Design is a crucial activity that can’t
be reduced to an algorithm, It’s too important a task to leave to the machines.
Modernism had a rational program: to share the
blessings of science and technology, universally.
Recent decades, however, have shown
that Modern architecture can just as easily be deployed to work against its
original ideology. The idea of tolerance
in architecture has become a popular point of discussion due to the recent
mainstreaming of digital fabrication. No longer is the "economy of means" a way to
provide buildings efficiently for the largest number of people, but rather a
way to reduce cost and maximise profits.
The improvements in digital
fabrication methods are allowing for two major advancements: firstly, the idea
of reducing the tolerance required in construction to a minimum (and ultimately
zero) and secondly, mass customisation as a physical reality.
A building is no longer something to
use, but to own – with the hope of increased asset-value, rather than
use-value, over time.
Digital fabrication has made the
broad-brushstroke approach to fabrication tolerance obsolete and now allows for
unique elements and tolerance specific to each element. The accuracy that
digital fabrication affords the designer, allows for the creation of more
complex forms with greater ease and control. So far, this has had great and far
reaching implications for design.
Buildings become part of an economic
exchange cycle: conceived for the lowest possible cost, traded for the highest
possible sum.
As Carr states in The Glass
Cage, “When automation distances us from our work, when it gets between us
and the world, it erases the artistry from our lives”. I think we could all
benefit from a little more artistry.
Michael Kilkelly.
"Are Computers Bad for Architecture?" 13 Apr 2015. ArchDaily.
Accessed 13 May 2015. <http://www.archdaily.com/?p=618422>
Reineir de Graaf.
"The same architecture that once embodied social mobility now helps to
prevent it" 7 May 2015. dezeen Magazine. Accessed 13 May 2015. <http://www.dezeen.com/2015/05/07/reinier-de-graaf-opinion-ideals-modernism-architecture-social-mobility-capital-property-market-trellick-tower-park-hill/>
Stott, Rory. "The
Depreciating Value of Form in the Age of Digital Fabrication" 13 Apr
2014. ArchDaily. Accessed 13 May 2015.
<http://www.archdaily.com/?p=495089>
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