Validation, verification, design

Validation, verification, design 

I often find myself entangled in discussions on what a brief is, what it does, how a design is structured with respect to a brief and all kinds of rather unproductive situations. Many of them derive from my own stubborn interest in terminological clarity and consistency, which may conflict with established terms and their use. Nevertheless, I don't intend to stop. I see what happens in other areas and it makes me believe that terminological clarity is a good indication that an area knows what it is doing and why (methodological clarity and relevance). So, I wonder what we are doing in architecture to validate and verify a design.

To be clear about the terms I'm using, validation refers to whether the design solves the original problems and validation to whether the design meets the specifications set up for solving the problem. In other words, it goes like this: we identify a problem, then we set some specifications for the designs that should solve it and then we make designs on the basis of this specification. In architecture the specifications (the brief) are often put aside and designers address the problem itself. This may indicate poor specifications or bad designer attitudes; in either case, it's a sign of a poorly operating field. Both verification and validation are necessary when it comes to testing the utility of a design as well as establishing and extending domain knowledge.

A practical example: accessibility is an undeniably serious issue in architecture. To ensure accessibility in a design we have all kinds of rules and regulations that specify constraints on spaces and building elements like the width of corridors or doors. A design can be evaluated against such constraints and so verified as an adequate solution to accessibility. However, it is also important to see if the building is also accessible by really testing it with respect to the movement of people with disabilities or spatial needs. Validation can make evident that e.g. additional constraints are required or that some constraints contribute little. We shouldn't assume that the ones we have been using are right or sufficient. Just think of Blondel's formula for stair design, which is seldom if ever challenged: 2 x riser + tread = step length. Why do we assume that it suffices for the design of safe and comfortable stairs? My own experience tells me that if a tread is not deep enough for my 46-size shoes, descent can be a problem.

Ghosts of buildings

Ghosts of buildings 

Virtual prototyping is a fascinating subject. Most people are attracted to it for practical reasons, for example because it allows us to develop and test designs as completely as possible, eliminating most mistakes and reducing error margins. Anyone involved in BIM would directly affirm that. My problem is that although I concur that these practical reasons are quite significant, I'm not sure that the improvement over other means of representation, specification and analysis like conventional drawings on paper is that big.

I think that there's more to virtual prototyping than these practical benefits; at least, more that attracts people to it. It's just like the old discussion: what's better, radio or television? Radio people would suggest that radio is better because it allows people to use their imagination. I'm unsure about that, too, but it's clear that radio allows more in terms of abstraction and reference. Some things are possible on radio but not on television. Radio comedy like the Goon Show made excellent use of these possibilities. On television, these jokes were impossible.

When it comes to architecture, I believe that the opposite is the case: conventional drawings ask too much of the readers; they require knowledge, understanding and slow interpretation to let readers imagine the three-dimensional form and its experience. Virtual prototypes, on the other hand, are complete ghosts of buildings that allow readers to see their form directly and imagine how they would experience them with high plausibility. However much I love architectural drawings and consider at least some of them, like floor plans, truly invaluable, the potential of virtual prototyping in architecture goes far beyond practical reasons; most aspects, such as its aesthetics, have yet to be fully understood.

Lysenko, Lombroso, Lamarck

Lysenko, Lombroso, Lamarck

Lysenko is a prime example of what can go wrong in science when it becomes entangled in politics. As the developer of a biology for the Soviet ideology that denounced bourgeois, capitalist falsehoods, he is considered responsible not only for scientific backwardness (including through persecution, imprisonment and execution of scientific opponents) but also widespread famine in the Soviet Union.

Lombroso did not flourish under a totalitarian regime but became quite instrumental in the oppression of people by giving police and the judiciary "scientific" reasons for considering someone a criminal on the basis of their appearance. Interestingly, this is not what Soviet scientists would denounce as bourgeois falsehoods.

Lamarck was by comparison just wrong in believing that acquired characteristics are inherited, although this is nowadays under partial reconsideration: there may be some scope for soft inheritance, after all. In any case, his other contributions to science have retained their validity. For example, he is credited with recognising the difference between insects and arachnids (and for recognising that spiders have eight legs rather than six, as it was believed by those who had read Aristotle apparently wrongly).

