Tectonic Thinking
after the
Digital Revolution
References:
Christopher Alexander: Notes on the Synthesis of Form
Frei Otto: Finding Form
Adriaan Beukers: Lightness
Cecil Balmond: Informal
Reiser + Umemoto: Atlas of Novel Tectonics
Patrik Schumacher: SoArch Lecture, 2012.02.14
Form Finding
vs.
Form Making
Functionality
"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function.
This is the law.”
Louis Sullivan
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Expression
“... Eduard Sekler defined the tectonic as a certain expressivity
arising from the statical resistance of constructional form in
such a way that the resultant form could not be accounted for in
terms of structure and construction alone.”
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Rationality
“These notes are about the process of design; the process of
inventing physical things which display a new physical order,
organization, form, in response to function.”
“…every design problem begins with an effort to achieve fitness
between two entities: the form in question and its context. The
form is the solution to the problem; the context defines the
problem.”
Christopher Alexander
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Efficiency
“Efficiency depends on the trinity of material, shape and the
process of making. The lighter that constructions have to be, the
more critical the balance between these three.”
Adriaan Beukers
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Nature
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Minimal Architecture
“Tomorrow’s architecture will again be minimal architecture, an
architecture of the self-forming and self-optimization processes
suggested by human beings. This must be seen as part of the
new developing ecological system of the people who have
densely and peacefully settled the surface of the earth. It ia an
architecture that respects genuine traditions and the
multiplicity of forms in animate and inanimate nature.”
Frei Otto
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Membranes
The structural membrane acts also as the weathershield
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Cable Nets
A separate grid of structural cables supports a non–structural
weathershield
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Arches, Vaults & Shells:
Arch and vault constructions use little material and small mass when
the form is generated by the inverted catenary, or for shells, the
inverted net.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
CMU School of Architecture Legacy
“GLIDE: A system for implementing design databases” by Charles
Eastman and Max Henrion -- 1978-1980
“On the representation and generation of loosely packed
arrangements of rectangles” by Ulrich Flemming -- 1985-1988
“Strategies for Interactive Design Systems” by Robert Woodbury -1986
“The Role of Shape Grammars in the Analysis and Creation of
Designs” by Ulrich Flemming -- c1987
“Rule-based Systems in Computer Aided Architectural Design” by
Ulrich Flemming -- 1987
“Integrated software environment for building design and
construction” by S J Fenves, U Flemming, C Hendrickson, ML
Maher, and G. Schmitt -- 1990
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Columbia GSAPP Legacy
Tschumi, Allen, Lynn, Kipnis, Kwinter, van Berkel, Delanda, Somol,
Zaera-Polo, Benjamin, Reiser, Umemoto
From Princeton, the “Atlas of Novel Tectonics” by Reiser +
Umemoto
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Definitions by
Cecil Balmond
“Structure is architecture.”
“The placing of structure and its elements creates rhythms.”
“Structure is about organization.”
“Design navigates by pattern recognition.”
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Informal by
Cecil Balmond
…the informal steps in easily, a sudden twist or turn, a branching,
and the unexpected happens - the edge of chance shows its face
Delight, surprise, ambiguity are typical responses; ideas clash in
the informal and strange juxtapositions take place. Overlaps
occur. Instead of regular, formally controlled measures, there
are varying rhythms and wayward impulses.
Uniformity is broken and balance is interrupted. The demand for
Order! in the regimental senses is ignored: the big picture is
something else.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
U.Penn Blogosphere by metamechanic
Form and Space are dead. (I am emulating Nietzsche here)
Forms and Algorithms is a pre-requisite to Cecil Balmonds studio. …. why are architect students learning VB and C# in
the realm of SmartGeometry, Generative Components, and Rhino scripting, why so rigourous? Well its the end
of this Form and Space obsession of architecture. I am sure this isn't Balmonds intention, but thanks to the
rebels against the cube, Form and Space are done.
