Topic 2: The Archaeology of the Digital: Openings

It is by examining the importance of efficiency and the level of capability that determines the importance of technology in the design process in a “society of information”[1]. Methods of representing an architectural idea in the past were achieved “by hand, from initial sketches to final rendering”[2]. The introduction of software such as AutoCAD, Maya or Rhino have become essential tools in the practice of architecture in the 21st century as architects become more aware of the “core principles involved in parametric design”[3]. Furthermore, the cultural condition of society – that is, being revolutionised into a “society of information”[4], allowed the “invention of the computer possible, not the reverse”[5]. An architect’s understanding that “everything is calculable and therefore optimisable”[6], clearly indicates a logical thought process, similar to that of a computer. Although, the direction of these innovations as influences to the architectural profession remain uncertain, architects such as Shoei Yoh, begun to incorporate the use of “computer analysis in structural design”[7] in order to optimise concepts. Picon suggests, “The conception of buildings is indeed inseparable from the knowledge of who is going to inhabit them”, thus, stresses the importance of experimentation in design – that technology has made possible - based on the “key characteristics of the contemporary individual”[8]. In Yoh’s work, the Oguni Dome in Kumamoto, accuracy was key in developing a functional and safe structure. Digital technology allowed the examination of the “depth or relocating”[9] of the "supporting posts”[10] to be efficient and accurate, hence, were able to determine an exact degree of “slope for water drainage”.

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r e f e r e n c e s 

• [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [8] Picon, Antoine, “Introduction", “People, Computers and Architecture: A Historical Overview,”in Digital Culture in Architecture: an Introduction for the Design Profession (2010), pp. 8, 9, 10, 13

• [6] Morel, Philippe, “Notes on Computational architecture: On Optimization,” in Haecceity Papers, Volume 3, Issue 2 (Spring 2008), pp. 7

• [7] [9] [10] Lynn, Greg, ed., Archaeology of the Digital: Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Chuck Hoberman, Shoei Yoh (2013), pp. 105, 106