What connects the three "L"s for me is their fall from grace as scientific authorities, as well as their easy connection to societal priorities, either political or ideological. Authorities are troublesome because quite often everything they claim is taken for granted, even if it's a mere opinion. However, more than authorities what scares me is the ease with which we promote societal priorities to unassailable truths. In politics this is often a problem we gloss over but in science we don't even talk about it. On the contrary, we tailor research to match such arbitrariness and change without a moment's thought when new opportunities arise.

At the office

At the office

If Were to catalogue comedy taking place in an office, it would result into a huge list relating to the social aspects of office life. Tati's Playtime also focuses on the physical aspects of the modern office and the alienation it may cause. The enormous, purpose-built set that contributed to Tati's bankruptcy following the making of this film is quite often not the background but the subject to the comedy. The only problem is that while Tati once again points out the absurdity of what we take for progress, his solution seems to be just regression to earlier patterns of life. He may have been right, though: office life hasn't improved much since the making of this film, despite repeated promises, including recent attempts and informality and playfulness.

This is evident in a more recent film, where physical aspects also play a prominent role: Office space. It's a film primarily about bullying: how office layout can be used to oppress people. It is quite different from Playtime but it too makes clear how the peripersonal space that dominates human activities and interactions in an office never fails to affect us. If one wants to harm us, they'll find many opportunities in our peripersonal space.

So, I come to the idea that Tati, despite his masterly grasp of affordances, couldn't give us an alternative because Playtime was less about peripersonal space and more about architectural style and the wider cultural changes associated with it. As for architects, this space remains a major challenge. Until they manage to focus on it and find some solutions, comedy will make thankful use of office spaces.

Designing for evil

Designing for evil 

Totalitarian regimes seems to have an inherent interest in architecture: Hitler had Speer for his grand projects, Ceausescu had his architects for his grand palace - there are numerous examples. Reversely, architects seem to find ways to impose their ideas or improve their status in totalitarian regimes: modernism flourished under Mussolini, while Stalinist architecture was arguable more due to the ambitions of architects than to Stalin's own preferences.

The match of ambition, even megalomania, and of the belief of knowing better for the people is quite worrying, as is the deep amoralism and opportunism of designers and engineers who side with evil and then disclaim any responsibility: they were either following orders or in complete ignorance of all evildoing. Very few dare admit that they didn't care about right or wrong, that they simply took advantage of an opportunity to act from their own perspective.

It is therefore hardly surprising that in cinema, dystopia and totalitarian worlds are often signified through strange architecture, even more than with oppressive technology: excessive forms, desolate spaces and a general feeling of alienation work well as background to desperate action. Interestingly, it's not just a matter of aesthetics or connotations with the architecture of known totalitarian regimes: it also extends to physical interaction with that architecture. But then, this might be a matter of economy: huge decors cost more money.

Properly constructed walls

Properly constructed walls

When one sees a wall one can never tell what's behind the outer layers. The paint and plaster may be immaculate but underneath the bricks can be rotten, thrown together haphazardly or full of holes. Reversely, the paint may be flaking off, the plaster cracking but otherwise the wall can be sound, just in need of some light maintenance. It's often difficult to know.

I guess it all melts down to what one wants to do with the wall. It's condition may be acceptable depending on one's requirements and purposes. A flaking wall indoors makes little sense but in a garden it may be acceptable as a picturesque element, something weathered and full of reminiscences. Even a crumbling wall might do in a garden but one wouldn't have it indoors. It would n't just be unity and dirty, there's little if anything one can do with a crumbling wall: one can't use it to support a floor or a roof, or to separate spaces; it might be useless even for hanging up shelves or pictures.

It's always like that: it's not the wall but what one wants to do with it in the particular location and situation. It might be because we call too many things "a wall". If we used more specific terms, we might be able to express more precisely what we want. It can also be that a wall doesn't have a purposeful existence without a space to bound and support: what we want may be part of the space and it just gets projected on the poor wall.

Not turning the corner

Not turning the corner

My initial attraction to the traditional Dutch housing has not diminished through the years. Even in the largely uniform suburbs with its endless row housing, there is a certain charm in the unpretentious forms and scale of the buildings, the resulting spaces and the feeling of community they emanate. Still, there is a couple of things that puzzle me in the typical Dutch blocks. One of these is the way the blocks terminate in a wall in the shape of the cross section of the building with few if any windows. In a country where Amsterdam School architects have amply demonstrated how one can turn the corner in a building, this is certainly puzzling.

