Georg Vrachliotis

In the era of cybernetics, architects suddenly encountered entirely new ways of operating technical systems: buildings could be calculated using circuit diagrams, creativity and imagination were confronted with the technical intelligence of thinking machines. Architects found themselves in the crosshairs of cybernetics. At stake was nothing less than the continued existence of the architect’s inventive intelligence in a techno-scientific world. Today, we see computing machines, once so heavy, losing weight while gaining power. Computers are fully colonizing the human environment, creating their own digital ecosystems, and giving rise to forms of society and ways of being that cannot even be explained without big data. Available for the first time in English as a new edition.

Architecture and Design in the Age of Cybernetics

The New Technological Condition

Tom Avermaete

Thomas F. Valena

Originally developed in linguistics, the structuralist approach has been introduced as a scientific method in anthropology and other human sciences since the 1950s. In the 1960s and 1970s the double category of primary and secondary structure (langue and parole), essential to structuralism, in which the primary structure's system of rules determines how the secondary elements are placed in relation to one another, also advanced to a leading Ideology in the field of architecture and urban planning. From its development in the Netherlands and within the Team 10 circle of architects, structuralism in architecture quickly spread world-wide. Since the 1990s we have been witnessing a revival of structuralist tendencies in architecture. Whereas the structuralism of the 1970s encountered limits in complexity that were insurmountable at the time, today there is much to suggest that the return to structural thinking is causally connected to information technology, which has opened up new possibilities for dealing with complexity. In the field of digital architecture there is talk of neo-Structuralism. The question arises as to whether primary and secondary structures of the 1960s should be understood today as being in a state of complex interactions with one another that could be described through algorithms. The current interest in design methods based on rules makes the structuralist approach one of the most productive and comprehensive methods for the organisation, design, and production of the built environment. At the same time, it provides the systemic and meta-theoretical background for all disciplines involved in the production of space. This book is a collection of 47 articles by renowned authors including, among others, Roland Barthes, Koos Bosma, Jörg Gleiter, Herman Hertzberger, Arnulf Lüchinger, Winy Maas, Sylvain Malfroy, Hasim Sarkis, Fabian Scheurer, and Georges Teyssot. Through well-founded theoretical contributions, the book provides the first comprehensive representation of historical and contemporary digital structural thinking in architecture and urban planning.

Rule-based Design in Architecture and Urbanism

Structuralism Reloaded

Andrea Gleiniger

As models and paradigms, patterns have been helping to orient architects since the Middle Ages. But patterns are also the basis of the history of ornament, an aesthetic phenomenon that links all times and cultures at a fundamental level. Ornament – and hence pattern as well – was abolished by the avant-garde in the first half of the twentieth century, but the notion of pattern has taken on new meaning and importance since the 1960s. Complexity research has ultimately shown that even highly complex, dynamic patterns may be based on simple behavioral rules, and that has allowed the notions of pattern and pattern formation to take on new meanings, that are also central for architecture. Today the use of generative computerized methods is opening up new ways of talking about an idea that is becoming increasingly abstract and dynamic. Pattern explores the question: what are the notions of pattern that must be discussed in the context of contemporary architecture?

Ornament, Structure, and Behavior

Pattern

Digitalization has transformed the discourse of architecture: that discourse is now defined by a wealth of new terms and concepts that previously either had no meaning, or had different meanings, in the context of architectural theory and design. Its concepts and strategies are increasingly shaped by influences emerging at the intersection with scientific and cultural notions from modern information technology. The new series Context Architecture seeks to take a critical selection of concepts that play a vital role in the current discourse and put them up for discussion. In the context of discussions of the medial, the notion of simulation plays a central role in architecture as illusion and imitation. In dialogue with information technology and computer science, however, that notion has now taken on a new quality in architectural discourse. Today when we speak of simulation we primarily think of "computer simulation," the technical ability to simulate processes. Whereas simulation used to refer to a mode of presentation, it now connects architecture with the sciences and represents a strategic and methodological instrument, a tool of discovery. With the scientific principle of simulation the focus shifts to the idea of "modeling a dynamic system" (Norbert Wiener), not just presenting finished products but going in search of solutions and developing systems!

