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3 - Internalising Continuous Variation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2021

Maria Voyatzaki
Affiliation:
Anglia Ruskin University
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Summary

Internalising tools and techniques for multiplicity, for the swarm, for interactivity, for interoperability, for my signature style, for data exchange, for collaborative design and engineering, for mass customisation, for quantum behaviour and ultimately for the alien. These are some of the challenges that the paradigm shift to an architecture based on continuous variation will eventually have to deal with. A consistent application of the principles of continuous variation in all aspects of design and building will revolutionise the profession. In 2014 we found ourselves in a decisive decade of transition to the new economy of the third industrial revolution, of which theory, practice and education have been proactively implemented by ONL and Hyperbody in the past twenty to thirty years. Many theoretical writings, interactive prototypes and built works on the grand scale of architecture are living proof of their having internalised the principles of continuous variation. The portfolio of ONL builds upon the fundamentals of the great period of industrial prefabrication of the decades following the Second World War. Industrial prefabrication back then was aimed at maximising the sameness of building components. Now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, industrial made-to-measure techniques and procedures are developing to maximise the similarities between constitutive building components – similar but not the same – allowing for continuous variation in their dimensions and their detailing. The very fundamentals of architectural production have been completely redefined with respect to the retroactive fundamentals as proposed by Koolhaas for the Architecture Biennale 2014 in Venice. Future prospects call for a continuous variation in the materials as well, thus leading to a greater freedom of architectural expression. This chapter describes the redefinition of fundamentals in three stages – phase A: mass production; phase B: mass customisation – in which phase ONL's built projects are positioned; and moving into the upbeat of phase C: distributed robotic design, production, assembly and operation, in which phase the achievements of Hyperbody's interactive architecture shall be positioned. We find ourselves now living inside this challenging transitional decade from Phase B into Phase C, leaving the traditionalists and modernists trapped in Phase A. While acting in this transition phase from B to C we will have to redefine our role into ‘experts formerly known as architects’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Architectural Materialisms
Nonhuman Creativity
, pp. 68 - 87
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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