Researching the etymology of “hybrid,” it was not surprising that the word came from the Latin root hybridia, meaning “offspring of a tame sow and wild boar.” It was also no shock that the word was considered rare before 1850. Checking Wikipedia.com, my suspicion was confirmed: Gregor Mendel published his groundbreaking paper “Experiments on Plant Hybridization” in 1866. Where I was surprised by etymology.com was that hybridia is believed by etymologists to have originated from the Greek word hubris. The most notable hybrid from Greek mythology—the chimera (goat / lion / snake)—signaled storms, shipwrecks and natural disasters.
The FOA’s chapter on the Yokohama Port Terminal entitled “the competition phase: in the eye of the twister” begins with the sentence “this is a project we never intended to win.” The UN Studio begins their article by talking about the “Manimal,” a Photoshop morphing of man / lion / snake (an incorrect and perhaps intentional description, as we discovered in class today). These perhaps unintentional allusions to the mythological qualities and meanings of hybrid are much more fascinating to me than the ultimate definition provided by these three readings: a search for new form. For FOA, they were interested in creating a hybrid “between a shed—a more or less undetermined container—and a ground,” with circulation paths being the mutating factor. The UN Studio took a similar approach to the same competition, stating, “this interweaving of various structuring principles – the gardens, infrastructure and construction – makes up the organization of the project.” According to these terms, hybridity in architecture lies primarily in formal, surface-oriented tactics.
Greg Lynn’s article “Animating Form” makes it clear that any forward-thinking architect must consider the above approach to architecture. Focusing on nascent digital technologies to accomplish quickly latent hybrid potentials, Lynn uses metaphors to make “the computer” familiar while simultaneously designing intentionally unfamiliar architecture. Comparing the computer to a pet, Lynn states, “just as a pet introduces an element of wildness to our domestic habits that must be controlled and disciplined, the computer brings both a degree of discipline and unanticipated behavior to the design process.” However, many of Lynn’s buildings to me have been missed opportunities. It seems that how the form is generated is consummate—the architecture being consequence of the process rather than impetus. I want to see the chimera, an architecture that does signal or react to the storm—the architecture that is truly animate
Thursday, April 5, 2007
HYBRID
Van Berkel and Lynn's articles presented two specific sets of hybridization that had resonance to me: virtual and real, & animated and static. Virtualization has played a large part in my design education; whether it's due to specific professors pushing a certain method, or my own tendencies towards these technologies, I find that it plays an integral role in my design process. In fact so much so that as I design, I can no longer fully understand spaces in plan or section - that I actually rely heavily on a virtual 3 dimensional representation of my scheme to further develop ideas. The idea of hybridizing virtual and real is probably as old as civilization. As soon as the first cave drawings appeared the concept of representation was created. Historically architects have been masters of virtualization - conveying real space though 'virtual' media of plan and section, a projection or flattening of real space on two dimensional medium. But this hybridization between virtual and real becomes more and more intense as virtual technologies approach reality. With current 3D software the ability to convey a space realistically sometimes exceeds our mental capacities to distinguish virtual from real. The weakness in virtualization however, as Lynn points out, is that traditionally it has only been used for "rendering and imaging" rather than a "tool for design".
Virtualization becomes a much more powerful tool if used actively to modify or create new spatial realities, rather than being a passive/receptive mechanism to convey existing realities. This leads to the ability to "animate form", as Lynn saids, not as a literal movement of a discrete object, but a dynamic shaping of such by taking into account the forces that act upon the object. Many of Lynn's examples of digital techniques are instantly recognizable as ones found (but not exclusively) in the Maya software - his reference to 'inverse kinematics', 'keyframing', 'dynamics', 'deformers', 'expressions'. In my years here at Berkeley my studiomates and I alike have questioned the usage of Maya as the 3D component in design. The frequent argument was why use Maya when the rest of the industry was using either FormZ or 3dsMAX? The reason only became apparent as I began to touch upon ideas like linked nodes, shading networks - foreshadowing the realization that the program's nature was parametric. Parametrization essentially allows the existence of a feedback loop in which virtualization can actively and dynamically modify the output, or eventual reality of the design. It has taken a while, but parametric software in the field of architecture has finally come about recently. And embedded in that shift in ideology is the realization hybridization and parametrization creates opportunity for different systems (ie circulatory, structural, and programmatic - in FOA's port terminal) to interact and react to each other for a more compelling architecture.
