A couple of years ago one would see an image, a computer rendering, and comment on how real it seemed. One would marvel at how fast computer graphics developed and became more and more life like.
During the last two years or so the development seem to have reversed. I've seen images and assumed that they were renderings but as I read on they turn out to be photographs. I've seen brand new diggers and trucks "live" they've had that crappy-rendering-sheen. Now one marvels at how computer like real objects are.
The interesing thing is that it isn't the shape or material that creates the misunderstanding. Some of the images mentioned have depicted brick houses with pitched roofs. It seems rather that computers at the design stage and modern manufacturing technology/materials have removed all inconsistancies.
Using that super special 3ds Max plugin that enables you to mix to materials and create a natural stained look is suddenly not only unnecessary but it undermines the credibility of the image.
A problem has also arisen, one mirroring the problem of computer representations. The real objects seem to be poor representations of the virtual design, a great deal being lost in translation. The physical design is still appreciated because one sees the physical building in the context of all the virtual images.
Somehow the design language triggers you to see that shininess and blur that is only present in the virtual images. To me it seems to be a first glimpse at how our perception might be changing and how the virtual and the real is merging.
good point(s) kalle
but at the same time, it looks like the whole problem of representation/actual is like a circle - and now we have reached the end of the circle again.
I myself find, at least here in LA, the few clients that we've had also understand wireframe models pretty well (maybe we are plain lucky) - and i know so many architects, who prefer illustrator or flash - type renderings - nice thin lines with transparent color filled in them. Frankly looks like photorealism is out, and content is back in
.it looks like I live in a mansion… but really I live with tubes going in and out of all parts of my body… in a plastic pod, stacked in huge racks, hundreds of feet tall and wide...
or maybe I live in a plastic bag. When we realize that we cannot be sure any more, we wonder if we ever could be sure.
the murder of the real guys... it's a question that is as old as television. The problem nowadays is that the only place where you can see a place without an overwhelming presence of images (commercial for instance, or even words describing the content of a building...) is the image itself. The distinction is not possible anymore because the real in itself has become a space of representation as much as the image.
There is a reduction inherent in modern construction and design technology. Control seems absolute resulting in a flatness http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=620_0_23_0_M and it also turns building details into icons or cartoons of details. As French points out its all representational. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it increases the workload on the designer. To achieve a "high-resolution" building every articulation has to be designed. You'll get no help from materials or construction.
check out a book entitled refabricating architecture. i bought based off of previous version archinect discussions. IT IS all about constructing vs. causality of the image. thinking about how to build vs. "cartooning" details. simple read, very insightful into processes. i really do hope content is back.
Well, precisely. There is a tendency in architecture today, including in radical minimal swiss architecture, to consider that maybe the only meaning possible to give to form shaping is about descripting or representing what this form could have been in a real world. I've been trying hard for years to express this in a clrearer way but it's a tough job. If you take for instance the process of Gerhy, it is obviouss that there is a strong reduction of the original formal intent of the architect from the original "image" that was elaborated at the start to the final result that is clearly disappointing. This disapointment can become a strength for a project when it is assumed and used as a tool by the architect, who no longers struggle agianst the real to build is project but uses what constrains the project at the main fiction for the elaboration of his form. (not that much clearer butr I'm doing my best)
I'm not sure what you mean a mathematical discrepancy between the model and the real. After all, the mathematical is seen to be the ideal model of/for the real. MAthematics assumes as a premise that there is no discrepancy between it and the real. Usually it is human perception that is seen to be fallible, not the 'real world'. The real world is equivalent to the ideal, the fake world is the result of human (mis)perception
And the idea of the ideal as a matehtmatical model for the real goes back (prominently) to Pythagoras ,Plato and Euclid...so its quite MUCH OLDER than your MUCH OLDER :p In fact, if u travel back with Parmenides and Heraclitus there are implicit questionings of the ideal and the real as seperate yet entangled realms (positing human perception as the seperating line though of course not in the mathematical sense).
And with the high end precision that technology is affording more and more of...tolerances (discrepancies) should decrease...So interestingly all of our fuzzy logic chaos inspired world of intellect is subservient to our will to render things platonic and hegelian, ideal, linear, progressive ..as we imagine them...and of course the denominator is their previous state of affairs and not a naive mimicry of the real.
I'm not sure if I undestand well, but I guess you sort of took the example of Gerhy as an attack against his work. To me, he is as respectable as any other starchitect of his time. But I don't think that the only alternatives are "brick or stone work" and "funky shapes a la gerhy". I don't even think that the point of this discussion is to compare existing architectural dogmas but to look at the state of things from further away. I used Gerhy as an example, but I think that the syndrom of the deception is inherent to most built architecture, especially modern architecture after the 1950's. I have the intuition that it is a consequence of a difference in the status of the image in society, that shifts architectural representation to a general misunderstanding that to me, could have been one of the direction of the discussion started by Kalle. I'm sure that there is a strong need for philosophical references and grounding in history, but I'am also convinced that we can clarify the topic of reflexion before going further in greek philosophy. And we could also refer to more recent writing, such as Walter Benjamin or Willem Flusser. The advantage of XXth century philosophy is that it is not so much about finding the truth but more about asking the good question. If we already go too far back, whe may loose the point of the discussion...
This is not necessarily a new, computer phenomenon. For example, I can think of at least one building on the Yale campus (a nondescript one across from Hammond Hall) that looks marvellously as if it is made of Foamcore!!
There's an entertaining passage in "The Projective Cast", where Robin Evans shows how the method of projective geometry caused an error when shaping the facade of San Andrea in Mantua. When projected on paper as an elevation, the construction looks pretty straight-forward, with four columns supporting the pediment. But in reality the columns are mistakenly recessed a few centimeters, making it obvious that the facade is more like an image or a drawing of constructive logic rather than a "true" facade.
I think this anecdote shows that errors easily occur when we get too obsessed by our representations, instead of simply seeing it as means to get something built. This is apparent in the lingo that some architects borrow from 3D-modeling programs, or in the endless application of unnamed seamless, smooth, translucent materials onto tesselated jointless steel structures. I think the difficulty of successfully projecting the computer model into reality comes from both the problems of manufacturing (double-curved surfaces are still rather difficult to make) and assemblage (parts still have to be easily positioned in relation to each other in cartesian space).
