Introduction
Throughout my years
of architecture education I have become more and more aware of the subtle
relationship between architecture and humanity, in a sense that architecture is
predominantly the product of human intervention, rather than two separate
entities merging into symbiotic relationship where both contribute to one
another's existence. This relationship affects an important aspect of our
nature, which is the ‘human’ experiences, senses, thoughts and how these
characters affect the decisions we make.
That is what I as an
architecture student understood on the importance of architecture and how this
sequential information process between man and the built environment have
remained consistent throughout the architectural style evolution, and that idea
guides me through my reading on Parametricism.
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| Crowds modelled as physical flows. Source: Parametric Order – Architectural Order via an Agent Based Parametric Semiology |
During my search on understanding Parametricism, its potential as an
epochal architectural style of the 21st century, and the technologies that
produces it and therefore allows its hegemonic appearance as a relevant
architecture style, I mainly followed Patrik Schumacher’s stands on this new
style, since he is the leading voice of this movement. I encountered frequently
his notion of the capability of Parametricism to provide the current architecture’s
task of organising and articulating, as he claims, “the societal complexity of
post-fordist network society”.
The involvement of architecture in defining human behaviour and movement
through Parametricism brought my attention and triggered my recollection on
traditional architecture and its reconciliation between man and his built
environment. Schumacher has indeed, elaborated consistently on the development
of parametric style from retrospective approach of understanding previous
architectural style all the way from the Gothic Architecture.
This has compelled me to come up with a research question:
“To what extent does Parametricism consider human values and human involvement/human ‘touch’ in architecture as compared to its predecessor?”
GOTHIC V.S PARAMETRIC
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| (Left) Gloucester Cathedral, (Right) Installation – Zero/Fold | Adam Lazar Onulov. |
In the effort to find a parameter for this study, the Gothic Architecture is chosen as a representation of parametric style’s predecessor, since it is where as Patrik Schumacher suggests, “the transition from tradition-bound building to a self-consciously innovative architecture starting with the renaissance” happened. While I personally feel that this notion is too bold a statement, it does bring significance to this ‘transitional’ style as a starting point of a significant change in architectural implementation according to Schumacher's perspective.
A quick review
on the Gothic style - Preserving human nature through human intervention.
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| Six characters of Gothic Architecture. Source: John Ruskin, Plate I, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, extracted from Lars Spuybroek's talk on "The Simpathy of Things" 2012 |
John Ruskin, an anti-classicist in the 19th Century Victorian
era wrote a book on Gothic Architecture and defined the style in six characters;
savageness, changefulness, naturalism, grotesqueness, rigidity and redundancy. His
study on Gothic style antagonized the classicist architecture and its ‘a priori’
(theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation) methodology in style,
where novelty is restricted and almost non-existent due to the constant
association of ancient Greek and/or Roman principles, where variations of combinations
are possible but the order is always fixed.
On the contrary, Gothic style, as Ruskin argued, has the capacity of “perpetual
novelty”, i.e. ever-changing originality where complete repetition is almost
inconceivable no matter how similar the order or figures may appear to be. This
perpetual novelty brings forth the existence of human intervention in the
production of the style, which can be elaborated from the first two characters
of savageness and changefulness in Gothic style.
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| St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City - Late Renaissance Architecture (the starting point of "self-consciously innovative" style. An example of how order and forms are unchanged, while combinations differ. Human interventions are mostly projected from its facade and ornamentations and act as separate elements from the forms. |
Savangeness –
Rough variation
“Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of
life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of
progress and change. Nothing that lives, is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part
of it is decaying, part of it is nascent.”
– John Ruskin, the Stones of Venice,
1853
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| Variation of Rose windows with their configurations digitalized through visual interpretation. Extracted from Lars Spuybroek's talk on "The Simpathy of Things" 2012 |
Lars Spuybroek spoke on the “Nordish characters” exemplified in the
Gothic style of roughness and savageness and how these characters are produced
by the human intervention and his incapacity to produce perfection. What’s
significant about this character is how imperfection is permitted in
architecture in order to allow “natural” characters to flow into architecture
and consequently creates a subtle natural relationship between man and his
built environment, as opposed to Parametricism’s reliance on the almost unseen limitation
of algorithmic computation to evaluate what is required for the users’ wellbeing.
