It is discussed,
people guess it has to do with computers, that it is the latest advance in
architecture, that there is no faculty of architecture which doesn’t devote a
course to it. However, when we asked twenty architects what "digital
architecture” was, the answers ranged from "I have never heard of such a
term" to "It must have something to do with CAD software". A lecturer in a well known
architecture school said, "It’s probably something that students lacking
architectural talent made up to confuse us".
The answers in the academic ivory
tower are not at all clearer.
Most scholars interested in the subject see digital architecture as a means of
creating complex architectural forms with new software that is able to
translate bold ideas into feasible plans. Enthusiasts see digital architecture
as a means of developing new architectural languages based on algorithms of
form, which will then be applied to function.
Tricksters see the speeded computer that has undergone digitization as an
opportunity to incorporate virtual content into reality. Skeptics try to check
whether the digitization processes that prevail in other life areas can form a
new architecture theory which, in turn, will dictate a
new social agenda. However, most of the approaches are still set in the
stylistic paradigm, focusing on complex forms rather than on the needs that
caused them.
If during the 80s the computer
was still an advanced working tool that struggled to replace the awkward
drawing board, today its effect on the planning process cannot
be doubted. The computerization of planning offices allows us to test
many more alternatives in a shorter time, a more complex analysis of the
connection between the building components, and to better vision and understand
the building’s effects on its environment. Despite this, it is difficult to say
that in recent years architecture which has been
created with the aid of the computer, has been able to dictate a new lifestyle.
The reason for this is that architecture is a cumbersome media and therefore
slow and lagging behind changes of time. In a situation where digitization is expressed mainly in speed, architecture stands no chance
in leading a movement - certainly not one that can lead a new lifestyle.
Since avant-garde in architecture
is usually associated with form, the case of digitization is no exception.
However, the shallow attempts to denote digitized computer aided architecture as “digital architecture” is no different from
denoting a cup of coffee created by means of the computer as “a digital cup”.
There is no doubt that if form is taken away from
leaders of the trend, they are left with no architectural identity.
What are we, in fact, talking
about when we say ‘digital’? In order to digest this vague and misguiding term,
I suggest doing it in stages. First, what is the
difference between ‘digital’ and its preceding system - ‘analogous’
(comparable)? Both are methods used to describe reality. However, while
analogous tries to quote reality as it is, digital
uses digits to represent it. That is, what we see is not necessarily the thing
itself, but rather a shortened and easy-to-manipulate description of it, and my dear friend Photoshop will be more than happy to
prove it.
The most tangible difference
between the two systems is exemplified, of course, by digital photo which has successfully replaced traditional film.
While the latter “burns” the image of reality onto an optic board, the first
creates an instant workable digital file. Instead of trying to deal with
continuous copying that requires time and space, the digital system presents
only a “chosen section”. In other words, the
difference is between a continuous and comparable representation (analogous),
and a symbolic discreteness. That is precisely why pixelization
of reality saves space and time.
The simplest way to understand
this "trick" is to compare an analogous watch that shows the
continuous change of time, with a digital watch that uses only representation
of time, skipping the tenths, hundredths, thousandths, etc., parts of a second.
The reason for this is that humans (excluding runners, divers
or astronauts) do not need them in order to know when Sabbath enters, when it
is time for lunch, and when it is time to move from sleeping in front of the
television to sleeping in bed.
In view of relating this to
architecture, I suggest distinguishing categorically
between architecture as a product, and architecture as a planning process.
While in the first case we speak of an actual reality - the buildings and their
socio-spatial impact, the latter is still in the virtual domain, whether it
makes use of digital media or not.
The transfer from virtual to real
requires a process distinction between the parts of the building that express
functions directly, and those that express the personal aspirations of the
planner-as-creator. Both are legitimate, of course, and both can
be digitally expressed. Yet, while the first has to do with the
relationship of society to space, the main expression of the second is of an
artistic nature. This is probably the cause of the common mistake that tries to
give digital architecture a physical form in buildings designed by (right
guess) Ghery, Calatrava, Hadid and others.