I have realised that the "unreal" has been the goal of architecture since day one. It's probably inherent in the role of the architect (designer rather than purely builder). Ideas "contaminate" the building and turn it into architecture.
see: greek temples, egyptian temples, gothic cathedrals and so on
Marckesano,
since the issue is as old as a-f suggests (probably older) I don't think more advanced software would change anything.
also "applications that automatically prescribe cladding systems" sounds like a total nightmare. The "the problem with software is that everyone's got it" issue would be amplified and architecture homogenized, forcing creativity to into more contrived and more costly areas, sculpture, structure.
Compare with image above
The image of an idea made real
Perhaps the quality of the rendering is less crucial than the close relationship between idea and form. It seems to belong in an ideas world rather than a built world.
i want to clarify kalle's original question because the rest is getting a bit confusing for me. Can we still perceive the difference between the virtual and the real and what are the consequences?
If the virtual was originally defined as a representation of the real, then the inability to visually distinguish between the two suggests one of two things: that the virtual is no longer just a representation, or that reality is all representation, and no such "real" exists. Both are forms of a paranoid hallucination. The former is a continued projection of society's will to power - by equating controllable representation with reality, we believe we can predict and control reality itself, eliminate risks, accidents - chance. This was the sort of argument advanced in virtual-architect's monster thread - reality is a projection of representation, an inverse platonicsm, Christian eschatology bites you in the ass (I've a feeling edit continues to mispimp the Greeks).
The latter is Decarte's brewing ontological angst that sprung the modern theory/reality divide. Ultimately a proof of a Christian God, the man's paranoia denies his senses (what was previously the reception of the real) and tells us his mind, his thinking (what was previously the interpretation/representation) is the only thing in existence. The same inversion is at play, made possible in part by perspective's privileging of the visual domain in representing reality (little dare attempt the messy anxiety of defining the ideal smell, or the ideal sound).
The rest of this discussion seems to question the tectonic authenticity of built work and the discrepancy between intensions and realisation. The building's resemblance to a rendering is one of the consequences of a reality subsumed under representation, but probably not the most significant.
i don't think the unreal was the goal of architecture at all, macroscopically it has no goal, it just is, microscopically it runs the spectrum from self-preservation to "creative" invention. Such creativity demands a certain historical perspective, without which the architect has little to communicate, the Romans were the first to hit history hard, and so you get things like Hadrian's villa where the guy begins messing around with representations of ideas - time, history, rulership. the individual act is always grounded in the encompassing horizon of reality, human existence to be specific and praxis to be exact, even as the horizon warps praxis. Architecture is about appropriately defining reality for human situations and can only communicate meaning, be understood and have an effect in reality.
first let me say:
this is one of the better discussions i've read on archinect in awhile...
i agree with some of the above comments about 'cartooning' details and the posts about flatness, etc. certainly, rosalind krauss has written on these topics for some time in the 'october' journal...
"applications that automatically prescribe cladding systems"...when i first experienced this, my jaw dropped...i couldn't believe that the software had trumped the architect...it amazes me that no one has spoken out about this...what would semper say??
what frightens me about our new means of representation is the exponential distancing from the artefact, the 'real'. we as architects have invested a huge amount of energy into integrating the computer into our discipline...with great reward, but perhaps to the dis-advantage of current students...certainly there have always been means of representation in architecture and certainly there have been radical shifts in how we produce work, but my fear is that there is more fascination w/ the means than the end...more fascination w/ what's on the screen than what gets built. does this seem bad to anyone else? i'm all for the exploration of an idea through digital means, but as people have pointed out above, if you can get so detailed on a computer, than do so. i'm just wary of another generation of form-makers rather than form-givers.
a classmate once peeked over my shouder as i was making super-slick and shiny renderings and said, 'what does that room smell like?'...it occured to me that i hadn't actually put myself into the space i was sculpting...scary.
i guess that's my short rant...the thing about computers is that they allow for lots of people to advance new ways of thinking...once that current mode of production gets stylized, that's when i cringe...
lastly,
i once read an interview with steve albini and he said something along the lines of,
"if the phone were invented tomorrow, people would freak out....they would say, 'you mean i can just pick this small thing up, press a couple buttons and actually speak to someone??...no more typing?'"
just an interesting way to look at how we communicate...which is what architects do.
I was remembering yesterday the uproar in our office about 10 years ago when we decided to run some CAD-drawn schematic elevations trhough the "squiggle"program, to make the lines squggly and overlapping, with bippies at the end, like they had been hand drawn.
We wanted the drawings to look "real" - that is, like the schematic-level detailing that the building design, at that point, was. But to make them look real we ran them through a simulation. The "real" representation at that point was the actual CAD drawing, with hard lines that could be scaled to 1/164th of an inch.
Of course if you looked closely, with a trained eye, at the "squiggled' drawing lines, you could tell that they weren't hand-drawn. The eye of a d(c)raftsman, in other words, could easily distinguish between the real and the fake (remember, the "real"object about which I'm speaking is the representation of the building idea).
Architecture is such a priveleged yet confusing discipline because one is dealing with "real" representations (a model is both a representation of an idea AND a real physical object with its own material essence and character). Or, as a great teacher said to me, the architect has to be simultaneously in the building and above it. Like god.
In this discussion what vorry me is that it seem no one realise how tight up in 3 planes we all are.
It to seem like no one realy realise that CAD is taken hosteage for the only porpus of delivering 2D illutions of walktru.
What\s wrong is the attitude that we have no responsibility about if things can be made or not, it seem that as long as one can make a 2D drawing or a 3D drawing it matter nothing how the thing shal be made, --- now maby you think you can hide and say that this is how things alway's been and that forever architects just need to sketch out whatever, but here it come ; this is not how you are intended to work with CAD, as with CAD you "draw" with the materials you make tools that is your materials and these are your pen or brush, as maneaging the materials just so they can respond, do that what they can accept, you at the end know how to manufactor what you projected by sort of unfolding the process that palced the panel in the 3D drawing.
