Algorithmic exploration

I fell down the proverbial rabbit hole when I came across Kostas Terzidis words framing an etymology of ‘design’ in his 2006 published work “Algorithmic Architecture” by Architectural Press. My journey started in chapter one as he explained origins for design, innovation, novelty, and originality as a preservation of their meaning from often abused reference by practitioners discussing their design process. I became intrigued by the end of the chapter when Kostas argues that the investigative nature of design requires a forgetting, to see things as they really are; to erase false connections and return to the origin. This sets the stage as he discussed the potential of algorithms, when solutions are unknown or forgotten, for exploring (problem-addressing) versus its association with a logical mechanism for problem-solving (tied to memory).

With this mindset an algorithmic process could be freed to explore with heuristic and adaptive decision procedures. This embraces the unpredictable, impossible or unknown so they are not feared but can be a launching point for exploration.

Folding an architecture

Protein Folding LDRD

Physorg.com announced that Jeremy Smith & Oak Ridge National Laboratory helped scientist take a significant step towards understanding the mystery of protein folding. Why is this important? Proteins are a chain of amino acids that take shapes by folding and it is this shape that determines if a protein is an antibody that fights infections or turn food into energy or copy DNA, etc… without its shape the protein is worthless. This discovery could start to unlock protein mysteries that affect our health and longevity.

So why should I talk about this on a blog for architecture. Folding in nature, a kind of molecular origami, brings to light that a 3D structure can generate a unique function with its simple building blocks. Structure has always been important to architecture and new science continues to provides new paradigms for architecture to consider in it search for ideas that generate form and function.

Nature has repeatedly shown us patterns that architects and designers have turned into an iconography, an idea of nature. However science is showing us that patterns generated from folding bring about form that has purpose beyond an exuberant sculptural edifice. Charles Jencks touched on this during a conference in 2004 for The Order of Nature: New Science, New Urbanism–New Archtecture? …“today we need a cross coding and parity between ourselves and these patterns. Natural patterns should be criticized with our own narratives of hope and desire, because there is a duality between us and the universe. We come from nature, but we are also slightly separate from it by our ability to reflect, understand and transform it. Our relation to nature is quixotic and interactive. It is co‐creative and therefore we need a kind of pattern language that builds in nature, on the one hand, and builds in our antithesis and critique, on the other.”

Learning from nature and moving beyond the grid could open doors to new possibilities for architecture. Achim Menges has been exploring with students how geometric logic would act upon a material system. Their explorations exemplifies how a simple building blocks can be folded to achieve architecture.