I have been told that this is so that all dwellings in the block are equal; that the ones at the ends receive no special treatment in order not to have any particular advantages from their location. On the one hand, this reasoning seems plausible within the oppressively egalitarian (or possibly procrustean) mindset of the 1950s and 1960s. In the same period, social housing had to have a maximum dwelling width that not only seems pointless today but also limited spatial possibilities in the dwelling layout, e.g. producing spare rooms slightly larger than a cupboard. It is therefore possible that policy makers used and imposed this way of thinking to produce the same quality for all. On the other hand, it can just be laziness and indifference. Many of these blocks have been designed and constructed in boom periods, when all that mattered was production volume. These were different times to the ones of the Amsterdam School.

Either way, the result doesn't change: every day I'm confronted by these rather awkward and embarrassed-looking side walls, and wonder at their acceptance by the Dutch, who appear quite clever at adapting and expanding their space and property. One doesn't often see significant alterations to such walls. I wonder why; most dwellings at the end of a block have a side garden, too, i.e. ground on which one can nowadays build a small extension without much trouble from the planning authorities.

What architects don't draw (and probably don't design either)

What architects don't draw (and probably don't design either) 

Sometimes an idea enters my head and refuses to leave, making me entertain it for longer than necessary, making me assume that one day I might spend time researching it. In the most cases, the fault isn't entirely mine: what I see around me reminds me of it and rekindles my interest and curiosity. One such idea is all the stuff one sees on the facades of buildings: pipes, cables, satellite dishes etc. It quite rare to see them in some order and correlation with the building itself. More often they are haphazardly superimposed and arbitrarily connected to it. It's obvious that the architects didn't include them in their specifications; architectural drawings anyway contain few if any indications of such matters. Architects are preoccupied with clever, pristine, impressive forms - and quite often they manage to produce them. What they may forget is that there are other things, too; that they have to find a place for these as well in their designs.

Through the years I have collected quite a few photographs on this subject; good and bad examples of what may be attached on a building. I even entertained the idea of writing a book about it but finding time to interview the architects of a number of these examples doesn't seem feasible. If I find the time I might put them up on the Internet, just like people do with photographs of the dishes they have eaten an provide some entertainment to architects and non-architects alike. My only regret is that I don't have enough photographs of Parisian hotel: long ago, when the world was more innocent, I managed to go through the gates of these urban mansions to look at the back side from the internal courtyards and study the differences. The number of exposed pipes amazed me: could the occupants of those expensive properties wash their faces or flush the toilet when it was freezing outside? I have been told that the problem exists. Unfortunately, I didn't think of taking photographs of what I saw and nowadays it's highly unlikely that the concierge would allow me access to the courtyard.

Constraints and types

Constraints and types 

In the presentation of a school building (http://www.archdaily.com/314984/school-in-tarragona-batlle-i-roig-arquitectes), the architects make an interesting point: the commissioning of schools is highly regulated with respect to various constraints, a situation that leads to certain spatial types that are repeated again and again. Interestingly, the architects manage to find both merit  (in relation to the state of the economy at the time) and a design challenge (refinement of the types with respect to general goals and the particular context) in this situation.

Looking at their results, it is a typical instance of a straight double corridor with an entrance and staircase roughly in the middle; it has two main levels, with the gym in a separate wing behind the main slab. It is a design remarkable in the first instance only by its adherence to the corridor school type. The architects claim to have tried to make the school compact for economic reasons and to have minimised fenestration (which nevertheless remains quite generous, as we are used to in schools) for climatic reasons. Going through the presentation, I find myself nodding in agreement. I may not remember the design for long but I'm positively inclined towards it. If I'm ever in the neighbourhood, I'll try and visit the school.

