Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): Colin Ripley
In his 2009 A Brief History of the Future, Jacques Attali characterizes thehistory of progress as one of the conversion of service industries into consumergoods. In recent years we have seen this notion taken one step further,as consumer goods such as CDs and books – physical congellationsof the service industries of musical performance and storytelling – havevanished before our eyes, converted this time into pure information . Aprevious generation of architects saw the same process happen in the buildingtrades, as the craft-based trades gave way to mass-produced consumergoods (often chosen by the architect from a catalogue). What we are witnessingis a double change of state: relational to solidified to indexical;however, unlike the state changes of ordinary matter, these changes are notreversible.The architectural profession – or at least that part of the profession devotedto the service of clients – is inherently vulnerable to such an historicaldevelopment. We are surely on the brink of massive incursions into the lifeof the professional architect of technological solutions – indeed, we seethem already, as performance-modeling tools take over the traditional roleof human calculation. There are more to come: the analysis software thatverifies (and certifies, for official purposes) compliance with local buildingcodes; detailing software that produces technically competent, affordableand sustainable solutions for any tectonic situation (along with a discounton your liability insurance). Can design itself – or Design – be far behind?Patrik Schumacher (2011) has suggested that parametric design shifts therole of the designer to that of curator, coordinating inputs and subsequentlychoosing among potentially many automatically generated outcomes, whileCynthia Ottchen (2009) points to a future in which soft data sets rendereven the curatorial services of the architect/designer unnecessary.What, if any, will the role of the architectural profession in such a scenario?Ottchen insists that the architect is still critical to the process; as “multidisciplinarystrategist [the] new architect is still ultimately responsiblefor design intent.” While compelling, this is not the only conceivable orlikely operational future for the profession. Equally plausible, are two otherscenarios: the architect as expanded public intellectual, engaged in andembedded in the likely increasingly strident debates around the form ofour urban and natural environments in coming decades; and the architectas craftsman, as haute couture designer-artist, engaged in a traditional understandingof the material and technological practices of architecture. Byexamining each of these scenarios from the point of view of architecture’sinstitutional DNA – the profession, the practice(s), and the discipline – thispaper aims to open for discussion the ways in which we today, as educators,might anticipate the future needs of our students.ReferencesAttali, J. (2009). A brief history of the future. New York: Arcade Pub.Ottchen, C. (2009). The Future of Information Modelling and the End ofTheory. Architectural Design, 79, 2.Schumacher, P. (2011). Parametricism and the Autopoiesis of Architecture.Log 21.
Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa
ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1