This permissive attributes on the human capacity therefore allows
locality, reality and values projected by the architecture, which until now,
remain as a major responsive aspects of architecture that architects and
end-users prefer to be irreplaceable.
Changefulness –
Smooth variation
The Gothic’s capability to instil perpetual novelty in architecture
style allows smooth transitional change between variables that can be achievable
through human intervention and intelligence without the need of computation. This
changeful character challenges the separation from form to structure and from structure
to ornamentation. Lars Spuybroek gave an example of these sorts of undefined
elements by demonstrating the Gothic style of rib vault designs.
By looking at the ribs of the Gloucester Cathedral’s corridor, there is
no clear distinction between the windows, the walls and the ceiling. The resulting
configuration of decorations merges different forms together the same way Parametricism
allows continuity of forms without rigid contrasts between form elements. But what distinguishes it from Parametricism
is how it is limited by human capability and imperfection in constructing the
elements, rather than the parametric limitations by its set of design criteria
demonstrated through computation. This human interpretation of organic movement
that vitalizes geometry, as Wilhelm Worringer expressed, forces the sensibility
of the users, hence allowing sympathetic communication which intuition
establishes between the user and the architecture.
The human values are therefore appreciated and subconsciously
sympathized, generating an experience for the users of the building that
enables them to recognize the ‘human’ character embedded within the building.
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| Self sketched (2014) - An illustration showing the similar process of Gothic Architecture, which is derived through intuition, undefined, permissive imperfection of human capacity and the inseparable elements configured to form a whole. |
Parametricism - Of form, not content.
Since traditional architecture is in fact well-known for its coherence with human intervention, I wonder, does human intervention and the preservation of human values continued
to be considered throughout this so-called “self-consciously innovative
architecture” styles and ultimately the 21st Century Parametricism? Schumacher did stresses his idea on architecture's responsibility in the built environment by being in charge of the form, rather than its content, and deny architecture's need to be competent on social justice as shown in his facebook post below:
But has Parametricism at least been able to preserve human values through its technological advancement and application? If it is true that Parametricism can contributes towards the civilizational progress of the post-fordist network society, are human value and human intervention still included as topics of reflection? Parametric Semiology on human behaviour
Schumacher's attempt to illustrate architecture's societal function through spatio-morphological framing of communicative interaction is as close as he gets to demonstrates Parametricism’s capacity of shaping humans and their social characteristics. Through articulation he proposes two task dimensions: phenomenological project and semiological project.
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| The three dimensions that together procure architectural order, derived conceptually by two binary distinctions, which are organisation and articulation. Extracted from Patrik Schumacher's talk on "Parametric Order - 21st Century Architectural Order" 2012. |
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| Contributions of the fundamental dimensions of architecture make to architecture's essential societal functions. Extracted from Patrik Schumacher's talk on "Parametric Order - 21st Century Architectural Order" 2012. |
“We use roles and groups to help specify behaviours, we use a parametrised representation to add the semantics of actions and objects, and we implemented four types of actions (i.e. scheduled, reactive, opportunistic, and aleatoric) to ensure rich, emergent behaviours.”
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| "Functional crowds" - Crowds with aleatoric, reactive, opportunistic and scheduled actions. Source: Patrik Schumacher, Parametric Order – Architectural Order via an Agent Based Parametric Semiology 2012. |
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| (Above left) Parametric Semiology: Semio-field, differentiation of public vs. private as parametric range. (Above right) Parametric Semiology: Semio-field, master-plan with program distribution. (Below) Vienna University of Applied Arts, Masterclass Hadid, Parametric Semiology: Semio-field. Project authors: Magda Smolinska, Marius Cernica, and Monir Karimi. |
The diagrams above illustrate how phenomenological
and semiological articulation configure and ultimately achieve the requirements
for spatial optimization for the users. It involves the stimulating of perception
and the consequential behavioural responses of the users to indicate important
spaces, private and public spaces and the transitions in between. The whole configuration
almost acts as a farm that navigates cattle to and fro within their
confinements using wooden railings (Since this metaphor was used by Schumacher
himself to describe the traditional urban fabric, I believe the same can be
applied to this approach, and it does sound quite disturbing).