----------- You shuld only draw in 3D with those sorts of tools that offer you to unfold the curved wall into a flat panel ,you must leave the old way of thinking in 3 planes ; maby I must explain this in another way.
When I design a boat hull, I draw the curved surfaces with my own rutines that produce the surfaces in such a way, that another application can unfold the double curved surface into a number of single curved panels ; this way I can flatten out the panels and cut them directly from full scale plans. ------- If I used the old-fasion way that I can do with closed eyes, I would have a hell of trouble and the actural shape of each panel, have to be measured on spot, as the old methods only show front.side and top view ----- then I must make a framework that follow the front view ,cut the frames and place them as ribs to even be able to measure the panel shape.
Now don't you think producing a 3D model with tools that reversed will flatten the panels is one tenth the work ?
Now this is just the start, as it seem that a lot of what most think is 3D ,is acturly fiddeling. ------- Now if measures don't fit somthing is wrong, and if the building do not fit the measures and there are a high-tech drawing ,well somthing is wrong .
Would you like me to explain what is wrong it will be an intire book, but let me make another example ; with 3D-HoneyComb framework you can produce any form, round or square without bending one single piece. This mean that the materials strait out of the water or laser cutter is ready as they are produced ------ not what about Disney new concert hall, how much bending and fiddeling been made there and how much is based on the skilled craftmen to fiddle ?
Is this high-tech ? ------ Fiddeling.
Now please don't start complaining that you do not understand 3D-HoneyComb and therefore blame me for things you do not realise ,I seen this to often and is fed up with critics that based on a poor understanding of 3D claim, that what acturly is there in 3D cooerdinates can not be produced while scientists use 3D to prove all sorts of things --- it is only Escher sort of paintings that cheat your eyes with 2D acting as 3D , you se a 3D drawing is in itself a garentie.
But Why is it architects hold on to the idear that they are not responsible for drawing with tools that reversed can manufactor the actural curved wall, why do architects still think they need no hands on feel.
Now about 3D-HoneyComb please realise that there are only 2 planes.
Try look closer to any of my naive graphics and follow the frames untill you se that everything you se in this structure, are just _2_ planes not 3 planes as you are used to.
When you realised that, and if you understand the tradisional top,side and front views being 3 planes, and know the reson why you have 3 planes ( any point on a plane in 3D is defined from it's projection onto the two other planes --- basic CAD knowleage ) is to be able to calculate with plain geometric rules, then you shuld be wondering how it is possible to form a rounded framework from only two intersecting planes , ----- Planes that even do not follow the tradisional XY, YZ, XZ planes with 90 deg inbetween.
Do you follow ?
Well producing from a CAD drawing shuld be different than douing it from a sketch, and the difference must be, that you "draw" with tools that is develobed so that you can only draw what later in some way can be unfolded to be manufactored, ----- you shuld not be drawing somthing that need a skilled craftman to be fiddled into place, then why even use a CAD program.
Please check this graphic, se how just two planes that do not follow the tradisional top,side,fornt views acturly can produce somthing that is very different from how we been building houses for centuries, emagine how the top floor sort of grow without anyone laying the floor beams, while the assembly are put together, ------ this house framework is only two planes please realise, and then when you want the unfolded panels, think about that the raw 3D model is drawn with tools that allow you to unfold the panels, that the framework inside is shaped exact to fit that.
Well here is the original Solid model before slicing into 3D-H framework ;
When you se that with computers you must shape with tools that make a direct link to production ,you also know that each of these structures also made from only 2 intersecting planes will work, as othervise they could not be drawn in 3D :
Kalle<
"Somehow the design language triggers you to see that shininess and blur that is only present in the virtual images. To me it seems to be a first glimpse at how our perception might be changing and how the virtual and the real is merging"
Now you are talking about programs like Rivit that "draw" walls as solids ready with brick renderings how can you expect that to be nothing but Lego vise, have a boring look beside only offer a limited degree of creative options --- only within the gadgeds ready made blocks and automated acount.
This is not going to develob a new form language, the attitude of the program is to deal as little with the actural manufactoring process, maby measure the mass and volumes of the pictured building elements ,but no direct link to production no deconstructive aproach just like Lego, ------ very different from methods where the only information about the seperate building frame that cover both walls ,roof and stairway is all in one file ,not a ton of documents as the process these kinds of programs make.
Emagine a building process where your bricks simply don't exist so the problems with old bricks simply don't exist --- that case you wouldn't need to count them, order them at a brick factory beside all the other things to order with a brick building. Emagine you just had one material and one simple process to manufactir the replacement of the brick, somthing ten times stronger at a third the weight -------- such kind of construction simply don't fit with the tradisional architect programs.
some time ago I recived CAD drawings for a huge building --- what I found out was ,that these "3D" drawings that was acturly 2D slices of a round building, was realy made _after_ the building had been made in steel frames, the carpenters then hoped that "the 3D drawing" for the building could have drawn out the dimentions for the lofts paneling ,interiours aso. What they did not realise was that reverse engineering have no space in architecture, that if you have a 3D drawing you are lucky if the technology been used to sell a prospect, but to hope that the carpenters can make a simple 2D N.C. router do the panels no no no no no. Now if you Romans think we are heading the sky with our use of CAD think again, even not knowing the difference between Lego mind how that reflect in architect programs, and the fantastic options hindered by the useal pyramide acting ,
when you say ;
Kalle:
"The real objects seem to be poor representations of the virtual design, a great deal being lost in translation. The physical design is still appreciated because one sees the physical building in the context of all the virtual images"
Then can't you se that this is just the problem --- these programs are lame, they don't point to a direct link production it's like playing Lego and Lego make you design what Lego allow in it's own form language, square things, almost to neat.
