to materialise a new
form that reflects new ideas has urged technology to search for, invent and
facilitate this materialisation, whilst new technological advances in the
building industry have offered new possibilities and have pushed architects to
generate new ideas, reassessing existing values and nourishing their imagination,
helping them to create novel buildings.
Architecture, by its very nature a cultural creation, has
always striven for the unconventional, the original, the novel and for
something different to what has preceded it as a reflex to the changing needs
of the society the architect is called upon to serve. Technological limitations
can indeed hinder this pursuit, whilst technological advances can enable and
enhance it. The originality and novelty of architectural proposals often lies
in the importance of materiality[1],
or what Frampton defines as the tectonics[2].
Materiality has been transformed in accordance with the value systems defined
in the history of architecture; at times it has referred to the precision or
the elaboration of detailing the sensory properties of materials. One of the
various aspects of materiality that has concerned architects has been the way
buildings stand up.
The present paper will focus on the changing perceptions
of architecture and the design process, as well as of structures and the impact
these changes have had on architectural education.
2. Architects and gravity
One of the fundamental challenges in creating architecture
is the innovative way to attribute materiality to architectural ideas. A
fundamental dimension of the materiality of architectural creations is to treat
gravity and stability in order to hold a building up and help it resist natural
forces. This is often an issue that in the architect's attempt to innovate has
had to transcend norms and conventions that have then ended in failure and
disaster. However, the pursuit has also led to novel architectural forms of
expression and innovative structures[3].
Issues of going up high or of spanning across, either in the form of towers or
bridges, or with long span roofs, or by withstanding extreme loading conditions
of wind or earthquakes, or of building in water and so on, have always
challenged both architects and engineers and their relationship at all times. There
is nowhere one can conclude on what has come first. However, it is true to say
that extreme scenarios of unprecedented formal pursuits have pushed
technological innovation on structural design whist cultural, social, economic
or political needs have given rise to new forms which demanded new structural
solutions[4].
Architectural creation has to be nourished and supported
by knowledge coming from the humanities and engineering. Both areas of
knowledge thus have a decisive involvement in the act of creating architecture
impossible to be separated, neglected or underestimated in the architectural
design process; this is even truer in architectural education.
The ambiguous nature of architecture is that it oscillates
between the arts and sciences while it is being called on to deal with social,
political, cultural and economic issues as well as technical ones. It has
always urged the exchange of knowledge and input from other episteme. This
becomes imperative in the particular pursuit of accommodating gravity and
stability, which entails specific knowledge of physics, geometry and
mathematics, calculations that are all encompassed in a profound understanding
of the principles of structural engineering.
In the history of architecture, the power this knowledge
has given to engineers and specialists in the humanities has rendered their
collaboration with architects a thorny subject for time immemorial. Such was
the case with the Sydney Opera House, the Munich Olympic Stadium, the Centre
Pompidou and the Parc de la Villette, to name but a few. Historically
acknowledged collaborations have brought into being masterpieces whilst at the
same time, conflicts regarding the authorship of and credits for ideas ended
with notorious insults which, in turn, led to unpleasant consequences for the
respective projects. Certainly, the fundamental question of safety towards
disasters is charged with social responsibility. Once this has been dealt with,
however, the discussion focuses on questions related to the design team and
group dynamics[5].
But what should the background of architects be that would
enable them to envisage how the architectural creations they have proposed can
stand up? How could they assess what the impact of possible and alternative
structural solutions would be on the proposed creation?
One attempt to respond to these emerging questions is to
gain an insight into the ways in which the transformations of architectural
thinking and the design process have affected the role of structures and how
these transformations are reflected in the pedagogy of an architect.
3. From the 20th Century to Modernism
3.1 Design process - structures
The relationship between design and structure is as old as
architecture itself. As architecture changes, following the values of each
society to which it addresses itself, so too does the perception of the
relationship between form and materiality. The transformations in the
relationship between form and materiality is directly affected by the
conception of architecture which is dominant in any certain period of time.
This conception influences the way all aspects of materiality, such as
structures, materials and construction techniques, are perceived and how they
are involved in the design process.
From Gottfried Semper[6]
to Viollet le Duc[7]
to Walter Gropius[8],
built form, which has been the pursuit of the design process, has been informed
by the logics governing the existing rational systems and structures in each
historical period[9].
