| nib.com architecture texts - Theory |
 |
|
|
| ignasi perez arnal |
ipa@coac.net |
| architect | 09.09.03 |
| ECOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTION |
or How Technology Can Transform Our Imagination
Learning
The new economy, digital society, innovative generation of products, environmental pressure, globalization, sustainability—we must realize, and immediately, that we confront a river, close to flooding, of demands on the future architect and his discipline.
Facing this situation, we asked ourselves what is the role of a recently created department of ecology within a school of architecture? Primarily, to create an ecosystem, as though the school were a biome, among all the school’s fields of study, aiming to interrelate all the sections and spheres of knowledge in order to identify the position of a professional in process–the student—encountering the worries stemming from ecological facts.
Teaching to learn. Somehow, we have to teach these student-professionals how to learn to coexist with such facts or, even better, how to root their attitude to the environment within these facts, so that we may achieve an architect who is formed naturally—from as well as by nature.
Exposing students to different contexts and situations in order to stimulate their creative thinking. Working closely with the Department of Construction and Services and the Department of Cooperation, from necessity as well as for reasons of personal connections and affinities, the Department of Ecology and Architecture makes use of technology as both medium and content itself: rapid prototyping tools, CNC, visualization and parametric software, NURBS enabled software (for designing and controling complex surfaces), Internet research, remote devices for climatic studies of selected project sites, etc. In a world where everything is constantly changing, value, high value, arises from knowledge. And what matters is not learning the code, but wanting and knowing how to translate it.
The Responsible Architect
The architect is continously bombarded with a high level and volume of responsibilities, which he absorbs or that implicate him. From an environmental point of view, responsibility grows increasingly in significance, which is why the proposed exercises must have a stamp of diligent professionalism, an attitude binding on them.
From Ecology to Environment / Environment to Sustainability
As can be seen in the diagram the field of Ecology and Architecture is shaped as an ecosystem within ESARQ UIC and based on a conception of building materials as genetic codes. Students must be able to manipulate this underlying encryption according to a site’s conditions and then, using data and references, to create a project that will be an environmental case-study providing for preparation of the land to be worked, determination of applicable theories, balancing of contributions from collaborators, and evaluating how the project comes into contact with the zone’s architecture.
New social and technical demands require the creation of new services and processes in architecture as well as in urban planning and interior design. The UIC courses focus on ecocriteria that are currently generating a profound debate about what is ecological and what is not. Counterpoising two antagonistic concepts—identical yet different and complementary—and starting from an object or a space means demonstrating a new architecture based on ecological precepts. The final result may seem identical to some other solution based on traditional criteria but, really, they are absolutely contrary. Identically different.
Architectural spaces projected from the world of nature open new working possibilities: ecology, mathematics, and bioengineering become scientific elements upon which alternative architectures can be developed. Nevertheless, the most difficult part is materializing these architectures. Consequently, the mentally conceived forms are transformed into physical models by means of high technology—in this case by rapid prototyping machines, normally used in the automobile and aerospace sectors—because it would be impossible to generate these architectures with our customary modeling tools. To check physical forms it is first necessary to visualize and generate them. This constant jumping backward and forward between the digital and the analogical is what Dennis Dollens has achieved in the UIC program. His activity is focused on the conceptual terms and the electronic design for working with different spatial and environmental issues that are important to architecture and landscaping.
Digitalizing Becomes Constructing
The master’s degree in Genetic Architectures is an experiment in evaluating the environment as contemporary and historic information within a digital context. Its objective is to present graphic information as a new means for interpreting space in both solid and virtual worlds. The strategy of the program’s workshops is based on the self-concious and constant examination of the contemporary heritage, written as well as graphic, which did not develop linearly but, rather, transformed itself in a cyclical move-ment that approaches and distances itself from previous systems.
Taking Ideas from the 19th Century to Build the 21st Century
As Dennis Dollens explains, our task at UIC is an experiment in rapidly introducing a specialize software, Rhinoceros, into a class where it must immediately be used to promote imagined ideas graphically. Every aspect of this experiment, whether conceptually or actually, involves the express use of sophisticated surfaces and complex curves—known as NURBS (non-uniform rational B Splines). Rhinoceros has the ability to create irregular, complex-curving surfaces, structures, skins and, in general, shapes that are difficult or impossible in many other systems of digital visualization.
Imagining
This development from the learning process to the achievement of new architectonic shapes requires a consciousness of form, but it has always been difficult for a developmental process to be internalized. The Theory of Evolution—in this case, architectural evolution—explains the origin and transformation of life systems as the product of two fundamental principles: natural selection and chance. Natural selection regulates the variability of genes: the variety we observe in nature is based on the ability of living things to copy themselves in a reproductive process in which many variants are updated. In their interaction with the environment, some of these variants are selected to survive and produce subsequent copies.
