The analogy applies to digital approaches in the creation of organizational matrices, fluid surfaces, and tectonic armatures. My students begin by leveraging the wide array of digital tools available in form•Z and design a series of “Digital Operatives” to extract Quasi-Mathematical Expressions. Quasi-Mathematical Expressions as opposed to Pure Formulaic Expressions because of the nature of engagement of designer to machine and the visual nature of the experiment as more a qualitative study that in turn had quantitative results.

The idea behind developing specific digital operatives to uncover these visual expressions deals as much with failure as with successes similar to a scientific experiment. Empirical Model Building has long been a device for discovery. The understanding of the inherent properties of digital constructs and their value as analogous or new tectonic typologies is a complex function that students perform (Figure 1).

There is a tendency to accept what the computer gives the designer simply because it is a scripted or formulaic expression. In some cases these lead to semi-predictable structures. In our case, we dive in and out from formulaic to manual override when the opportunity presents itself. Here the designer is Co-Author. To what degree depends on the sophistication of the designer’s ability to digest, assimilate, and synthesize the visual data being formed. The computer used in repetitive commands is not the intent but rather to use the computational power to develop multiple iterative states rapidly is the key to initially inventing novel typologies (Figure 2). In other words, multiplicity through linked variations as apposed to simple replication or repetition.

Students ran through a series of “labs” in order to simultaneously “tool up” on form•Z‘s extensive modeling pallet while being open to experimental possibilities. Instead of entering the vacuum of the digital with preconceived notions of “architecture” they deal with more abstract notions of developing typologies of spaces, components, assemblies, networks, and tectonic constructs through the development of “loose” digital operatives (Figure 3).

Evolutionary Blur: Animated Analysis/Typological Extraction

Time-based modeling as an analytical and generative device was a topic explored by me back when I was a graduate student at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Having been involved in one of the first “paperless” studios there, stirring dynamic analytical digital models exploring active change over time were explored using high end software like Softimage and Alias Wavefront. At the time, form•Z was leveraged for its strong modeling abilities and at times exported into the other two programs as a base point of departure. Since then, software has become more expansive, relational, and nuance-based than ever before. This allows for greater parametric controls, formulaic expressions, and manual overrides at critical moments. The new animation functions in form•Z are now allowing students to be exposed to intriguing animated controls that have evolutionary connotations. These new tools lend themselves to the aforementioned time-based studies and relational model building as exploratory digital sensibilities.

Much can be gained and discovered by visualizing the past through abstract digital notation and extrapolating information both actual and visual from the animated analysis. Although all of my classes dealt with “Flux Architecture” as a topic this last year, the methodology to each class is unique. The upper division classes approach to “Flux Architecture” is through a series of temporal studies using the new digital modeling and animation functions in form•Z to run their labs. This class investigates tensile structures, digital objects such as NURBS, and performs animated surface studies to develop and categorize typologies of events, spatial conditions, tectonic structures, and surface phenomenon (Figure 4). The development of an animated temporal sequence from lab experiment(s) to new spatial typologies while creating specific relational links to synthetic digital environmental structures is one of the objectives for the Advanced Digital class. Evolutionary Blurs are constructed through animated means, then re worked and incorporated.