Here is the quick history:
1. Modern architecture oblished [sic] ornament and abstracted the basics forms for us (Adolf Loos, De Stijl)
2. Space became free flowing (FLW, Mies)
3. Then all the straight forward basic principles failed on many levels, urban planning, meaning, etc...
4. Po-mo, Italian Rationalism but within a context of the varnacular [ic], Michael Graves, Corb's brutalism and
Ronchamp, Robert A.M. Stern historical crap, Archigrams fun overly technolica [sic]l conceptions, Archizooms
presentation of full force modernity as an apocalyptic situation
5. Semiotics, writing cities, etc...importing linguistics and social sciences (Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes,
etc...) so that architecture may form a language
6. Deconstruction...importing a philosophy to deconstruct the language of architecture (Derrida, Deleuze)
7. Situationism and Events...importing hedonistic temporal duration cinematic experience architecture crap
(Debord, cinematic application of Bergson)
8. Existenialism [sic], Power, and Dwellin...Heideger, Foucalt, etc...
9. Blobs....
10. Ribbons...
11. High-Tech as style and justified by Sustainability
12. Gehry Technoligies [sic] ....capable of making extremely complicated forms affordable and buildable via
Catia platform based Digital Project
13. Forms and Algorithms...I know you're saying how can you end it with a class you're taking. trust me its the
end, and Forms and Algorithms is just another Brick in the Wall.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
U.Penn Blogosphere by metamechanic
see the cycle. clarity via scientific analysis rebelled against via artistic concepts, just to become scientific again...
you're thinking, won't architects resort to rebelling again....what do you propose?
I have one answer for you...CAS's and Emergence....complex adaptive systems and emergence, a combo of phase
transititions [sic] in physics, cellular automata, economics realization that their objects of study are agents of
irrational behavior. in the world of architecture this means our forms and spaces evolve themselves via
genetic rules and the enviroment [sic].
So why would Form and Space be dead?
well, emergence and CAS's exclude the designer from the design of forms and space. the designer designs the rules
and lets it fly.Conclusion: the study of form and space in itself is dead, we've covered all the bases so let us
move on to more important things...please!
Form and Space should be taught like English 101: i.e. this is a cube, cubes are useful for this, this is a blob,
historically applicable as this...but no need in wasting hours of studio time justify Form and Space...
with that said I love my Forms and Algorithms class, i intend to use to exclude me from design decisions unless of
course I want to make one, but I really don't feel like justifing [sic] form and space anymore, its so damn
elementary.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
AONT - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
How does one produce
multiplicities in formal
arrangements?
How does one produce multiplicity
in structure?
How does one produce multiplicity
in function?
AONT - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
AONT - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
AONT - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
AONT - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Geometry & Matter, Balmond/ Ruy,
2004
In theoretical physics, there is an
emerging interest in a shift away
from grids to a model of network
relationships - from a model of the
universe as a collection of bodies in
universal space to a backgroundindependent model of spatial/
temporal relationships evolving
over time.
An astonishing consequence of the
network model is a radically new
definition of space as a
consequence of relationships.
AONT - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Form v. Function by Patrik Schumacher
We can identify in every function system a so-called lead
distinction. The lead distinction for architecture is form versus
function. You find it in Alberti. You find it in all major selfdescriptions. This lead distinction is the re-entry of the systemenvironment distinction into the system. So with the category of
form, architecture represents itself to itself as distinct from
function, which is the category representing the external world
reference of architecture.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Parametricism by Patrik Schumacher
It’s important to give a conceptual definition of parametricism in
terms of parametric malleability, but there is also an operational
definition of parametricism. When I first started to talk about
parametricism I was talking about formal heuristics, but now I
find it necessary to also talk about functional heuristics, because
a style is not just a matter of form and formalisms. Each style
also introduces a particular attitude and way of comprehending
and handling functions and program. Any serious style must take
a position on these issues, and I think we have a different
attitude and position with respect to function than the
modernists. We need both functional heuristics and formal
heuristics.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
Dystopia
by Patrik Schumacher
The (best?) students of the current generation as well as their
teachers seem to think that the ordinary life processes of
contemporary society are too boring to merit the avant-garde’s
attention. Instead we witness the invention of scenarios that are
supposedly more interesting than the challenges actually posed
by contemporary reality. The point of departure for the majority
of projects are improbable narratives with intended symbolic
message or poetic import. Accordingly the resultant works are
statements or allegories rather than designs.
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
What can we conclude
from this collection of ideas?
A+U - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
A+U - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
A+U - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio
A+U - 2006
Carnegie Mellon • School of Architecture • Third Year Studio