ABSTRACT
It is oen that a quest for an optimum solution becomes a quest for “satiszation.” While the problem solving through optimization is motivating, it also remains challenging; commonly, architectural problems are of complex nature and require oen intricate resolution scenarios, not able to be compacted within single-phrase questions or unique problem formulations. In response and very recently, the culminate results of many architectural experimentations percolate through an adequately contemporary social networking technique into the architectural practice. As a result, the explorations no longer remain hermetic, but instead the body of work becomes homogenized and evolves through a referencing and crowd-sourcing technique.1 is new method of solution renement relies heavily on the public distribution and input from a solicited population with similar interests. With this, the resources are becoming less diversied than specic, freeing up new areas of research and increasingly more detailed investigations; and it does so without an obligation for the architect to establish a built oeuvre. One critical aspect of this technique is the possibility of rening a problem itself; it enables the long-desired ability to review instances of failure and success extent in advance of the actual fabrication process. e late 1990s brought process-oriented thinking to the representational area of architecture, which created a never before seen transparency in the display and making of architecture, whether a proposal is built or of a hypothetical nature. is transparency is not entirely new; in the early twentieth century, pioneering engineers such as Frei Otto and Konrad Wachsmann had already opened the discourse and oered procedural methodology in line with nite projects. At that time, the architectural experiment had to move beyond the traditional meaning of model, mock-up or graphic representation; architectural forms – oen the result of a new shape-nding process with a more complex generative history than the modernist ideology had to oer – had neither representational equivalents nor built predecessors. Without doubt, today’s technology enables and even encourages the increased means of simulation and representation. is enlarged spectrum in return requires a renement of the questionnaire and material criteria. New categories – or renewed denitions – of established building processes are called into action; the mock-up, for example, is revived as assessment typology, and qualies as representation for material and geometric explorations. Particularly in the area of algorithmic design practice with a high level of complex element proliferation of dierentiated components, where matter is treated frequently on behalf of performative aspects, the mock-up now serves as satisfying proof of success of such explorations (Figure 14.1).
