Reimagine The Building Skin through Human Interaction and Social Engagement
Exploring the Certainty and Uncertainty within the relationship between context and form
In the pre-thesis course, I researched the design method triggered by artificial intelligence. I am interested in forming logic and design strategy in every designer’s mind. Then, I started to be curious about how design philosophy might transform from human to machine; this phenomenon might happen in the future. At that time, could designers or architects be replaced by artificial intelligence? Therefore, through the artifact I built, the intention is to research the ambiguity, blur, and undefined by making the space that doesn’t make sense or against gravity. I found when I built based on specific grids and logic, humans could adjust the design and make the uncertain space by judging the form or using the imagination to make a different shape or jumping out from the framework.
Chaillou, S. (2019). Ai + Architecture Thesis. Harvard GSD.
Al will soon massively empower architects in their day-to-day practice. As such potential is about to be demonstrated, our work participates in the proof of concept. At the same time, our framework offers a springboard for discussion, inviting architects to start engaging with Al and data scientists to consider Architecture as a field of investigation. However, today, our manifesto can be summarized in four major points.
Conceptually first, our belief is that a statistical approach to design conception shapes Al's potential for Architecture. Its less-deterministic and more-holistic character is undoubtedly a chance for our Field. Rather than using machines to optimize a set of variables, relying on them to extract significant qualities and mimicking them all along the design process is a paradigm shift.
The author offered a different view of uncertainty, which is different from mine I assume AI could be limited by the logic we assigned to them. However, the author thinks AI provide lots of option and iteration for the designer, which is the less-deterministic thing he would like to see as a potential design method.
Morgan, S. (2019). Mixed Metaphors: The Poetics of Gravity, Machines, and Empathy Thesis. Harvard GSD.
If the joint is the nexus between the mental and physical aspects of Architecture, where tectonic metaphors tell stories about the society that constructed it, these details become analogous to Architecture at large – that is, a mode of human creativity that imbricates the metaphorical, the allegorical, and the imaginary with the physics of reality. This thesis contends that the notion of the “detail” is scaleless, and at its best, a building can be read as a single detail, a simple machine of expressive elaboration of the work done to resist the gravity that wants to destroy it.
I started to see the determination occur in the existing building. I found the “Details” from the building play as a whole; they are expressions and reflections from the social context, climate, etc. For me, this is the certainty factor on the human side, which is worth thinking about as parallel with the un-deterministic factor from artificial intelligence. The reflection of the existing scenario is crucial, whether it is in the construction representation or the form representation.
After reading Matthew, W. (2022). Design after Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow. The author argues that capitalism is a social construct with its own contradictions and limits. It has run its course and is no longer credible for claims to the broad distribution of improved livelihoods. While acknowledging the productivity and success of capitalism in the past, the author contends that designers are now positioned to transform design practices to institutionalize new social and economic organizations within the dying system.
Therefore, I tried to study the existing buildings that appear in Capitalism and seek the connection between humans and artifacts. It turned out that the facade or the building skin started to reveal something. It reflects lots of uncertainty through the certainty form. I would like to use the thesis to discuss more about the building facade, the human community’s relationship, and how technology could play a role in the scenario. For example, AI can be a tool to seek consensus ideas from the public or as a research tool to categorize typologies.