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curtkram

What is it with kids today and the parametricism or other various forms of "parameter" including different suffixes or prefixes?  Surely they've noticed how pretty much everyone gets their own definition of "parametric" due to the fact that it's an empty buzz word with no real meaning?

I mean realistically, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and other similar sources, every line in AutoCAD has a bunch of parameters including length, start point, end point, etc.  The same is true when reviewing shop drawings for a new window.  Lot's of parameters to look at there.  You don't need to generate scripts or anything.  It's not new.  It's not fancy or anything.  It's work.  There is nothing philosophical about including a parameter in a thing. 

So why is this a thing to discuss?  I just don't get it.  Are kids today so bored in school that they just want to make posts with big words on the internets?  Is it an e-peen thing?  Is there such a lack of intellectual stimulation in our Universities that they had to make shit up to fill the void?

 
May 22, 12 9:31 am
Apurimac

It's just the current flavor-of-the-month at architecture schools.  It'll pass in time just like the Blob and deconstructivism.

May 22, 12 11:01 am  · 
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citizen

It's not just the "kids" in school. 

They're only the audience, always keen on discussing, copying, and maybe most importantly, buying books, journals, software, t-shirts, coffee mugs and anything else featuring the architecture du jour.  For Apurimac it was deconstructed blobs, for me it was post-modern temples.

The establishment culture of the architectural press (as distinguished from the profession, though there is overlap) is the protagonist here --the collective of critics, journalists, publishers, and other taste-makers making a product, literally for sale in many forms.  Students are just the consumers.  And that's long been the case.  So the story is a broader one, more about capitalism and branding than about architecture per se.  Film, literature, photography, theater, music --all the arts bear witness to a complex relationship with commerce, and the imperative of creating fashions in order to sell new goods.

 

May 22, 12 11:26 am  · 
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citizen

By the way, I'm not suggesting that architectural theory and boundary-pushing is bad.   It's important.  My point is that it's not done in an academic vacuum, but (at least partially) in a commercial marketplace with some of the parties pushing change and novelty out of purely financial interest.

May 22, 12 11:58 am  · 
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Obession with shapes....and we all know what happens when the obsession with shapes trumps the use, place, user, function, lending,..etc....something that people look at and say.."That's just a monument to the Architect". Starting with shape or form is the worst way to begin the design process. They use the word nature, but the process could not be farther away from nature. To me it, it appears to be just a tekkie circle jerk.

Nowhere in those blowhard long posts are the reasons behind the shapes mentioned, so unless the why is determined, it's just curvilinear lines with little practical meaning.

May 22, 12 12:30 pm  · 
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kunal.ghevaria

There's nothing wrong with using new tools to explore new ideas. Ultimately, some people will do groundbreaking work and lead the way, while many more will produce mediocre junk. But to complain about parametric tools in general is to equate yourself with the people that complained about electric guitars and keyboards when they were first introduced. Did everyone make great music with them? Definitely not. But some people did amazing things with them. Same with parametric tools.

As for the theoretical side of things, you shouldn't take it too seriously. People that invented 'deconstructivism' as a term were not the architects doing 'deconstructivist' work. The architects never invent these labels for themselves. Critics and academics do, because it serves their own interests. Take it with a pinch of salt :)

May 22, 12 12:34 pm  · 
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x-jla

it is the result of a culture of youth that grew up in front of a computer rather than building snow forts and playing in the mud.  It is a way to make up for a lack of environmental observation from this distracted over stimulated culture. 

Academia also has a bit of "physics envy."  The architecture department looks at all the money and prestige that the chemistry and physics department gets and says, we can do that too.  It is also easier to mask crappy design in complicated scripts than with logical reasoning, especially when we are presenting to people who really don't understand math and scripts themselves.  Kinda like the derivatives that we were fooled into believing in.  We can't justify derivatives with logic, because they are BS, but "heres a formula that is too hard for you to understand-OHhh it must be alright then theres a big formula created by someone really really smart."

