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?