So, what’s the fuss over all of this ‘parametric design’ or ‘computational design’, you ask? Or, really, isn’t the honeymoon over for yet another provocative shape and how to apply efficient facets of a beautiful surface onto a new building? Better yet, shouldn’t there be more to ‘parametric design’ in the overall design process – especially given today’s economic and environmental climate? Architect Don Chong attended the recent Bentley SmartGeometry conference in San Francisco and writes about the many impressions and thoughts it generated in this first of a two-part article.
A lot of questions, true. But for those of us interested in building and designing with digital tools in a fully integrated manner, we’re in dire need of answers – and sustainable solutions moving forward.
And just where might one cast a net to capture the best ideas of this ever-popular and ever-engaging world of computational design aka ‘parametric design’…?
Springtime in San Francisco: SmartGeometry 2009
So, there I was, attending the SmartGeometry 2009 Conference held in San Francisco earlier this spring. It was a wonderful event, a veritable cornucopia of talent. You can read about the event itself in my earlier story . I think SmartGeometry gatherings are known for being signficant even before the first speaker steps up to the lecturn to introduce something new. In this way, I enjoyed the ‘TED Conference’ feel to the event, with the ‘ideas worth spreading’ atmosphere.
You knew you were in for something special, even if you thought you were interested in only a few areas. It goes without saying that there was a palpable sense of real forward-thinking at the event. Fittingly for the west coast, you had to ride through waves of new ideas, yes, and surf out your own position in the often precise – but evermore broadening – fields of digital design and its relationship with built form. Doubtless, this annual event had the all-important ‘you-had-to-be-there’ feel.
I had a hunch, though, that this event would resurface in my consciousness in more profound ways after the event. I knew certain aspects would hit me later, which to me is far more profound, far more telling. The proverbial ‘noodles which stuck to the wall’, I find, are far more interesting to examine.
I’m here to offer back my angle on those select presentations. (It must be stated here firmly that one would be hardpressed to find any presentation not worth admiring for in its utmost focus and dedication to the given subject. No matter how specific or maybe even rarified a subject may have been, the enthusiasm from each presentation was contagious and continued to resonate throughout the event.)
Why Would this Matter?
However, I’d like to submit here my findings on the deeper read of the SmartGeometry event. I was rather struck by a certain collection of ‘phantom’ themes. And by ‘phantom’ I mean exactly that: those themes not intentionally crafted by the conference organizers, those themes not entitled with the highly convenient though neatly accessible terms of ‘Building Visions’ (for Day 1) and ‘Vision Building (for Day 2).
It would be incumbent on me to coalesce my thoughts into a distinctly separate set of ideas, vs. the ones offered us in the schedule of events . I’ve selected among the many profound and provocative talks, a single presentation which speaks to the relevant aspects of parametric design. Why does this matter? Well, quite simply, I think it’s imperative to understand the digital revolution in architecture and construction in the context of an ongoing economic and environmental revolution.
Seeing what patterns align, and what trends might become truths in and amongst our tools, our financial resources and our planet. Could the role of ‘design’ as we know it shift so much that it has seen its day of being simply a ‘handy’ agent for composition, aesthetics and images?
Amidst the so-called ‘turmoil’ of late, could this simply be the brewing of the perfect storm where the economy and environment are finally colluding to force our hand as inhabitants, and specifically as ‘designers’, to make change. Real change. To build better tools. To evolve. To make Darwin proud, and undergo a process of natural selection and, effectively, become more resilient and self-sustaining.
Father Figures in Parametric Design
First thing’s first: a little housekeeping. As I had written earlier, the three major proponents, amongst the gaggle of fantastically driven younger designers/researchers/theorists/engineers, were indeed the ‘founding fathers’ of the voice in parametric design, the SmartGeometry Group: Hugh Whitehead, Lars Hesselgren, and J Parrish from KPF, Foster + Partners and Arup, respectively.
Without a doubt, their presence amidst the younger, riper generations of leading figures was especially powerful if not buoyant. Bentley, the enlightened title sponsor to the event (largely through the pre-eminent software package in computational design, GenerativeComponents ), clearly understood this profound dynamic of the SmartGeometry following and were particularly successful at providing the environment and culture for an enriching level of dialogue.
In this, we were rewarded with a discourse not often seen in a two-day event (part of a larger event including invited participants to teach or to learn), especially an event with the breadth of scope as this one.
Setting the Table…
Just to be clear, this is a conference about designing with the aid of computational tools – mainly for the AEC world (just in case, the Architectural / Engineering / Construction world), and really a very specific type of software application created for specialists in their respective industry.
Now, the software packages are not necessarily written with the cause to introduce a wholly new design process but, I wonder, to enhance, heighten and simplify the very experience of the design process which we have already been ‘good’ at for generations. So, this is not wheel-inventing stuff here; it’s simply software engineered to work along with us in a credible, inspiring and highly effective way. As if it’s been part of our thinking and doing all along.