 

May 22, 12 12:57 pm  · 
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x-jla

 as for nature....DNA is a script. This script is the result of a gritty process of working out all the little details of survival.  Form is an inevitable bi-product of this process.  May be why nature is so beautiful.  Making form and "beauty" the primary goal is far from how nature works as kevin stated! 

May 22, 12 1:10 pm  · 
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zonker

Now in the schools i't s ipads and parametrics - we were all game changers at one time or another - that is until we got too caught up in day to day reality of practice - we must get out of that trance and learn the latest tools to avoid obsolescence - a 5 year architecture career? 

May 22, 12 1:13 pm  · 
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I dont think any of us have that much of a beef with the tools....the creation of great architecture does not begin with it's shape. It seems a whole lot of thought is being given to something that is counter to the process. Guys like Glenn Small were doing with a pen, markers, and colored pencils, what the parametric people are trying to explain in over the top tekkie babble...Glenn, though, applied these concepts to actual uses.

And Glenn explains things in human terms, too.

May 22, 12 2:00 pm  · 
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i r giv up

luddites paaartaaay.

May 22, 12 8:42 pm  · 
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I'm an architecture kid and I reject arbitrary form making.

However, I recognize the value of the tools at hand, when put to use solving problems. Parametrization can mean using the tools to find minimum and maximum areas of a surface, etc - things that in the real world, actually matter.

Don't reject something based on some preconceived notion of what you think it is. It's not all blobs and dumb shapes.

May 22, 12 9:08 pm  · 
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i r giv up

i don't reject arbitrary form-making. mostly because i don't recognize arbitrary as being anything but a construct you little luddites insist on using to defend and moralize an anti-parametricist stance.

while the lack of research depth and rigor when developing forms is definitely worthy of a discussion, defaulting into shiny white modernist boxes is far worse than "blobs and dumb shapes".

my hand rocks a pretty cool spline when i rotate around my elbow and move my shoulder.

if we're going to talk about form, i suggest you go take a dump on mies, and le corbusier before i raise you a borromini with a side of zaha.

May 22, 12 10:50 pm  · 
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design

oh look the old people are back

 -Is there such a lack of intellectual stimulation in our Universities that they had to make shit up to fill the void?
-It's just the current flavor-of-the-month at architecture schools.  It'll pass in time just like the Blob and deconstructivism.
-It is a way to make up for a lack of environmental observation from this distracted over stimulated culture.
-I'd blame the competitive, fearful-of-not-being-relevant-or-avant-garde-enough academic environment before I'd blame the students themselves.
-Making form and "beauty" the primary goal is far from how nature works as kevin stated!
-Guys like Glenn Small were doing with a pen, markers, and colored pencils, what the parametric people are trying to explain in over the top tekkie babble..

Let's rephrase this for the people that don't want to think. Have you guys ever heard a janitor try to desrcibe what autocad is? That is what you basically sound like.

If you don't change or adapt you die. Period. These ideas have been around for a LONG time, they are anything but a flavor of the month.

as for nature....DNA is a script. This script is the result of a gritty process of working out all the little details of survival.  Form is an inevitable bi-product of this process.  May be why nature is so beautiful.  Making form and "beauty" the primary goal is far from how nature works as kevin stated!

sounds like physics-envy to me jlarch, or are you just deploying soft ignorance again.

May 22, 12 11:34 pm  · 
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x-jla

I like these parametrics threads because you die hard followers get so mad hahaha.  When I see a parametric script create something like the Barcelona Pavilion I will shut up! 

Yeahhh wooohooooo parametrics yeeeeahhhhhh!

May 22, 12 11:59 pm  · 
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metal

@jla-x
They get annoyed for several reasons, one of them being your lack of education. Scirpted DNA wow! who knew that one!?

When things like this come up I think its better if archinect had a VIP room.

@kevin W.
I'm confused by your statements after seeing your work. Surely at some point your form-finding was "arbritrary" 

May 23, 12 12:06 am  · 
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x-jla

 People who over complicate things to hide the fact that their work sucks annoys me.

