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As part of ARCHITECTURE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AN INTRODUCTION, course by Antoine Picon, Harvard University.Context
Between the 50’s and the 60’s it is a climax of modernism architecture and it is the period during which modernism is questioned.
The Archigram movement fostered a new type of relation to technology, a relation more linked to mass consumption. The idea is : could pleasure transform itself into nightmare because of what technology entails? It is also the beginning of digital culture. Kem Koolhass or Bernard Tschumi are both radical architects and their work raise issues that are still relevant today. For instance Archigram raises the following question: Does architecture form still matter? And also super studio questions the status of economy.

Technology and the critique of the Modern Movement in the 1950s-1960s
The modern movement had not really grasped the essence of technology; in the 20’s technology is a collection of fascinating devices, and in the 50’s technology is a seamless web of artifacts and is a connection between artifacts, the connection becomes more important than what it connects, e.g. connectors, plugs. It is also the time of the atomic bomb where a man can destroy the planet. There is this notion of globalization and a global vision, view that will inspire artists at the time. There comes the feeling that the time is closing, giving it an extra degree of finitude. There is the bio layer, the tech layer which is a third layer above it all, as a surface condition. This is very different from the continuous notion of technology from the 20’s. Then when one starts to think that earth is finished then all follows.
In the 20’s technology is seen as linked to a productivist vision but not to consumerism and in the 50’s it is linked to the idea of consumption and to the US, for instance the work of Richard Hamilton in 1966: his collages on mass consumption. The idea is that technology might be about pleasure and that technology can provide pleasure and that you can loose your soul in this world. The modern movement had not understood the full extent of technology. Technology as a system of links ends as a techno sphere with the critic of the fetishism of the object. The moderns had not understood technology as an environment.

Before understanding Archigram, one has to understand the megastructure, e.g. Gunter Domenig (dwelling unit for Graz), Nicolas Schoffer (Cybernetic city), and Yona Friedman (Paris Spatial). The super structure becomes invisible on top of the city so that human can finally breeze like birds.
A mega structure is about:
– A way of life: a new way to live
– About connection: the mode is important and how things are linked to one another. A system of connection
– An environment: control.
Architects produce structures bordering utopia due to this technological context but the mega structure idea is contradictory: what is then architecture about? Is it object (because mega structure looks like a giant object, an entire city shaped as objects). It is linked to hyper-concentration about dispersion.
The main contradiction about the mega structure is that its DNA is itself destructive; if the mega structure proliferates, the you don’t see earth anymore, then it is not a structure but it becomes a surface. And it disappears as a structure.

The English context
In the 50’s England has just won the war but is poorer than what planned. In the mid 50’s this gets better and there is hope. The independent group in the UK looks at the new nature of technology and consumerism as a new relationship to technology. What later becomes pop culture is questioned then. In their CIAM grille, they criticize this relationship and fetishism and propose a more architectural vision of society.

The CIAM grille

In the golden lane project, the city becomes a system of connections in 1952. The idea: let’s redistribute architecture in a system of connection. It is a system of dwelling units. This gives birth to the mega structure where you plug-in units and you can program the 3D grid of the mega structure (as in Friedman’s work).
Cedric Price is a pioneer in computerized architecture with the Fun Palace. It is a mega structure purely devoted to cultural activity. It is a very detailed project, much more advanced than what Archigram proposes.

Archigram, the group, the review, the projects

The members of Archigram are Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Green, Ron Herron, Mike Webb. They all come from the province and from middle class. Cook is the P.R. of the group and Herron is a prodigy craftsman. There are parallel movements that proliferate the same ideas than Archigram and convey their unsatisfactions through journals.
Archigram starts as a journal.

Archigram1 is the journal where they publish their thesis with pop culture scene.
Archigram2 is where they publish their post thesis design, e.g. the fiberglass project and bloobish forms. Nottingham shopping Viaduct is an auto constructive structure, a life that expands itself.
Archigram3 is more organized thematically. They borrow Fuller idea. Architecture is expandable like any structure as deployable units. The message becomes clearer with the new relation to technology. The genius of Archigram is to pursuit what is in the air. The idea that the city is about connections and what happens, urbanism is about creating events, an ambiance. In 1961, Archigram is recognized as avant-garde movement and in 1963 they organize the ‘living city’ exhibition as a set of interactions.

