The Paradoxical Technicist Architectural Profession and Change Toward the Paradigmatic After-technological Practice of Architecture. 2018. (original) (raw)

ICT As Generators of a New Paradigm In Architecture–Humanism and Scale

cumincades.scix.net

Despite the global and universal characteristics of nowadays' society, the new information and communication technologies, seem, in paradox, to direct Architecture to growing individualism, shown in the nervous search for each one's form. This path seems to end up in cities filled up with iconic buildings with no respect neither for the consolidated built environment, nor for the human being. Known as an innovation tools, with huge power and able to make all the visionary and utopian projects become real seem to further Architecture away from its humanist basis. The architect, selfish and egocentric, dives deep into his own craziness, in an era where the new technologies allow everything. If boundaries are not established, a new architectural paradigm is anticipated, where all the individualisms live but that the individual cannot inhabit, and where the innovation seems to enter in conflict with built heritage.

Dwelling in the Realm of ‘Paradox’ - Towards an Architectural Paradigm

If we are to recognize that life and architecture are part of a larger phenomenon of nature and the cosmos, we would realize that they are part of a never-ending process of creation or the process of becoming. This process is continuously fed by various inherent contradictions. The constant struggle to deal with these dual tendencies is essential to "existence" in the larger sense. Hence, the notion of "long lasting architecture" in the context of the perennial "process of becoming", itself has an inherent paradox. Today, we are part of a network culture driven by digital network technology. Over the last 20 years or so, it has shaped the dynamics of contemporary society creating a whole new set of relationships which now drive the world. We live in a state of paradox in trying to deal with the unprecedented contradictions posed by this shift. Our frame of mind is desperately struggling and swaying between simultaneous conflicting tendencies. With this picture in mind, the paper ponders whether architecture is a solution, a remedy or a mere reflection of these transformations. The fundamental premise is that the paradox cannot and should not be resolved or camouflaged. It should be expressed and made integral to the architectural process. With this intent, the paper hopes to project an agenda to help dwell in the realm of "paradox".

Technic, Technology, and Architectural Design: Genealogy and Epistemology of their Involvement

Technic, Technology, and Architectural Design: Genealogy and Epistemology of their Involvement, 2024

The essence of technology and its relationship to professional practices and human activities is a troubling question in the age of our algorithmic civilization. The close and systematic relationship between technology, architecture, and culture has mutated to levels of dependence not seen in human history. This article attempts to reveal the nature of the multiple relationships that link technique to architecture, design, and the didactics of the architectural project. We can only draw up a historical balance sheet of architecture, which is becoming more and more spectacular and difficult to include in a current with recognizable stylistic features if we grasp its intimate relationship with technical and technological effervescences. Architectural discourse can only be erected as a theory if it aspires to universality, and in this, it can only stand on the solid and lasting foundations of technology. Currently, the question of the use of Digital technologies and the involvement of artificial intelligence in architecture brings back the debate on theories and dogmas that have always marked its history and theory, such as style, proportion, ornament or skin, and double skin. It even calls into question the future of this profession. It becomes surprising to grasp the extent to which architecture has revolved for centuries around the wall, the roof, and the supporting posts, making it seem that architecture can only proclaim itself as such through these elements. The paradigm shifts of project design that becomes parametric combined with changes in CNC manufacturing modes all this to reconfigure historically the modes of development and realization of the architectural project. This essay attempts to conceptualize this historic breakthrough to measure its impact on the entire ecosystem of the construction sector.

Architecture and Technology: A Discontinuous Relation

Technology has a history structured by discontinuities. The first important philosophical expression of such a conception of technology was advanced by Walter Benjamin when he defined art works in relation to specific techniques of production. At the present art and architecture occur within an age defined by the move from ’technical reproducibility’ to digital reproducibility. The move has an impact on how technology is understood and its relation to architecture conceived. Adapting Walter Benjamin’s work in this area provides the basis for a response to Soren Riis’ important treatment of the relationship between architecture and technology in his paper “Dwelling in-between walls: the architectural surround”.

The Lure of Technology and the Task of the Architect (2018)

In : Architecture and the Machinic : Experimental Encounters of Man with Architecture, Computation and Robotics. Edited by Arie Graafland and Dulmini Perera, Köthen : Hochschule Anhalt, Hochschulbibliothek, 2018, pp. 38–44. (urn:nbn:de:gbv:kt1-3735)

