The past decade has witnessed a gradual return of an explicit interest in the relation between ar... more The past decade has witnessed a gradual return of an explicit interest in the relation between architecture and performance. Today, there seem to be perhaps five different approaches towards performance in architecture. The first approach emerged from an interest in representation, symbolism and meaning in architecture. The second and third approaches originate largely from the deep-seated debate over the relationship between form and function. The fourth approach foregrounds the notion of event, and emphasises unplanned appropriations and inadvertent latent capacities of architectures. The fifth approach focuses on the relation between planned and unplanned performances, between performance, place and purpose, and between a building and its larger context or ‘topography’.
A useful inroad to the formulation of a non-anthropocentric architecture involves the integration... more A useful inroad to the formulation of a non-anthropocentric architecture involves the integration of provisions for planned biodiversity that can help sustain an associated biodiversity and, in turn, sustain the freely evolving one. The involved conceptualisation, analysis, evaluation and incorporation of the understandings that arise from urban ecology research into urban design can either develop along an anthropocentric trajectory or along a non-anthropocentric one – the latter might constitute a powerful alternative. Experiments on an urban and regional scale are risky in that the result can be disastrous on a large scale, while experimentation towards multispecies environments on the scale of one or a few buildings may equally go wrong but might contain the consequences of potentially negative outcomes. Experiments geared towards non-anthropocentric architectures could therefore be locally conducted on a building scale and carefully increased in size for as long as the observed results are deemed positive.
The notion of performance emerged in the humanities and social sciences in the mid-20th century a... more The notion of performance emerged in the humanities and social sciences in the mid-20th century and, following this development, also in the arts and science in general. It took shape during the 1940s and 1950s with an intellectual movement known as the performative turn: a paradigm shift in the humanities and social sciences, with a focus on theorising performance as a social and cultural element. Performance is today commonly understood as a concept that provides a path to understanding human behaviour. This is rooted in the hypothesis that all human practices are performed and are affected by their specific context: the notion of active human agency. The discipline of biosemiotics can provide an insightful approach to questions of agency of different species, and can perhaps offer an inroad to rethinking concerns of meaning that are present in post-modern approaches to questions of performance in architecture.
This article is based on the proposition that performance-oriented design is characterised by fou... more This article is based on the proposition that performance-oriented design is characterised by four domains of 'active agency': the human subject, the spatial and material organisation complex and the environment . While these four domains are seen to be interdependent and interacting with one another, it is nevertheless necessary to examine each in its own right. However, the spatial and material organisation complex contains both the spatial and material domains, which are interdependent to such a degree that these need to be examined in relation to one another and also in relation to the specific environment they are set within and interacting with. To explore this combined domain within the context of performance-oriented design is the aim of this article, in particularly in relation to the question of the definition and performative capacity of spatial and material boundaries. The various sections are accompanied by research by design efforts undertaken in specified academic contexts, which are intended as examples of modes and areas of inquiry relative to the purpose of this article.
The title of this publication -digital tectonics -suggests the possibility of a decisive move awa... more The title of this publication -digital tectonics -suggests the possibility of a decisive move away from the current hype about 'the digital' that so often results in the pointless dichotomy between digital and analogue design and a careless neglect of their respective repercussions. Such a move could give way to a rigorous empirical designbased research that aims at investigating spatialities, conditions and effects produced by digital design -in tandem with the analogue spectrum of design techniques available to architecture and design and how the conditions produced effect our human social and cultural environment. The point is that a productive discourse on digital tectonics needs to emphasise material formations in relation to inevitably yielded cultural, social and political formations. It is important to investigate the facilitating aspect of digital technology as an integrated segment of a larger generative and design-process facilitating tool-set through which social and cultural formations might be provoked. In doing so the design process moves again into the foreground of attention, not so much because of a self-indulgent fascination with new hard and software and peripheral gadgetry, but instead with respect to developing instrumental design techniques that can serve to inject performative potential into the built environment. Indeed, as design techniques yield specific sets of conditions and effects, computational methods add to the broad scope of analogue modelling and design techniques, so as to inform interventions that engage the relational dynamic between the built environment and its inhabitants.
The past decade has witnessed a gradual return of an explicit interest in the relation between ar... more The past decade has witnessed a gradual return of an explicit interest in the relation between architecture and performance. Today, there seem to be perhaps five different approaches towards performance in architecture. The first approach emerged from an interest in representation, symbolism and meaning in architecture. The second and third approaches originate largely from the deep-seated debate over the relationship between form and function. The fourth approach foregrounds the notion of event, and emphasises unplanned appropriations and inadvertent latent capacities of architectures. The fifth approach focuses on the relation between planned and unplanned performances, between performance, place and purpose, and between a building and its larger context or ‘topography’.
A useful inroad to the formulation of a non-anthropocentric architecture involves the integration... more A useful inroad to the formulation of a non-anthropocentric architecture involves the integration of provisions for planned biodiversity that can help sustain an associated biodiversity and, in turn, sustain the freely evolving one. The involved conceptualisation, analysis, evaluation and incorporation of the understandings that arise from urban ecology research into urban design can either develop along an anthropocentric trajectory or along a non-anthropocentric one – the latter might constitute a powerful alternative. Experiments on an urban and regional scale are risky in that the result can be disastrous on a large scale, while experimentation towards multispecies environments on the scale of one or a few buildings may equally go wrong but might contain the consequences of potentially negative outcomes. Experiments geared towards non-anthropocentric architectures could therefore be locally conducted on a building scale and carefully increased in size for as long as the observed results are deemed positive.
