Abstract- reading 2

Rahim, Ali . “ Techniques and Technology “ + “ Temporality and Time” , “Catalytic Formations Architecture and Digital Design “ p10-29. Taylor & Francis, 2006


Ali Rahim writes about the meeting and intertwining of 3 words: technology, technique, and technical. Sometimes architects don't treat these as separate issues, but Rahim explains how each one is different and how each one has effected the past, effects us today, and will continue to effect us in the future. Technology, he says, is the application of technical advances to a "cultural context." He defines technical refinements as a change made which increases the efficiency of a mechanical, electrical, or digital operation. Techniques then are "behaviors and procedures that are systematic, repeatable, and communicable."

Rahim says that all of these change across time, as it should be, as society grows and evolves. He also says they develop off of each other, in a sort of feedback loop. A technology is only successful when it has created new levels of performance and new patterns of behavior. In other words, when it changes the accepted technique, or has necessitated the development of brand new techniques. Then, through technical refinements (like an architects rewriting parts of a computer program to suit his or her needs), technology is changed.

Rahim gives 2 major examples of how his ideas have played out in the past 50 years- the Eames and Verner Panton. Both used the new technical advances of their time (plastics, machines for bending and forming plywood, etc) and applied them to their design, creating totally and completely new technologies (the fluid form). As time has meant the acceptance of these new ideas of form, what they did as revolutionaries in the field has become commonplace. In other words, it is now a technique used by many.

The other half of Rahim's ideas discussed in this reading deal with how firms use technology, whether they develop it further or just use programs as tools for doing the same type of architecture as always. This, he says, has to do with a firm's idea of temporality- is time reversible or not? He seems to think the firms that see time as not reversible are the ones who really embrace new technologies and use them to their advantage. These firms create new techniques or technical refinements to further the field. The other firms are not exploratory, but use technology as a technique- never working to stretch the limits or change how things are, but only increasing the exactness or efficiency of their work with new technologies (computer programs).

The most defining statement of this reading was that "technologies only gain meaning in their application." Architects need to develop all three things- technology, technical, and technique- to make these advances matter in the world we will help create. In school we aren't really encouraged to develop these technologies. We are really just being introduced to them. It’s when we move beyond school and are comfortable with the techniques and technologies we know, that new areas can, and need to, be explored.

Assignment 2

Abstract- reading 1

Kolarevic, Branko. “Introduction” + “Digital Morphogenesis”, “Architecture in the digital age : design and manufacturing. p 2-27. New York, NY, Spon Press, 2003

While I'm not sure I agree with the author on everything he believes digital design is capable of or should be used for, his points are intriguing and definitely made me think about digital media in ways I never had to this point.
Kolarevic talks about baroque and art nouveau architecture as precedents for the "blobby" forms that are so prevalent today. I had never thought of that, though it makes perfect sense, but had always seen the "blob" as a child of the age of plastic. As he says, curvilinear forms have been used in vitually every other industry for years; from toasters to airplanes to the razor I have in my shower at this moment. Only recently has it come into the 'mainstream' of architecture. However, Kolarevic also claims "these contemporary digital architectures appear to reject any notion of urban and structural typology, continuity and morphology, and historic style and perspectival framework." I'm not sure I agree. Surely, some architects are ignoring the context of their projects, but that is a very general statement to make and many firms are focusing, as digital media takes over in the profession, on being sure they do not lose the urban typology and continue to let it surround and define their buildings, as with Ali Rahim and his Contemporary Architecture Practice.
Another of Kolarevic's main points is the idea of mass customization, the alternative to mass production. As digital design becomes more and more sophisticated and the idea of an algorithm setting up form and space for us (as architects) to choose from becomes a reality, "infinite variablilty becomes as feasible as modularity." Whether this is an entirely good thing is up for debate, but it is a stong point. (If everything is unique, is anything really so?)
As an extension of that point, Kolarevic talks more about the role of digital media in design- how it is not for formal expression, but should become instead inherent in the process of building, allowing architects to sort of 'reclaim' our profession, harking back to the medieval times of the master builders. The airplane industry does it; designing, producing, and consturctiing all from one 3d model, but I believe there are some large differences between airplanes and architecture.
Kolarevic's statement that computers are "more than just tools for producing blobs" is I think the phrase that sums up everything. The blob fascinates designers, as its just recently become feasible to build, but we need to be sure not to be sucked into what seems exotic at this point in history, but to instead use digital media in a way that will change and inform the architecture of the future for generations to come.