Apologies for the inconvenience

Apologies for the inconvenience 

One sees quite a lot of construction activity in the Netherlands. Projects planned before the credit crunch as well as new ones aimed at stimulating economic and business activity seem to be everywhere. Delft has been a building site for quite a few years and will remain so for some more. What impresses me in how these activities affect public space is the relative indifference for the inconvenience citizens have to suffer, especially cyclists and pedestrians. Quite often the inconvenience has a strong physical component: having to push bicycles up some stairs is no joy - and not just for the many elderly cyclists or parents carrying children. The perceptual component is equally discomforting: where there used to be an orderly or at least recognisable context for ones movement and activities, the environment becomes a variable obstacle course. Orientation and navigation become problematic, distorted by both new elements like temporary fences around the construction areas and the need to constantly solve minor problems like keeping on the arbitrary route  that circumvents them on the particular day. One cannot relax and walk or cycle without thinking, just enjoying the views around them, as one can often do in the Netherlands.

The problem is that everything seems to be for the benefit of the construction activities: roads and cycle paths are blocked so that transportation and site logistics are served, with little regard for the comfort or even safety of citizens - quite often the taxpayers who finance the projects. This should actually be a priority for any public project: rather prioritising the efficiency of construction works, planning should respect those affected by the works and take good care of their needs, especially if the works last long. People need to feel cared for by town hall officials but also by construction firms. It may prove more expensive but goodwill is difficult to achieve and easy to lose. Populism thrives on the accumulation of small dissatisfactions. Proper planning can minimise physical inconvenience but arguably more importantly stimulate involvement of people in what takes place. This refers to both participatory design of the temporary situation around construction activities and the possibility to organise this situation in a way that affords views and information on what is happening, on the projected final state and progress of the works. Rather than feeling alienated by changes in one's environment, citizens should be able to view these changes as part of their environment.

The plank

The plank

I can't remember when I'd first seen The plank but I must have been very young because I had no idea who Tommy Cooper was, let alone Eric Sykes - and Cooper I knew and admired by the time I entered adolescence and started thinking about what I liked in comedy. Sykes became another firm favourite later on, so the indelible memories of The plank that made me spend quite some time looking for a video tape of this film (that was long before the Internet) were fully justified by later comedic experiences.

The plank is classed under slapstick but it's mostly subtle and slow, largely gentle, drawing from centuries of theatrical experience with the physical comedy one can derive from a long object and its handling. The eponymous plank remains the centre of attention, complemented by a rich collection of amusing incidents, some familiar and predictable and others more original, like when Sykes insists on opening a paneless window to get a bottle of milk from the milkman standing outside and Cooper closing the window later because he's feeling the draft.

When it comes to comedy about building, The plank is to my knowledge the only film fully dedicated to the subject - as opposed to having some slapstick related to building at some point in the film. In its old-fashioned, slow-paced way, it remains a monument to what a great generation of comedians knew and managed to preserve.

Internet

Internet 

I've been a rather early user of the Internet. Having the advantage of working at a major university, I had access to it even before the web was invented but never expected it to be that big a thing. If one had asked me back then, I would have asserted that it would be a nice thing at universities, a tool and plaything of the higher education and research world. Professional or social applications were completely out of my field of vision. This didn't change even after I started putting my courses on the Internet, having students present their work online (also in progress) and realising how valuable the Internet could be as a dissemination and communication environment.

When the extent of my teaching was reduced, my professional interest in the Internet waned, exactly at the time that it became a big thing in society in general, subsequently triggering interest in academic research and education. With raised eyebrows I saw how my colleagues became fascinated by a sequence of Internet vogues and vowed never to become involved in such matters. As a result, one may say that I've missed a lot but at the same time I was spared much. Keeping a low profile on the Internet may not be a bad thing, after all, especially for people who know they don't have something substantial to communicate to the world every hour of the day.

Sketching

Sketching

Sketches may be sacrosanct in architecture but I never managed to see them like that. Sketching may be a great way to externalise design ideas and one can learn a lot from correlating these ideas to the sketches but in the end they remain a temporary product, an intermediate state in the production of a building design. So, I fully concur with interest or even fascination in sketching but I also refuse to revere them more than the design or the building.

For years I'd been working on the automated recognition of drawings (something that deserves far more attention than it's given) and every time I presented some part of that work, there was someone who pointed out that of course these recognition approaches did not apply to sketches. Without much thought I agreed with such remarks, until one peaceful summer afternoon in the garden, when I was doodling on a piece of paper. Suddenly, the inquisitive researcher in me finally woke up and asked the obvious question: it is so? Are sketches that different from drawings?