Jmac I don\t know if you are working with Autodesk or of what reson you think your off topic mail is relevant. I put up my experience with top firms in the CAD buisness but ask some questions that ask a bit knowleage about these programs. When I question the Lego mind in today\s architect programs, this refere to the top post in this tread, maby you didn\t read it. Maby you didn\t even read my mail but this is my experience, that when 50 say the things I put forth is relevant there alway\s be one who just hate it, that\s how it work in any group .
This post is questioning the inherent gap between virtuality of architecture as representation, and its built actuality. Your response posited this disparity in terms of presumed deficencies in software, conveniently to promote your own plugin. I saw this in another thread as well.
Well isn't the top post just good, it make very clear definations about what we realy is moving around on the screen. For me anyway "Kalle" hit just on the top of the nail and make a very fine description of what seem to be the basic problem , that we to often forget that it is representations , it is no pipe and we surely seem to have problems realising the difference.
I just continue down the road but please know that just that fact that we do not intend to use the lines ,the codes or the account to acturly produce is what make the problem we seem to have so difficult to se.
Well I call it Lego mind and working as with Lego, but I realy find it quite dangouras to just follow the set lead, just rewrite rutines as on paper into smart computer code. The brick is maby a naive example but the brick don't have any specific place in the wall and when taken apart the brick can make anything else not just a wall , but a frame in an assembly framework have that specific place it is an information that make the frame, the one that tell where it must be . Tradisional architect programs work Lego vise it make a reprensatation of the wall make the individual brick into somthing on a piece of paper that is ordered ,placed and used in quantities that have nothing to do if it's a wall or a floor, but who care in fact the brick could be out of wood or stone still exactly as how it was done before the computer ,the same calculations is put into an application to tell the weight of one aso. aso. but everything is still as done before just put into computer code --- realy is this true progress, just to do things as before just in fast relaible code , I find this being a pipe just as much as a painting of one.
Then nomatter what we use to represent the house ,if we already calculated ready walls ready volumes that automaticly when dragged into the drawing will tell how many bricks, we are still not using the computer to calculate rather than storing the results of simple macros, realy with most architect programs the computing don't go into designing the wall but to count the bricks and do a presentation.
Here my attitude is different as I talk about making the computer acturly shape the building blocks from your sketch, and after that acturly produce the exact measure frame that can only be one place to work as a frame ,not as any brick that could be placed everywhere and acturly don't ask a computer --------- but instead of forwerds we must go reverse. We must not take the consequense that this is not a pipe and make it with today's options in today's tools ,and today's tools we must use in the most silli way to support outdated technikes survive.
On a paper drawing it was needed with codes as there was no room on the drawing to spell " floorplank, material wood, second floor, so instead many years ago codes was made to represent that, all you then need is a code book and from the number on the paper plan you can look in the book what that is, --------- now today we got dynamic links we don't even need the codes, still that's where the effort is put --- making rules with the computer screen as if we was still working paper drawings , paper drawings that is 2D . We tourture the computer into 2D where if we realy want to use it computing we shuld go 3D and work out compleatly different rutines than doing it from a need that is not there anymore. Also this restrict us into seing everything in 2D so we don't se the obvious gain doing the building element directly from the 3D drawing, we make 3D drawings into reverse enginering where realy this can never be a step ahead,
No I find Kalle's post very good, but taking the consequence mean develobment in another direction, a direct link production direction, when the pre-calculated and pre-made framework is then there, sure tradisional accounting systems will make ordering easyer as ever , but fact is that even the code system have trouble defining a frame that trasnverse the structure, ------ soon we are only allowed to only build what can be written in numbers on a paper drawing as architects find layering and layer colors more important and neat than new tools they alway's seen as somthing irelevant, then it is more right to point to the paper drawing with the numbers and claim , "now that is a house".
Sorry if you think my choice of words seem simple, but I am not an architect I am a boatbuilder who was that exited about the fantastic 3D options that I had to write the programs that was not there, 'I had to learn ot program , I had to go to the architect school and spend 3 years there as unregistrated student as I spended all my money develobing these tools that I thought to be the future. They worked and I could produce boats in way's never seen before ,but my bad luck was that I saw better way's way's to acturly solve the hands on problems in any building process, -------- then I met the academics.
Anyway and with the bad social skills of an autodidact artist ,I went out to show the world what fantastic options I investigated in the code that sadly was way above what architects expected, I wanted to show the world somthing fantastic somthing already there if you have the right creative drive and just a small wish for beauty , ------ Somthing new, somthing innovativi ,somthing that turn everything upside down and make a house at a third the cost realy using the computer to calculate, guess what the ansver was " do you think you are more clever than us ?" , "do you think you are more clever than I" Do you think you are anyone" ; well ------ I don't, I just do the only thing I ever been able to do , make things better show a profesional result that is not stealing somons idear.
But I am not a Roman, I do not rely on the support of the rest of the pyramide I know the value of my work and I know when somone dispose his own ignorance or lack of knowing by the most effective tool in a pyramide , bullying .
Don't you think the vorse hassle for a skilled designer is how to get a new idear, they are all over the place , but if you work in a group you also know who to make your work, you also know the weak ones and the ones better socialy skilled than you ------ realy where in such a group would you find space for somone with all the skills but no social skills ; I know my role as the one every settled social well academic just hate, But I love my visions and they work , ----- Beside any critic alway's been the type you use in any group when somone bully the guy with the good idears, Please it work so in denmark that you can't even be allowed to display your arts, isn't this how art allway's worked didn't the academics allway's just hate the real visionary , isn't it quite visionary to replace all the outdated with relevant new.
Aug 24, 04 5:39 am ·
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virtual and real
A couple of years ago one would see an image, a computer rendering, and comment on how real it seemed. One would marvel at how fast computer graphics developed and became more and more life like.
During the last two years or so the development seem to have reversed. I've seen images and assumed that they were renderings but as I read on they turn out to be photographs. I've seen brand new diggers and trucks "live" they've had that crappy-rendering-sheen. Now one marvels at how computer like real objects are.
The interesing thing is that it isn't the shape or material that creates the misunderstanding. Some of the images mentioned have depicted brick houses with pitched roofs. It seems rather that computers at the design stage and modern manufacturing technology/materials have removed all inconsistancies.
