Re-framing architecture for emerging ecological and computational design trends for the built ecology

Abstract

The dualities of “humanity and nature,” “organic and inorganic,” and “artificial and synthetic” are themes that have permeated architectural discourse since the beginning of the 20th century. The interplay between nature and machine can be directly related to the 19th-century discussion of nature and industrialism that was exemplified in the works of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright that spawned the organic architect movement. Echoes of these dichotomous themes have been resuscitated with the introduction of computational and information processing as a fundamental part of contemporary theory and critical praxis. The ability to go beyond simplistic dualities is promised by the introduction of data-informed multivariable processes that allow for complex parametric processes that introduce a range of criteria within evaluative design frameworks. The investigations detailed herein focus on surface morphology development that are explored and evaluated for their capacity to reintegrate ideas from genetic and developmental biology into an architectural discourse that has historically been dominated by the mechanistic metaphor perpetuated throughout the modern era. Biological analogs in nature suggest that the zone of decoration plays an important role in the environmental response and climate adaptability of architecture. The building envelope represents the greatest potential energetic gain or loss, as much as 50 percent; therefore, the architectural envelope plays the most significant role in the building’s energy performance. Indeed, from an environmental performance standpoint, the formal response of the envelope should tend toward complexity, as biology suggests, rather than the reduced modernist aesthetic. Information architecture coupled with environment and contextual data has the potential to return the focus of design to the rhizome, as the functional expressions of climatic performance and thermal comfort interplay within other cultural, social, and economic frameworks informing the architectural artifact. Increasing the resolution that ornament requires in terms of geometric surface articulation has a reciprocal effect on the topological relationship between surface and space: the architectural envelope can respond through geometry on the surface scale in order to more responsively interface with the natural environment. This paper responds to increasing computational opportunities in architectural design and manufacturing, first by exploring the historical trajectory of discourse on nature vs. machine in architecture, then by exploring the implications for utilizing environmental data to increase the energy performance of architecture at the building periphery, where building meets environment and creates the synthetic built ecology.