Poiesis(*) and autopoiesis in architecture

Abstract

The use of digital technology in architecture has proven to be more assertive than originally thought: it has reconditioned the nature of the design process, and established new processes and techniques of fabrication. Recent applications in digital technology show inquisitiveness in the contentious subject Genetic Algorithms. This new architectural process is characterized by two main shifts: from poiesis (or poetry) to autopoiesis, and from authenticity to mimesis. Since evolutionary simulations give rise to new forms rather than design them, architects should now be both artists and operators of both Inventive and Systematic design. Inventive design: The digital media should bring about poiesis (poetry). Digital spaces reveal and visualize the unconscious desires of urban spaces, bringing forth new dreamscapes, mysterious and surreal. This implies a Freudian spatial unconscious, which can be subjected to analysis and interpretation. The tools of digital dreaming, meanwhile, have opened a window to the 'urban unconscious'. Systematic Design: Digital media should bring about an autopoiesis. This approach calls into question traditional methods of architectural design that replace the hierarchical processes of production known as "cause and effect," and propose a design process where the architect becomes a constructor of formal systems. Will the evolutionary simulation replace design? Is metric space dead? The new algorithmic evolutionary conditions give architecture an autopoiesis, similar to biological dynamics.Paradoxically, the new emerging process is more insightful. The emphasis of the exploration is on morphologicalcomplexity. Architecture, through "machine" fabrication, may become more responsive, rigorous and poetic.