In the rational approach of the Modern Movement, in order
to grasp and describe the complexity of architecture, common notions such as
function and typology and later on, that of system[10],
were used. Through these notions, particular ways of comprehending the building
as a machine to live in, imitating the perfect functionality of the human body
as a system, emerged alongside values and ideas that defined the choice and the
technique of building materials. Modernity stripped off the ornamentation of
the early 19th century in order to demonstrate better and to enhance a clear,
honest and purified form. It is interesting to note that notions such as the
skeleton, frame and brickwork constituted a particular way of understanding the
building broken down - in a certain way and logic - into its distinctive parts
and in binary structures. This conceptual understanding of the architectural
creation directed the design and construction towards those materials that
could, through their particular properties, respond better to the expressive
demands of these concepts.
The direct consequence of this way of understanding
architecture was the radical separation of structure and form. By
distinguishing structure from form, the modern movement introduced a schism in
the continuum of architectural creation, authorising the logics of engineering
reflected in the structure to become the principal driving force of the formal
elaboration. Structure was conceived as the direct representation of the deep
functional and rational logic of the building as a system dominating all formal
and aesthetic aspects of the architectural creation.
This typological classification of building elements into
load-bearing and non-load-bearing formed a distinctive design ethos and style.
The building element, prefabricated, standardised and mass-produced, was forced
to play a central role in the construction system by default. In the design
process, a form was conceived as a binary structure of a form with a
load-bearing skeleton and its brickwork, where the architect placed building
elements and components offered by the building industry in order to ensure it
was consistent with the design principles and that it complied with the
constraints of the building. The choice of a particular component in the
appropriate position was considered as the best way to portray and attribute
values such as clarity, honesty and sincerity, which constituted the
fundamental design values of the time. Repetition of this was ensured by the
standardised and mass-produced components which allowed for an
internationalised and universal materiality, since these were principles which
adequately expressed those qualities of nature that could best express the
natural.
From Viollet le Duc to Louis Kahn, from Gottfried Semper
to Le Courbusier and JØrn
Utzon, the “honesty” [11] of the
construction emerges as the constant value of architecture. Kahn always felt
the live nature of a brick when he declared that it “wishes” to form an arch
and hence an existing structural system; he asserted that its nature was
undermined through its use as cladding or ornamentation. The enhancement of the
nature and of the texture of materials as well as the testimony of their
construction methods and the enhancement of the trace of the construction as a
source of satisfaction is dominant in the Modern Movement: from the Corbusier
wooden frames.
According to Antoine Picon, structural detail replaced the
ornamental in the first part of the 20th century, a clear example of which is
Mies van de Rohe’s IIT[12].
3.2 Design process -structures - pedagogy
The dominance of the structure in the conception of the
materiality of architectural creation had direct consequences on the education
of the architect.
The first consequence was the dominance of the rational
logic of engineering in the conception of the education of the architect, which
was organised in opposition to the Beaux Arts architectural tradition in the
18th and 19th century. It is not by chance that most of the schools of
architecture in Europe belong to Technical Universities or Polytechnics.
The second consequence was the extraction of the
materiality of architecture from the design studio in order for it to be taught
separately under the heading of construction, materials and technology. This
way, the teaching of architectural creation, the main subject of architectural
education, concentrated on the functional and formal aspects of architectural
creation. This attitude was supported by the attestation that the standardised
structures of a building's materiality could materialise any architectural
formal proposals.
The third consequence was that the humanities held a
rather marginal position in architectural education which was restricted to the
teaching of history; this was however limited to an academic knowledge with
minimal impact on the design process. This attitude was sustained by the
consideration that architecture must fulfill those human needs defined as
activities dictated by the functioning, living body. As all human bodies have
the same way of functioning, architecture was addressed to this unique being,
the human, assuring its objective needs according to the guidance of ergonomics
as presented in books such as that of Neufert.