Virtualization becomes a much more powerful tool if used actively to modify or create new spatial realities, rather than being a passive/receptive mechanism to convey existing realities. This leads to the ability to "animate form", as Lynn saids, not as a literal movement of a discrete object, but a dynamic shaping of such by taking into account the forces that act upon the object. Many of Lynn's examples of digital techniques are instantly recognizable as ones found (but not exclusively) in the Maya software - his reference to 'inverse kinematics', 'keyframing', 'dynamics', 'deformers', 'expressions'. In my years here at Berkeley my studiomates and I alike have questioned the usage of Maya as the 3D component in design. The frequent argument was why use Maya when the rest of the industry was using either FormZ or 3dsMAX? The reason only became apparent as I began to touch upon ideas like linked nodes, shading networks - foreshadowing the realization that the program's nature was parametric. Parametrization essentially allows the existence of a feedback loop in which virtualization can actively and dynamically modify the output, or eventual reality of the design. It has taken a while, but parametric software in the field of architecture has finally come about recently. And embedded in that shift in ideology is the realization hybridization and parametrization creates opportunity for different systems (ie circulatory, structural, and programmatic - in FOA's port terminal) to interact and react to each other for a more compelling architecture.
sha_hybrid
[a little rambly]
Reading Lynn's Animate Form was actually truly exciting -- the example of the boat hull as not being dynamic but still responding to a variety of situations that occur over time was to me one of the best explanations of how to achieve or study dynamic architecture. It reminds me of the evolution of video and computer games. Before, movements were discrete -- walk forward, stop, then turn, then walk forward again. In the past few years, though, technology has come forward to view movement as a series of intensities in a continuum (ie walking is not a separate state but an increase in movement in the legs, etc..) so that hybrid movement can be achieved through blending. If characters walk and turn at the same time, pulling out weapons or things, the result is that each action affects the other. The final, visual effect, is of fluid movement, where turning affects the walk but then reduces intensity as the turn is finished. The upcoming game, Spore, is actually then an exercise in the procedural blending of monsters the user creates to interpret how it will walk and move.
In a field like gaming, though, animation and motion can still have literal expressions. Is what Lynn argues for a still frame of the blended movement of a character that is walking, jumping, and calling out to someone at the same time? If it is as simple as that -- that architecture is a moment captured from a series of flows and forces that change and grow over time, that would be fantastic.
Hybrid as brought up with the Manimal, too, generates some interesting thoughts, especially on blending of disciplines. I'm excited by the idea of hybrid practice, something that has been happening in other scales of design but seems to be a quieter subject in the world of architecture. This has been a continued source of confusion for me -- though there are a few firms like TODA and maybe AMO that seem to be intent on exploring the gap between architecture and design, within the design fields there is already a sense of a larger community. One DesignObserver article argues that graphic design does not deal with history, while architects remain embedded in it, but I don't think that's the answer. The discussion consistently returns to the idea of graphic design as an ephemeral product vs. architecture as a static, permanent being. That, then, makes me interested in graphic design that starts to cope with its own 'mortality' -- did the Cranbrook kids of the 90s come the closest to existential graphic design? When does architecture experience a similar crisis of self?
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/020666.html
Reading Lynn's Animate Form was actually truly exciting -- the example of the boat hull as not being dynamic but still responding to a variety of situations that occur over time was to me one of the best explanations of how to achieve or study dynamic architecture. It reminds me of the evolution of video and computer games. Before, movements were discrete -- walk forward, stop, then turn, then walk forward again. In the past few years, though, technology has come forward to view movement as a series of intensities in a continuum (ie walking is not a separate state but an increase in movement in the legs, etc..) so that hybrid movement can be achieved through blending. If characters walk and turn at the same time, pulling out weapons or things, the result is that each action affects the other. The final, visual effect, is of fluid movement, where turning affects the walk but then reduces intensity as the turn is finished. The upcoming game, Spore, is actually then an exercise in the procedural blending of monsters the user creates to interpret how it will walk and move.