Several attempts had been made by parametric practitioners to prevent further deprivation of vital human relationship with the built environment and to preserve and generate meaning through parametric association in architecture. The D-tower, designed by NOX whose head of architect is Lars Spuybroek himself, is an interactive sculpture and building that visually represents the collective emotions of the contextual users. The structure changes colour at night, with each colours representing the most deeply felt emotions of the day, indicated by the questionnaires answered by the inhabitants of the city via internet. The design outcome generated active participation of the city’s inhabitants, bridging a relationship between human emotions and values with the building while maintaining a sense of locality through the building.
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| D-tower (2001 - 2003), located in Doetinchem (NL) is an interactive sculpture and building by NOX/Lars Spuybroek and Q.S. Serafijn, co-developed with V2_. |
A sensory parametric architecture thesis by
Yirao Lee from Victoria University of Wellington attempted to integrate sensory
experiences within parametric design by incorporating symbolic and
phenomenological imperatives into the design. By experimenting on the interior ambiance through
form and material parametrically, the design outcome of the thesis brings the
possibility of reconnecting human existence within the parametric world.
However, the design experiment may also achieve its hypothesis without the use of parametricism and therefore does not produce the novelty that only parametric design can achieve. The result would be the same as how architecture has always been capable of producing, even in before the advent of parametricism. This reality undermines the technological advancement of Parametricism and is constantly the case in the discourse of the relevance of Parametricism as an epochal style of today.
Can Semiology parametric and Phenomenology parametric preserve and stimulate humanness through architecture the same way Gothic architecture has achieved?
Parametric semiology engages on human’s (or sentient beings) perception and comprehension by producing the type of built environment that optimizes navigation, communication and interaction, while providing transitional private to public space configuration appropriate for the program that it designs for. In terms of optimization of functionality for human use, parametric semiology is heading the right direction. But a church with human-made ornamentation and a modernist church of pure form can never produce the same atmosphere, even if the latter provides the most functional efficiency. On the contrary, John Ruskin, in his writing on Gothic Architecture exemplified the preservation of human nature in architecture and how this element radiates over the functional imperfection of its building. If humanness is considered irrelevant for the design of buildings of today as opposed to being functionally optimised, it does not explain why traditional buildings are ever-reusable and ever-qualified even for centuries, and how contemporary humans still able to connect themselves with these traditional buildings the same way their predecessors experienced.
Therefore, based on my understanding, Semiology parametric and Phenomenology parametric CANNOT preserve and stimulate humanness through architecture the same way Gothic architecture has achieved.
Therefore, based on my understanding, Semiology parametric and Phenomenology parametric CANNOT preserve and stimulate humanness through architecture the same way Gothic architecture has achieved.
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| Personal artwork, using acrylic on canvas (2014) - My attempt to demonstrate the interdependence of form and space, moulded by thoughts and intuition, thus letting human imperfection to drive the production of the art piece - paradoxically inspired by parametricism, but more similar to Gothic interpretation of style. |
Conclusion
“Science
has not and never will have the same ontological sense as the perceived world,
for the simple reason that it is a determination or an explanation of that
world.”
“Truth
does not “inhabit” only the “inner man”. Or more accurately, there is no inner
man; man is in the world, it is whithin the world that he knows himself.”
- MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice; Phenomenology and
Perception, 2006
The same statements can be applied
as an argument over the theoretical representation of Parametricism in
architecture and its functional capability without clarifying why the idea of human
connection with the style seems to oppose their relevance as an epochal style
in architecture. Although the Practitioners of Parametric design appears to
consistently bring forth their technological achievements and their capacity to
produce an architecture style that allows an interaction between contextual phenomena
and the users, or “cognitive sentients” through architecture, there is an
apparent gap that is reserves for a discourse to understand the significance of human values and intervention through and towards architecture that I believe Parametricism has to consider.
Reference:
http://v2.nl/archive/works/d-tower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfAgl4dhuFshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG2WMVkD5dw&hd=1
