Timelab, Gent, NL
2021-04-17
Architecture has always been located at the intersection of various
forms of thought, expression, representation, comunication, and physical
manifestation. In contemporary practice, the radical influence
cybernetics and informatics, makes architecture inseparable from
software and computing. Digital drawing techniques and renderings,
computer model and simulations, digital fabrication technology and
building management systems are not just ubiquitous for architecture
practice, they increasingly determine how and what is being designed and
built. Software is consequently not just the means or the medium, but
one of the chief agents in the making of spatial environments.
In this context, the tension that between form, representation and
technical means that has formed the basis of architecture practice, has
been re-shaped by the massive adoption of CAD and CGI technology. This
“Monday Drawing” session proposes to engage with the cultural history of
software in architecture both in the larger critical context and as well
as specific questions, through a series of readings and drawing
exercises.
What can we learn from the way space is and has been drawn? How can we
draw (upon) a critical examination of architectural design software?
What shape does power take in digital design tools and how does
modelling risk the reduction of the possible to the probable?