In a field like gaming, though, animation and motion can still have literal expressions. Is what Lynn argues for a still frame of the blended movement of a character that is walking, jumping, and calling out to someone at the same time? If it is as simple as that -- that architecture is a moment captured from a series of flows and forces that change and grow over time, that would be fantastic.
Hybrid as brought up with the Manimal, too, generates some interesting thoughts, especially on blending of disciplines. I'm excited by the idea of hybrid practice, something that has been happening in other scales of design but seems to be a quieter subject in the world of architecture. This has been a continued source of confusion for me -- though there are a few firms like TODA and maybe AMO that seem to be intent on exploring the gap between architecture and design, within the design fields there is already a sense of a larger community. One DesignObserver article argues that graphic design does not deal with history, while architects remain embedded in it, but I don't think that's the answer. The discussion consistently returns to the idea of graphic design as an ephemeral product vs. architecture as a static, permanent being. That, then, makes me interested in graphic design that starts to cope with its own 'mortality' -- did the Cranbrook kids of the 90s come the closest to existential graphic design? When does architecture experience a similar crisis of self?
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/020666.html
Hybrid
Hybrid
Greg Lynn’s book “Animate Form” proposes that animation can generate design through a composite of parameters. This composite is a hybrid of sorts in the sense that these parameters are in themselves heterogeneous elements that form a single composition.
The assertion is that architecture has predominately come from statics whose discrete set of elements can be rationalized and formed by the architect into a design. There are concrete beginnings with clearly calculable endings. Rather Lynn encourages a machine intelligence that is created by mindless connections establish by complex rules. The goal is to develop a set of performance diagrams and organizational techniques that will establish parameters which in turn will translate into architecture. The ultimate goal is not to measure the distance from A to B as with statics, but rather describe the circuitous route.
As pointed out in the first sentence, this animate form is not to be confused with motion, but rather contains embodied energy that has either formed a hillside landscape or is working intimately in tandem with energy as with the ship hull. This tandem is a relationship of time and motion animating matter through a stable rhythm in a sort of zen balance. This representation between time, motion and matter can this be frozen into keyframes which can then be used as the concrete assemblage.
Foreign Office Architecture also talks about a hybrid of parameters to animate there design for the Yokohama International Airport. The process of designing the terminal is full of references of energies and resonances affecting the design process. Rather than design a building from the top down by program, the design team chose to use spline like circulation paths to literally form the building and the program would fall on these spaces like furniture.
This method allows for the flexibility of a changing program similar to how Lynn talks about designing the system rather than the elements. Even more directly related to the language in “Animate Form” was FOA’s grouping of the program into area’s of space time according to the “slowness” of that program. Additionally the roof openings were designed to maximize views according to the time of year of large festivals.
Finally we conclude the study of design and hybrid with the evolution of humans by a hybridization of humans and chimpanzees. The tension between the time data of paleoanthropologists and geneticists has led to the belief that humans spun off as a hybridization for a period of time. Over a long period of existing in a hybrid state according to Dr. Reich, the male and female human genetics were finally compatible to create a self sustaining offspring.
Greg Lynn’s book “Animate Form” proposes that animation can generate design through a composite of parameters. This composite is a hybrid of sorts in the sense that these parameters are in themselves heterogeneous elements that form a single composition.
The assertion is that architecture has predominately come from statics whose discrete set of elements can be rationalized and formed by the architect into a design. There are concrete beginnings with clearly calculable endings. Rather Lynn encourages a machine intelligence that is created by mindless connections establish by complex rules. The goal is to develop a set of performance diagrams and organizational techniques that will establish parameters which in turn will translate into architecture. The ultimate goal is not to measure the distance from A to B as with statics, but rather describe the circuitous route.
As pointed out in the first sentence, this animate form is not to be confused with motion, but rather contains embodied energy that has either formed a hillside landscape or is working intimately in tandem with energy as with the ship hull. This tandem is a relationship of time and motion animating matter through a stable rhythm in a sort of zen balance. This representation between time, motion and matter can this be frozen into keyframes which can then be used as the concrete assemblage.
