Index
Designer at the Mixing Console
"Deft hands are moving the slider and turning knobs. Parameters are defined and values set. At the same time, a spatial structure is generated that changes with each adjustment of a variable. Forms develop as controlled, metastable phenomena. Propelled by interaction, a threedimensional visual aspires to self-organization. The setup stands. The room is quaking. With the Unité d’Habitation as baseline, accompanied by a nicely tuned mix of variables, the house DJ is at work!"
Since the 1960s, the architectural computer avant-garde has been dreaming of transferring form-generation processes to the machine. The idea of viewing architecture as a self-creating, autopoietic system in which humans intervene only from the outside by determining or “mixing” parameters has fascinated since the very beginnings of structuralism. Cybernetics, autonomous architecture, and self-organization are catchphrases that are frequently used in this context. The motives for such visions are manifold. In any case, they mirror the hope that computers might surprise us with breathtaking new spatial complexes—generating buildings that we would never have been able to achieve on our own. Some architects would even be willing to surrender part of their direct control over form in the name of realizing this idea.
