Channebeta - Speciale - Is architecture dynamic... or not? - Winka Dubbeldam eae aie} oo0 goa CChannelbeta - Canale d'informazione sullArchitettura Contemporanea 02-2003) WINKA DUBB@ELDAM The challenge of teaching a studio is to combine culture, economics, and politics and investigate, analyze what impact this can have on architecture, Ultimately the most important issue in architecture is to understand, learn and. interpret where we are in the world and how architecture as a concept can be integral to this dynamic set of influences. Having been lucky ‘enough to be invited to teach paperless studios at the School of architecture of both the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University NYC, it has given me a chance to investigate these issues with my students. Heidegger (the end of technology 1937) talked about society as expressed in art and science. ‘Art was then the spiritual expression of society and science he described as the ‘theory of the real......the observation of ‘that which works’, The ultimate description of architecture is found in the combination of art and science here defined as "the spiritual expression and observation of that which works’ ‘The main premise of these paperless studios as developed over the last few years is the use of the computer as a generative tool and not as a re-presentational or technical drawing implement. During architectural reviews when. eee aaa arene eeChannebeta - Speciale - Is architecture dynamic... or not? - Winka Dubbeldam “dynamic structures” are mentioned, one particular question often arises: does this move? The question of movement is in essence an expression of the traditional, still pervasive mechanistic way of thinking -- as opposed to the generative, process-oriented organismic approach. Architecture as an integral part of a series of subsets of dynamic systems can be seen as an organism, a constantly adapting reactive, complex set of layers. These organizing phenomena occur on all levels: in society, in behavioral processes, and in nature. Architecture is by nature a 'slow' profession, Only within its avant-garde movements has architecture challenged traditional craftsmanship, proportional system, and esthetics. These movements took place during periods characterized by incredible technological innovations that made huge impacts on society. ‘The introduction of the car in the beginning of the 20th century, for example, became a fascination for the futurists (Marinetti). In the sixties, the introduction of the television and threat of the atomic bomb, inspired groups like Archigram in England and Super Studio in Italy to rethink. architecture as a "moving flexible city." Now, in the late 20th century, the computer has fast- forwarded mass consumption into digital electronic communication~which, with its specialization and individualization, has fragmented the mass society into a niche culture (e.g. hackers). Demassified niches, as discussed by Alvin Toffler, commandeer the space of the Internet. On a larger scale, increasing globalism is transforming our cities into physical expressions of global economies with only traces of the local culture left inside. Within this global network, architecture is challenged, yet it resists Architecture's resistance to the ‘new’ is puzzling - - especially if you consider that architecture, in its ‘geometricity, is closely related to mathematics. ‘While geometry is the study of the properties of shapes and spaces, mathematics is the common denominator that includes geometry, algebra and analysis. There is a crucial difference between the thing and the mathematical model of the thing. In geometry one can calculate a certain surface in absolute values, but in mathematics one has to define the state of the boundary, which then defines the validity of the calculus applied, and therefore the definition of the thing eee ae eeuChannebeta - Speciale - Is architecture dynamic... or not? - Winka Dubbeldam Suddenly the angles of a triangle, when projected on a curved surface, no longer add up to 180 degrees! Mathematicians will make assumptions about mathematical behavior, which they will then attempt to prove. They work with the mathematical theorem. This scientific method is strange to architects, who prefer to think in absolute values and tend to think in frozen time. Scientists like Gauss, Mobius, and Rieman in Germany worked on the first topological surfaces in mathematics. In 1827 Gauss wrote his “treatise on geometry of curved surfaces." Ferdinand Mobius devised a similar idea in the same year; in his moebius loop, the "fipping over" of hypothetical objects in the fourth dimension brings into being the fourth. Rieman wrote in 1854 "the hypotheses which underlie geometry,” which constitute the bases of what we know as the Rieman surfaces. Nearly two centuries ago these mathematicians looked beyond absolute values to entertain the idea of a pure, free-style space-time. Yet there are architects who stil regard the study of topological deformations like the moebius loop and Rieman surfaces as "new" -- too extreme, too fashionable. Could it be that architecture is simply too slow? It took architects a century-and- achalf to recognize mathematics’ relevance to their practice. Now that mathematics itself has progressed, when is architecture going to "catch up"? We take on this challenge in the studio and hope to develop an integral architecture always ‘already there’ Winka Dubbeldam LINKS: Gipsy Trial Residence ‘Archi-Tectonics - Winka Dubbeldam Gipsy Trial Residence REPORTAGE Weather Monitoring Station in Iceland ‘Winka Dubbeldam_ (talan version) ~ Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi bata eee nee eee