Using that super special 3ds Max plugin that enables you to mix to materials and create a natural stained look is suddenly not only unnecessary but it undermines the credibility of the image.
A problem has also arisen, one mirroring the problem of computer representations. The real objects seem to be poor representations of the virtual design, a great deal being lost in translation. The physical design is still appreciated because one sees the physical building in the context of all the virtual images.
Somehow the design language triggers you to see that shininess and blur that is only present in the virtual images. To me it seems to be a first glimpse at how our perception might be changing and how the virtual and the real is merging.
sorry, I don't know HTML coding but this article further advances your argument.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DE153DF93BA1575AC0A9659C8B63
good point(s) kalle
but at the same time, it looks like the whole problem of representation/actual is like a circle - and now we have reached the end of the circle again.
I myself find, at least here in LA, the few clients that we've had also understand wireframe models pretty well (maybe we are plain lucky) - and i know so many architects, who prefer illustrator or flash - type renderings - nice thin lines with transparent color filled in them. Frankly looks like photorealism is out, and content is back in
.it looks like I live in a mansion… but really I live with tubes going in and out of all parts of my body… in a plastic pod, stacked in huge racks, hundreds of feet tall and wide...
or maybe I live in a plastic bag. When we realize that we cannot be sure any more, we wonder if we ever could be sure.
the murder of the real guys... it's a question that is as old as television. The problem nowadays is that the only place where you can see a place without an overwhelming presence of images (commercial for instance, or even words describing the content of a building...) is the image itself. The distinction is not possible anymore because the real in itself has become a space of representation as much as the image.
There is a reduction inherent in modern construction and design technology. Control seems absolute resulting in a flatness http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=620_0_23_0_M and it also turns building details into icons or cartoons of details. As French points out its all representational. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it increases the workload on the designer. To achieve a "high-resolution" building every articulation has to be designed. You'll get no help from materials or construction.
link fixed
all
check out a book entitled refabricating architecture. i bought based off of previous version archinect discussions. IT IS all about constructing vs. causality of the image. thinking about how to build vs. "cartooning" details. simple read, very insightful into processes. i really do hope content is back.
Well, precisely. There is a tendency in architecture today, including in radical minimal swiss architecture, to consider that maybe the only meaning possible to give to form shaping is about descripting or representing what this form could have been in a real world. I've been trying hard for years to express this in a clrearer way but it's a tough job. If you take for instance the process of Gerhy, it is obviouss that there is a strong reduction of the original formal intent of the architect from the original "image" that was elaborated at the start to the final result that is clearly disappointing. This disapointment can become a strength for a project when it is assumed and used as a tool by the architect, who no longers struggle agianst the real to build is project but uses what constrains the project at the main fiction for the elaboration of his form. (not that much clearer butr I'm doing my best)
This is nonsensical. By definition, there is no way to "merge."
Unless you are a fan of Lain:Serial Experiments, of course.
I'm not sure what you mean a mathematical discrepancy between the model and the real. After all, the mathematical is seen to be the ideal model of/for the real. MAthematics assumes as a premise that there is no discrepancy between it and the real. Usually it is human perception that is seen to be fallible, not the 'real world'. The real world is equivalent to the ideal, the fake world is the result of human (mis)perception
And the idea of the ideal as a matehtmatical model for the real goes back (prominently) to Pythagoras ,Plato and Euclid...so its quite MUCH OLDER than your MUCH OLDER :p In fact, if u travel back with Parmenides and Heraclitus there are implicit questionings of the ideal and the real as seperate yet entangled realms (positing human perception as the seperating line though of course not in the mathematical sense).
And with the high end precision that technology is affording more and more of...tolerances (discrepancies) should decrease...So interestingly all of our fuzzy logic chaos inspired world of intellect is subservient to our will to render things platonic and hegelian, ideal, linear, progressive ..as we imagine them...and of course the denominator is their previous state of affairs and not a naive mimicry of the real.
I'm not sure if I undestand well, but I guess you sort of took the example of Gerhy as an attack against his work. To me, he is as respectable as any other starchitect of his time. But I don't think that the only alternatives are "brick or stone work" and "funky shapes a la gerhy". I don't even think that the point of this discussion is to compare existing architectural dogmas but to look at the state of things from further away. I used Gerhy as an example, but I think that the syndrom of the deception is inherent to most built architecture, especially modern architecture after the 1950's. I have the intuition that it is a consequence of a difference in the status of the image in society, that shifts architectural representation to a general misunderstanding that to me, could have been one of the direction of the discussion started by Kalle. I'm sure that there is a strong need for philosophical references and grounding in history, but I'am also convinced that we can clarify the topic of reflexion before going further in greek philosophy. And we could also refer to more recent writing, such as Walter Benjamin or Willem Flusser. The advantage of XXth century philosophy is that it is not so much about finding the truth but more about asking the good question. If we already go too far back, whe may loose the point of the discussion...
French
I agree
This is not necessarily a new, computer phenomenon. For example, I can think of at least one building on the Yale campus (a nondescript one across from Hammond Hall) that looks marvellously as if it is made of Foamcore!!
There's an entertaining passage in "The Projective Cast", where Robin Evans shows how the method of projective geometry caused an error when shaping the facade of San Andrea in Mantua. When projected on paper as an elevation, the construction looks pretty straight-forward, with four columns supporting the pediment. But in reality the columns are mistakenly recessed a few centimeters, making it obvious that the facade is more like an image or a drawing of constructive logic rather than a "true" facade.
I think this anecdote shows that errors easily occur when we get too obsessed by our representations, instead of simply seeing it as means to get something built. This is apparent in the lingo that some architects borrow from 3D-modeling programs, or in the endless application of unnamed seamless, smooth, translucent materials onto tesselated jointless steel structures. I think the difficulty of successfully projecting the computer model into reality comes from both the problems of manufacturing (double-curved surfaces are still rather difficult to make) and assemblage (parts still have to be easily positioned in relation to each other in cartesian space).