Foreign Office Architecture also talks about a hybrid of parameters to animate there design for the Yokohama International Airport. The process of designing the terminal is full of references of energies and resonances affecting the design process. Rather than design a building from the top down by program, the design team chose to use spline like circulation paths to literally form the building and the program would fall on these spaces like furniture.
This method allows for the flexibility of a changing program similar to how Lynn talks about designing the system rather than the elements. Even more directly related to the language in “Animate Form” was FOA’s grouping of the program into area’s of space time according to the “slowness” of that program. Additionally the roof openings were designed to maximize views according to the time of year of large festivals.
Finally we conclude the study of design and hybrid with the evolution of humans by a hybridization of humans and chimpanzees. The tension between the time data of paleoanthropologists and geneticists has led to the belief that humans spun off as a hybridization for a period of time. Over a long period of existing in a hybrid state according to Dr. Reich, the male and female human genetics were finally compatible to create a self sustaining offspring.
hybrid
I have found that during my time here at Berkeley
I found these readings to be instrumental in answering these questions because they have put into perspective why hybrid is so important in contemporary architecture. It seems that paradigms in the world outside of architecture are changing along with technologies and therefore architecture as well is transitioning. People’s lives today incorporate many complex and changing factors due to cultural and technological shifts, and it seems that traditional senses of space are not suited to accommodate such situations. This is why the idea of flexibility integral to hybrid is so important. In FOA’s description of the Yokuhama terminal they write “Intensive space; that is, a kind of spatiality where the capacity of space is not directly related to size, and where the quality of space varies differentially, rather than as a discontinuity. Intensive space is generally more effective at dealing with shifting programmatic conditions, evolution of programs, etc…intensive space is differentially flexible, which means that if offers multiple conditions in a continuum” (pg. 17)
The article Animate Form also speaks of this flexibility when it talks about the boat hull as an example. It can function in many different temporal conditions because its form it carries smart points that can handle variable situations. “In this way, topology allows for not just the incorporation of a single moment but rather a multiplicity of vectors and therefore, a multiplicity of times, in a single continuous surface” (pg. 10). This idea of a smart continuous surface is essential to the conversation of our evolving cities where the lack of space will require architecture can that carry numerous functions and applications.
Animation/Hybrid
Jungmi Won
Motion and animation were confusing concepts to me. But, it was clarify with the first sentence, ‘motion implies movement and action, animation implies the evolution of a form and its shaping forces’.(P9) Keyword was forces.
‘Animate form’ is the article makes me think about why design languages are transformed from modern time to current. Main reason was the change of view toward architectural space. Majority of issues has risen between stasis and stability. Like author said, “Given a constant mass, stability is achieved through orbits rather than stasis. In the case of a single, simple gravity, stasis is the ordering system through the unchanging constant force of a ground point. In the case of a more complex concept of gravity, mutual attraction generates motion; stability is the ordering of motion into rhythmic phase.” (P14) From the moment when people wanted to express force, flow and all its motion in design, from the point where people thought architecture as a move from the diagram not an archive, animation process became necessary and complexity was started.
Complexity is always present as potential in even the most simple or primitive of forms. Moreover, it is measured by the degree of both continuity and difference that are copresent at any moment. (P31) The potentials are a reason we cannot abandon a difficult concept, time with force when animating form.
If hybrid is the concept as an intense fusion by a force and accumulated time, it can be related with this notion of ‘complexity’ in animating process. Then, can we think that hybrid is a result of animating? To me, it seems we cannot. In animating form, a logic of differentiation, exchange, and assemblage within an environment of gradient influences can be examined. It involves both time and force impact as its initial component. However, hybrid is a stasis when it lost its history. ‘The amalgamation generates a now notion of identity. The different features of the work are blurred and exist in layer which do not necessarily relate to each other or to the scale and structure of the shapes and substances form which they originate.( Move: P80)’
Motion and animation were confusing concepts to me. But, it was clarify with the first sentence, ‘motion implies movement and action, animation implies the evolution of a form and its shaping forces’.(P9) Keyword was forces.