Yes DNA is very much like a script. 

May 23, 12 12:19 am  · 
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metal

Yes, and its a big deal that we learned that, rather than exercising blind assumptions.
This stuff is not complicated, you are just too lazy to learn or try it.
If you possess such untapped genius, believe me... if you dabble with computation your work will go places that you can't get to all by yourself.

May 23, 12 12:23 am  · 
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Fang....I'm confused too....I don't have any of my work displayed. I do show my home that I am restoring that was designed and built by a well know FLW apprentice. But thats it. And not much arbitrary about this house. And since the Architect was a close friend of mine, I know that this house was very well conceived, and thought built, from the inside out. The form was a result of what was developed inside, and as a response to it's site.

I'm sure that parametrics will change the Architectural world and the way we do things, I'm sure that you will find your way, just like I have. In the grand scheme of things, it's all a tool toward the end result...to get something built, that serves its purpose, graces the landscape and is profitable....however one chooses the path toward that end...cool. For me, I apprenticed with a few well known successful 80 year old Architects, quit college after two years, and have over 2 million sf of buildings to show for my efforts. I use Revit, pencils, pens, crayons....whatever it takes. I dont give a shit what I use, as long as it can do what I need it to do. True, our educations are quite different...so what.

This old luddite needs to go to bed now...

May 23, 12 12:37 am  · 
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metal

oh... when I click on your firm name "ACME" it goes to an archinect firm profile. Maybe its mislinked..

i hear you, some of us still love history and the present at times...

May 23, 12 12:46 am  · 
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curtkram

When things like this come up I think its better if archinect had a VIP room.

^-- This.  We need parametricism with a happy ending.  Then mental masturbation would really mean something.

May 23, 12 9:23 am  · 
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i r giv up

"Barcelona Pavilion"

multicolored orthogonal boxes are hard to draw?

of all the things you could have picked, you had to pick this? seriously? how lazy are you?

May 23, 12 9:36 am  · 
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kunal.ghevaria

LOL @ noubtree's comment. So true.

Time to stop arguing and go build something!

May 23, 12 9:52 am  · 
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x-jla

noubtree your comment is retarded...you miss the point idiot

May 23, 12 10:49 am  · 
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i r giv up

umadbro?

May 23, 12 10:58 am  · 
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x-jla

multicolored orthogonal boxes are hard to draw?

No they are not, and thats the point.  The many small moves and considerations that resulted in this formally simple design could never be achieved with a parametric script.  The offset of the sculpture in the pool to draw people to the right, the spacing of the collumns, the materials, the way the roof meets the wall to create a continuous ceiling line to the courtyard, etc.....This is the result of a rigorous mental process.  Using parametric modeling as a tool, or a part of the design process is great, but the way some people embrace it as a school of thought or an ism is not productive.      


 

 

May 23, 12 11:36 am  · 
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i r giv up

are you retarded? i think we've gone over this about 50 times over: have you ever coded a neural network? ever? familiar with back-propagation learning algorithms? are you capable of learning at all?

go educate yourself before you keep on ranting about what computers can and cannot do.

i've pointed you to places where you can go read up on current trends in computation in previous threads, yet you continue to come back with idiotic arguments that center on the ways puppies and flowers make you feel.

show some rigor, kid.

May 23, 12 11:44 am  · 
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kunal.ghevaria

@jla-x:

Neither is embracing modernism or any other 'ism' without a rigorous mental process. 

I don't understand why you're picking on this particular 'ism'.

There were plenty of people that embraced modernism and built shitty buildings, because they didn't have the skill to. 

Embracing an 'ism' - any 'ism' -  and having skill, rigor and process are two different things. Sometimes they overlap, and sometimes (mostly) they don't. Shitty work can be produced in any 'ism', not just parametricism. 

So why the hate?