I agree
at http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=651
I have realised that the "unreal" has been the goal of architecture since day one. It's probably inherent in the role of the architect (designer rather than purely builder). Ideas "contaminate" the building and turn it into architecture.
see: greek temples, egyptian temples, gothic cathedrals and so on
Marckesano,
since the issue is as old as a-f suggests (probably older) I don't think more advanced software would change anything.
also "applications that automatically prescribe cladding systems" sounds like a total nightmare. The "the problem with software is that everyone's got it" issue would be amplified and architecture homogenized, forcing creativity to into more contrived and more costly areas, sculpture, structure.
hmm, I guess were already there.
Compare with image above
The image of an idea made real
Perhaps the quality of the rendering is less crucial than the close relationship between idea and form. It seems to belong in an ideas world rather than a built world.
I think I like it
i want to clarify kalle's original question because the rest is getting a bit confusing for me. Can we still perceive the difference between the virtual and the real and what are the consequences?
If the virtual was originally defined as a representation of the real, then the inability to visually distinguish between the two suggests one of two things: that the virtual is no longer just a representation, or that reality is all representation, and no such "real" exists. Both are forms of a paranoid hallucination. The former is a continued projection of society's will to power - by equating controllable representation with reality, we believe we can predict and control reality itself, eliminate risks, accidents - chance. This was the sort of argument advanced in virtual-architect's monster thread - reality is a projection of representation, an inverse platonicsm, Christian eschatology bites you in the ass (I've a feeling edit continues to mispimp the Greeks).
The latter is Decarte's brewing ontological angst that sprung the modern theory/reality divide. Ultimately a proof of a Christian God, the man's paranoia denies his senses (what was previously the reception of the real) and tells us his mind, his thinking (what was previously the interpretation/representation) is the only thing in existence. The same inversion is at play, made possible in part by perspective's privileging of the visual domain in representing reality (little dare attempt the messy anxiety of defining the ideal smell, or the ideal sound).
The rest of this discussion seems to question the tectonic authenticity of built work and the discrepancy between intensions and realisation. The building's resemblance to a rendering is one of the consequences of a reality subsumed under representation, but probably not the most significant.
i don't think the unreal was the goal of architecture at all, macroscopically it has no goal, it just is, microscopically it runs the spectrum from self-preservation to "creative" invention. Such creativity demands a certain historical perspective, without which the architect has little to communicate, the Romans were the first to hit history hard, and so you get things like Hadrian's villa where the guy begins messing around with representations of ideas - time, history, rulership. the individual act is always grounded in the encompassing horizon of reality, human existence to be specific and praxis to be exact, even as the horizon warps praxis. Architecture is about appropriately defining reality for human situations and can only communicate meaning, be understood and have an effect in reality.
koolhaas just doesn't care, long may he build
i absolutely love the fact that he's working for china. i'd like to put AMO in charge of international relations
first let me say:
this is one of the better discussions i've read on archinect in awhile...
i agree with some of the above comments about 'cartooning' details and the posts about flatness, etc. certainly, rosalind krauss has written on these topics for some time in the 'october' journal...
"applications that automatically prescribe cladding systems"...when i first experienced this, my jaw dropped...i couldn't believe that the software had trumped the architect...it amazes me that no one has spoken out about this...what would semper say??
what frightens me about our new means of representation is the exponential distancing from the artefact, the 'real'. we as architects have invested a huge amount of energy into integrating the computer into our discipline...with great reward, but perhaps to the dis-advantage of current students...certainly there have always been means of representation in architecture and certainly there have been radical shifts in how we produce work, but my fear is that there is more fascination w/ the means than the end...more fascination w/ what's on the screen than what gets built. does this seem bad to anyone else? i'm all for the exploration of an idea through digital means, but as people have pointed out above, if you can get so detailed on a computer, than do so. i'm just wary of another generation of form-makers rather than form-givers.
a classmate once peeked over my shouder as i was making super-slick and shiny renderings and said, 'what does that room smell like?'...it occured to me that i hadn't actually put myself into the space i was sculpting...scary.
i guess that's my short rant...the thing about computers is that they allow for lots of people to advance new ways of thinking...once that current mode of production gets stylized, that's when i cringe...
lastly,
i once read an interview with steve albini and he said something along the lines of,
"if the phone were invented tomorrow, people would freak out....they would say, 'you mean i can just pick this small thing up, press a couple buttons and actually speak to someone??...no more typing?'"
just an interesting way to look at how we communicate...which is what architects do.
righteous fist - great post.
I was remembering yesterday the uproar in our office about 10 years ago when we decided to run some CAD-drawn schematic elevations trhough the "squiggle"program, to make the lines squggly and overlapping, with bippies at the end, like they had been hand drawn.
We wanted the drawings to look "real" - that is, like the schematic-level detailing that the building design, at that point, was. But to make them look real we ran them through a simulation. The "real" representation at that point was the actual CAD drawing, with hard lines that could be scaled to 1/164th of an inch.
Of course if you looked closely, with a trained eye, at the "squiggled' drawing lines, you could tell that they weren't hand-drawn. The eye of a d(c)raftsman, in other words, could easily distinguish between the real and the fake (remember, the "real"object about which I'm speaking is the representation of the building idea).
Architecture is such a priveleged yet confusing discipline because one is dealing with "real" representations (a model is both a representation of an idea AND a real physical object with its own material essence and character). Or, as a great teacher said to me, the architect has to be simultaneously in the building and above it. Like god.
Hi
In this discussion what vorry me is that it seem no one realise how tight up in 3 planes we all are.
It to seem like no one realy realise that CAD is taken hosteage for the only porpus of delivering 2D illutions of walktru.
What\s wrong is the attitude that we have no responsibility about if things can be made or not, it seem that as long as one can make a 2D drawing or a 3D drawing it matter nothing how the thing shal be made, --- now maby you think you can hide and say that this is how things alway's been and that forever architects just need to sketch out whatever, but here it come ; this is not how you are intended to work with CAD, as with CAD you "draw" with the materials you make tools that is your materials and these are your pen or brush, as maneaging the materials just so they can respond, do that what they can accept, you at the end know how to manufactor what you projected by sort of unfolding the process that palced the panel in the 3D drawing.