‘Animate form’ is the article makes me think about why design languages are transformed from modern time to current. Main reason was the change of view toward architectural space. Majority of issues has risen between stasis and stability. Like author said, “Given a constant mass, stability is achieved through orbits rather than stasis. In the case of a single, simple gravity, stasis is the ordering system through the unchanging constant force of a ground point. In the case of a more complex concept of gravity, mutual attraction generates motion; stability is the ordering of motion into rhythmic phase.” (P14) From the moment when people wanted to express force, flow and all its motion in design, from the point where people thought architecture as a move from the diagram not an archive, animation process became necessary and complexity was started.
Complexity is always present as potential in even the most simple or primitive of forms. Moreover, it is measured by the degree of both continuity and difference that are copresent at any moment. (P31) The potentials are a reason we cannot abandon a difficult concept, time with force when animating form.
If hybrid is the concept as an intense fusion by a force and accumulated time, it can be related with this notion of ‘complexity’ in animating process. Then, can we think that hybrid is a result of animating? To me, it seems we cannot. In animating form, a logic of differentiation, exchange, and assemblage within an environment of gradient influences can be examined. It involves both time and force impact as its initial component. However, hybrid is a stasis when it lost its history. ‘The amalgamation generates a now notion of identity. The different features of the work are blurred and exist in layer which do not necessarily relate to each other or to the scale and structure of the shapes and substances form which they originate.( Move: P80)’
Hybrid – One response in a continuum.
“Because of its dedication to permanence, architecture is one of the last modes of thought based on the inert.” (Lynn, 11)
A consistent theme in the hybrid readings was the existence of a multiplicity of instances along a continuum and the advantages that using a computer in design brings in exploring this way of thinking.
FOA discussed intensive space, a differential space. “A continuous and homogenous space has been traditionally the instrument for flexibility, but intensive space is differentially flexible, which means that it offers multiple conditions in a continuum…”(FOA, 17) Is diversity flexibility?
Greg Lynn discusses non-Cartesian, vector and parameter based forms and describes them as animate. Animation, not to be confused with motion, is an evolution of form based on forces. Our ways of dusing technology itself is an animate form because it can be described in terms fo forces and parameters.
“If there is a single concept that must be engaged due to the proliferation of topological shapes and computer-aided tools, it is that in their structures as abstract machines, these technologies area animate.” (Lynn, 41)
At on point, Lynn discusses the Zoologist Thompson. “Thompson was one of the first scientists to notate gradient forces through deformation, inflection, and curvature. These three terms all involve the registration of force on form.” (26) In an odd coincidence, yesterday in my CE130 class, we derived formulas for deformation, inflection and curvature, each a derivative or integration of the other, derived from the forces, which integrate to find the shear, which integrate to find the moment, again to deflection, again to inflection and then curvature. The differential relationship between these materials to forces and inputs can be applied to a topological architecture. “[T]opology allows for not just the incorporation of a single moment but rather a multiplicity of vectors, and therefore, a multiplicity of times in a single continuous surface.” (Lynn, 13)
Lynn gives a caution though that we would do well to heed. “The challenge for contemporary architectural theory and design is to try to understand the appearance of these tools in a more sophisticated way that as simply a new set of shapes.” (Lynn, 17)
FOA, too, discussed the presense and power of meaninglessness in their design. “What is most interesting about the development of the competition is precisely how factual and “meaningless” the sequence of decisions that led the project was, despite the many associations that have been made between the project and certain philosophical, cultural or formal trends. In fact, we now see that meaninglessness as the order that builds multiple cultural resonances.” (FOA, 9) The meaningless resonates with an international style ideal. A superficiality and neutrality becomes a sort of international code. If a building is so abstracted it flirts with universal appeal.
In the hybrid article, (which begins with a hybrid phrase, ‘Architectural constructions’) this neutrality is addressed in the idea of scale. “Hybrid structures have no authentic recognizable scale, their organization is geared towards allowing function-related expansion and shrinkage and this results in overlaps and non-determinate spaces that flow into each other.” (Hybrid, 80)
Lynn argues that “multiplicity can constitute a cohesive identity.” (84) The one and the many is an age old problem, and one that is opened for exploration by modern computing methods. The challenge is to find multiplicity, neutrality and meaning at once. “Pragmatism is being bred to utopia in the hope that a painless merger between the two can be brought about.” (114) No small order, indeed, but if, as Lynn argues, technology is an animate form, our investigative tools will evolve with our questions, our architecture and ourselves.