 

May 23, 12 11:48 am  · 
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x-jla

I agree.  I am against all isms.  Once we embrace any ism religiously we limit ourselves.  I feel the same way about politics as I do about architecture.  That being said, I am not hating on parametric design, or parametric modeling, I am opposed to parametricism.  I am opposed to all fundamental thought.  In these complicated times we need to embrace what ever works. If a shit and straw box is the best solution for a particular problem, then we should not dismiss it inorder to fulfill the agenda of a certain ism or to satisfy a fetish with a certain form.  Every ism is always followed by another ism anyway, so the progressives of today will be the ludites of tomorrow.  Those who do not perscribe to any ism in totality will be able to create work that trancends the flavor of the day.      

May 23, 12 12:18 pm  · 
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curtkram

So we think it's educators that developed this dogma?  Is it really reasonable to call people retarded for thinking Mies was a good architect?  Maybe we should tone it down.  For example:

"I think Mies did a fine job with detailing his buildings, but I prefer buildings that can pass the turing test."

Dear educators:  quit it.  Thanks.

May 23, 12 1:31 pm  · 
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i r giv up

blah blah blah, i hate things i don't understand, blah blah, i don't read gud, blah blah, what is this see plus plus you're talking about?

May 23, 12 1:33 pm  · 
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metal

^-------------- thats exactly what it boils down to for curtkram and jla-x.

Ok I'm done being nice
In these complicated times we need to embrace what ever works....Those who do not perscribe to any ism in totality will be able to create work that trancends the flavor of the day.   jla-x

Great, go live in a CVS. People who think like you end up sitting there doing nothing. To be an outlier forever without some collective participation is self-defeating. You have a right to take a conservative stance but things are going to change anyway with or without you. So just because you are playing it safe, doesn't mean you possess some superior insight.

Ultimately you are opposed to thinking, and its sad you have no self-awareness.

May 23, 12 1:57 pm  · 
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kunal.ghevaria

There will always be those who long for the flavor of yesterday without even TRYING the flavor of the day.

May 23, 12 2:07 pm  · 
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design

some critics just like being black holes

May 23, 12 2:43 pm  · 
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For me, it has to make sense. How ever one finds the appropriate solution does not really matter. For some, for many reasons the thought process of "why use a circle, when a square will do just fine" is as far as things get.

If parametrics(ism) will assist in addressing everything from functionality, buildability, aesthetics, code compliance, and bureaucratic requirements, etc...cool. Perhaps my lack of understanding of computation that makes me think that it is form and style driven, and not functionality and form being a result of the function....the human aspects that only  innate ability of (or lack of) depends. I openly admit to romanticizing Architecture. Many factors compete to try to do the opposite. A great building will be judged ultimately on the experience with it, not on the method of how it was cenceived. Whether Parametricism is seen as a movement or a style or a delivery method....it's success will be judged by the final result.,,,does it make sense.

May 23, 12 2:48 pm  · 
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design

Yes you have a misconception of parametrics, as it is not form or style-driven. I also think you have a misconception of people.

Romanticism is what leads to ever-changing tastes and disagreement. If there is no critical method for evaluating buildings than we are nothing but glorified salesmen.

May 23, 12 2:58 pm  · 
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curtkram

I think I get it now.  You're talking about programming languages, like C++ (which is quite a bit more complicated than say, autoLisp) because you're going to write a CAD program that is better than AutoCAD.  I hope you open source it, because we really do need better tools like that.  It is still about the 'tools' rather than 'shapes' or whatever, right?  Are you striving for cross-platform?  There are a few people on the forums that like Macs (not me.  I'd switch to Linux if I have to, but I like my PC).

I bet this started when Autodesk bought Maya and the big animation studios started developing their own software in house.  Well, I apologize for my earlier misunderstandings.  I still don't think you need pages of dogma and pseudo-philosophical bullshit, but I would be happy to help however I can.  I have a little bit of a background with computers and such (unlike some of the other luddites).  If you have a sourceforge page or something, please post the link.

May 23, 12 4:24 pm  · 
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i r giv up

what is this i don't even

May 23, 12 4:59 pm  · 
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Paulie

 I still don't think you need pages of dogma and pseudo-philosophical bullshit, but I would be happy to help however I can.