----------- You shuld only draw in 3D with those sorts of tools that offer you to unfold the curved wall into a flat panel ,you must leave the old way of thinking in 3 planes ; maby I must explain this in another way.
When I design a boat hull, I draw the curved surfaces with my own rutines that produce the surfaces in such a way, that another application can unfold the double curved surface into a number of single curved panels ; this way I can flatten out the panels and cut them directly from full scale plans. ------- If I used the old-fasion way that I can do with closed eyes, I would have a hell of trouble and the actural shape of each panel, have to be measured on spot, as the old methods only show front.side and top view ----- then I must make a framework that follow the front view ,cut the frames and place them as ribs to even be able to measure the panel shape.
Now don't you think producing a 3D model with tools that reversed will flatten the panels is one tenth the work ?
Now this is just the start, as it seem that a lot of what most think is 3D ,is acturly fiddeling. ------- Now if measures don't fit somthing is wrong, and if the building do not fit the measures and there are a high-tech drawing ,well somthing is wrong .
Would you like me to explain what is wrong it will be an intire book, but let me make another example ; with 3D-HoneyComb framework you can produce any form, round or square without bending one single piece. This mean that the materials strait out of the water or laser cutter is ready as they are produced ------ not what about Disney new concert hall, how much bending and fiddeling been made there and how much is based on the skilled craftmen to fiddle ?
Is this high-tech ? ------ Fiddeling.
Now please don't start complaining that you do not understand 3D-HoneyComb and therefore blame me for things you do not realise ,I seen this to often and is fed up with critics that based on a poor understanding of 3D claim, that what acturly is there in 3D cooerdinates can not be produced while scientists use 3D to prove all sorts of things --- it is only Escher sort of paintings that cheat your eyes with 2D acting as 3D , you se a 3D drawing is in itself a garentie.
But Why is it architects hold on to the idear that they are not responsible for drawing with tools that reversed can manufactor the actural curved wall, why do architects still think they need no hands on feel.
Now about 3D-HoneyComb please realise that there are only 2 planes.
Try look closer to any of my naive graphics and follow the frames untill you se that everything you se in this structure, are just _2_ planes not 3 planes as you are used to.
When you realised that, and if you understand the tradisional top,side and front views being 3 planes, and know the reson why you have 3 planes ( any point on a plane in 3D is defined from it's projection onto the two other planes --- basic CAD knowleage ) is to be able to calculate with plain geometric rules, then you shuld be wondering how it is possible to form a rounded framework from only two intersecting planes , ----- Planes that even do not follow the tradisional XY, YZ, XZ planes with 90 deg inbetween.
Do you follow ?
Well producing from a CAD drawing shuld be different than douing it from a sketch, and the difference must be, that you "draw" with tools that is develobed so that you can only draw what later in some way can be unfolded to be manufactored, ----- you shuld not be drawing somthing that need a skilled craftman to be fiddled into place, then why even use a CAD program.
Please check this graphic, se how just two planes that do not follow the tradisional top,side,fornt views acturly can produce somthing that is very different from how we been building houses for centuries, emagine how the top floor sort of grow without anyone laying the floor beams, while the assembly are put together, ------ this house framework is only two planes please realise, and then when you want the unfolded panels, think about that the raw 3D model is drawn with tools that allow you to unfold the panels, that the framework inside is shaped exact to fit that.
Well here is the original Solid model before slicing into 3D-H framework ;
http://www.designcommunity.com/scrapbook/2580.html
When you se that with computers you must shape with tools that make a direct link to production ,you also know that each of these structures also made from only 2 intersecting planes will work, as othervise they could not be drawn in 3D :
http://home20.inet.tele.dk/h-3d/index.htm
Hi
Sorry I forgot to place the sliced framework, here they are again :
Solid Model
http://www.designcommunity.com/scrapbook/2580.html
Sliced into assembly framework;
http://www.designcommunity.com/scrapbook/2573.html
Here you se a few frames taken out ;
http://www.designcommunity.com/scrapbook/2577.html
(no they are not prepared with assembly notches, but they show how it work)
http://home20.inet.tele.dk/h-3d/index.htm
PLEASE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! THIS IS SPAM!
Hi
Kalle<
"Somehow the design language triggers you to see that shininess and blur that is only present in the virtual images. To me it seems to be a first glimpse at how our perception might be changing and how the virtual and the real is merging"
Now you are talking about programs like Rivit that "draw" walls as solids ready with brick renderings how can you expect that to be nothing but Lego vise, have a boring look beside only offer a limited degree of creative options --- only within the gadgeds ready made blocks and automated acount.
This is not going to develob a new form language, the attitude of the program is to deal as little with the actural manufactoring process, maby measure the mass and volumes of the pictured building elements ,but no direct link to production no deconstructive aproach just like Lego, ------ very different from methods where the only information about the seperate building frame that cover both walls ,roof and stairway is all in one file ,not a ton of documents as the process these kinds of programs make.
Emagine a building process where your bricks simply don't exist so the problems with old bricks simply don't exist --- that case you wouldn't need to count them, order them at a brick factory beside all the other things to order with a brick building. Emagine you just had one material and one simple process to manufactir the replacement of the brick, somthing ten times stronger at a third the weight -------- such kind of construction simply don't fit with the tradisional architect programs.
some time ago I recived CAD drawings for a huge building --- what I found out was ,that these "3D" drawings that was acturly 2D slices of a round building, was realy made _after_ the building had been made in steel frames, the carpenters then hoped that "the 3D drawing" for the building could have drawn out the dimentions for the lofts paneling ,interiours aso. What they did not realise was that reverse engineering have no space in architecture, that if you have a 3D drawing you are lucky if the technology been used to sell a prospect, but to hope that the carpenters can make a simple 2D N.C. router do the panels no no no no no. Now if you Romans think we are heading the sky with our use of CAD think again, even not knowing the difference between Lego mind how that reflect in architect programs, and the fantastic options hindered by the useal pyramide acting ,
when you say ;
Kalle:
"The real objects seem to be poor representations of the virtual design, a great deal being lost in translation. The physical design is still appreciated because one sees the physical building in the context of all the virtual images"
Then can't you se that this is just the problem --- these programs are lame, they don't point to a direct link production it's like playing Lego and Lego make you design what Lego allow in it's own form language, square things, almost to neat.