From a series of European conferences under the framework
of Erasmus Thematic Networks, a network of construction teachers was formed; it
discussed the state of the art of construction education in schools of
architecture. One of the conclusions drawn was that changes in the design
process caused by changes in the value systems that govern it, have a direct
impact on architectural education as a whole and on the pedagogy of structures
in particular. A glance at the bibliography on structures in the 1960s and
1970s clearly indicates that the teaching of architecture was based on the
teaching of certainties and the objective truth. Rationality and accountability
were foremost in the thinking processes of designers. As a consequence, the
establishment of finite and tested structural systems was taught to architects
through mathematics and physics in a form which was isolated from design
modules in order to familiarise students with structural principles. Books that
appeared like manuals of the correct solutions were recommended to architecture
students, such as 'Structure Systems' by Heino Engel, published in 1968, which
was followed by a more challenging title based on the consequences of doing
things wrong. The best seller of the seventies was the book 'Structures: Or Why
Things Fall Down', by J.E. Gordon and the book entitled 'Why Buildings Stand
Up. The Strength of Architecture' by Mario Salvadori, first published in 1980.
Architecture students were examined on calculi they struggled to comprehend and
could never implement in their designs. Their relationship with the structural
aspects of their formal propositions would be reduced to their collaboration
with engineers who would calculate the correct sizing of structural elements.
4. Post-modern
4.1 Design process - structure
Postmodernism introduced a new conception of the human,
based not on his functionality, but upon his social and cultural nature. This
shift had a direct impact on architectural practice and education, as now the
humanities appeared as the dominant reference point from which to conduct
architectural creation. As the standardised structures supported by engineering
could solve any structural and constructional problem, architects shifted their
interest towards the humanities in order to retrieve from there the legitimate
input that would guide the design process. Architectural creation is now
leaving behind the ground of engineering to move itself under the umbrella of
the humanities with an extended introduction of the human sciences in
architectural curricula and is showing a bold inclination towards a formalism
based upon the cultural meaning and expressiveness of architectural forms. New
architectural education institutions appear under the aegis of Fine Arts
schools and universities, while those existing in technical institutions face a
growing difficulty in communicating and collaborating with other engineering
disciplines. In the same context, the teaching of structures leaves the studio
in order to become the responsibility of specialised teaching staff, something
which is becoming progressively marginalised, dealing with increasingly
reassessed modules.
The articulation of the building on load-bearing and non
load-bearing elements as established in the Modern Movement created the
conditions for the materiality of the non load-bearing elements to assert their
independence during Post Modernism at the beginning of the 1960s and 1970s and
to become the building elements capable of alluding to meanings. The building
elevation is no longer the part which assists and completes the structure[13]
of a whole, but that part of the building which opens up to the city: it
communicates meaning and speaks about itself. It is understood as the
expressive layer, capable of recording and tracing contents and references that
define its creation and form, its social and cultural existence.
The deliberate freeing of the building elevation from the
functional indoor space constitutes a special high point in the history of
contemporary architecture since it is accompanied by the simultaneous
enhancement and recognition of the form and its materiality as a signifier of
the meaning of architectural creation. This emphasis on the meaning diminishes
the role of the structure as the technical aspects and problems of design are
left to be solved by the specialists. Even though building materials have
always been inseparable from and at the same time integrated with architecture,
they have always been seen as the assistants of form and the allies of structure[14],
thus maintaining an inferior position compared to form and structure in the
logics of the modern movement. As Post Modernism defines the meaning as the
focal point of form, which has always been the focal point of architectural
creation, the structure, which is what supports this creation, is not of such
importance in the overall process. This could be attributed either to the fact
that the aesthetic codes of the genius loci were relatively limited or defined
by the dominant tendencies and, at times, manifestos, or to the fact that the
available structural systems that appeared in modernism were relatively
limited. The choice of a structure engaged the architect to a lesser extent
when he was designing the form of a building. Aldo Rossi often talked of a
system of structural and spatial typology as another objective basis for style[15].
As we move from the 80s to the 90s, we can observe an
interesting shift regarding the meaning of architectural creation, which
progressively excludes from its contents social and cultural references in
order to concentrate more on personalised meanings. This modification is
accompanied by the greater social and economic transformations that are
happening in the same period, which in turn affect the conception of the human
guiding architectural creations. This is a shift from a conception of the human
as a social, and in this, a collective being, to a conception of the human as a
person with individualised attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. This shift opens
up the already form-centered architectural practice to new experimentations on
the form directed towards the expression of the individuality - both of the
architect and the user - which very quickly becomes an experimentation on the
unconventional, the unusual and the unexpected. The conception of the elevation
as the vehicle of the meaning - social or individual - and as such, a
particular and, to a certain extent, autonomous element of the building was
expressed on a number of occasions by its detachment from the rest of the
building. This gave to the building façade a new substance and a new
appreciation. As building skin, or as cladding, or even as yet another of many
layers of the building, its elevation gradually overcomes its exclusive
expressive and communicative aspect in order to acquire other roles such as the
protection of the building from the environment, the climate, noise and other
external or internal stimuli. Characteristic experimentations of that time
bring to mind Jean Nouvel’s Fondation Cartier, Coopehimmelblau’s UFA Cinema in
Dresden or Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum.
