digital aptitudes - Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012 - 4:00PM - 5:30PM
Digital Nouveau and the New Materiality
Armando Montilla, Clemson University
Digital Plecnik : Vienna Years
Magdalena Garmaz, Auburn University
This paper proposes that by looking at the work of the architects of
the Wagner School, Joze Plecnik in particular, one can identify a series
of connective threads with the digital technologies of the present
day. Digital technologies have enabled production of myriad
of wall panel and cladding systems, with a focus on predetermined
architectural form and materiality. It is important to state that the
basic premise behind his architectural production remains true to
Gottfried Semper’s Bekleidung theory, which provided the theoretical
grounding to Plecnik’s work. Semper’s theory remains, even
after a century and a half, as inspiring and fresh, as it was when it
was first introduced to the architectural audience. In other words,
Plecnik’s work embodies the same principles that were/are championed
not only by Otto Wagner, but also by our contemporaries.
Semper’s attention to the surface, or skin, rather than the structure
of the wall, in relation to the space (making), found its early testing
in Plecnik’s Vienna work. That same “Semperian cloth” richly
adorned with architectural ornament, can be observed in the work
of Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who, with the help of digital
technology, create buildings that give an even more complex
interpretation of the relationship between the surface and space.
Material Postproduction
Adam Fure, University of Michigan
Material postproduction is an approach to working with architectural
materials based on principles of manipulation, multiplication,
and mixing. It draws from art theory, most notably Nicolas Bourriard’s
text Postproduction and the writings of Simon O’Sullivan.
Both writers articulate a model of art practice based on principles
of connectivity, where establishing links between disparate objects,
people, and practices is more important than creating original or
autonomous art. Following these accounts, material postproduction
advances a design approach that combines diverse materials,
varied logics of application, and superficial alterations to create
works of architecture that embody a broad range of cultural and
disciplinary associations and experiential effects.
Material postproduction is technological in nature but not founded
on distinct technologies. Rather, new technology is used to expand
architecture’s access to diverse types of matter. Material postproduction
uses digital patterning to organize and interlace disparate
materials producing heterogeneous aggregates. Superficial treatments
are deployed to amplify visual and tactile depth and/or undercut
the typical associations of common materials. In this way,
both materials’ ability to transfer meaning and its physical status as
raw matter are exaggerated and contaminated to produce diverse
sets of associations and material qualities, yielding an experience
that vacillates between the realms of the haptic, the visual, and the
conceptual.
Finally, material postproduction is opportunistically positioned in
relation to architectural history. Past theories of architectural materiality
are mined for latent relevance in contemporary contexts.
Through the combination of seemingly oppositional strategies,
material postproduction sets up relational approaches to design
underwritten by a diverse set of concepts and material tactics. In
doing so, material postproduction reactivates dormant disciplinary
attitudes, imbuing vitality through insertion into new speculative
domains.
Nouveau Pulsation - 100 Years of Craft Evolution:
From Art Nouveau to Digital Pulsation
Eric Goldemberg, Florida International University
This paper collapses 100 years between the intense deployment
of ornament during the Art Nouveau period and the contemporary
flourishing of ornamental, rhythmic production through digital
design and fabrication, speculating on the renewed potential
for modulation systems to generate novel architectural tectonics
and spatial effects. There is a complex and historical interrelation
between ornament and techniques of architectural design and
production that connects the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Ornament is considered here as the ultimate product of rhythmic
perception, a locus for fecund architectural exploration.
Pulsation generates ornamental effects that are not ad hoc, they
are inherent to the rhythmic forces that activate dynamic changes
in space, reflecting mutations and transition which get indexed on
the tectonic connections within the range of topological geometry.
Ornament, rhythmic awareness and new modes of craft triggered
the concept of “Nouveau Pulsation”, a continuum of rhythmic geometries
that brings together design sensibilities of two different,
but intricately connected eras. The focus of Digital Nouveau is to
highlight the shifting terrain of craft and ornament, as it has evolved
from the 1900s until the present time. The comparison seeks a critical
analysis and integration of a continuum of design production
of 2 intense periods of approximately 15 years each, both of which
articulated important transitions spanning 100 years, connecting
the early 20th century with the early 21st century and the future.
Contemporary digital practices and Art Nouveau share an interest
in the spatial and aesthetic capacities of rhythmic affect coupled
with ornamental form.
Digital Apptitutes + Other Openings - Boston, MA - 25