The living city

Hence the montage of collage, neons… In this montage, the gloops are thematic units to have people think about the city, e.g. situation, movement. The idea of the continuous web or l’hypothese des plaques (that Guy Debord loves). Another example: The Montreal Tower is a mega structure with the idea of provisory units.
Archigram4 They use comics to convey messages. It is more about using pop culture. And it is a step beyond the independent group.

Cover of archigram 4

The most emblematic city is the plug-in-city, city into a set of connections, at every level, environment level.

The plug-in city

They introduce the new use of colors and the overcraft to travel from one city to another. One critic about this work is that it is usually at the stage of sketches rather than detailed projects. Then the computor city from 1964 to 1965 is the idea of the controlled environment, they put a mega structure in movement, e.g. the walking city.

The walking city

The living pod (1966) is a kind of tent that can move independently from the mega structure.

The living pod

The idea of the space suit and that you can carry a huge environment on your back and can transform into a house, e.g. Cushicle.


The cushicle

One of the latest project by Archigram is the seaside bubble, and then it goes to the idea of mobile unit, that a city is about creating interactions for the environment and more about an atmosphere. Then the idea of instant city (that instantly transforms itself) with a ‘dirigeable’ that projects events which is more linked to their earlier idea and to the one of situationists.

The instant city

One question is : is it an installation? Is it architecture?
The mega structure is disappearing but carry itself with architecture. Archigram have never theorized and never asked ‘where is architecture’ while they were making their collages. They also raised the idea of pleasure or intolerable suffering within technology.
At the time of the Monte Carlo project, the mega structure has disappeared and becomes a surface. If architecture is an environment, what is the status of form? This question is implicit in the mega structure movement to overcome the modern movement.

The Monte-Carlo project

Archigram is about colors and strange picturesque: technology picturesque, there is something about the Victorian bathroom in Archigram. In the UK there is humor while in France and Italy it is Marxist and talk more about the drama of capitalism even though this is the basis of architecture. An architect builds something in revolt. The radicals produce architecture based on the impossibility to produce architecture in capitalism and explore the limits of the architecture practice.

The Italian radicals and their posterity
Archizoom is composed of Andre Branzi, Paola Deganello, Massimo Morozzi and Gilberto Corretti. Branzi is the head of the movement. They use computer chips to show connections for instance. The future of the mega structure is the distribution of electricity and all with the incertitude of the form. That echoes with the digital culture today. Is it a paradise? Is it a nightmare? The idea of over consumption, by Benjamin, begins at the time.
Superstudio is a little bit less negative than archizoom and reflect a lot on the status of form.
The type of questions raised: Is architecture absurdity? What is the meaning of boundaries we try to create? Strangely globalization has recreated a meaning for architecture because of competition. When there is total homogeneity, there is no justification for architecture… What type of humanity populates those structures? What comes next in post-modernism?

In architecture theory
Notes taken during the Architecture Science and Technology class taught by Antoine Picon the 28th Nov 2005

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As part of ARCHITECTURE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AN INTRODUCTION, course by Antoine Picon, Harvard University.

Materials and a new way to define materiality

What is the situation in the field of technology?
There are a few reflections and the idea is that we are in the middle of a revolution regarding materials. This is somewhat true, for instance ‘the microcapsule’ and material research for architecture. We now design materials at the molecular level and then designing structures will be less important than designing material, e.g. the evolution of concrete. It became a material and is decomposed into properties such as: needs less water, less cracks, etc… For instance, la grande arche de la Defense would have been impossible without compact concrete. Concrete is now mixed and has mechanical properties, e.g. curve, etc… then it can be used for chairs. There is a redevelopment in furniture in concrete. It is not without danger because it can produce monsters 😀 and cannot be destroyed.
Ben Barrell beautiful bench

There is also ‘glass’ and the reflection on the glass using piezzo electric technology and the smart materials bluring between materials and structure, the development of composite and of smart materials which create a blur between materials and structures. There is a material revoluion, the first one was done at MASA then there is a contamination, however it has not reached architecture yet. At what level do we design today? Farbric can now be designed and there is a notion of new modernity which is not much about structure but more about material. There is then a current important question which is: how traditional design will position itself toward the material revolution?