In this new condition, we can observe a new role
attributed to structures and, more generally, to the engineering aspects of
architectural creations. The emergence of and demand for personalised and
meaningful architectural expressions with less conventional forms with meaning
as a focal point of architecture has given structures and materials a new role.
According to this very central role, structures and materials come together
with the formal particularities of the decisive agents of meaning and all
become the signifiers with which the architect “syntaxes” the meaning of a
building. The structure is now considered to encompass a plethora of meanings
that refer to the origin of the building, the cultural context that enhanced
its creation, its functional properties, its life cycle, the know-how of its
process and the legends that accompany it. Through this perspective, the choice
of the form of structure is the fundamental element of the design process and
is therefore an inseparable part of the design process. Architects can no loner
think of form as an independent question; on the contrary, they have to
conceive it and elaborate on it together with its structure. This new
relationship between form and its structure redefines the building material as
an expressive aspect of form, and its selection as a creation challenge for the
architect. This perspective opens up the generation of new structural systems
to a new spectrum of choices and possibilities that will broaden the expressive
vocabulary of architects, thus contributing to the generation of increasingly
original architectural forms. The re-integration of the structures in the design
thinking and doing appears to be advertised as an imperative need for
architectural creation.
4.2 Design process - structures - pedagogy
In the early 80s, integration became a popular word in the
world of architectural education. To a certain extent, this was a reaction to
the existing structure of the curricula based upon principles formulated in the
60s and 70s, principles which had already introduced the idea of a very
detached relationship between the architectural design studio and construction
modules. In most architectural education institutions, these two parts of
architectural knowledge appeared to have a polemic relationship and to belong
to different worlds which did not have any respect for each other, having
extremely limited communication and even less collaboration. Their integration
became the reference point of a new approach to architectural education
consequent to the approach to architectural thinking and making of that time.
Design is now perceived as the platform, or rather the
melting pot in which all relevant subject areas meet one another and
cross-fertilise in the aim towards a common design. Modules in which
specialists come in and teach alongside design teachers attempt to simulate
real life scenarios of contemporary design teams of the time. However, the
linear strategy of dealing with the structural aspects of the design after an
idea is inevitable. A few schools dare to teach architects and engineers
together in the first year of their studies and put them together to work on common
projects throughout the curriculum[16].
It is also interesting to remark that the bibliography dedicated to structures
which is recommended to architecture students appears more progressive and
architect-friendly - that is, no calculi, no diagrams, more images and a more
updated and graphically fancy layout. Telling titles such as ‘The Structural
Basis of Architecture’ by Bjorn Sandaker and Arne Eggen in 1992 speak about the
inherent qualities structures can have not only to add but to give birth to
architecture itself. Eminent researchers such as Peter Rice with his book ‘An
Engineer Imagines’ in 1994 and Tony Hunt’s ‘Structures Notebook’ in 1997 offer
interesting perspectives. The former, through a poetic style, reveals the
suppressed nature of sensitive engineers and above all, of engineering itself
to inspire and be inspired, to strive for innovation and to offer novelty to
architects’ pursuits. The latter, student-friendly in its caricature layout,
classifies and simplifies everyday objects through their structural analysis.
Integration in teaching design and a more open-ended bibliography certainly
encouraged the collaboration of what was, at that time, different species of
different backgrounds, rooted in the juxtaposition of the arts and humanities versus
sciences. However, the linear strategy of dealing with the structural aspects
of the design after an idea is formed was not easy to override completely. Even
today, we can find many architectural education institutions where their
curricular structure logics go against this strong tendency for collaboration,
complementarities, synergy and inter-disciplinarity within the design process
and within creative action.