A consistent theme in the hybrid readings was the existence of a multiplicity of instances along a continuum and the advantages that using a computer in design brings in exploring this way of thinking.
FOA discussed intensive space, a differential space. “A continuous and homogenous space has been traditionally the instrument for flexibility, but intensive space is differentially flexible, which means that it offers multiple conditions in a continuum…”(FOA, 17) Is diversity flexibility?
Greg Lynn discusses non-Cartesian, vector and parameter based forms and describes them as animate. Animation, not to be confused with motion, is an evolution of form based on forces. Our ways of dusing technology itself is an animate form because it can be described in terms fo forces and parameters.
“If there is a single concept that must be engaged due to the proliferation of topological shapes and computer-aided tools, it is that in their structures as abstract machines, these technologies area animate.” (Lynn, 41)
At on point, Lynn discusses the Zoologist Thompson. “Thompson was one of the first scientists to notate gradient forces through deformation, inflection, and curvature. These three terms all involve the registration of force on form.” (26) In an odd coincidence, yesterday in my CE130 class, we derived formulas for deformation, inflection and curvature, each a derivative or integration of the other, derived from the forces, which integrate to find the shear, which integrate to find the moment, again to deflection, again to inflection and then curvature. The differential relationship between these materials to forces and inputs can be applied to a topological architecture. “[T]opology allows for not just the incorporation of a single moment but rather a multiplicity of vectors, and therefore, a multiplicity of times in a single continuous surface.” (Lynn, 13)
Lynn gives a caution though that we would do well to heed. “The challenge for contemporary architectural theory and design is to try to understand the appearance of these tools in a more sophisticated way that as simply a new set of shapes.” (Lynn, 17)
FOA, too, discussed the presense and power of meaninglessness in their design. “What is most interesting about the development of the competition is precisely how factual and “meaningless” the sequence of decisions that led the project was, despite the many associations that have been made between the project and certain philosophical, cultural or formal trends. In fact, we now see that meaninglessness as the order that builds multiple cultural resonances.” (FOA, 9) The meaningless resonates with an international style ideal. A superficiality and neutrality becomes a sort of international code. If a building is so abstracted it flirts with universal appeal.
In the hybrid article, (which begins with a hybrid phrase, ‘Architectural constructions’) this neutrality is addressed in the idea of scale. “Hybrid structures have no authentic recognizable scale, their organization is geared towards allowing function-related expansion and shrinkage and this results in overlaps and non-determinate spaces that flow into each other.” (Hybrid, 80)
Lynn argues that “multiplicity can constitute a cohesive identity.” (84) The one and the many is an age old problem, and one that is opened for exploration by modern computing methods. The challenge is to find multiplicity, neutrality and meaning at once. “Pragmatism is being bred to utopia in the hope that a painless merger between the two can be brought about.” (114) No small order, indeed, but if, as Lynn argues, technology is an animate form, our investigative tools will evolve with our questions, our architecture and ourselves.
Hybrid/Animation
Hybrid/Animation
Anders Rotstein
Un studio/van Berkel describes hybridization as “An intense fusion of construction, materials, circulation and programme spaces creates uncertainty as to the exact properties of the components from which these structures are assembled; they are hybrids which don’t know their history”(p79). Further on in the reading it is suggested that the hybrid structures have no authenticity and is created from function related expansion and shrinkage put of flows instead of programme spaces. The Manimal, a hybrid between lion and man, is the icon of the hybridization. The relationship between author and technique, relation to time and the relation of component part to whole are of high importance. The process of hybridisation is also described as a mutation over time.
