| 1472 ESSAY BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER O ver Constructing Complexity (2008) | |||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||
| in the Digital Age the centuries, architects have expressed their designs as onedimensional strings of text, twodimensional drawings, three-dimensional scale models, and—most recently—digital databases stored in computers. Successive advances in informa-tion technology have enabled the description and execution of increasingly ambitious projects. Today, innovative applications of computer-aided design and manufacturing technology are allowing architects to transcend long-standing limits on complexity and, thus, to respond more sensitively and effectively to varied human needs and construction contexts. The tradition of expressing designs as text strings goes back at least to the Biblical instructions to Noah to “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. ” (Genesis 6:14). It continues today in cake recipes, and in the instruction leaflets that come with unassembled products. Such text strings are typically process descriptions of designs: They explicitly specify sequences of operations that will produce desired results but may leave the details of those results implicit. The operations must be executed to see how the details work out. Conversely, architectural drawings and scale models are state descriptions: They explicitly specify potential states of the world (the geometry and materials of proposed buildings) but leave the processes for producing those states implicit. Thus, component fabricators and construction contractors must translate plans, sections, and elevations into sequences of construction operations that will generate buildings that comply with them. As designs develop, state descriptions of options play crucial technical and social roles. They can be presented to clients and consultants, subjected to engineering and cost analysis, and criti- | |||||||||||||
Publication details | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||