White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 12periods abroad thanks to exchange andstudy stays or the Leonardo programmeenabling them to gain practice in foreignfirms. These are great opportunities forpersonal development and architectsbenefit from the rich stimuli inexperiencing different cultures. Thisvery useful mobility can be furtherencouraged by moves to abolish residualobstacles to exercising the professionabroad.Research and technologicalinnovation: architecture and patentsInnovative architectural solutions arepossible thanks to research andtechnological innovation, the use ofspecialised talents, experimenting in newmaterials and building techniques andthe parallel development of newtechnologies. Innovation is alsoconditioned by progress in research andother specialist disciplines, such asmathematics, engineering, materialsciences and information andcommunications technology. Researchin other sectors, for example, hasrevolutionised the design and control ofform. Drafting machines, pencils andink have now been abandoned asarchitects design with the computer.CAD has revolutionised the designprocess.Form and structural solutions areinseparable aspects of designing, andtoday the technical level is verysophisticated. Innovating is difficult,therefore, without the collaboration ofstructural engineers. The mostcelebrated include Peter Rice and OveArup. If we look at one “classic”example, we see that the large tensilestructures created by Frei Otto for theroofs of the Olympic Park in Munich in1972, were designed and developedthanks to research carried out at theInstitut für Leichte Flächentragwerke(“Institute for Lightweight Structures”)at the Technisch Universitat, Stuttgart.In fact tensile structures cannot bedesigned on the drawing table using theusual formal criteria for composition.Experimentation on wire modelssubmerged in a soap solution led to thecreation of the form of the roof, whosesurface tensions are reduced to aminimum.The means of representation are alsoreflected in the architectural product.The continuous exchanges in the designprocess require tools of analysis andcontrol: drawings and sketches andphysical or virtual models inform theexchange of ideas, dialogue, and thecommunications to those constructingthe work. In time these instrumentshave also changed: from guidelinescarved in stone, palimpsests, drawingson <strong>paper</strong> and models to software forrepresentation and rendering or forcalculations and sizing structures.Today the final result of using verycomplex forms can be envisioned andchecked, whereas previously it was verydifficult to represent them. FrankGehry, for example, built one of hisworks thanks to a sophisticatedsoftware which produced a formalsolution, processed by means of a threedimensionalmodel which was graduallytransformed into a numeric model toallow the structural calculations andrepresentation to be made.Some solutions can be repeated andtherefore patented. lxx For example,Herzog & De Meuron, who are at theWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 291