Syllabus
OBJECTIVES
This seminar will investigate what it means to design parametrically.
At a time when architects have a wide array of new digital tools at their disposal, there are—as in any period of rapid technological innovation—conflicting ideas of how the new technology should be implemented, and to what end. This course, a hybrid seminar/workshop, will investigate the possibilities and potentials of one particular approach to integrating digital processes into architecture: parametric design.
Parametric design can loosely be defined as a implementing a relational model that is able to both accommodate and produce dynamic factors within the design process. At the core of this concept is the idea that the computer can help us analyze, manage, calculate, represent, and communicate large amounts of information, and seamlessly translate that information into built form. It is, on the most basic of levels, an informational approach to design. Whether applied to structural logics, detailing methods, or performative strategies of ornamentation, parametric design can enable the architect to have new and unprecedented levels of control over parts of the design and fabrication process that previously were left to others. But it also requires knowledge and grounding in fields as diverse as computer programming and network theory, areas that perhaps traditionally were seen as outside the discipline but that are now central to contemporary architectural production. The goal of this seminar is to formulate an understanding—through reading, writing, modeling, and fabricating—of how such a parametric paradigm works, and what it could possibly mean for architecture.
STRUCTURE
The class will have two components: a critical inquiry into contemporary architectural and cultural strategies of parametric design, and a hands-on workshop that will develop a full range of parametric modeling techniques. The class will also take advantage of the Department’s new laser cutter, which will be used intensively to test the material implications of the digital studies.
Readings for seminar discussions will range from historical texts on network theory to contemporary discourse on digital architectural design to broader cultural examples of a parametric mindset (economic, scientific, artistic, etc.). Throughout the course of the semester, students (in pairs) will research and present a contemporary architectural example of parametric design, explaining its process but also critically assessing it for cultural and historical relevance. Students will also be expected to contribute regularly to the class blog and are encouraged to use the blog as an informal venue for discussion, provocation, and speculation.
Parallel to the seminar component, we will also be developing a catalog of parametric design techniques, primarily through experimenting with our own digital, relational models. We will utilize the Rhino 3D software package and the Grasshopper plug-in, which provides an intuitive, graphic interface for creating dynamic, parametric models from simple relationships between objects within the three-dimensional Rhino environment. The priority will not be using the software to represent, but rather using it to generate. The format will be similar to a design studio, with desk-crits, regular pin-up discussions, and reviews for final presentations. There will be weekly exercises, each of which will focus on a specific method of parametric modeling and pattern-making. As the semester progresses, we will begin to translate the virtual models into physical constructions using the laser cutter, and students will learn how this process of translation, by addressing issues of tolerance, scale, and materiality, can feed back into the design of the model itself. The midterm project will incorporate a specific pattern system (taken from a cultural, natural, or scientific context) into a working parametric model, thereby transforming the logic of the pattern to create new and dynamic (variable) effects. The project will also include a physical iteration of the pattern study, produced using the laser cutter. The final project will move further into the realm of architectural or structural speculation, focusing on the fabrication of three-dimensional assemblies of components generated directly from the modeling software.
All pattern, digital model, and physical model studies will be documented throughout the semester in 2D screenshot form, to be compiled and exhibited at the end of the semester.