With that kind of contradictory attitutde, nope.

May 23, 12 5:21 pm  · 
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Yay archinect fights.

May 23, 12 11:22 pm  · 
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design

People just get defensive when their lack of knowledge is exposed.

May 23, 12 11:31 pm  · 
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Yeah,..let's meet out at the job site, and see who's lack of knowledge is exposed..jaggoff.

May 24, 12 1:00 am  · 
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design

By the time I'm as old as you think, your knowledge will be obsolete

....job sites, love how you measure standards

May 24, 12 1:22 am  · 
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a mouse

ohhhh, you mean you actually "Build" things?


how primitive.
 

Real architecture stopped building things years ago. read more.

 

 

/sarcasm

May 24, 12 1:30 am  · 
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larkin

Whats worse than pedantic people? Pedantic parametric monkeys who lack the ability to coherently address the various, often banal questions that people are asking here. Instead of engaging with what in some cases is clearly a generational/ perceptional gap, they come across as anal retentive idiots full of misplaced angst.

 

Its disingenuous to dismiss computational processes (parametrics included) in today's world, not just in the realm of Architecture, but almost all other disciplines. However, I really wish that this forum had some learned individuals who would be able to convey the broadness of the notion of 'parametricism' without condescension. Instead what we have are these idiots who display the communication skills of a spoilt 3 year old waiting for a nappy change. The problem with 'parametricism' is that communicating its ideas needs dexterity, grace and a complete and utter lack of dogma. Qualities which these 'parametric commandos'  most clearly lack.

To those whose are asking all the seemingly banal questions, it would serve you well to read some of these people - Neil Leach, Greg Lynn and Paul Coates for starters.

May 24, 12 4:20 am  · 
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i r giv up

welcome to the internet.
i hope you enjoy your stay, granpa.

 

also, great suggestions: if you want to totally go for a misread of parametrics in practice.

 

far more important to understand if you care about rigorous research:

- searle (and all the arguments against his box)
-churchland and sejnowski
-bechtel and abrahamsen (sexy math in context)
-fodor (as long as you read the parallel distributed processing book afterwards.

May 24, 12 7:50 am  · 
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larkin

^ and again, you just proved my point. So much angst. So very sad. 

May 24, 12 8:00 am  · 
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i r giv up

cry me a riiiiiiiver /justintimberlakeoff

May 24, 12 8:33 am  · 
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larkin

I said "for starters", not for rigourous research/ dissertations/ papers you self serving twat. "Misread of parametrics in practice"- Lol

Also, what by Sejnowski? Please don't pull his work out of context and append it your half-baked understand of cognitive science/ neuroscience and broader aspects of information theory. There is physics envy, and then there are people like you. 

If you were so damn interested in computational neuroscience, you wouldn't be sitting here flaming people for asking banal questions about the very basic and often misread tropes of parametricism in the realm of mainstream contemporary architectural processes. 

You say "granpa"? I say grow the hell up you snotty little child.

May 24, 12 8:34 am  · 
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curtkram

welcome to the internet.
i hope you enjoy your stay, granpa.

Here's some history since you like learning stuff noubtree.  When I was in Jr. High my dad had a 2400 baud modem which i could use to connect to a bulletin board that was in some guy's house who had 9 modems and 9 phone lines.  When I was in high school a bunch of Universities used that technology to connect together, and I could access it from the high school library.  By the time I went to UIUC (remember mosaic?) the internet was international.

tldr; granpa created the internet and gave it to you.  We've probably been here a lot longer than you.

May 24, 12 9:14 am  · 
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i r giv up

granpa larkins,
i could throw out my e-credentials, and tell you which of them i did research with before becoming an architect, but yeah.. loltehinterwebz.
it's funny how you little electronic emos think that there's some sort of correlation between how people treat them, and whatever the person on the other side knows.

grow up, i can know my ish and still be a dick to you for no reason.

curtkram,
cool story bro.

 

May 24, 12 9:35 am  · 
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