In the work we are developing at UIC, architecture has had an origin and a transformation that tracks a pathway similar to that described by the Theory of Evolution. To date, traditional buildings have historic references—anyone can easily observe that—, so a process of improvement is introduced if we cause buildings to interact with their surroundings and if we investigate these updated relations.
Consequently, we ought to know what words such as investigation/research mean and thus be sure about which goals to pursue.
Investigation
Although the term investigation denotes a through study of a given subject, advanced architecture prefers to use the word in the sense of search and deduction, which include emotional factors affecting the cognitive process. The advanced architect does not try to train the environment; rather, he limits himself to stimulating it.
From intuition to a final decision based on major science and responding to doubt, research tries to generate relationships between different variables. We speak of going beyond simple analysis, which is why new tools and methodologies are needed. Research, then, as the profound study of some subject, as in a medical investigation; research as search, as in pursuing an investigation in order to find those guilty of a murder; research as means of discovery, as in pharmaceutical products; research as end in itself, as in TV series such as Colombo or in the Sherlock Holmes stories; research as a bridge, as in architectural theories that incorporate complex systems in order to solve unknown variables; for example, MVRDV (datascaping), Greg Lynn (datamining), Actar Arquitectura (dataforming), Shigeru Ban (datamaterializing).
Within these concepts, self-organization is important for its particular consequences. We could say that self-organization arises after a thermodynamic process, out of a process deriving, on the other hand, from equilibrium and complexity. Although it also appears in certain inorganic systems, self-organization presents characteristics that in some way transcend physics’s and chemistry’s most customary and best-known knowledge. On the other hand, self-organization signifies a notion of system; that is, self-organization is composed by parts whose configurations and mutual interactions determine the whole that they form. Furthermore, the concept of self-organization defines a system that has a capacity for order, with no intervention by any external agent.
The study of natural properties intrinsic to any material or component of built architecture must take into account their capacities for adaptation and transformation—something similar to applying a method of investigation in order to create, with no mediating subjective attitudes, optimal forms. These processes have usually been deceptive, and they have not produced good architecture. They were automatic projects, close to being derived from engineering, which yielded a result that, in the manner of Dr. Frankenstein, partially fulfilled requirements while the whole, the final body, was frightening.
Science More Than Intuition
And for that reason, the point of departure at ESARQ UIC is to lay before the students all those tools that can situate them at another level, in a superior stratum, for understanding the development of an architectonic project.
These tools permit visualization and the manipulation of information. We are all familiar with those theories, mainly from Holland, that are used in the Web’s business world, where they are known as datamining, and in the architecture world, where they are called datascaping, as well as those that arose some time ago in Germany through form-finding processes.
Intuition is dead. Or we ought to believe so, in order to understand that from now on we must make decisions based on major science or information, and to find solutions to the uncertainty of form by means of our renewed intuition. And thus at ESARQ UIC we start working from three conceptual basics: innovation, ecology and communication.
Innovation is similarly generated in three more areas: first, technology—we ignore everything about other industrial sectors—; second, the university/business relation—trying to contact and host singular experiences in an academic framework—; and third, new tools of computer programming, which we try to maximize.
Building
Ecology contributes a new conceptual mechanism for what must be the architect’s work. At this time, these are the basic precepts: do not build unnecessarily; do not require more than what is essential; do not accept sustainability but, innovatively, advance to progress—an appropriate progress according to the logic of nature—by experimenting with growth and organic shapes and observing every field that affects an architect professionally: from master planning to the choice of a single material, from selecting the best orientation to knowing animals’ tactics of camouflage in order to achieve better integration..
Do Not Build Unnecessarily
Relative to this premise, it is difficult to consider construction in the way that it has been considered up until now. The relation science-technology and the change from the industrial to the digital age expand teaching along two lines: what to teach and how to teach. It is likely that each of us will understand differently what to teach, but some directions can be tracked for how to teach; for example, how to hold attention in a world where it is assumed that after only twenty seconds of waiting, a navigator will change to a new Web site; or to create continuous stimulation when absolutely no one can watch a whole TV movie without changing the channel at least once; or provoking discovery while some people argue that there is nothing left to discover, maintaining that everything has already been invented.
Communication has become a main factor in world economy. How globalization affects us as architects, how establishing an interaction with created space or how transforming it into one more characteristic of any product—these concerns have become fundamental. Why does a building product have only one function? I recall a project crit in which Marcos Novak asked what an intelligent material is. After some thinking, I believe I have the answer: it is a material that is not inept. As simple as that: the material must be efficient, one that guarantees a process. For example, in Spanish a computer is called an ordenador, meaning something that sorts. And when such a machine can beat somebody in a chess match, we normally say that this computer is more intelligent, that it knows more, than the competing person; or, perhaps, that it has more ability to sort than that human being.
On the other hand, we speak of new strategies for placing built structures in the landscape, of tactics that respond to attitudes . . . scale, mimesis, camouflage, prosthesis, colonization, infiltration—are some of the terms frequent in recent in years. At a time when a battle without quarter is being fought between local and global powers, perhaps now is the moment to change paradigms: we should talk about the environment, not about context.