Gregg Lynn describes animation as the evolution of form. It is very similar to hybridization but it is still ongoing, possibly never-ending. I especially liked a part in the “animate form” reading on page 19-20 where Lynn suggest how architects should see the cad-software to get rid of their “ethic of stasis”: “instead of approaching the computer as either a brain or nature, the computer might be considered as a pet. Like a pet, the computer has already been domesticated and pedigreed, yet it does not behave with human intelligence” and “one can cultivate an intuition into the behaviour of computer-aided design systems and the mathematics behind them.” I find the “animate form” reading as a great pedagogic work. It clarifies some of my misunderstandings from last years 101 with Anthony Bourke. Lynn puts the problem of stasis in focus and force upon the need for architecture of the early 21st century to find ways to incorporate time and force. It would have helped me a lot I would have read these readings in the beginning of last semester.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Hybrid_liwen
Reading response_ Hybrid
Liwen Zhang
The ideals shown through the notion of hybridization in architecture is a provocative one which calls for what Ben van Berkel would deem as “not a building design [but rather] a design of the relations between structure, circulation systems, programmatic spaces and surfaces”.
For van Berkel, the architecture of hybridization “amounts to the organization of continuous difference… free to assume different identities, architecture become endless”. The notion of ahistorical and acultural architecture, is not a novel thought, international style from the beginning of our last century is perhaps a direct response to the increasingly globalized paradigm of our time. However, as architecture starts to take on new systems of meaning, culture is redefined. Previously confined to racial, geographical and technical limitations, architecture, with the aid of innovative computer techniques for formal generation, material fabrication and structural and program organization, now embraces the increasing demands of a networked culture where the need for hybridization is imperative. Whether this hybridization calls for an integration of architectural systems, social and cultural livelihoods or the ephemeral, the role played by the use of computer aided design is a crucial one which continues to push the boundaries of contemporary architectural discourse.
Despite the fantastical properties that the computer brings to architecture, one which van Berkel aptly describes as a “computer-generated fantasy …being transformed into reality”, the use of such innovative computer techniques, is however heavily cautioned by Greg Lynn. Being the pioneer for the adoption of computer-based animation techniques, the use of animations to aid in representation for his architecture has become Lynn’s trademark. He poses that "the challenge for contemporary architectural theory and design is to try to understand the appearance of these tools in a more sophisticated way than as simply a new set of shapes”. For Lynn, the computer serves merely as a “pet” that has “already been domesticated”. Perhaps this need to disparage the computer serves as a way to alleviate the stigma that he previously mentions to be present in many architects, due to the fear of losing control as the ultimate designer to the cusps of generative and organizational software.
To fully integrate the use of innovative computer techniques is proving to be difficult as software programs demand high levels of expertise and control, thus one cannot blame Lynn’s cautions as many of us tend to be easily seduced by the provocative forms that new software allows for. The Yokohama Port Terminal project by Foreign Office Architects is a good example where the use of computers plays an integral and highly successful part of the realization of the project, with the architects retaining their roles at the forefront of the entire design process. This is probably attributed to the fact that the actual software used for solving structural needs for the project is not currently at the forefront of what is available out there, thus enabling such mediums to be more fully within our control. However, this hardly becomes an issue as the end product is truly what Alejandro Zaera-Polo describes it to be, “an organization that hybridizes a pure enclosure with topography”.
Liwen Zhang
The ideals shown through the notion of hybridization in architecture is a provocative one which calls for what Ben van Berkel would deem as “not a building design [but rather] a design of the relations between structure, circulation systems, programmatic spaces and surfaces”.
For van Berkel, the architecture of hybridization “amounts to the organization of continuous difference… free to assume different identities, architecture become endless”. The notion of ahistorical and acultural architecture, is not a novel thought, international style from the beginning of our last century is perhaps a direct response to the increasingly globalized paradigm of our time. However, as architecture starts to take on new systems of meaning, culture is redefined. Previously confined to racial, geographical and technical limitations, architecture, with the aid of innovative computer techniques for formal generation, material fabrication and structural and program organization, now embraces the increasing demands of a networked culture where the need for hybridization is imperative. Whether this hybridization calls for an integration of architectural systems, social and cultural livelihoods or the ephemeral, the role played by the use of computer aided design is a crucial one which continues to push the boundaries of contemporary architectural discourse.