Computer simulation
The computer simulation made possible a whole range of things: more computation, more domains. For instance, fireproofing. Before there was a big structure, an envelop to protect against fire. Now protection against fire is done dynamically. We then think of fire in a dynamic way, for instance what burns first and what burns last. This is a totally different design that takes in consideration the logic of collapse. For example, the 11^th of September, the catastrophic tower collapse happened dynamically, so a protection against such catastrophes cannot be conceived as static anymore.
Computer simulation enables a lot but is not exactly the real world, so atomic tests are still needed, because no computer simulation can tell us how things edge and so on. Simulation raises a lot of questions imposed by the program and even color codes tell us how things are to be designed. The collapse of Roissy airport terminal was a good example of the limitations of computer simulation. There was a problem in the construction process that could be due to the computer simulation. The tradition simulation mode is still in use, e.g. the heat propagation in a building using a saline solution.

Structure and scale factor
If we look at suspension bridges for instance the Washington bridge of 1 km and the Golden Gate of 1km300 and that now we reach 2km bridges, the scale of structure creates problems. The gigantism does not prevent diversity, e.g. deck can be thick, or aerodynamic deck. However the gigantism has created a specific European type of answer and now that bridges can be 2km long, we need to take in consideration the curvation of the earth, because from the start to the end of the bridge the curvation is different. The cables of such bridges are huge as well and there is no limitation for suspension bridges. The cable state bridge is an obscession from European to Japanese because of aesthetics and engineering issues. These bridge cables are wrapped in an aerodynamic shape to resist the wind.

Examples of cable bridges

Then towers will become higher and lighter themselves and the problem is not to pile up elements but more physiological elements, for instance, ear problems. Piano’s genius to to consider that gigantism works if we pay attention on other problems than just structural problems, e.g. air condition mixing gradually with hot air using the curve of the building. Performance and large scale is a major problem on what happens today.
The relation between architecture and infrastructure: The architect provides the meaning to the node of the network. The architecture itself can become the infrastructure, for instance at an airport, system of place and infrastructure. There was two movements in the 20^th century: gigantism and lightness (solution like their shell that are in plywood, etc.) This movement lead to membering. The most efficient surface; wooden structure, beautiful structure. There has been research on surfaces, plastic parts, wired network. Some are pretty thick but pretend lightness and lightness can go with gigantic things, a new poetry is then emerging. We are very far from this lightness idea at an international level, for instance China does not appropriate light structures. We are not ready to live in a world of membering, lightness, however if we use tension, we can do things much lighter and stable and it can function at any scale. This is the field of ‘tensegrity’, e.g. arch vault in tensegrity which is a pretty sophisticated geometry compared to other type of structures.

Conclusion
We can now do everything we want. Is everything what we want?
For instance, there are ethical problems even in engineering and architecture, and if we link a continent to an island, we change the way people live on the island. There is a moral responsibility of the architect, so how to build?
We thought we knew what to build, but now it involves discovering new materials, developing material and computation. Architects used to be asked to produce a form only and education in architecture is not adapted to this movement.

By Cati in architecture

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

As part of ARCHITECTURE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AN INTRODUCTION, course by Antoine Picon, Harvard University.

Digital architecture is about materiality because materiality is changing.
Materiality is culturally constructed, but the problem is the definition of materiality, materiality is not nature. It is the image we have of nature. The notion of nature is also socially constructed through what we can produce, and nature can be different. Today it is basically informational. It is about movement and the definition of nature over time changes.
Materials are socially constructed: before a bone was a material, now we construct material as much as we construct nature. There is this idea that materiality is the relation we have to what seem tangible in the world. The way we perceive materials and objects when we are not sure if we touch or if it in our brain, it is a problem. With the computer, we don’t know what we touch. There is an extension to us: it goes into us.

Materiality is then constructed through:
1- a sensory education To live in a culture is to learn how to perceive things in a certain way, e.g. colors differ in culture, so there is a construction of the senses.
2- tools a society with tools, e.g. lenses, microscope, sees things differently.
So people who thinks there is a problem with computers think there was a problem before. Digital architectural representation is a virtuality because it can represent everything. It occupies an impossible point of view.