I've spent some time on that question and the brief answer is that from a representational point of view there may be fewer differences and more similarities than assumed. Sketches are fuzzier and compound but at the paradigmatic level (the level of symbols and primitives), they often come close to drawings. I just hope that I'll be able to test this hypothesis at a large scale in the future.

The moral of the story is not about sketching or representation; it's about insisting on questioning established prejudices and conventions. It may seem silly, fractious and obstinate at times but if done with real curiosity and interest in learning, it can be a source of great pleasure to the researcher. Why do research for anything less?

Solids & voids

Solids & voids

It's quite uncommon to see building elements and spaces represented in the same way. Most of the time, the one is implicit in the other (as with spaces in conventional architectural drawings) or is a product of the other (as with spaces in BIM). Usually, its the spaces that are implicit or derivative. In architecture, we may shape space but in fact we build solid elements; what is left over within the volume of a building is the 'voids' (a bad name because spaces contain quite a lot). A figure-ground reversal is seldom applicable to the duality of solids and voids in architecture.

This is one of the reasons why I'm interested in alternative representations like graphs. Using graphs one can describe both building elements and spaces in the same way, si that their complementary character becomes apparent. After that, it's possible to see different patterns emerge, patterns that describe and possibly explain stuff one's only vaguely aware of.

Functional comedy

Functional comedy 

What people call "function" in architecture (a term I consider quite misleading) is a frequent sort of bemusement and frustration. It's not surprising, therefore, that it is a frequently used source of comedy: many comedic situations arise from mismatches between what users want to do and what a building affords. The combination of architects and "function" in not as common; in fact, I'm aware of only one instance: Monty Python's The architects sketch, where Cleese proposes to design an apartment block as a slaughterhouse as if it were the most normal thing for a residential building. To the apparent disbelief of the clients he responds in a similarly matter-of-fact manner: he hadn't fully divined their attitude towards the tenants. 

This is textbook comedy, based on the displacement of an activity in an alien context with disastrous results. It's a pity that architects don't realise that they also produce comedic moments when they dare propose new-fangled ways for doing things without properly appreciating the consequences. At least, we should laugh more at many proposals architects make in the firm belief that they know better than their users, that they can shape and better the users' lives.

Analysis and synthesis

Analysis and synthesis 

I've always been fascinated by analysis, by the means that help explain something and the insights they produce. Especially with computers, their ability to calculate large quantities of complex data in quite short times made me believe that computer simulations are the most important contribution of digital means to designing. When it comes to synthesis, however conceptually elegant, automatic generative systems are no match to human creativity yet.

The problem is that the promise of computerised analysis has yet to be fulfilled. Technical progress seems to be limited by the lack of serious interest by those who would benefit from analyses that go beyond the capacities of rules of thumb, normative abstractions and the usual conventional stuff that serves as alibi in architectural design. I spend days in meetings on computational and data-driven approaches that are mostly about decision support but it's unclear where the support is founded on; it's all about the decisions. Well, as far as I'm concerned, analysis is the foundation of any decision, any design action, as well as most communication. Unfortunately, there seems to be an important prerequisite: some goal to be achieved, some constraint to be met, something that requires transparent, effective and reliable reasoning. If synthesis is about other matters, a self-contained exercise, then analysis is a just formality.

Architecture and aspiration

Architecture and aspiration

I'm often bemused by architectural nostalgia: the admiration for old buildings that are no longer feasible or required - garnish gothic railway stations, overdecorated stuffy theatres, austere and oppressive classical banks. Architects but also lay people tend to bemoan the reduction of such buildings into utilitarian, often anonymous architecture. The post office is no longer a public grand hall but an insignificant small shop or even just a counter in another shop. We appear to find this evolution a kind of degradation; we prefer monumental designs, expensive materials and rich decoration. The success of digital architecture but also the renewed interest in urban-centre high-rise is related to that.