So, yes, there are a number of viewpoints of what computational design may be. It’s like asking people how they view computers in music, for instance. There is no singular ‘right’ way, or approach. There couldn’t be a narrowly defined bandwidth of interests. There may even be opposing views. And ‘hear-hear’ for that – should it be the case. Nobody’s pretending that there is a common way to go, a ‘magic bullet’ as it were, but rather a common interest in the overarching discipline of involving advanced computing somewhere in the stage of making buildings, components, spaces or systems.
Alas, me just being me – I do have my own preferences. My own so-called ways of seeing things. To not have an angle, if not a downright bias, may otherwise produce an article bordering on a survey-style report. To lay my cards out early, my ‘bias’ would be simply to seek out the full promise of computational design, a promise not solely based in form-making, facet-distribution, or generating structural members from a complex-curved tessellated model…
Nothing wrong with these whatsoever. In fact these are already deeply satisfying, and unquestionably special. But we know this going into the event. I was craving to hear more, and craving to put to rest any doubts that ‘parametric design’ can be more than just good looks…
So here we go…
Iterative Craft: It’s Still About Making
Right off the bat, the conference led off with Martin Tamke’s take on the issues of computational design with construction, ‘Digital Crafting: Narratives of Making / Incorporating Crafts and the Making of Details.’ For me, this was exactly what I was hoping to see. And I didn’t have to sift through dozens of presentations to find something which, in my opinion, was a much-needed position to take in digital design tools.
Simply put, I have a deep-seeded interest in seeing how digital methodologies and practices can indeed translate to the built work. Tamke’s work is a clear reminder that one can comfortably structure a practice where computational design models continually folds back into the constructed, physical reality, and where authorship blends across both ‘realities’.
{sidebar id=354 align=right}Based in Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Centre for IT and Architecture (CITA), Tamke has combined the interests of his teaching with research required by local projects. He outlines a refreshingly credible dovetailing of theory and practice, and he rekindles the ongoing debate of a ‘current vocabulary’ but with a twist: how it applies to real-time fabrication and building.
This is key. How many times do we see otherwise beautiful objects, patterns, iterative forms only to ‘stamp’ it as ‘well-it-would-be-just-a-little-cooler-if-it-could-be-realized’?
Tamke, whether he recognizes this or not, is taking the bull by the horns. It’s as if you can see the sawdust coming of his elbows between writing a new parametric script and sizing up new saw-blades. This is absolutely satisfying to see something like this – not even for me, but to see that other’s at the conference are witnessing this as well.
For instance, there is the wing-like shelter for the ZOB Central Omnibus Station in Hamburg which uses parametric software successfully enough that the shifting between 3D models and 2D drawing is quickened, and made more natural. The tools helped the CNC-fabrication process for which 800 unique tiles were well-managed given the complex curves involved. For Tamke, he finds a fundamental advantage in production at all different scales when he can use what he calls ‘generative logics with a computational basis’.
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This way, he finds a more ‘relational’ understanding in the design process – and feels that he can do away with what can sometimes boil down to ‘formal’ games. Interestingly, Tamke said that these digital tools – mainly to ‘see’ things – is ‘rippling’ into practice. Choice words for a real movement, but maybe one that is not all that new, necessarily.
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One of the central figures of architecture in the later half of the 20th century is Carlo Scarpa, an architect who’s strength was in the articulated expression of the built work and, to this day, resonates in works inspired by him the world over.
{sidebar id=357} Scarpa, who is equally noted for his ‘design process’ which includes layers upon layers of sketches and studies, has often said that ‘he draws to see’. In those four words, he neatly envelopes the critical desire for the architect to test, to venture, to make mistakes and to study.
The sheer belief in knowing that you don’t know it all, is something that reminds me in Tamke’s approach to design. After all, it’s about a certain quest to achieve something right and to solve the issues at hand, real-time.
Like Scarpa, Tamke’s interest in the joinery and industrialized techniques shows in his ambition for the ‘richness’ in character of the forms. His spirited attempts to understand the traditional wood joints available by current mechanical techniques and how it can be pushed to employ new angles of joinery has forced him to a ‘new commitment at the 1-to-1 scale’.
I applaud Tamke’s objective to seek – or let’s say, re-assert – the notion that construction can still have character; that we simply have to find the balance of where we fit in as the designers/authors and how we steward the process to bear the fruits of a pleasant, lasting and meaningful work.
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It’s befitting for Tamke to underline how Scandinavia – where this work is emanating from, and where formidable architects showed care in construction detail (see Alvar Aalto, Erik Gunnar Asplund, Arne Jacobsen or Sigurd Lewerentz) – has always been about an architecture relating to craft and materiality; and there is no reason whatsoever to see that these essential markers of fine architecture would be threatened by a progressive, digital approach to design.
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The second part of this article will be published next week.
Don Chong is a V1 Magazine columnist and architect based in Toronto. His work and studio information are available at www.donaldchongstudio.com