5. The Contemporary Paradigm
“The most powerful way that an engineer can contribute to the
work of architects is by exploring the nature of the materials and using that
knowledge to produce a special quality (...). Exploration and innovation are
the keys.” Peter Rice
5.1 Design process - structure
Despite the fundamental differences in the principles and
their formal expressions between modern and post modern architecture, it is
contemporary digital architecture that has ushered in a real and profound shift
of the overall conception of architectural thinking and making. Both modern and
post modern architecture worked on concepts which were then attached to
existing construction systems promoted by the building industry towards
materialisation and which were founded on binary structures such as
load-bearing and non load-bearing, interior and exterior, form and structure,
skeleton and skin, whole and parts and so forth[17].
A typical top-down approach from design to its building, the above mentioned
paradigm was based on certainties of different derivations in the hunt to
propose a form that emerged from a concept[18].
So-called digital architecture abandons this, even if it
keeps a formalistic attitude, and resorts to formations in a bottom-up process
where volumes or blobs with distinct parts are replaced by surfaces or layers
that do not assign an exterior or interior, a form and a structure, a skeleton
and skin. Architecture is formed from scripting, or rather, from algorithms
that control software applications and customise them to the specific context[19]
which will then allow them to emerge through intuition rather than through
calculation techniques. The shift from the effect of the old paradigm to the affect[20]
of digital architecture where subject and object interact has led to structures
that are created to respond and to function non-linearly. Structures known for
their static properties are now structures known for their dynamic behaviours.
Structures are explored at the same time that form or any other parameter is,
in morphogenetic processes where the dynamic performance of materials[21]
determines the process and the result and not the existing structural systems.
Computer simulation techniques allow testing of the structural behaviour of new
dynamic constructs.
In contemporary architecture, we are increasingly
realising an entirely different perception of the way in which the materiality
of architecture is handled or in which a new materiality emerges. This
reflection reflects an overall transformation of the way we understand
architecture which runs parallel with the respective transformation of the
relationship between the living conception of the human being and the building
as an artefact. The perception of the human being as alive is conceived as a
framework for the management of generic data and codes. This conception
replaces the notion of the live organism in a state of functional balance which
Modernism maintained as an ideal in the making of the artefact. It also
replaces the image of the social nature of the human on which the conception of
the building as an expressing garment of this nature was based. And it also
replaces the conception of the human as part of the environment, which
introduces a conception of the building as an intelligent skin which expresses
human meanings and which adapts dynamically to the environmental stimuli. This
image was initiated after Modernism.
The elevation in this case is an intelligent façade, or
skin, to use the term consistently, which reacts dynamically to stimuli, which
is what it is designed to do[22].
Contemporary applications in material science enable the
production of a wide range of materials, the composites and properties of which
are the sum of the properties of their ingredients, ensuring the highest of
properties of the whole. The capacity to control the properties of materials,
or the shift from properties to capacities through the new digital technologies
enables architects to predefine the properties of the material that can best
serve the form that they are designing in order for it to fulfill a number of specifications[23].
This capacity has a direct impact on the design process, rendering a great deal
of this process the design of materials of which the architectural form will be
structured. This new practice becomes a very interesting innovation in the
domain of architectural design whereby the materiality of a building is
structured through the process within which the architectural form is
generated. In this context, the design of architectural forms is being
perceived as analogous to the genetic process, a morphogenesis which generates
forms and their materiality simultaneously and which gradually transforms into
a new architectural paradigm, the digital.
The second characteristic concerns the integration of the
creation of a material in the design process. The experimentation in generation
of form is simultaneous with and identical to the experimentation in the
materiality of the form that will not only best express the idea, but which
will be an inseparable and indistinguishable part of it. As material is born
with the form, its production as well as its manufacturing and assembly in the
construction constitute part of the same design process. In contemporary
architectural examples, such as in the work of Greg Lynn, François Roche, Fabio
Gramazio and Mathias Kohler, it could be argued that there is a shift of
emphasis from the design of architectural forms to the design of architectural
properties which are, in turn, responsible for the genesis of forms and, as a
consequence, the selection of materials[24]
.
The topological complexity, a predilection of the digital
paradigm, conjures up formal propositions which are not easy to reconcile with
binary structures, ordinary constraints or rules and norms known in the
Cartesian and Euclidean logics. The diminution of the importance of the distinction
between load-bearing and non-load bearing and the exploitation of digital
technologies in the design and construction of complex structures render the
traditional distinctions of the type increasingly impossible. One typical
example is Ether/i, the double skin tessellated aluminum, designed in 1995 for
the United Nations 50th anniversary exhibition, in Geneva, Switzerland, dECOi,
Source Architects[25].
