WK 10 Readings

Wigley’s ‘The Architecture of the Mouse’ explores the notion of a blurred integration from analogue to digital, as stated in his opening statement; “The mouse is a potent prosthetic. When placed in front of our desktop we do not even have to think consciously about reaching for it.”¹ This unconscious decision is what defines the transition, we are seamlessly transitioning ourselves in architecture, moving away further from analogue techniques and picking up digital tools. However, they are no longer becoming foreign object, but muscle memory between our body and brain.

As our digital tools develop, the technology and physical capabilities of the architect and designer also advance. Computational technologies such as CAD and CAM software are the mere beginning, we have moved on to digital fabrication, robotic aid all the way to complete robotic fabrication. “One no longer needs to move towards an interface… The interface is already well inside our reach…”²

“The daily dive into the computer is not a leap from analogue to digital or from real to simulation, but a choreographed blurring of the two…”³ We are not becoming the ‘pencil’ to the technology at hand, rather we blending in with it, bringing our knowledge and applying it with the digital tools we have to create an integrated experience. Wigley fears that the point where we finally seamlessly blend into the digital is where “The human would become the prosthetic attachment to the machine organism…”⁴ rather than the mouse being the prosthetic attachment as it is now.

We as users are still in control of what is happening, robotics is still being heavily explored, developing with assisting us as designers and fabricators, not creating and imagining designs of buildings and structures. We still have a long way to go to see what the machine can offer to architects and designers, the boundaries are merely being touched.

1.       Wigley, M. (2010). The Architecture of the Mouse. Architectural Design, 80(6), p.50

2.       Wigley, M. (2010). The Architecture of the Mouse. Architectural Design, 80(6), p.51

3.       Wigley, M. (2010). The Architecture of the Mouse. Architectural Design, 80(6), p.52

4.       Wigley, M. (2010). The Architecture of the Mouse. Architectural Design, 80(6), p.54

WK 9 Readings

The way we perceive materiality in architecture has changed drastically over the years, evolving from simple building materials and decoration to ‘smart materials’ displaying dynamic function and abilities, becoming both structure and a feature. 

In Kolareivc & Klingers ‘Manufacturing/Material/Effects’ materiality, in conjunction with new digital techniques, explores new possibilities of previously unattainable complex geometric organizational ideas. “Furthermore, in a paradoxical way, the new techniques and methods of digitally enabled making are reaffirming the long forgotten notions of craft, resulting from a desire to extract intrinsic qualities of material and deploy them for particular effect”¹ These new materials are being used in the most unexpected ways, creating new structural designs and techniques, reversing the norm, e.g. glass used in compression and stone in tension as shown by the work of Front Inc. and Jeanne Gang’s Marble Curtain installation. These ‘mutations’ of materiality open up a broad network of possibilities, combined with the digital tools available, designs become subject to an almost sure possibility, only now limited by the imagination and creativity of the designer. 

Trummer takes a morphogenetic approach to the evolution of these materials, in ‘Associative Design’ he states, “While variation is a key component in this, it is only realized as a necessitated repercussion to the dynamic nature of context (environments).”² Looking at natural and organic formations, such as population thinking in biology, he points out how multiple organisms are virtually identical but all evolve into their unique organism, adapted to their surroundings. Essentially, these materials will have to withstand the means of Darwin’s Natural Selection, evolving and morphing over the course of time, developing into greater materials that may be used in architecture.

1.       Kolarevic, B. and Klinger, K. (2008). Manufacturing Material Effects. New York: Routledge. p.7

2.       Trummer, P. (2011). Associative Design: From Type to Population. Computational design thinking. A. Menges and S. Ahlquist. Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons. P.179