It seems that we are made of information, so why can’t architecture be made of it too?
We see how a company can buy the genetic-information bank of an entire country, Iceland, in order to specify which key genes control illnesses and pathologies but, also, which genes control the characteristics that mark the individuality of Iceland’s people; and, with this information, be able to modify those conditions of the environment necessary for the creation of solutions at will.
Toward Logics of the Natural Environment
Mathematical and statistical knowledge has been useful for understanding, valorizing, and producing both information and messages about known phenomena. For some time now, we have been able to appreciate mathematics’ everyday role in revealing other attitudes, such as the exploration of alternatives, living with controllable environments, information processing, or perseverance in the search for answers. But creativity has been postulated as the best method for posing questions, and as an event for enabling integration with the environment.
In nature you can find diverse polygonal and fractal forms or even apply techniques for resolving problems in plane geometry, which is why it is easy to represent natural elements by simple formulas for determining areas and surfaces, such as the theorems of Thales and Pythagoras. In our natural environment we are surrounded by objects, shapes, designs and transformations. Geometrical properties are ever more accessible and present in daily life as we conquer space, orienting us in analyzing shapes and seeking situational, functional, and even abstract spatial relations. In geometrical space we must differentiate two ways of understanding and expressing: the direct—geometrical intuition, given by the eyes—and the reflexive—logic, arising verbally. These two ways of knowing are different but complementary.
Datascape or the Statistics of Nature
Statistics, as a quantitative expression of knowledge, confers appropriate form on scrutiny and analysis. Its relation to nature gives rise to biometry, which is defined as the study of living organisms by numbers. That creativity is a variable which may be identified as a process, a product, or a personal characteristic has been well established, as has the fact that there are many tools, techniques, and strategies that, according to their originators, will develop creativity.
Information architecture appears indissolubly united to design—Web sites, for example—; but it really goes far beyond such a relation: it is a fundamental element in the conversion of information into knowledge. According to the Glossary of the Argus Center for Information Architecture, Information Architecture, is "the art and the science of organizing information in order to help people satisfy their information needs." We learn through a process in three phases and it is necessary to develop all three as much as possible:
Data. In spite of its abundance, data is not the defining force of our time. Without context, data is not information and, as such, is only raw material for understanding, just as a block of granite is not sculpture until the excess stone is removed, even though the sculpture "is there".
Information. Information derives from the form in which data is organized and presented, which confers on it or permits the revelation of its meaning or, at least, its interpretation. Information is the "distillation" of data.
Knowledge. What distinguishes knowledge from information is the complexity of experiences required in order to arrive at it. For a student to arrive at knowledge in a certain subject, he must be exposed to the same collection of data in different ways, from different points of view; and he must work out his own experience of it himself. For this reason, education is notoriously difficult: knowledge cannot be transfered from one person to another; it must be fabricated by the person himself.
In this sense, ESARQ UIC’s master’s course tries to advocate "design from experience" as the means to creating events that build knowledge most efficiently. To move from information to knowledge and from knowledge to wisdom—that is our commitment and our task.
Transfering Creativity
Creative people who make things (new products, and by "product" I mean architectural projects) make them with specific procedures (processes) and perform in a fixed way (personal characteristics or what has been spoken of here as "attitude"). Yet, while it seems that there are no elements common to all creative people, I do think that there are some basic elements, such as intelligence—an intelligence developed by unending repetition of combinatorial analysis of the environment. We should not sidestep UNESCO’s definition of intelligence: the capacity to adapt oneself to the environment. Whoever most easily adapts himself to a specific environment is the most intelligent. May we not conclude then that architectures poorly adapted to a particular context are scarcely intelligent?
On the other hand, persistence and tenacity are undoubtedly other factors common to creativity, and to all these characteristics may be added motivation or whatever else we call a constant drive, obliging one to work toward fulfilling a goal. Undoubtedly, fluidity and flexibility are also elements. If, relative to the environment, we translate fluidity and flexibility into architecture, we could even call the resulting quality, camouflage, the capacity to simulate.
Successive Approaches
Organisms tend to favor behaviors that are prized, to shed behaviors for which they receive no rewards, and to exhibit behaviors by which they can avoid pain. To incorporate these tendencies in a program aimed at developing creativity means governing the program according to the principle of successive approaches, whereby forward movement is achieved step by step, each step reinforced (prized) and the next not taken unless the previous one has been successful.
All this is what the master’s program in Genetic Architectures attempts to forge: experience through knowledge and technology.
We believe that the road has been cleared.
Ignasi Pérez Arnal is a practicing, Barcelona-based architect. He is the Director of the Environmental Department at ESARQ UIC (Barcelona) and co-director of the UIC master program in Genetic Architectures. Winner of the Construmat Prize, he regularly contributes to En.Red.Ando,
|
|