Often what holds a building up is the folding of surfaces
and it is variations of folding that ensures the building’s stability and load
transfer to the ground. Alternatively, following the efficiency entailed in
natural systems, bio-mimetic design[26]
develops similar emergent systems whereby buildings can potentially undergo
various loading conditions.
Advanced contemporary technologies give opportunities both
to the artefact to acquire properties of the living and to the natural to be in
a position to acquire properties of the artefact. The notion of the hybrid
takes a central position in architects’ mental processes whilst the in-between
appears as an ingredient of architectural theory. The building is no longer
perceived as a machine, the functional mechanical parts of which mimic the
organs of a living being. It is not an artificial extension of the human body,
an artificial skin with natural properties that, with interference in its
intelligent genetic control code, acquires the ability to transform, mutate,
adapt and change. On the contrary, it is itself a virtual living being that is
created from the development of the genetic code algorithm that is responsible
for the properties of the form as well as for the properties of its matter.
This designed building with the aid of computers transforms, mutates, adapts
and changes during its creation process until the architect decides on its
‘frozen’ and most elegant final form[27] which will be digitally fabricated. Every initiation
of change presupposes the adaptation of each genetic code algorithm from which
the desired improvements of the designed form will emerge.
New buildings materials, with interference in their
molecular structure gradually form a new aesthetic and new preferences but also
a new vocabulary of structure from which the new ethos of contemporary
architecture emerges. It is an ethos expressed by terms such as the immaterial,
the hybrid, the composite and the mutable, which do not only appear as
properties that advertise certain building materials; they are also registered
as values within the same theoretical discourse. The shift of a great deal of
the focus of architects’ interest from the design process to the design of the
‘genetic material’ of the form and in turn of the design of the material that
will materialise it and support it, portrays the contemporary version of the
architectural artefact as a living organism. The skin is not considered as a
mere envelope but as a complex, often load-bearing system exchange between
interior and exterior[28].
5.2 Design process - structures - pedagogy
The pervasive use of computers that enables morphogenetic
processes in architecture has completely changed the logics of creating,
understanding, teaching and supporting architecture. It is the first time we
are able to speak about a radical shift of a paradigm in contemporary
architectural pedagogy from teaching certainties and static conditions to
teaching uncertainties and dynamic systems. The design studio becomes a lab in
which the anticipation of structure does not follow a formal determination but
is the result of parametric variations. We can observe a complete integration
of the creation of forms and the creation of structures, which is now assured
by the morphogenetic process that algorithms can provide through the
manipulation of complex parametric variations.
Experimentation is the key word in contemporary pedagogy
and design in as much as its structural properties are a result of a bottom-up
process through trial and error. Morphogenetic processes attempt to find
relationships between the low components of a material and their structural
capacities can be one of them. Scripts that customise the capacities of
software allow the students to have low-level access to the properties of a
material through simulation[29]
in order to appreciate the affordances of a system.
Interestingly, the recent bibliography recommended to
architecture students is governed by this logic. Cecil Balmond’s ‘Informal’[30],
published in 2002, advocates that the abandonment of the Cartesian frame of
thought that has curbed structural ingenuity for centuries has shed new light
onto the new appreciation of non-linear structural systems. The same author
goes on to write ‘Element’ in 2007, which is a speculation of the world around
us with an emphasis on nature and less on the human-made world and the
implications on structural understanding. Farshid Moussavi writes ‘The Function
of Form’ in 2009, in which she proposes “a new theory of form based on
repetition and differentiation [...] broadening our idea of materiality to
embrace both physical and the non physical enables built form to incorporate
the multiplicity of causes and elements that characterise our increasingly
complex environment”[31]. Last but
not least, one of the most recent books, published by a renowned engineering
practice in the UK, AKT, ‘Design Engineering’, in 2008, argues that designer
engineering is becoming a creative tool and an intrinsic part of a new
generation of form and organisation. The resulting opportunities constitute an
integral component of architectural thought.
Epilogue
Thinking of the above and bearing in mind the title of the
symposium, perhaps we should revisit certain questions such as: Are there
structural systems in architecture? If this has changed, what should be the
content of the discussion on structures in contemporary architecture and in the
pedagogy of contemporary architecture?
