Digital Conformity

In architectural design, profound changes to the nature of design instrumentations are challenging firmly-held assumptions about the relationship between the design ideation and its representation. For centuries, hand-drawn representations have been used to facilitate the cognitive dialogue; bridging the gap between the internal mental images and the external physical world. Today, architectural discourse is rapidly embracing digital mediums, through which designs are conceived and communicated via controlled digital lenses. While these digital environments offer multitude of creative spheres for exploration, the change from atoms to bits is shaping new ways of thinking and making while forcing a higher degree of imbedded submission to the tool’s logic. Unfortunately, the role that digital instrumentations play in conforming our physical, virtual and perceptual realities is rarely at the center of investigation. It is therefore critical to look behind the digital interface and to unmask what is redefining design reasoning patterns within architectural discourse. To contribute to this critical discussion, this paper investigates the operating logic, graphic platforms and geometric principles behind most of the commonly used digital software in architecture today. This survey shows that the overwhelming majority of digital tools utilize the same programming and graphical platforms, which raises critical questions about the level of imbedded conformity. Most critically, the geometric concepts used in shaping the contemporary language of architecture are chiefly derived by the abilities and limitations of the software itself and rarely substantiated by architectural theory or intellectual discourse, in which the human consideration is largely missing.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.106.56

Volume Editors
Amir Ameri & Rebecca O'Neal Dagg

ISBN
978-1-944214-15-9