Five Points Towards an Architecture In-Formation

Footprint Delft Architecture Theory Journal, 2021

While there have been significant discussions about the relevance of cybernetics within architectural and urban studies, the focus has mainly been on computing and digital practices. Since its emergence in the post-war period, cybernetics – in both its first and second-order versions – has introduced to architectural discourse systematic design methods and practices, while also tackling issues of reflexivity and complex problems. In this introduction, we examine the relation between cybernetics and architecture by focusing on a problem they both share. To this end, we approach cybernetics as the study of the production, consumption and flow of information, an account that has little to do with digital logics, unless one wants to pursue that special case. Therefore, cyberneticisation can set the foundations for a relational account that examines how signs are communicated and how meaning is produced and experienced within systems. This third-order cybernetics extends beyond the original scope of living organisms and their environments in order to include ecologies of ideas, power, institutions, media and so on. In this sense, cyberneticisation is radically environmental, positing the primacy of relations over fixed terms, binary oppositions and linear logics, making it high time for architectural and urban studies to take into consideration its ground-breaking potentials. By introducing five short points on the relation between architecture and cybernetics, we aim to assist in this endeavour.

Architecture after All || After-Narrative: Editor's Preface

2006

Perspecta 38: Architecture After All explores the ever-widening array of political, social, technological, and economic influences in architecture today. Many leading designers and thinkers have turned away from the ideological hegemony of critical theory towards a rediscovered focus on praxis as a means of conceptual positioning.

Recharting The Philosophy of Technology in Contemporary Architecture

SHS Web of Conferences, 2018

Technology is an indispensable aspect of architecture. In fact, it is being an essential part of the human effort in making architecture. Since the early modern era, technology that rapidly change has been seen as the sign of progress, not only pertaining to the technology itself, but also architecture and even civilization. Modern architectural theoreticians, from Sant'Elia to Le Corbusier, enthusiastically embraced the progressive side of technology and engineering. Philosophically, however, modern technology is regarded pessimistically. Heidegger and Jaspers considered technology as the source of alienation to the human being themselves and to the reality they face. To overcome this gap, Alan Drengson, proposed the four philosophy of technology to rechart the variety of tendency towards technology in Western society, consisting of (1) technological anarchy, (2) technophilia, (3) technophobia, and (4) technological appropriateness. In this explanation, he coined the terms "creative philosophy" to include many aspects and ways of thinking which might be incorporated in the creative activities like architectural design. This paper attempts to evaluate the appropriatenes of Drengson's philosophical scheme as a platform for architectural education in Indonesia in general, by relating his framework with the architectural theories and practices in Indonesia. The result of this effort is while the formulation of his scheme is the very inclusive and closely related with creative activity like architectural design, it contains bias of industrial technology appearing in the Asian scene brought by Western European colonials. Discussing philosophy underlying Gandhi's movement in India to reject oppressive technology, we may arrive at the conclusion that the philosopy of non-violence, truth and justice based on the principle of self restrained are relevant to figure out the ideal of appropriate technology in Asia.

The Radical Potential of Architecture

Agency: working with uncertain …, 2010

The environment is not a factum. The environment is constructed through discourse, and as the complexity of environmental problems facing us grows, this construction must increasingly rely upon overlaps in knowledge between areas of scientific expertise that are themselves increasingly divergent and specialized. Because this knowledge is neither largely accessible to the general public, nor the purview of any one discipline, the resulting construction must translate scientific findings into an accessible narrative in order to secure its popular acceptance. Proponents of this narrative rely upon its basis in scientific expertise to lend it legitimacy, but in so doing, they unwittingly advance a form of environmental modernism that seeks to replace the now tainted term ‘progress’ with the term ‘sustainability’ inside the Modern project, while overlooking scientific expertise’s failure to deliver on its key promise- the pursuit of perfectibility - in both theoretical and practical terms. If, in engaging the environment through architecture, we accept this construction without criticism, we necessarily reinforce it. The role of the individual as agent is subsequently reduced to that of an operator within a given set of values (those of sustainability), who relies for justification on the ultimate performative evaluation: the test of survival. Absent from this conception is the simple realization that whether something is sustainable or not offers absolutely no indication of its value; before sustaining something, one should determine that it is worth sustaining. The role of technology in these circumstances is subject to similar criticisms; though technology is the very essence of human agency, current dominant frameworks consistently present it as a neutral and transparent vehicle of human volition; a servant employed in the pursuit of sustainability. Finally, this conception also fails to recognize that architecture itself is discourse, and that if architecture (as discourse) is capable of reinforcing constructions, it is also necessarily capable of challenging existing, and provoking new constructions. Considered in this regard, architecture is agency. Architects must either (wittingly or unwittingly) explore or deny this radical potential. Building upon James Gee and Martin Hajer’s writings on discourse, Justus Buchler’s theories of human judgement, Aidan Davison’s writings on technology, Jean-François Lyotard’s writings on the postmodern condition and Dalibor Vesely’s writings on the instrumentalization of architecture in the postmodern era, we propose to challenge the conception of agency traditionally put forth through the lens of sustainability by developing and demonstrating the argument for the radical potential of architecture.