While every building should receive the care and attention it deserves, I fear that we fail to understand a fundamental difference in the role and hence function and character of buildings in different periods. A railway station in the nineteenth century wasn't just a transport hub; it was a transport hub for the affluent. It had to be upmarket to attract the right customers, those interested in luxury and comfort. At the same time, to other people, less affluent, it was aspirational" if you wanted to improve your station in life, this was the kind of environment you should try to get into - from the clients' side, although the servants' side to such places wasn't a bad beginning.

Much of the nostalgia for old-fashioned buildings comes from such aspirational connotations rather than pure aesthetic or historical value: there are not just nice old stuff; they are old stuff we link to luxury, success and high social status - status that could be acquired with money, the Orient Express nostalgia. Architecture has always been aspirational -just think of the Renaissance and Classicism and their role in elevating society; architectural ornamentation as a status symbol; eponymous architecture (labels) and our current keenness to enrich our life with it. In the case of past architecture it is even more so: past aspirations refer not only to historical high points but also to analogies with today's aspirations. Promoting the preservation of even doubtful old buildings is also a mark of culture; supporting such actions has its aspirational aspects, too. Moreover, old aspirational buildings tend not to be as controversial as new ones. On the contrary, they are objects of civic pride, cultural achievement or at least technical achievement.

Citizens

Citizens

In research and policy circles, one often hears of citizens or even "the citizen": dear, vulnerable, oppressed human beings that must be protected and helped. In historical studies, however, e.g. of what happened in Nazi German or communist countries, one also gets a different side of the citizen: people taking advantage or manipulating a system for personals reasons; thousands of denunciations by neighbours, colleagues, friends, even family. Most of the damage is done by citizens, not the relatively few agents of the secret services. It wasn't the Gestapo or the Stasi who kept everyone under observation; it was the citizens doing it to each other; the secret police often had a hard time just processing all the anonymous and eponymous denunciations they received.

What we also often see is a distinction between two kinds of citizens: on one hand, the active, well-educated initiators of actions and protectors of their rights and privileges, and on the other, a largely inert mass of low-income, poorly educated people who must be protected but can become surprisingly powerful and effective once brought into actions. This arguably suggests that citizens can achieve a lot if bothered to do so. The problem is that one cannot be certain why citizens may spring into action and what they will try to do. That's why places like the Internet can be wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

Naked architecture

Naked architecture 

As a young architect, I've spent many hours trying to take impressive photographs of famous buildings: well lit, from an interesting viewpoint that afforded some attempt at clever composition and always devoid of people. That last thing was often the most time-consuming, as I had to play a waiting game with passers-by.

Even when I switched to just taking informative photographs, reminders of what I'd seen and felt at this or that part of a building (not necessarily famous), it took me some time before I was ready to accept people in the photographs. That's how I'd learned it: the photographs of buildings should be free from clutter that obscured the architectural features. It was alright to have a single human figure somewhere in the periphery as an indication of scale but that was all.

More recently, this has been turned around: I have become more and more interested in the interaction of humans and buildings, so I'm taking an increasing number of photographs and films exploring just this interaction - registering how people interfere with architecture in their daily activities.

I was reminded of the old habits when a colleague has a problem with a memory bar and asked me to recover its content on my computer. Many photographs were indeed recovered, so I put them back on the memory bar and handed it back to him saying "Here's your porn". He was puzzled and shocked: what did I mean? Well, I explained, the photographs were mostly of buildings devoid of people - naked buildings.

We laughed about it but later I thought there was more to it: architectural photography has some pornographic traits, like nudity and exaggeration. We are taught to lust after famous buildings and their forms. They may remain unattainable to most of us but they are what we would love to possess. Well, at least we have the photographs.

Things that can go wrong with a model

Things that can go wrong with a model 

Architectural models attract attention to an almost fetishist level. Students have to make them, clients want them, every museum visitor enjoys them. Few have the courage to that them as tools of the trade. I remember one teacher who used to dismantle student models, almost physically attacking them while asking interesting questions about composition and alternatives. After that, one learned not to put too much time in their models and expect the worst.

