Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape

Ila Berman, Andrew Kudless,

ISBN 10: 1940743001 / ISBN 13: 9781940743004

Published by Applied Research & Design December 2015, 2015

About this Item

FLUX: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape focuses on the emerging field of advanced digital design. In the last two decades of architectural practice, new digital technologies have evolved from being simply representational tools invested in the depiction of existing models of architectural space to becoming significant performative machines that have transformed the ways in which we both conceive and configure space and material. These tools for design, simulation, and fabrication, have enabled the emergence of new digital diagrams and parametric landscapes--often emulating genetic and iterative dynamic evolutionary processes--that are not only radically changing the ways in which we integrate disparate types of information into the design process, but are also significantly altering the methodological strategies that we use for design, fabrication and construction. That our current models of space are far more continuous, variant and complex, is specifically a result of the tools we are using to produce them, an inevitable byproduct of the ever-expanding capacities of digital computation and related fabrication technologies as these intersect with theoretical trajectories that long ago dismantled the social, functional and technological truths of the early part of the 20th century. After the early digital explosion of the 1990's, new forms of rigor and production have entered into the field of architecture, supporting the emergence of parametric and building information modeling and the enhanced use of computational geometry and scripting that together represent the second critical wave of digital design practices. No longer importing and (mis)using the tools of other disciplines, architects have begun to develop their own suite of sophisticated tools and processes in the pursuit of an architecture that is integrated across the disciplines as well as formally and performatively complex. This shift can be seen in the very make up of leading design firms and institutions around the world. Large international architecture and engineering firms now have internal research groups such as the Specialist Modeling Group (Foster and Partners) and the Advanced Geometry Unit (Arup) that have developed and realized some of the world's most geometrically complex and architecturally sophisticated projects using parametric modeling and procedural techniques such as those used in the Swiss Re Tower in London (Foster and Partners) and the Beijing Olympic Stadium (Arup/Herzog & de Meuron). At the other end of this spectrum are smaller experimental firms such as MOS, Matsys, Gramazio & Kohler, and theverymany, that have exponentially extended the terrain of parametric practices primarily through architectural research, installations and smaller-scaled architectural projects. The undulating structure of the FLUX installation itself--the armature supporting the exhibition out of which this publication evolved--exemplifies the potential of parametric modeling in its design. From the thickness of the ribs to the overall twisting geometry and perforated skins, the spatial form is controlled through a complex set of relationships defined by its formal, programmatic, structural and fabrication constraints. FLUX brings to the forefront this range of contemporary projects that are currently changing the landscape of architecture through the integration of parametric processes and computational geometry. The content of this book is organized through a series of thematic categories: Stacked Aggregates, Modular Assemblages, Pixelated Fields, Cellular Clusters, Serial Iterations, Woven Meshes, Catenary Systems, and Networked Logics. Each of these taxonomies explores a set of spatial logics that have been transformed through advanced digital practices. Throughout the book these themes are elaborated through the presentation of 63 built works and experimental architectural projects, which are then expanded through analytical and generative diagrams and mod.

Seller Inventory # 328360

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape
• Publisher: Applied Research & Design December 2015
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1940743001
• ISBN 13: 9781940743004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Architecture - Digital

About this title

Synopsis

• Geared toward architects, architecture professors, architecture students, and design technologists as well as those in related design fields and artists dealing with material and computational technologies
• This book provides a taxonomy of this expanding and heterogeneous terrain within architecture―a matrix of shared generative logics and morphological types―while providing an overview of one of the most significant and prolific periods of experimentation within the discipline
• FLUX: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape focuses on the innovations and transformation of architectural practices in the last quarter-century in relation to the radical evolution of computational and material technologies, bringing to the forefront seminal projects across a range of scales and project types that have emerged internationally from leading design firms, smaller experimental practices, and academic research groups

Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape focuses on the radical evolution of computational and material technologies that, during the last 25 years, have catalysed one of the most creative and prolific periods in architecture since the early 20th century. The book is organised into eight taxonomies―Stacked Aggregates, Modular Assemblages, Pixelated Fields, Cellular Clusters, Serial Iterations, Woven Meshes, Emerging Surfaces and Catenary Systems, and Multi-agent Systems―each of which explores a dominant logic and set of morphological traits transformed through advanced computational and material practices. These themes are theoretically explored and elaborated through the presentation of 140 built works and experimental architectural projects, which are then expanded through analytical and generative diagrams and models that further the design potential of the logics used to create them.

Within the book, the architectures presented are considered as a population of objects responsible for the evolution of something that far exceeds the trajectory of a single project. They are thus explored less as autonomous works than as a collection of interrelated and interacting cultural artifacts in flux, whose formation, methods, and tools, as well as their experience, perception, and meaning are necessarily tied to a broader field of cultural production, contributing to the dynamic generation of new architectural and urban models.

About the Author

Ila Berman is the former Dean, Elwood R. Quesada Professor and Director of the Next Cities Institute at the University of Virginia and Principal of Scaleshift design. She is an architect, theorist, and curator of architecture and urbanism whose research investigates the relationship between culture and the evolution of contemporary material, technological and spatial practices.
Andrew Kudless is the founder of the design firm Matsys and the Kendall Memorial Professor and Director of the Advanced Media Technology Lab at UH Hines College of Architecture and Design. His work investigates the emergent and integral relationships between form, growth, and behaviour in material systems.