UN Studio

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Blob Tectonics, or why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy.

In an excerpt titled Blob Tectonics, or why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy, from the book Folds, Bodies, & Blobs author Greg Lynn attempts to define the new emerging technology of blob tectonics. Historically speaking, when attempting to define tectonics of any sort one faces the perplexing dilemma of combining the particular with the general. This combination focuses on melding the traditional structural and special techniques with the overriding idea and parti of the project. Where the study of tectonics becomes slightly muddled is in respect to the blob. The blog is a formal complexity that has yet to be fully experienced. Blobs endeavor to provide “alternative strategies of structural organization and constriction that provide intricate and complex new ways of relating the homogeneous to the heterogeneous or particular.”(169)
There are many examples of artists and architects attempting to use this new and exciting formal strategy to help define art and the possibly a new movement in the architectural world.
One of the first examples of blobs is found not in architecture but in the artistic realm of the film industry. Simply titled “The Blob”, a 1958 original movie, which was later remade in 1988, introduces us to the very basic form and idea of a blob. In these movies a giant alien creature takes on the form of a blob and oozes its way around the city enveloping and digesting all in its path. While these movies present blobs as organisms that “slither, creep, and squirm [while] instigating disgust and queasiness” they also provide a very basic groundwork for the idea of blobs. That is they present an amorphous shape that is able to mold and conform to its surroundings based on a seemingly random set of values. This “complexity involves the fusion of multiple and different systems into an assemblage that behaves as a singularity irreducible to any single simple organization.”(173)
This idea and blobby shape has surpassed late 80’s horror films and entered into the world of architecture through the work of Alejando Zaera-Polo, Farshid Moussavi, Jesse Reiser, Nanako Umemoto to name a few. This exploration into the world of blog is most noticed in these architects’ proposals for the Yokohama Port Terminal. These proposals reveal “both the limitations and the potential of blob forms as built forms.” Unfortunately blob theory is far more advanced than actual blob construction. There still remains a large disconnect from what you can design using modern computer software and what can actually be built. In respect to the Port Terminal proposals the blog technology is limited in its construction aspects. The architects only use the blob tectonics only in respect to their roof plans. Until a more homogenous and applicable construction method of blob technology is developed we will be forced to see material blobs only in roof structures covering orthogonal and symmetrical plans.
There still exists a large gap between blog tectonics, the theory and design, with the actual construction techniques needed for blobby architecture. This gap is slowly closing but until more architects take chances on blob technology and form there will still be an awkward disconnect from construction and theory in terms of blob tectonics.

Assignment 3

Generative Systems: Evolving Computational Strategies

“Design, as understood broadly, is concerned with the process of form.” This quote summarizes the main point and argument that Therese Tierney is trying to make in her recent article titled “Generative Systems: Evolving Computational Strategies.” The design process is one of creating forms and structures, and has been implemented using various tools throughout the history of design. There are two parts to design; one being the physical design process and the second being the theory behind that design. So called “first generation design theorists (Bruce Archer, Herbert Simon, et al.) were concerned with how to rationalize the architectural product.” The second and third generation design theorists have shifted from this rational architectural product to a more integrated design approach incorporating the social aspects into the design process. Architectural design has become so much more than just “problem solving.” It has become an innovative and creative process focusing much more on invention. Whereas traditional architecture focused on the problem at hand and how to solve it, modern day architecture has shifted to a imaginative and hybridized system of design.
This shift in the design process has been largely brought about due to the advent of new computational strategies and new methodologies of design. Most of the time when talking about digital design the focus is on the software and hardware used in the specific design process. What many people miss out on is the theoretical components involved in the process. There is a large human component in digital design. Not just in the creation of new software but in the actual design process. These new digital means of design are simply new tools for a new generation of designers. It is a cognitive design process that involves a set of parameters, rules and guidelines of design. Digital design is an interaction between designer and computational systems. There is a general apprehension among older generations that digital design is taking away from the design process and that technology is now performing all of the design and the new generation of designers is merely clicking buttons and the design magically appears. This is far from reality. New design software is just another tool in the proverbial tool box of architectural and more broadly design practice.
Design theory and physical construction practices are becoming increasingly digital and this process is something to embrace not fear. There is a whole new world of design innovation and creative processes that exist if we only seek to take advantage of new digital software and digital practices. But there is one constant in any design be it digital or analogue, time. Time brings about change and this change can either help or hinder the design process given the designers approach to time. If viewed as a helpful presence and taken into consideration throughout the design process then the theory of time can aid in creating new and innovative design strategies and potentials. Change is the only constant and with the dawn of new digital production we are in an era of extreme change that needs to be embraced.