Then what’s new with the computer screen? Has it been close to materiality? Thre is the thickness of the computer screen; there is a layer of software much more than in the traditional pencil that transfers in the paper. Redefining pertaining objects: natural versus cultural. The semantic of words is interesting, for instance, ‘poutre’ in French means two different things, so it makes us see things differently depending on our culture.

There is an analogy with the car: before people thought that we had lost something essential in walking with the car. The car has forced us to redefine the world. Before the car, to experience acceleration you had to jump from the window, now it is totally inbuilt in our body, this is totally structured. The car has redefined pertaining objects and also the sensation. With the acceleration you feel in power and also the vulnerability of the body in this moment, e.g. the Starwars race computer game. This goes to an existential thing. We also use computer metaphors and our perception of our body is changing through the machine we build. The computer is something we drive like a car. The perception of landscape is changing via having experienced the car.

The computer has redefined certain things:
– deformation we can twist things
– geometry focus that explains why we have so many frozen flows project
– surface, light and texture it has drastically changed what is around us. Grain conduction, there is a return to ornament which is very different from traditional ornament and now it becomes texture. Digital architecture is one syndrome: fascination for light and texture. The computer makes a global syndrome more visible

Redefinition of materiality new pertaining objects, new sensations; however when you gain something, you loose something. There is also the problem of scale, hence the fascination for the fractale, there is a dissociation with the material where you can view infinitely. Before architecture represented bones, now architecture is boneless. This is the end of structure and information kills structure. The machine is a combination of software and hardware layers. It has influenced the way we interface the layers in architecture. We went from the gothic cathedral, e.g the Switz clock, to the layered architecture, e.g. hamburgers in Mc Donald.

Technology is about interfacing different realities, linguistic and economic use of heterogeneity. Architecture is now about deconstruction of techtonic. The classical language of techtonic is deconstructed and even worse the dissolution of the system. It is not a dematerialization of architecture, it is a shift. There is today an affinity with the baroque.
Tool: an externalization of the body function. The computer is an externalization of the mental function. We internalize while we externalize and then we become our tool. When we use for instance a hammer, we think ourselves using the hammer. Lots of people use the computer as a metaphor: my hard drive is broken. I am a 386. The machine can create even pain. The computer is not just an extension of the mind but also an extension of the body. There are plenty of experiment on senses: vision, smell, and the perception of space changes. ‘Zooming’ has now become a totally normal activity. Everything is zoomable now. The crisis of scale: we perceive things very accurately more from far than from close. This is the crisis of intermediary scale. The way we perceive nature today: stable and unstable. Things are constantly changing, as we live in a world of mutation; this is a qualitative transformation, a magic condition due to metamorphosis, e.g. zoom, that can apply to painting or architecture. The very very concrete becomes abstract and the very very abstract becomes concrete, e.g. if I zoom in a face it becomes skin and then the skin itself becomes landscape. Materiality was the reversed from the abstract, and the computer is not a machine in the traditional sense, but it is an environment. There are new ways of inhabiting this strange world, world with decorativeness, playing with surfaces, ornaments. Traditional ornament had a scale because it was linked to the body and the human scale. Today it is not linked to the human scale anymore. We are passing from human-body technology to technologies that can only be thought in term of landscape and is not the world around us.

Conclusion
In traditional architecture, space was a given. Today, space is not a given: it is very small or very huge. We have a human responsibility but not in the megalo-utopia. We are responsible in this redefinition of materiality.

In architecture theory
Notes taken during the Architecture Science and Technology class taught by Antoine Picon 12th Dec 2005

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

As part of ARCHITECTURE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, AN INTRODUCTION, course by Antoine Picon, Harvard University.

Digital architecture is about materiality because materiality is changing.
Materiality is culturally constructed, but the problem is the definition of materiality, materiality is not nature. It is the image we have of nature. The notion of nature is also socially constructed through what we can produce, and nature can be different. Today it is basically informational. It is about movement and the definition of nature over time changes.
Materials are socially constructed: before a bone was a material, now we construct material as much as we construct nature. There is this idea that materiality is the relation we have to what seem tangible in the world. The way we perceive materials and objects when we are not sure if we touch or if it in our brain, it is a problem. With the computer, we don’t know what we touch. There is an extension to us: it goes into us.