In comedy, if something goest wrong with a model, it can be funny without getting too hurtful (we're getting rather sensitive about such things, robbing physical comedy of many opportunities like pratfalls). In Monty Python's The architects sketch, a spontaneous combustion and collapse of the model momentarily embarrasses the architect and, by the strange acceptance of the design by the clients, facilitates a jump to the subject of how to recognise a Mason. The most interesting thing about the model is the association between it and the behaviour and performance of the real building: that the model catches fire suggests that the building is highly flammable, despite the architect's claims; similarly, the instability of the model suggests failure of the load-bearing structure, which the architect is quick to admit. I suppose that the association between model and building is justified by that both are three-dimensional objects. This makes us forget the scale differences and the consequent differences between a simulation and the real thing.

As for what happens to the model  in One fine day, the least said, the best for all who have seen that forgettable comedy.

The artificiality of architecture

The artificiality of architecture 

It so happened that I've been reading two contrasting texts. The first was a linguistic research proposal on the use of words like "with" in various languages and how children learn them. The other was a critique of architectural education and practice. The difference was depressing. On the one hand, there was a detail of a fundamental human capacity. The more I read about it, the more fascinating in seemed. The research promised valuable insights and useful results. As a lay reader I was learning and getting to believe more and more in the value of the science and the particular research.

On the other hand, there was the production of a major human achievement - not as fundamental as language but really close. But the text wasn't about how societies use it, it was about what architects cared. In architecture there's still too much emphasis on how professionals create, not on what people actually make out of environments either designed on not. That's why stairs still cause too many accidents, buildings are energy inefficient, doors open in ways that annoy etc. The closed system imposed on the production of architecture makes its true performance of its products less relevant than insiders' opinions on them.

It's like imposing artificial languages on people: they'll mostly manage, despite the imposition, but having something imposed on them doesn't help. Last year there was enough about the words Shakespeare had coined, not to mention the phrases we keep on quoting. That's different: it's about providing people with building blocks, powerful symbols and images through which they can express themselves. It's a striking contrast with architectural environments that have to be kept pristine, as the architects want them, or photographs of buildings without people. Languages are more of an invention than buildings, yet buildings remain significantly more artificial than languages.

Theory and representation

Theory and representation 

BIM may seem to stimulate progress but in some respects it restricts progress. In the bad old days of CAD, no-one dared suggest that CAD was anything more than a technology. This created room for theoretical and methodological development as a complement, as the underlying reasons for using computers in architecture or at least as an intelligent approach to an enabling technology. The old diptych of design and drawing was interpreted as theory and representation, allowing room for exploration that did not necessarily fit the priorities or limitations of the technology.

By being both a technology and a methodology, BIM restricts this room to within its own framework. It forces one to work with a representation that often disappoints and requires much loyalty concerning key methodical aspects. In this sense, BIM is an old-fashioned technology and approach, a largely closed (proscriptive) system. It doesn't help that the current implementations are lacking in many respects, for example the central issue of shared models: to be able to collaborate online, people have to make many concessions concerning the size of files etc.

This brings us to an interesting situation: the currently dominant technology, which theoretically promotes inclusive integration and appears progressive, seems to exclude further development and variation. Of course, some would argue that add-ons, especially parametric programming tools, allow us to solve many problems but that's not the best way forward, especially concerning representation. If BIM has given us a usable theory of design, we now need a better theory of representation.

Does it matter that they're architects?

Does it matter that they're architects?

In romantic comedy architecture often appears as an interesting profession, probably because of its associations with creativity and sensitivity. However, it often seems to have little if any added value for the comedy itself: the architects in One fine day, HouseSitter or 3 men and a baby could have been anything: interior decorators, artists, writers - anything that would ascribe them similar secondary characteristics. Of course, it doesn't help that the three examples aren't great comedies, uninspiring in more than one respects. Why should the architect characters be better than the rest of the film?

On the other hand, there is good comedy directly deriving from architects and their clients in Monty Python's The architects sketch. The comedy comes from distorting the character of the architects, their intentions and social or professional functions. But then, one could never accuse the Pythons of being into rom-com - not even in A fish called Wanda. So, I conclude that it's rom-com that can't take advantage of architecture as a subject, not comedy in general. I suspect that the reason is that it would cause an internal conflict that would confuse or even alienate viewers.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence 

I do expect a lot from artificial intelligence. First of all, I'm sure that low-level practical intelligence can liberate human designers from trivial or repetitive tasks, like the proper positioning of a door, so that they can concentrate on the bigger picture, e.g. how circulation takes place in the design. One should obviously know all about doors and their positioning but shouldn't have to spend too much time on each door in a design.