It is clear that at the present time, architectural
discourse should view structures in the light of parametricism, a shift of
paradigm that radically changes the term of structural systems to systemic
structures. For the sake of argument, we will now use the second part of the
definition of a system according to Wikipedia[32].
Nowadays, we can talk about systems considering their dynamic, non-linear behaviour.
According to Kas Osterhuis, the non-standard is inclusive of the standard. This
notion could, however, be deceptive in architectural pedagogy. A number of
educators who belong to the old regime would argue that the teaching of basics,
including the basic principles of structural engineering, is necessary. But
what structural engineering? For what architecture? This is definitely a
difficult question to answer. What we can remark, however, is that no matter
how inclusive the non-standard of the standard is, it is the knowledge of the
standard that allows for its limits to be pushed through the knowledge it has
offered us. It is knowledge of the Bach scales that enhances improvisation in
jazz. It could possibly be this knowledge of the standard that most digital
designers of contemporary times have acquired in their formal education which
has allowed them to transcend it, a fact that the contemporary education of the
architect has to bear in mind. This is not to legitimise the perpetuation of
the teaching of structural principles in isolation from the design studio lab. It
is about filtering and absorbing this knowledge of what is inseparable in
contemporary design studios and architecture, the form and the structure as an
inseparable part of the complexity of architectural creation.
References
Balmond, C, (2002) Informal. Prestel, Munich.
Balmond, C, (2007) Element. Prestel, Munich.
Davies, C, (1988) High Tech Architecture. Rizzoli, EU.
Engel, H, (1968) Structure Systems. Deutsche Verlags,
Berlin.
Frampton, K, (1996) Studies in Tectonic Culture. The MIT
Press, USA.
Gordon, J. E, (1994) Structures: Or Why Things Fall Down.
W. W. Norton and Co, New York.
Hunt, T,
(1997) Tony Hunt’s Structures Notebook. Architectural Press, London.
Kara, H, (2008) Design Engineering: Adams, Kara, Taylor.
Actar, Barcelona.
Kolarevich, B, ed., (2003) Architecture in the Digital Age – Design and
Manufacturing. Spon Press New York.
Mori, T, (2002) Immaterial/Ultramaterial: Architecture,
Design and Materials. George Brasiller, New York.
Moussavi, F, (2009) The Function of Form, Actar and the
Harvard University Graduate School of Design, USA.
Picon, A, (2010) Digital Culture in Architecture. Birkhäuser,
Berlin.
Rice, P, (1994) An Engineer Imagines, Artemis, London.
Salvadori, M., (1980) 'Why Buildings Stand Up. The
Strength of Architecture', W. W. Norton and Co, New York.
Sandaker, B and Eggen, A, (1993) The Structural Basis of
Architecture, Phaidon, London.
Schittich, C, ed., (2001) Building Skins: Concepts Layers
Materials, Birkhäuser, Munich.
Terzidis, K, (2006) Algotecture, Architectural Press, USA.
Voyatzaki, M, 1996, An Insight into the Design Process of
Unconventional Structures, PhD Thesis, University of Bath, UK.
[1]
Antoine Picon defines as materiality the sensory experience offered by
buildings, or our connection to the physical world. Picon, A, (2010) Digital
Culture in Architecture. Birkhäuser, Berlin, p. 212.
[2]
Frampton, K., (1996) Studies in Tectonic Culture. The MIT Press, USA.
[3] The size of a cantilever has often been popular in
architects’ endeavors. If we think that MVRDV have achieved the impossible in
such respect at Wozoco, we ought to remember Frank Lloyd Wright prompting the
builders to remove the scaffolding of the Waterfall cantilevers while standing
beneath them, or even earlier when Felix Candela was testing his concrete
shells by getting his builders to stand on the actual edifice.
[4] Towers are not just tall constructions that emerged
from a pursuit of simply building high but have been rooted to defense and the
need to ensure security through preventing an attack or dealing with an attack.
[5] Mutlidisciplinary teams has been one of the
well-researched topics of Social Psychology. Voyatzaki, M, 1996, An
Insight into the Design Process of Unconventional Structures, PhD Thesis,
University of Bath, UK.
[6]
Goetfried Semper 19th C advanced a theory of style that derived objective
principles from systems, structures or manufacturing techniques, which could be
used to determine the external appearance of objects and relate them to their
context. In: Moussavi, F., (2009) The Function of Form, Actar and the Harvard
University Graduate School of Design, USA.