Despite the fantastical properties that the computer brings to architecture, one which van Berkel aptly describes as a “computer-generated fantasy …being transformed into reality”, the use of such innovative computer techniques, is however heavily cautioned by Greg Lynn. Being the pioneer for the adoption of computer-based animation techniques, the use of animations to aid in representation for his architecture has become Lynn’s trademark. He poses that "the challenge for contemporary architectural theory and design is to try to understand the appearance of these tools in a more sophisticated way than as simply a new set of shapes”. For Lynn, the computer serves merely as a “pet” that has “already been domesticated”. Perhaps this need to disparage the computer serves as a way to alleviate the stigma that he previously mentions to be present in many architects, due to the fear of losing control as the ultimate designer to the cusps of generative and organizational software.
To fully integrate the use of innovative computer techniques is proving to be difficult as software programs demand high levels of expertise and control, thus one cannot blame Lynn’s cautions as many of us tend to be easily seduced by the provocative forms that new software allows for. The Yokohama Port Terminal project by Foreign Office Architects is a good example where the use of computers plays an integral and highly successful part of the realization of the project, with the architects retaining their roles at the forefront of the entire design process. This is probably attributed to the fact that the actual software used for solving structural needs for the project is not currently at the forefront of what is available out there, thus enabling such mediums to be more fully within our control. However, this hardly becomes an issue as the end product is truly what Alejandro Zaera-Polo describes it to be, “an organization that hybridizes a pure enclosure with topography”.
hybrid and animation
Hybrid and Animation/Bin Wang
Hybridization is about process. Animation is also about process. The difference between the two is that hybrid presents a certain status during the process of combination and inheritance while animation displays the transformation in a certain span of time. Hybrid can be a single object, but animation is more about continuity. No matter what was mixed in Manimal or works of Kielsler, when finished, they became physical hybrid. Hybrid is production of different forces, just as architecture.
Architecture, whatever the form looks like, is hybrid of different forces. Architects are always dealing with different forces, site, function, circulation, all the elements one can think about in design are forces. Ideas and conceptions come from forces. However, forces are changing. “All buildings are the mothers of ruins”. For architects, it is easy to know that architecture is about time, motion, or whatever, but it is difficult if not impossible to design something spans from constructions to ruins. In Animate Form, the author mentioned that “Instead of a neutral abstract space for design, the context for design becomes an active abstract space that directs form within a current of forces that can be stored as information in the shape of the form”. Building, under this circumstance, displays the inflection of forces, however, it is difficult for me to understand this as a process. When a building has been built, it lost the fluid and transmutability.
Process has a speed. Some processes can be caught in one second, such as the running or flying of animals, others might be detected in one million years, such as the formation of mountains. Architecture also has a speed of transformation. Actually, all buildings are changing, but the speeds of these processes are hard to aware.
The self-contradiction of Animate Form is that form is not a right tool to describe animation. In other words, the animate form which can be seen has a different speed than that of architecture.
So if architecture has a right way to express process and changing forces remains a question.
Hybridization is about process. Animation is also about process. The difference between the two is that hybrid presents a certain status during the process of combination and inheritance while animation displays the transformation in a certain span of time. Hybrid can be a single object, but animation is more about continuity. No matter what was mixed in Manimal or works of Kielsler, when finished, they became physical hybrid. Hybrid is production of different forces, just as architecture.
Architecture, whatever the form looks like, is hybrid of different forces. Architects are always dealing with different forces, site, function, circulation, all the elements one can think about in design are forces. Ideas and conceptions come from forces. However, forces are changing. “All buildings are the mothers of ruins”. For architects, it is easy to know that architecture is about time, motion, or whatever, but it is difficult if not impossible to design something spans from constructions to ruins. In Animate Form, the author mentioned that “Instead of a neutral abstract space for design, the context for design becomes an active abstract space that directs form within a current of forces that can be stored as information in the shape of the form”. Building, under this circumstance, displays the inflection of forces, however, it is difficult for me to understand this as a process. When a building has been built, it lost the fluid and transmutability.
Process has a speed. Some processes can be caught in one second, such as the running or flying of animals, others might be detected in one million years, such as the formation of mountains. Architecture also has a speed of transformation. Actually, all buildings are changing, but the speeds of these processes are hard to aware.
The self-contradiction of Animate Form is that form is not a right tool to describe animation. In other words, the animate form which can be seen has a different speed than that of architecture.
So if architecture has a right way to express process and changing forces remains a question.
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