Presentation Technique and Cognitive Method

Simulation

Die Digitalisierung hat den Diskurs der Architektur verändert: Dieser ist mittlerweile von einer Fülle neuer Begriffe bestimmt, die bislang entweder keine oder doch andere Bedeutungen im Kontext der Architekturtheorie und des architektonischen Entwurfs hatten. Seine Begrifflichkeiten und Strategien werden zunehmend durch Einflüsse geprägt, die an der Schnittstelle zu wissenschaftlichen und kulturellen Vorstelllungen der modernen Informationstechnologie entstehen. Ziel der neuen Reihe Kontext Architektur ist es deshalb, eine kritische Auswahl jener Begriffe zur Debatte zu stellen, die im aktuellen Diskurs eine Rolle spielen. Als Vitruv den Architekten als „uomo universale" beschrieb, schuf er dessen Selbstverständnis als eines Generalisten, der eine komplexe Realität gestaltet. Der architektonische Begriff der Komplexität hielt allerdings mit der industriell-gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit nicht Schritt, er verflachte zu einer formalen Beliebigkeit. Die architektonische Moderne setzte dagegen die Vereinfachung "Less is More". Vor diesem Hintergrund führte Robert Venturi den Begriff in den Architekturdiskurs neu ein: Es ging dabei nicht nur um eine Wiedergewinnung der Komplexität der architektonischen Formen und ihrer Geschichte, sondern auch um das Eingehen auf das Vorgefundene als konkrete Realität. Heute prägt die Komplexitätsforschung, ausgehend von der Physik, den aktuellen Umgang mit dem Begriff der Komplexität. Sie hat eine neue Verbindung zwischen Naturwissenschaften und Informationstechnologie geknüpft und ist so zu einer zentralen Voraussetzung computerbasierter Entwurfskonzepte geworden.

Entwurfsstrategie und Weltbild

Komplexität

Digitalization has transformed the discourse of architecture: that discourse is now defined by a wealth of new terms and concepts that previously either had no meaning, or had different meanings, in the context of architectural theory and design. Its concepts and strategies are increasingly shaped by influences emerging at the intersection with scientific and cultural notions from modern information technology. The series Context Architecture seeks to take a critical selection of concepts that play a vital role in the current discourse and put them up for discussion. When Vitruvius described the architect as a "uomo universale," he gave rise to the architect’s conception of him- or herself as a generalist who shapes a complex reality. The architectural concept of complexity, however, failed to keep pace with industrial and social reality, becoming instead an increasingly formal and superficial notion that could ultimately be applied to almost anything. Against it, architectural modernism set the watchword of simplification: "less is more." In this situation, Robert Venturi reintroduced the notion of complexity into architectural discourse: his goal was not just to restore the complexity of architectonic forms and their history but also to explore the concrete reality of the existing built environment. Today it is complexity studies, with their starting point in physics, that define the current approach to the concept of complexity. They have established a new connection between the natural sciences and information technology and have thus become a central premise of computer-based approaches to design.

Design Strategy and World View

Complexity

The process of coding is a systematic experimentation with signs, symbols, and the construction of larger cultural meanings. The fourth volume in the series Kontext Architektur examines the architectural-historical and -theoretical relevance of the concept of "code" from various perspectives. The authors and editors start from the premise that this concept makes for new ways of translating architecture into language. Thus, the dominance of computer simulation makes it clear that the building is no longer merely a vehicle for signs, but literally also their product. The code has penetrated, as it were, from the exterior of the building into its interior, into its structure. We are dealing with both a socio-cultural as well as with a mathematical and formal notion of code. The goal of this book is thus to arrive at a critical grasp of the contours of this vibrant conceptual tension between the cultural and the formal, the "outside" and the "inside," while also formulating questions for further exploration that are relevant for architecture.

Between Operation and Narration

Code

Die Reihe «Kontext Architektur» stellt eine kritische Auswahl jener Begriffe zur Debatte, die im aktuellen Diskurs eine Rolle spielen. «Simulation» erörtert, welche Potenziale aber auch Grenzen uns die verschiedenen Verständnismöglichkeiten des heutigen Simulationsbegriffes eröffnen.

Präsentationstechnik und Erkenntnisinstrument

Der Prozess des Kodierens ist ein systematisches Experimentieren mit Zeichen, Symbolen und dem Aufbau von kulturellen Bedeutungszusammenhängen. Der vierte Band der Buchreihe Kontext Architektur untersucht die architekturhistorische und -theoretische Relevanz des Begriffs „Code» aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. Herausgeber und Autoren gehen davon aus, dass mit diesem eine neue Art der „Versprachlichung“ von Architektur möglich ist. So wird mit Blick auf die Dominanz der Computersimulation deutlich, dass das Gebäude nicht mehr nur Träger, sondern buchstäblich auch Erzeugnis von Zeichen ist. Der Code ist gewissermaßen von der Außenseite des Gebäudes in sein Inneres, in seine Struktur vorgedrungen. Wir haben es sowohl mit einem sozial-kulturellen, als auch mit einem mathematisch-formalen Code zu tun. Ziel des Buches ist es daher, die Konturen dieses begrifflichen Spannungsfeldes zwischen dem Kulturellen und dem Formalen, dem „Außen“ und dem „Innen“, kritisch zu ergründen und weiterführende Fragestellungen für die Architektur zu formulieren.

Georg Vrachliotis

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