Peeking into the toolkit of a digital designer you’ll find an unruly mess of apps and code, a reflection of the rapid changes now taking place in the field. From the beginning of the digital boom SOM, the architecture firm, has witnessed this development, not as a mere bystander, but as a creative partner. As early as the 1980s, the firm has been collaborating with digital specialists like IBM; back then, info modeling options were sparse and keeping up-to-date with innovations typically involved updating your AutoCAD. Fast-forward to the present, and the floodgates have been released.
Kids are now writing their own code for school projects and the position of ‘programmer’ in archi-firms has been virtually absorbed by the designers themselves. In essence, the barrier for entry into developer circles is almost zero. SOM, now in collaboration with CASE (a building information modeling consultancy based in New York City), are now faced with the question: “Why are we inventing tools that already exist?”
This collaboration has given birth to a new interface, AEC-APPS, described as “part Wikipedia, part GitHub,” which will create a library of digital tools for both users and makers alike. Additionally, there is also a strong social component that makes it easier to find the perfect tool, and begins to outline the collaborative mentality among the BIM community, much like that of contemporary programmers. Through crowd sourcing from members, users not only stay informed but also feed a community voice that, if loud enough, could sway software vendors to the demand of the users.
Tablets are revolutionizing how people interact with information. We can now walk around with libraries in our knapsacks and the touch screen interface has enabled us to bridge the physical-abstract divide. The universe is now pushed and prodded, and just as the universe is expanding, so is our access to digital information.
A new app by Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, called Ecological Urbanism, is the start of a deep dive into innovation research, with real prospects for finding urban sustainability treasure.
Heather Ujiie is an impassioned, collaborative designer with silvery hair in two tight buns, one securely fastened on each side of her head. Her mode of dress is arresting, often strong combinations of red, black and white, a bit of the “Queen of Hearts.” Not an ounce of royal imperiousness about her, though. Instead, you find a committed artist and caring teacher who readily admits to wearing her heart on her sleeve.
What you see in the video above is San Francisco-based Obscura Digital’s six solid weeks of content development, countless hours of production, and invaluable cultural awakening coming to life on the exterior surface of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
This 17-minute long show of architectural projection animations replayed every 30 minutes for 5 days starting on November 29, 2011 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the United Arab Emirates National Day. The experience brought together over 1,000 people from all over the world and from the most modest to the most extravagant backgrounds—a very appropriate tribute to the values that Sheikh Zayed built the Mosque and the UAE on.
We were greatly saddened to hear about the recent death of Doug Garofalo, the Chicago-based architect and educator. At Metropolis we felt a particular connection to him: Doug was part of the digital wave that swept through architecture in the 1990s. His collaboration, with Michael Maltzen and Gregg Lynn, on the Korean Presbyterian Church in Sunnyside, Queens helped introduce an entirely new way of working. It was the product of three architects working in three different cities (something taken for granted today).
But the project that best conveys Doug’s spirit was the house we featured on the cover of our November 2004 issue (below). Using the digital processes he’d become increasingly known for, Doug wrapped a swooping, biomorphic addition around a somewhat traditional form, creating an entirely new take on the American farmhouse.
Our story, written by Edward Keegan, captured the collaborative connection between Doug and the clients. “We wanted our grandchildren,” Susan Manilow told Keegan, “to live in a wonderful environment that was new and creative and strange for them. We want them to sense how wonderful something can be that is so completely different from what they’ve ever looked at or thought about or lived in.”
Scott Draves (aka SPOT) produces software art that makes my brain melt. I’m almost positive it’s doing something neurological similar to the pink beam of light fired at Horselover Fat’s brain in Philip K. Dick’s novel, VALIS. These self-generative, evolving, extremely beautiful and complex images are encoded with information words do not adequately capture. Moreover, they warp conventional understandings of computer-generated imagery. Read more…
Deep in suburban southern California, the future of architecture has already arrived. This future is not just about more complex forms and compound geometries. It is not simply about software but how to make what is generated with software a reality. It is about processes, ways of working, and materials. It is also about more control for the architect. This is what Guy Martin had in mind when he started his own firm.
Guy Martin Design is quite possibly the most famous firm you have never heard of. He’s the guy who figures out how to make some of Philippe Starck’s more complicated creations, translating the digital into the physical.
He works behind the scenes in a non-descript warehouse with no windows. Thankfully, he has a huge ventilation system. He spends most of his time here with Marie, his robot accomplice. He’s moved up in the world. He used to operate out of a shipping container (also without windows) in the parking lot of SCI-ARC—until he graduated and was asked to leave and take his container with him.
Photo courtesy Guy Martin
Guy Horton: What was your motivation for starting a design firm based on robot technology and in-house fabrication? You were trained in architecture. Didn’t you hear that architects are supposed to draw stuff?
Guy Martin: Yeah I did not get that memo. In fact I find a lot of richness and potential in being very close to the means of production and the materials. It is a dialogue that the profession has shied away from. There was a time when a sociological need was met by distancing the profession from these two issues, but I believe that this no longer serves the profession. With these technologies and methods we can remove that barrier and regain some of the control and craft that the architect used to have when he was master mason. It is an emphasis on demonstrating concepts and having to wrestle with the resistance materials and methods expose to us in the process. Removed from having a hand in the craft and being somatically distant from the materials and methods we are not witness to the expressive potential inherent in these steps of design. I am more interested in working at reintegrating these concepts back into the architectural process. There is also the desire to push the automation of building so that the built work can economically allow for material expressiveness. Then there is also the concern of re-integrating more craft into building through digital means.
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Q&A: Kevin Shanley
Political Hardball: Part 2
SOM and CASE Invent a New Interface
A New Humanism: Part 18
The Green Team Part 13: Game, Sett, Match
On the Road with the Rudy Bruner Award: The Steel Yard - Providence, RI
Designing from Nature
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