Patrik Schumacher

” Each space is in fact a communication. It invites its visitors to participate and gives them clues on how should they behave, what to do. But people are no longer satisfied with simple ordering of space with rigid forms and strict compartmentalization. They need to communicate with each other and move swiftly. This is why rooms should not be separated but rather interconnected. Spaces should be constructed in such a way that everyone can easily see, find and communicate with everyone else.”-Schumacher

Parametricism by Patrik Schumacher is not a style, but a continuous process of research, a movement which tries to solve and bind relational solutions to every spaces of human scale. Schumacher is predicting the future by a continual research of these platforms that have the capability to process large quantities of data for the development of complex topological structures and environments, as well as new understandings of space, both real and virtual.  Being a theorist and as well as an architect he is making a “theoretical foundation” a research line of a completely new style in architecture which will probably dramatically change the way the word looks, and a few steps are being implemented at this point in time but still not evident being far as it came to a point that it has become the bible of architecture. Tackling and defining what the future will be, what is behind of all this attempt and movement? what made Schumacher realize all this diversity, and relation to what humans should live in?

He made modernism a flaw in architecture and open up an idea that every human should move in a fluidic way, in a natural way that lets them communicate with each other as well as create a move that would enhance on the way they feel and sense that there is a need of relation of spaces to humans and one another, rather than a way that people walk in a point, to a point, creating a space that defines them without realizing that there is a need of connection a relationship and a sensible feeling to each one of them, and a space that relates them to each other. Architecture should increase interaction and information exchange, and can no longer insist on physical separation, it should resemble how nature acts to its environment, how nature construct itself to adapt to it. He explains that architecture should not push people to go in a straight line, it should not dictate them on where to go, but allow them to self-organize in complex matrix of differentiated spaces and enables them to create multiple communication scenarios, and ordering social processes in space that is a true natural communication.

The article relates the reality that we are in the continuous process of making more complex matrixes for a more complex social processes that has been waiting to unfold. this is portrayed by parametricism, a continuous free flow of lines, in every different spaces, in a space there should be many options to go, and many things to view in a simultaneous way, there are choices to go sites to view, a choices to be made, and more importantly not to miss everything.

In relation to other article, parametricism speaks about that architecture should not create an environment of grids, an environment that dictates where people should go, an atmosphere created to have one goal, but rather architecture should create a feeling of “choice”, a living space that every human have a choice and an environment that adapts to that choices, parametricism is a feeling and an act of connecting each other by means of parametric computational behavior of humanity. In Conclusion to parametricism, it is belief is to have a more complex way of arranging the hierarchy of architecture, the scale and proportion of it,  trying to break the old laws of architecture which makes sense of today’s challenges that humanity is facing, it is trying to look for choices that humanity would take, rather than instilling that answers to them, parametricism is introducing questions for humanity to have answers and create their own different interaction and communication with each other, having a difference in order, in form, in environment that it creates and an element that people interact with each other, these is what parametricism is trying to change, trying to convince that architecture should adapt to what humanities choices will be, rather than controlling what humanity should be.

Coming up to this point and reasoning, wondering what Architecture should be for the next generation and trying to get out to what we are already are in, Architecture should have a good reminder that matrixes and parametric reasoning should not be controlled by animation and technological advancement computing, rather than it should have a sense of individuality, a character and a behavior which human can interact. Is there a need of creating a second nature built environment? or is there a need to create a natural environment that goes back to its roots? parametricism is having a built environment that is unified, that is interconnected to what humanity have choices, an environment that let them interact and interconnect with each other, but the questions will remain unanswered of how will it suite to that different choices of human, on how would it have an impact to that human choices?  I firmly believe  it will have a big impact on the future, parametricism is  striving to work smarter, more integrated, and more efficient, but questions remain on how would it change the face of the world, and how would it change the laws of architecture that is already proven, it is a great risk, as well as a great opportunity to open up new possibilities of what architecture would really be in the future.

Of Roots, Possibilities, and the Spaces in Between

Sou Fujimoto’s philosophy is defined that architecture and nature have this space in between – a space for people not to just live in but rather to explore and fulfill it by themselves; a space that creates a natural environment and a metamorphic reaction or movement created by human behavior; a space that mimics and creates a new world merging the soul of nature with the body of architecture, an opposing two that creates that melody and overall sense of the in-between space.

Architecture is about accidents leading to a metamorphic reaction that creates an environment where humans move along with nature in the most natural ways. Fujimoto explains that vibrant interplay between nature and architecture is continuously in harmony as blending the internal and external. And although its essence has manifested itself in architecture as many different forms, it is most complex precisely because it has not been realized. However wildly imaginative a project may be, it is important to believe that one day it will be built; believing that there is a nest in a cave, a space in between that merges architecture and nature as one, because such conviction can become a powerful source of energy for great architecture. Even if it is never realized, we must not fall victim to pessimism but continue to believe that our imaginative endeavors will bear fruit in one form or another someday in the future.

In Fujimoto’s “Primitive Future,” I was also able to conclude that Architecture is a constant contradiction. It requires you to look to the left, to look to the right, and not miss the important part: the in between.

First, you have to go back to where it begins: from dust, from the dark, from the roots, from when it was just an idea in somebody else’s head, from nothing that translates to everything. You have to go back, step back, to be able to appreciate and move forward.

Second, you have to be able to catch up with it [Architecture] and its’ continuous evolution; and not just catch up, but to master the art of innovation. You have to be able to recognize the “diversity of nature, the lucidity of artifice” and their significant role to serve and support each other. In Architecture, you have to be able to recreate nature without mere desperation and conscious effort to do so.

Third, we find that the grey areas, the undiscovered, the unexplored are equally, if not more interesting than the translucence of the more usual design; we find clarity between the logical and irrational—all of which can be explored in Fujimoto’s concepts of nest or cave, gradation, musical notation without the staves, house as city / city as house, nesting, prior to division, locale, architecture as cloud, garden, inside out / outside in, and exterior envelopes, among others.

 Possibilities:

Fujimoto, in the book’s essence, led me to the curiosity of what would it be like, if all space has this in between, a blurred space or a gradual space within a space.It led me to feed my curiosity and find ways to create a space that would be one with nature and materiality, being true to the materials and architecture led by nature, and true to nature; a space that attracts people to move naturally and freely; a space that goes through beyond in between, a space that would build harmony with the paradigm and anti-paradigm of nature and architecture… a space for the two in- between metamorphosis, A rationality of the unknown and opening up for the new possibilities.

The future of Architecture belongs to those who go back to its’ roots, and see the infinite possibilities from both the seen and unseen spaces in between; to those who simplify and convert complexities to functional design while still maintaining the artistic mystery behind them; to those who connect the dots, or create the dots when lacking, to make something beautiful out of it – regardless how simplistic or elaborate. The future of Architecture belongs to those who understand the correlation of things, the coexistence of various life forms; to those who see utter beauty in the damaged. The future of Architecture belongs not to those who think outside the box, but to those who think without the box. There is no box, no walls – just spaces and the limitless potentials they represent.