A deeper understanding of this
temporal stage in architecture lies in formulating the correct definition of
the function of architecture. As a social factor, architecture is not meant to invent or create sculptural forms expressing
the emotional entity of a certain architect, as this is well-enough achieved in
the other plastic arts, but rather to constantly adapt the built space to the
changing needs of society. In other words, architecture needs to be aware of
the digitization processes that cause changes in the way of life, and to use
them as a lever for the planning process - but nothing more.
This is not the
place to list the numerous activities for which architecture provides a
platform. However, one can generally state that in an environment where
"virtual" threatens "real",
architectures first job is to reclaim its main function as the arena for
social interaction. That is, to restore the control of the real over the
virtual.
Understanding the fundamental
difference between content and its resultant form can bring us closer to the
crux of the riddle of digital architecture, yet not to its absolute solution.
It is not debatable that digitization, whose main characteristic is the vast
increase in activities enabled in a given time, has greatly influenced our
lives. Some researchers have suggested that these digitized demands be allowed to determine the form of the building, thereby
creating digital architecture. But, if we let
computers dictate our lives, we would end in a random mutation that does not
accord with intelligent planning - which is, basicly,
the main meaning of the architecture profession.
The most notable phenomenon
nowadays is of “time passing too fast”. The reason is
that digitization, which is mainly virtual, rushes us into doing tenfold activities than we really need to do. However, our
biological clock has never undergone digitization, and the gap between actions
we really need, and those that our computerized reality enable or cause,
continuously grows. An instant comparison between ourselves and our forefathers can easily prove that we do not surpass them in
any way. Not in Plato’s depth of thought, not in Aristotle’s mental sanity, and
not in the number of times we need to use the toilet in comparison to Queen Victoria.
The most tangible influence of
the computer on space is, of course, the significantly smaller size of planning
offices that no longer require many cumbersome drawing boards but rather a few
smiling computers. While neither the office nor the products it manufactures
make architecture ‘digital’, one may consider examples of digitization’s impact
upon awareness. A fine one is
media-tech - and not because Toyo Ito designed transparent
amorphous columns in one of them, but because, as an architectural product, it
reflects a consideration of the manner in which one stores and accesses
information. Moreover, media-tech reflects the understanding that a library is
not merely a place for referencing information - as this can be done from home
via the internet, but rather it’s an especially
fertile arena for social interaction.
The digital system is merely a
stage in the development of the computer, and is likely to be replaced rapidly
by the next “new generation”. Testimony to this may be
the fact that ‘digital’ principals, such as a discrete representation of
reality and the assimilation of virtual contents into real environments, were used much before the advent of the computer. Witness the "motion picture" that consists of a discrete
number of pictures while still managing to convince the viewer that he is
watching the real thing; or French Structuralist
anthropologist Levi Strauss, who already in the 1960s claimed that the human
brain does not perceive the world in representative categories (for instance,
colors); or the assimilation of virtual content into reality as one of the main
principles of Surrealism in the 1920s - perhaps the best example of which is
Rene Magrittes painting of 1933 entitled no less than "The Human
Condition" - a fine creation that pits reality against its representation.
So, any
attempt to display digital architecture as a planning code which will generate
a change in the social agenda has no chance whatsoever. If we forsaken the
formalist “golden calf”, whose little contribution to society has already been
well-extracted, we can focus on the actual possibilities that digital age
enables - speed, clarity and efficiency. Digitation
is not a goal but a means that can improve planning by managing multi-variables
such as urban systems and improved climate awareness, and if one must - one may
zoom into architectural details ad infinitum - this being the epitome of the
digital system.
To sum up, in view of the fact
that we live in a reality where all means of existence have undergone a process
of digitization, advanced architecture must be digitization-aware, in order to
provide an ever-adjusted solution to the rapidly changing way of life, without
selling itself as digital.