Materiality is then constructed through:
1- a sensory education To live in a culture is to learn how to perceive things in a certain way, e.g. colors differ in culture, so there is a construction of the senses.
2- tools a society with tools, e.g. lenses, microscope, sees things differently.
So people who thinks there is a problem with computers think there was a problem before. Digital architectural representation is a virtuality because it can represent everything. It occupies an impossible point of view.

Then what’s new with the computer screen? Has it been close to materiality? Thre is the thickness of the computer screen; there is a layer of software much more than in the traditional pencil that transfers in the paper. Redefining pertaining objects: natural versus cultural. The semantic of words is interesting, for instance, ‘poutre’ in French means two different things, so it makes us see things differently depending on our culture.

There is an analogy with the car: before people thought that we had lost something essential in walking with the car. The car has forced us to redefine the world. Before the car, to experience acceleration you had to jump from the window, now it is totally inbuilt in our body, this is totally structured. The car has redefined pertaining objects and also the sensation. With the acceleration you feel in power and also the vulnerability of the body in this moment, e.g. the Starwars race computer game. This goes to an existential thing. We also use computer metaphors and our perception of our body is changing through the machine we build. The computer is something we drive like a car. The perception of landscape is changing via having experienced the car.

The computer has redefined certain things:
– deformation we can twist things
– geometry focus that explains why we have so many frozen flows project
– surface, light and texture it has drastically changed what is around us. Grain conduction, there is a return to ornament which is very different from traditional ornament and now it becomes texture. Digital architecture is one syndrome: fascination for light and texture. The computer makes a global syndrome more visible

Redefinition of materiality new pertaining objects, new sensations; however when you gain something, you loose something. There is also the problem of scale, hence the fascination for the fractale, there is a dissociation with the material where you can view infinitely. Before architecture represented bones, now architecture is boneless. This is the end of structure and information kills structure. The machine is a combination of software and hardware layers. It has influenced the way we interface the layers in architecture. We went from the gothic cathedral, e.g the Switz clock, to the layered architecture, e.g. hamburgers in Mc Donald.

Technology is about interfacing different realities, linguistic and economic use of heterogeneity. Architecture is now about deconstruction of techtonic. The classical language of techtonic is deconstructed and even worse the dissolution of the system. It is not a dematerialization of architecture, it is a shift. There is today an affinity with the baroque.
Tool: an externalization of the body function. The computer is an externalization of the mental function. We internalize while we externalize and then we become our tool. When we use for instance a hammer, we think ourselves using the hammer. Lots of people use the computer as a metaphor: my hard drive is broken. I am a 386. The machine can create even pain. The computer is not just an extension of the mind but also an extension of the body. There are plenty of experiment on senses: vision, smell, and the perception of space changes. ‘Zooming’ has now become a totally normal activity. Everything is zoomable now. The crisis of scale: we perceive things very accurately more from far than from close. This is the crisis of intermediary scale. The way we perceive nature today: stable and unstable. Things are constantly changing, as we live in a world of mutation; this is a qualitative transformation, a magic condition due to metamorphosis, e.g. zoom, that can apply to painting or architecture. The very very concrete becomes abstract and the very very abstract becomes concrete, e.g. if I zoom in a face it becomes skin and then the skin itself becomes landscape. Materiality was the reversed from the abstract, and the computer is not a machine in the traditional sense, but it is an environment. There are new ways of inhabiting this strange world, world with decorativeness, playing with surfaces, ornaments. Traditional ornament had a scale because it was linked to the body and the human scale. Today it is not linked to the human scale anymore. We are passing from human-body technology to technologies that can only be thought in term of landscape and is not the world around us.

Conclusion
In traditional architecture, space was a given. Today, space is not a given: it is very small or very huge. We have a human responsibility but not in the megalo-utopia. We are responsible in this redefinition of materiality.

In architecture theory
Notes taken during the Architecture Science and Technology class taught by Antoine Picon 12th Dec 2005