The notion of performance emerged in the humanities and social sciences in the mid-20th century a... more The notion of performance emerged in the humanities and social sciences in the mid-20th century and, following this development, also in the arts and science in general. It took shape during the 1940s and 1950s with an intellectual movement known as the performative turn: a paradigm shift in the humanities and social sciences, with a focus on theorising performance as a social and cultural element. Performance is today commonly understood as a concept that provides a path to understanding human behaviour. This is rooted in the hypothesis that all human practices are performed and are affected by their specific context: the notion of active human agency. The discipline of biosemiotics can provide an insightful approach to questions of agency of different species, and can perhaps offer an inroad to rethinking concerns of meaning that are present in post-modern approaches to questions of performance in architecture.
This article is based on the proposition that performance-oriented design is characterised by fou... more This article is based on the proposition that performance-oriented design is characterised by four domains of 'active agency': the human subject, the spatial and material organisation complex and the environment . While these four domains are seen to be interdependent and interacting with one another, it is nevertheless necessary to examine each in its own right. However, the spatial and material organisation complex contains both the spatial and material domains, which are interdependent to such a degree that these need to be examined in relation to one another and also in relation to the specific environment they are set within and interacting with. To explore this combined domain within the context of performance-oriented design is the aim of this article, in particularly in relation to the question of the definition and performative capacity of spatial and material boundaries. The various sections are accompanied by research by design efforts undertaken in specified academic contexts, which are intended as examples of modes and areas of inquiry relative to the purpose of this article.
The title of this publication -digital tectonics -suggests the possibility of a decisive move awa... more The title of this publication -digital tectonics -suggests the possibility of a decisive move away from the current hype about 'the digital' that so often results in the pointless dichotomy between digital and analogue design and a careless neglect of their respective repercussions. Such a move could give way to a rigorous empirical designbased research that aims at investigating spatialities, conditions and effects produced by digital design -in tandem with the analogue spectrum of design techniques available to architecture and design and how the conditions produced effect our human social and cultural environment. The point is that a productive discourse on digital tectonics needs to emphasise material formations in relation to inevitably yielded cultural, social and political formations. It is important to investigate the facilitating aspect of digital technology as an integrated segment of a larger generative and design-process facilitating tool-set through which social and cultural formations might be provoked. In doing so the design process moves again into the foreground of attention, not so much because of a self-indulgent fascination with new hard and software and peripheral gadgetry, but instead with respect to developing instrumental design techniques that can serve to inject performative potential into the built environment. Indeed, as design techniques yield specific sets of conditions and effects, computational methods add to the broad scope of analogue modelling and design techniques, so as to inform interventions that engage the relational dynamic between the built environment and its inhabitants.
Architectural practices worldwide have to deal with increasingly complex design requirements. How... more Architectural practices worldwide have to deal with increasingly complex design requirements. How do practices acquire the ability to do so? The Changing Shape of Practice provides a handbook of examples for practices that wish to integrate more research into their work and a reference book for students that seek to prepare themselves for the changing shape of practice in architecture.
It addresses the increasing integration of research undertaken in architectural practices of different sizes ranging from small to very large practices from the UK, USA, Europe and Asia. The book is organized according to the size of the practices which is significant in that it addresses the different structures and resourcing requirements that are enabled by specific practice sizes, as this determines and constrains the type, scope and modes of research available to a given practice.
The practices covered include: Woods Bagot, Perkins + Will, White, AECOM, UN Studio, Shop Architects, PLP Architecture, Kieran Timberlake, 3XN / GXN, ONL, AZPML, Thomas Herzog + Partners, Herreros Arquitectos, Spacescape, OCEAN Design Research Association
By taking stock of the current shape of practice, the book provides essential information for professional architects who are integrating research into their practice.
The Changing Shape of Practice. Integrating Research and Design in Architecture, 2016
Practices are always transforming due to changing needs, different conditions and circumstances t... more Practices are always transforming due to changing needs, different conditions and circumstances to be met, emerging new design problems, new questions to be asked and new inquiries to be made. The underlying assumption in this book is that current changes are significant enough to warrant close attention. There are clear alterations in the ways architectural practices are meeting new challenges which now requires advancement and new modes of inquiry that more effectively are addressing the increasing complexity. What is coming to the fore are modes of inquiry by way of scientific and artistic research that often are conducted through design approaches and means, or ‘research-by-design’, a mode that is employed and developed by many architectural practices of different sizes and therefore different organisational structures and with different resources. It is therefore of specific interest to seek an understanding of the time-specific drivers and directions of changes in practice in order to gain insight as to where things are heading and why to be able to formulate pertinent inquiries and strategies so as to be prepared for necessary rethinking and reskilling.
This introduction to the book “The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture” gives a brief background to current developments, introduces the themes of the book, and presents some of the findings drawn from the work with the book.
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It addresses the increasing integration of research undertaken in architectural practices of different sizes ranging from small to very large practices from the UK, USA, Europe and Asia. The book is organized according to the size of the practices which is significant in that it addresses the different structures and resourcing requirements that are enabled by specific practice sizes, as this determines and constrains the type, scope and modes of research available to a given practice.
The practices covered include: Woods Bagot, Perkins + Will, White, AECOM, UN Studio, Shop Architects, PLP Architecture, Kieran Timberlake, 3XN / GXN, ONL, AZPML, Thomas Herzog + Partners, Herreros Arquitectos, Spacescape, OCEAN Design Research Association
By taking stock of the current shape of practice, the book provides essential information for professional architects who are integrating research into their practice.
This introduction to the book “The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture” gives a brief background to current developments, introduces the themes of the book, and presents some of the findings drawn from the work with the book.