[7] Viollet-le-Duc advanced his theory of structural
rationalism, which concerned itself with functional efficiency and the honest
expression of structures and materials as the basis for the external appearance
of forms.
[8] Walter
Gropius drew parallels between structures and the machine aesthetic as well as
the techniques of mass production
[9] Moussavi, F,
(2009) The Function of Form. Actar and the Harvard University Graduate School
of Design, USA
[10] For now and
for the sake of the argument we will use only the first part of the definition
of a system in wikipedia: System (from Latin systēma, in turn
from Greek
σύστημα systēma, "whole compounded of several parts or members, system",
literary "composition") is a set of interacting or interdependent
components forming an integrated whole. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System.
[11] The
term structural honesty was revived and was coined with the High-Tech manifesto
of the 1980s represented by and large by Richard Rogers, Normal Foster and
Renzo Piano, followed by Michael Hopkins and Nickolas Grimshaw in the British
scene. Davies, C., (1988), High Tech
Architecture, Rizzoli, EU.
[12] Picon, A.,
(2010) Digital Culture in Architecture. Birkhäuser, Berlin, p. 127.
[13] Even though
this was the case in general, Le Corbusier in Villa Savoy has already drawn
this line of demarkation by separating the building façade from the vertical
supports of the building.
[14] Slessor, C,
(2000) Material Witnesses, The Architectural Review, p. 207 and p. 43.
[15] Moussavi, F,
(2009) The Function of Form. Actar and the Harvard University Graduate School
of Design, USA.
[16] That was
the case at the University of Bath and in the schools of architecture and civil
engineering in the 1990s.
[17] Pervasiveness
of surface as opposed to volume in digital architecture defeats binary
structures such as interior, exterior, wall, roof, ground, building….. a layer
is difficult to assign to these binary structures. Picon, A., 2010, Digital
Culture in Architecture, Birkhäuser, Berlin, pp. 92-93.
[18] Not that
much different from the Beaux-Arts parti.
[19] Terzidis, K,
(2006) Algotecture. Architectural Press, USA.
[20] Affects has
been first introduced by Gilles Deleuze. However in his recent book Digital
Culture in Architecture Picon writes: ‘affect ......is not only meant to bridge
the gap between subject and object.....it is also supposed to bring together
the abstraction inherent to computing and the concreteness of architectural
experience’. Picon, A., 2010, Digital Culture in Architecture. Birkhäuser, Berlin, p. 157.
[21] Even at
microscale i.e. particles, molecules, agents etc. This is what distinguishes
material performance from performativity.
[22] Schittich,
C, ed., (2001) Building Skins: Concepts Layers Materials. Birkhäuser, Munich, pp.
86-87.
[23] Mori, T.,
(2002) Immaterial/Ultramaterial: Architecture, Design and Materials. George
Brasiller, New York.
[25] Kolarevich, B,
ed., (2003) Architecture in the Digital Age – Design and Manufacturing. Spon
Press New York, p. 169.
[26] Even though
these terms appear quite recent, Frei Otto’s work has been pioneering in the
field from 1960s.
[27] Mori, T, (2002) Immaterial/Ultramaterial:
Architecture, Design and Materials. George Brasiller, New York, 2002.
[28] Picon, A,
(2010) Digital Culture in Architecture. Birkhäuser, Berlin, pp. 161-162.
[29] Nanotechnology
is the domain that delved into this area.
[30] Informal
won the Sir Banister Fletcher Prize for the ‘best book of the year on
architecture’.
[31] Moussavi,
F, (2009) The Function of Form. Actar and the Harvard University Graduate
School of Design, USA.
[32] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System.
Fields
that study the general properties of systems include systems theory, cybernetics, dynamical systems, thermodynamics and complex systems. They investigate the abstract
properties of systems' matter and organization, looking for concepts and
principles that are independent of domain, substance, type, or temporal scale.
Most systems share common characteristics, including: Systems have structure, defined by components and their composition;Systems have behavior, which involves
inputs, processing and outputs of material, energy, information, or
data;Systems have interconnectivity:
the various parts of a system have functional as well as structural
relationships to each other.Systems may have some functions or groups of functions
The term system may also refer to a set of rules
that governs structure and/or behavior.
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