Minimal Complexity 2011 from Vlad Tenu on Vimeo.

Special thanks to Thomas Behrman, Production Manager and students in the UH Digital Fabrication seminar.

This is the last in a series of posts about our jurors for the REPEAT Digital Fabrication Competition, leading up to our 11/18/10 press release announcement of the REPEAT winner.

Patrik is partner at Zaha Hadid Architects and founding director of the influential AADRL (Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory). He studied philosophy and architecture in Bonn, London and Stuttgart, and completed his PhD at the Institute for Cultural Science in Klagenfurt. His contribution to architectural theory is evident in his published writings collected at www.patrikschumacher.com

Patrik’s work encompasses both practice and academia, however, it exists also between them as a catalyst. His theoretical work and practice has inspired, informed and guided a generation of designers. His writings discuss the nature of architecture as self-production – that is the fundamental ‘characteristic of life as a circular organization that reproduces all its specific components out of its own life-process’. His forthcoming book, to be released in December by Wiley is titled: The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume I: A New Framework for Architecture.

Patrik is a long time friend, mentor and colleague, TEX-FAB is extremely excited to have Patrik judge the REPEAT competition.

Q&A

When did you adopt digital design and what impact did it have on your practice and teaching methodologies? What were the first experiments, the first outcomes?

At ZHA we first adopted 3D modelling tools in 1989, one year after I had joined. The first software we used was ‘modelshop’ for Mac. For the first few years we operated in a mixed mode using digital and traditional tools in parallel. The design techniques and formal strategies we had developed earlier cried out for more sophisticated tools: perspective distortions, the exploitation of the fluidity of the rapid hand movement, colour gradients etc. Our teaching experiences at Columbia in 1993 and Harvard in 1994 pushed our use of digital modelling further but we were still in mixed mode then. In 1995 we transitioned to digital also with the drawings, using ‘Vectorworks’. In 1996 I started DRL and from there on the digital revolution accelerated. In the early years of the new millennium scripting started …

The main steps in terms of outcome where: first the digital work was trying to catch up with our advanced craft techniques. The early faceted geometries did not quite achieve this. The digital realm caught up with our craft only with the first nurb modellers. Then our craft was soon overtaken and the irreversible switch to digital work was made. The designs became more fluid than ever. A series of radical competition entries of the year 1997 testifies to this: Madrid, Graz, Montreal. At DRL we developed incredibly rich interior worlds, sponge-spaces for corporate headquarters, explored via movies. Next came responsive environment fully utilizing the possibilities of animation software to create kinetic, adaptive systems. In this context scripting was first introduced. Then we moved on to parametric urbanism – both at ZHA and at DRL, treating the urban landscape like a façade to be populated by generative components: the buildings. Swarms of differentiated buildings reading the tpography and other site conditions as data-set driving the component differentiation.

Can you speak to the current methodology being used within your office? What and how are you employing them within your projects?

Currently I am pushing the principle of multi-system correlation, both in the various teaching arenas and in the office. The vehicle for this are what we call proto-designs. Towers are perfect for this. So I am running a research project called “proto-towers” both at ZHA and DRL. We assume that our task is no longer to craft individual buildings in response to unique sites and briefs. Instead we propose to focus on the design of inherently adaptive, parametric proto-types that intelligently vary general topological schemata across a wide range of parametrically specifiable site-conditions and briefs. These proto-designs can be compared to the small number of fundamental body plans that underlie the inexhaustibly variegated manifold of species that evolved – each within a complementary environmental niche – on the basis of these primary body plans. Proto-designs are conceived in advance of any specific site information. The fundamental body plan that we are setting up as parametric model is the proto-tower defined as a building with tall proportions and featuring the following 5 fundamental subsystems: skeleton, floors, core, void, skin. The task is to script meaningful correlations between the 5 fundamental subsystems. Our proto-designs follow the following premises:  The proto-tower might be differentiated both along their vertical axis as well as along their circumference. This demand for differentiation applies to all subsystems.

We are aiming to build up a multi-layered complexity with a high degree of lawful differentiation within each system and with a high level of correlation between the various subsystems that constitute the overall tectonic system. Each subsystem’s internal differentiation is associated with corresponding or complementary differentiations within the other subsystems. For example, structural differentiation is correlated with envelope differentiation etc. The trajectories of differentiation that apply to the different subsystems should be correlated leading to mutual accentuation.

The most obvious result of this research in the work of the office is the emphasis on the structural system as one of the key subsystems to be differentiated (to then serve as backbone for further adaptive subsystems). Most of our recent projects (still on the drawing board) avoid mere tessellated volume shapes and instead promote the expression of the structure as skeleton. Its tough to pull this off in reality but we try. The next issue we are tackling is ecology and environmental adaptation. I believe that Parametricism is uniquely equipped to take this agenda on and give it a perceptually palpable impact. Environmental adaptation can then also serve orientation via differential articulation.

Manufacturing and fabrication are quickly transitioning to numerically controlled machines. How does this affect your work? How is it manifest in your teaching?

The ongoing investment in advanced fabrication and construction means that parametricism will be able to conquer the global mainstream within the next decade. We are working closely with many sophisticated manufacturers. At DRL exciting experiments with the design of machines and manufacturing processes are conducted. Complex geometries can then be implemented without molds, exploiting material logics (material computation) and letting the design world incorporate specific machining constraints.

Is there a corollary between Parametricism within architecture and other mediums? Can the information design of Ben Fry be seen as a similar endeavor?

Parametricism is also conquering furniture and product design, also graphic and media/interaction design. The style can claim relevancy (universal competency) with respect to all design disciplines. In my forthcoming book “The Autopoiesis of Architecture” I am describing architecture and design as having the potential to form a single unified discourse. The categorical communication structures of these disciplines are the same. They serve the same societal function: the framing of social communication. Styles as design research programmes should be valid across all design disciplines. In contrast I am demarcating architecture sharply against engineering and art. These are now incommensurable discourses.

How do you see the connection between practice and academia changing or even strengthening the architectural discipline in the future?

Academic research will remain important even if parametricism goes mainstream and its principles become the professional state of the art principles. Academic research has moved from a revolutionary period  (1975 – 1995, after the crisis and demise of modernism) to a cumulative period of research under the auspices of what we now call parametricism. Academic design research can go deeper and farther than professional work in probing the consequences of a radical design hypothesis. Within academia architects can be more experimental. They can afford to be more principled and more self-critical, avoiding pragmatic compromises. This kind of research will always be necessary, more so in the future than ever before. The articulation of the discipline into avant-garde and mainstream is now a permanent, necessary structure of the discipline.

What projects are you working on now? Can you share some pictures?

Nothing of what I have talked about here can be shown yet. Instead I want to share some pics from our Guang Zhou Opera House which was completed this year. By the way, here the skeleton plays an important role.