An Evolutionary Architecture – John Frazer

An Evolutionary Architecture by John Frazer is a fascinating book that has been out of print for some time. Fortunately it has been made freely available on the web to download and I recommend anyone who’s interesting in interactive and parametric design in architecture to have a look.  The book written in 1995 proposes a fundamental change in practice … ‘The role of the architect here, I think, is not so much to design a building or city as to catalyse them: to act that they may evolve.’ – Gordon Pask in his foreword.

Most of the book concentrates on the work of Diploma Unit 11 run by John and Julia Frazer (with Pete Silver and Guy Westbrook) between 1989 and 1996, but includes formative work by the author dating back to his diploma prize-winning project at the AA in 1969 and related research work at Cambridge University.

Introduction

View pages from the book

Exhibition

Download PDFs
Introduction (15.5 mb)
Section 1 (29 mb)
Section 2 (26 mb)
Postscript (7.5 mb)
Appendices (7.5 mb)

7 comments September 20th, 2007

Bodydataspace – Ghislaine Boddington and Armand Terruli

Building Design Magazine (BD) has published an article by Elaine Knutt discussing the potential for telematic experiences to be constructed in public spaces by the use of interactive architectural surfaces. Telematics (tele-communication and informatics) broadly explores how communication has transformed our experience of social connectivity and new emergining patterns of communication and power structures.

visualisation of how a waterfall image would look projected on to Canary Wharf.

Thanks to this article I was pleased to find out about a new group of artists and architects called bodydataspace ( b>d>s) created by Ghislaine Boddington and Armand Terruli who are exploring ‘the integration of interactive and body-intuitive interfaces into public sites. Bodydataspace have proposed that Canary Wharf,  London’s tallest building 235m, have a giant projected waterfall cascading down its facade. The waterfall would not be a computer generated animation but a real-time projection of Angel Falls in Venezuela. the world’s highest free-falling waterfall at 979m.

BDS’s entry to the Lift New Parliament competition was for an inexpensive demountable structure-cum-projection-screen. Audiences inside these mobile venues — in London and Namibia, for instance — could be digitally connected

Ghislaine Boddington is an artist, director, curator and presenter, a specialist in dance/performance and the evolution of body responsive technologies, virtual physical body networks and interactive interfaces. Previously Ghislaine was director and founding member of the London based sound/movement research unit shinkansen  (1989-2004). Armand Terruli is an architect of fifteen years who has diversified his design output through interactive exhibition design, audio/visual work and into responsive environments. Over the years Armand has notably designed and project managed galleries at the National Maritime Museum, the Saudi Arabian Pavilion at Lisbon Expo 1998 and the Faith Zone at the Millennium Dome.

Body Data Space’s 3m diameter balloon acts as a projection screen for digital images. It is kept inflated by an integral fan at the top, but is supported by lightweight metal cabling.

Add comment November 6th, 2006

Computer Programming as an Art

“It seems to me that if the authors I studied were writing today, they would agree with the following characterization: Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it. Since the notion of an algorithm or a computer program provides us with an extremely useful test for the depth of our knowledge about any given subject, the process of going from an art to a science means that we learn how to automate something.”

From Donald Knuth's 1974 ACM Turing Award Lecture, Computer Programming as an Art . More recommended reading at Babar K Zafar's Classic Texts in Computer Science .

via Tom Cardens post on Computing for Emergent Architecture

Add comment February 18th, 2006

Multi Sensitive Space – Der multisensuelle Raum – Mirko Immendörfer

Download (German) I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. My very clever friend Mirko Immendörfer’s phd Dissertation on Multi Sensitive Space. Mirko currently works for dRMM Architects in London and previously worked for architectural practices in Germany such as Prof. Wulf und Partner, infra plan, MBAS and at Takenaka Europe. Unfortunately my German is pretty poor so I can’t read it but he’s told me all about it and it sounds interesting so I thought I’d share it for those who do Sprechen Sie Deutsches and maybe you can tell me what you think.

1 comment February 10th, 2006

Karl Schroeder, “Cyberspace, R.I.P.”

Great Quote I thought I’d put on since I was recently asked what the relationship between cyberspace and interactive architecture is.

Cyberspace, RIP by Karl Schroeder from Future Now

“It’s this overlay of the virtual over the real that makes the cyberspace metaphor obsolete. Cyberspace, after all, is conceived as something like the astral plane–a digital reality that exists “elsewhere.” But it’s precisely this “elsewhere” that’s being eroded by applications like Davison and Reid’s augmented reality system. Increasingly, the digital world is being married to the real world, with surprising results.

My personal theory is this: when the only way to use a computer was to sit still and look through a little window (the screen) into a virtual space, the cyberspace metaphor worked best for us. But with cell phones, PDAs and geographical applications such as store-finders and the proposed “taxi” key for cell phones (which simply summons the nearest cab when you press it), we’re no longer staring through a window into cyberspace. The window’s been broken, and the cyber world has spilled out into our own space.”

Add comment December 21st, 2005

Adam Greenfield on Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous Computing integrates computation into the environment, rather than having computers which are distinct objects. An major aspect of interactive architecture “Ubicomp” is an essential part of embedding architecture with digital systems.

Here’s an English translation of an interview recently conducted by the French magazine Internet Actu with Adam Greenfield who’s releasing a book soon called Everyware : The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing.

Add comment December 16th, 2005