Per Corell NEEDS to be ousted. He offers little to the conversation at hand, instead preferring to plug his own product, plugin, or whatever...
Archinect please step up!
Hi
Jmac I don\t know if you are working with Autodesk or of what reson you think your off topic mail is relevant. I put up my experience with top firms in the CAD buisness but ask some questions that ask a bit knowleage about these programs. When I question the Lego mind in today\s architect programs, this refere to the top post in this tread, maby you didn\t read it. Maby you didn\t even read my mail but this is my experience, that when 50 say the things I put forth is relevant there alway\s be one who just hate it, that\s how it work in any group .
This post is questioning the inherent gap between virtuality of architecture as representation, and its built actuality. Your response posited this disparity in terms of presumed deficencies in software, conveniently to promote your own plugin. I saw this in another thread as well.
Well isn't the top post just good, it make very clear definations about what we realy is moving around on the screen. For me anyway "Kalle" hit just on the top of the nail and make a very fine description of what seem to be the basic problem , that we to often forget that it is representations , it is no pipe and we surely seem to have problems realising the difference.
I just continue down the road but please know that just that fact that we do not intend to use the lines ,the codes or the account to acturly produce is what make the problem we seem to have so difficult to se.
Well I call it Lego mind and working as with Lego, but I realy find it quite dangouras to just follow the set lead, just rewrite rutines as on paper into smart computer code. The brick is maby a naive example but the brick don't have any specific place in the wall and when taken apart the brick can make anything else not just a wall , but a frame in an assembly framework have that specific place it is an information that make the frame, the one that tell where it must be . Tradisional architect programs work Lego vise it make a reprensatation of the wall make the individual brick into somthing on a piece of paper that is ordered ,placed and used in quantities that have nothing to do if it's a wall or a floor, but who care in fact the brick could be out of wood or stone still exactly as how it was done before the computer ,the same calculations is put into an application to tell the weight of one aso. aso. but everything is still as done before just put into computer code --- realy is this true progress, just to do things as before just in fast relaible code , I find this being a pipe just as much as a painting of one.
Then nomatter what we use to represent the house ,if we already calculated ready walls ready volumes that automaticly when dragged into the drawing will tell how many bricks, we are still not using the computer to calculate rather than storing the results of simple macros, realy with most architect programs the computing don't go into designing the wall but to count the bricks and do a presentation.
Here my attitude is different as I talk about making the computer acturly shape the building blocks from your sketch, and after that acturly produce the exact measure frame that can only be one place to work as a frame ,not as any brick that could be placed everywhere and acturly don't ask a computer --------- but instead of forwerds we must go reverse. We must not take the consequense that this is not a pipe and make it with today's options in today's tools ,and today's tools we must use in the most silli way to support outdated technikes survive.
On a paper drawing it was needed with codes as there was no room on the drawing to spell " floorplank, material wood, second floor, so instead many years ago codes was made to represent that, all you then need is a code book and from the number on the paper plan you can look in the book what that is, --------- now today we got dynamic links we don't even need the codes, still that's where the effort is put --- making rules with the computer screen as if we was still working paper drawings , paper drawings that is 2D . We tourture the computer into 2D where if we realy want to use it computing we shuld go 3D and work out compleatly different rutines than doing it from a need that is not there anymore. Also this restrict us into seing everything in 2D so we don't se the obvious gain doing the building element directly from the 3D drawing, we make 3D drawings into reverse enginering where realy this can never be a step ahead,
No I find Kalle's post very good, but taking the consequence mean develobment in another direction, a direct link production direction, when the pre-calculated and pre-made framework is then there, sure tradisional accounting systems will make ordering easyer as ever , but fact is that even the code system have trouble defining a frame that trasnverse the structure, ------ soon we are only allowed to only build what can be written in numbers on a paper drawing as architects find layering and layer colors more important and neat than new tools they alway's seen as somthing irelevant, then it is more right to point to the paper drawing with the numbers and claim , "now that is a house".
Hi
Sorry if you think my choice of words seem simple, but I am not an architect I am a boatbuilder who was that exited about the fantastic 3D options that I had to write the programs that was not there, 'I had to learn ot program , I had to go to the architect school and spend 3 years there as unregistrated student as I spended all my money develobing these tools that I thought to be the future. They worked and I could produce boats in way's never seen before ,but my bad luck was that I saw better way's way's to acturly solve the hands on problems in any building process, -------- then I met the academics.
Hi
Anyway and with the bad social skills of an autodidact artist ,I went out to show the world what fantastic options I investigated in the code that sadly was way above what architects expected, I wanted to show the world somthing fantastic somthing already there if you have the right creative drive and just a small wish for beauty , ------ Somthing new, somthing innovativi ,somthing that turn everything upside down and make a house at a third the cost realy using the computer to calculate, guess what the ansver was " do you think you are more clever than us ?" , "do you think you are more clever than I" Do you think you are anyone" ; well ------ I don't, I just do the only thing I ever been able to do , make things better show a profesional result that is not stealing somons idear.
But I am not a Roman, I do not rely on the support of the rest of the pyramide I know the value of my work and I know when somone dispose his own ignorance or lack of knowing by the most effective tool in a pyramide , bullying .
Don't you think the vorse hassle for a skilled designer is how to get a new idear, they are all over the place , but if you work in a group you also know who to make your work, you also know the weak ones and the ones better socialy skilled than you ------ realy where in such a group would you find space for somone with all the skills but no social skills ; I know my role as the one every settled social well academic just hate, But I love my visions and they work , ----- Beside any critic alway's been the type you use in any group when somone bully the guy with the good idears, Please it work so in denmark that you can't even be allowed to display your arts, isn't this how art allway's worked didn't the academics allway's just hate the real visionary , isn't it quite visionary to replace all the outdated with relevant new.
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