In addition to this small yet essential stuff (and rather tricky in terms of intelligence), I want even more from computers, especially feedback from analyses that monitor design actions and decisions, calculating their impact on behaviour and performance, so as to give early warning to the human designers. The analyses and simulations already exist to a large degree but have yet to be integrated in designing as they should be for this kind of immediate and continuous feedback. Analysing a design once it's practically finished contributes little to improving the design.

If this partnership between the analytical computer as an intelligent design assistant and the creative human designer seems obvious, one can't say the same about intelligence that allows computers to understand design intentions through types, grids, schemata etc. and impose these as coordinating devices. It may seem strange that an analytical assistant should take over the design like that but there's a lot an assistant can do to promote consistency, including assuming such a coaching role. This can also prove liberating to designers, letting them focus on intermediate levels (the spatial aspects that often go wrong in buildings), as well as making them see the overall picture that emerges from their possibly uncoordinated actions. Who know what kind of clever distortions and antitheses they might conjure up once they realise it.

Dream house backdrop

Dream house backdrop 

Father came too!, the Scottish variation on the theme of the dream house is a well-produced comedy of the 1960s, a time when British films were clever and refreshing. It relates the perils of refurbishing an old cottage for a newly-wed couple. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, the building activities are more of a backdrop to the power struggle between the husband and his father-in-law )played with a typically larger-than-life attitude by James Robertson Justice). It compares unfavourably to the directer relation between the Blandingses and their new dream home, as well as the new home's catalytic role in personal relationships and situations. Nevertheless, building activities in Father came too! provide more than enough grounds for funny situations, generally focusing on the ineptitude of DIY-beginners and the shiftiness of contractors and worked. It's interesting to see such versions of stereotypes which still exist in British comedy.

Situatedness in architecture

Situatedness in architecture 

It seems obvious that a building should relate to its immediate environment - morphologically, geometrically, symbolically and probably in many other ways. Yet at the same time architecture is full of concepts and ideas that have proved to be quite portable: classical temples have been built in the same way all over the ancient world; Palladian villas were transported from northeast Italy to England and beyond; modernist designs have been repeated with little variation in several continents. Is situatedness in architecture a myth? Or is this yet another example of stubborn demarcation in architectural theorising? Why should it be either this or that? There are many reasons for combining and mixing, both practical and cultural. Once again I fear the value judgements are hastily attached to descriptive analyses to either praise or dismiss without any grounded arguments.

Style and contrast

Style and contrast 

I have soft spot for The Quiller memorandum. Admittedly, I like the whole genre of cold war spy thrillers but that's not the reason I watching this not so great film: it's the photography and above all the use of architecture. Germany in the reconstruction period following the Second World War is presented as a Janus-like built environment - or rather a combination of an overworld (sunny, clean, modernist and hence forward-looking and possibly cleansed of the sins of the past) and an underworld (dark, decaying, full of historicist elements and Nazis). Much of the film is predictable but the contrast between the overworld and the underworld is a point of personal interest. Every time I happen to come across the film on television, I don't change the channel, waiting for some glimpse of those hopeful images of a modern society that were part of my childhood and youth. I miss the belief in the future we used to have back then.

Precedents and references

Precedents and references

Design precedents are something that has been on my mind for a long time - not that I've done much work about them. The main reason is that precedents require quite a lot of work: collecting information in some detail; organising collected information in a way that makes factors, features and internal relations explicit; building on this organisation to make some of the reasoning behind the design; connecting the precedent to its own precedents as well as antecedents (including new designs). These tasks are quite demanding.

However, probably the biggest problem is the loose manner in which even design theorists treat precedents: they might call any reference a precedent, ignoring the need for structural similarities that reveal rather than mythologise. This is probably indicative of the weaknesses of architectural and design theory: theorising comes easy in creative areas. Any successful designer or teacher can find an audience and present some view that immediately becomes gospel. Forget validation and verification, the view doesn't even have to have internal consistency. In such as mess, the really worthwhile ideas (and there are enough of these to develop a real domain theory) simply disappear in a sea of vogue and nonsense. What's the use of trying to have a proper definition of precedents and references in this framework?