kevin

I approached the work of Alisa Andrasek (?sp) with trepidation. I began the preparatory readings with "all-over over-all: biothing and emergent composition". Not only did those inappropriate lower-case letters make me edgy but there was a plethora of words like "relationality" and "processual". It was enough to make the skin crawl. I presumed this was written by an architect, although it was never made clear.

Then, however, I read the articles by Steven Johnson and Phillip Ball. These two are, I'm sure, not architects as both explained complex topics articulately. In fact, I was drawn in by their discussions of patterns in nature and bottom-up design. Not only was the writing engaging, but I could see the potential pertinence to the Andrasek lecture and generative design.

I was concerned before the lecture that the speaker would tend more toward the former approach to the subject instead of the latter. I have found that the architects who approach these topics (e.g. Greg Lynn) treat it as a pseudo-science. They pick and choose those aspects of mathematics or complexity theory which support their work and discard the rest. While diatoms may be fashionable today, tomorrow it will be ice flows. Ultimately they end up with an esthetically pleasing design that they feel compelled to explain with impenetrable rhetoric.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Andrasek lecture (mostly) clear and straight-forward. I understood her approach to generative design. Clearly the computer will play an ever-increasing role in architecture. And, if the speaker is to be believed, an active rather than a passive one. (Imagine my relief to hear that it will be more like a friendly puppy than an ill-tempered android!) These concepts are fascinating, and I thought she did a good job of generating thought about this future.

However, I still find I don't understand where this is all going. Is this a means of finding ever more efficient ways of construction? Is it a way to develop ever more pleasing esthetic forms? I'm no clearer on these questions now than before, and I don't think the speaker addressed them adequately. It's a bit disingenuous for her to say that she doesn't really think of the implications of artificial intelligence since it seems to me it's very much what she's dealing with. I do think it's time that architects involved in this discipline start addressing these issues. I'm tired of hearing "stop thinking of how this applies to a building" or " the site is not the issue". I'm glad that people are looking into how the computer can generate design, and I hope we learn from it, but I also would be glad if this exercize would be addressed in the larger context of architecture as a whole.

Now that I've espoused my views from the anonymity of my computer, I will try to finish film four. (Is this a hundred words yet?)