Rebecca Allen visuals for Kraftwerk concert at MoMA // 2012. Rebecca Allen is the current creative director for Nicholas Negroponte’s projects.  image courtesy of MoMA (source)

assigned reading: ‘Toward a Theory of Architecture Machines’  by Nicholas Negroponte , 1969.

Today, the widespread use of computer-aided design has created a paradigm shift in the way architecture is conceived, represented and fabricated. The expressive and constructive potential of the digital has been -and still is- thoroughly studied by theorists and architects who’s position towards the digital is one of admiration or skepticism or both. It is obvious that machines have enabled designers to overcome the traditional constraints of thought and set the grounds for a higher level of formal and programmatic complexity with numerous aesthetic, functional and performative implications. But even with these advantages, architecture still remains in the hands of the architects who carry the professional expertise to successfully translate the user’s needs and desires into design. This disciplinary enclosure is further accentuated by the growing sophistication of digital architecture. Often it deploys an unfamiliar vocabulary, emphasises the role of the “expert” and makes the process of architectural design increasingly inaccessible to the user.

To understand exactly how this paradigm shift has evolved, its important to focus the study in the ’65-’80 period, which were the years of active dialogues about the new issues of computer assisted design and user participation. Even though the technological expressions of the theoretical work of those times may be outdated, it offers a very interesting insight on the clarity in the way they manipulated the concept of computers and their users.

Post World War II cybernetics was defined as “the entire field of control and communication in machines and in living organism” (1947). This opened up a new field of research for artists, planners and architects who were looking to explore the blending of the organic with the technological, – such as: Kepes, Banham, the Eameses, TeamX, Fuller, Archigram, Ant Farm, Nicholas Negroponte etc.

The 1960′s were the years of Archigram’s Walking Cities, Nicholas Negroponte’s cybernetic Architecture Machines, RCA synthesisers and Asimov’s 3 rules of robotics.

In 1969, in his paper “Toward a Theory of Architecture Machines“, a prelude to his 1977 book “Architecture Machines”, Negroponte questions the way we use machines in relation to architecture and discusses the new possibilities that these machines can offer.

It is an investigation of the way the users communicate with these machines and how the machine interprets this input. Although his work can be extrapolated in many fields, he focuses on the machine in relation to architecture and how technology has enabled design to go beyond the habits of the past.

Negroponte uses an introductory example to raise our sensitivity towards the machine. He speaks about the “learning machine” in a manner one might speak about a very young child or a pet. The study given as an example is simple, about a machine that is given to analyse ten different cuboids and use its experience from this analysis to produce an eleventh on its own. On this background, he ask the questions : can it learn more? can we not teach it about architecture history, context and sociology? and with all that knowledge, can the machine not produce appropriate architecture?

Continuing this idea, he goes on to speak about a designer-machine partnership.For a better understanding of his work, it is important to repeat his view about the architecture machines subassembly. The architecture machine is described as a sum of five main individual systems: a heuristic mechanism (the strategies the machine uses), a rote apparatus ( a method of learning from experiences), a conditioning device (a way to develop conditioned reflexes), a reward selector (a possibility for the user/designer to provide input on the machines results in order for it to be able to evaluate, observe and set goals for itself. In other words, a way to “domesticate” the machine.), a forgetting convenience (a way to discard irrelevant data).By breaking down the machine into these simple sub-parts, he had unknowingly a prophetic view on todays computer assisted design, a tool we are so accustomed with and we so easily take for granted. Not only does he for-see the tools of today, but he mentions the need to create a natural language that enables the designer and the machine to communicate, the interface.

Negroponte investigates the machines expressive limitations, with a dose of healthy skepticism. His concerns are not only about the results of the machines creativity being bad or good, but also the copyright of this results. His direction wants to bridge the gap between the humanistic discipline of architecture and the technical rationality of computing. While parts of his subassembly are easily recognised in the softwares we use today, the “reward mechanism” is lacking completely. While parallel fields research are exploring the possibilities of machines learning, robots with artificial intelligence able to recognise human emotions and able to learn, the architecture field has yet to give way to such freedom for machines.

Negroponte’s discourse goes beyond this view of using machines as facilitation tools. He bases his entire argumentation on the assumption that the functions of communication, inference, understanding of the context and self improvement -in other words intelligence, will raise the machines to the level of valuable collaborators, not problem-solving artefacts, but problem-worrying partners of the designer, allowing him to manage inconceivable complexities and stand critically in front of his own work, with beneficial results both for him and the user. We cannot ignore, and neither does Negroponte , the problems of a historically defined technological utopia that considered artificial intelligence as a soon realisable goal. However, the demands that he sets for computer personalisation and idiosyncratic approaches to computer graphics are definitely very valuable contributions in the field of machines designed for user empowerment.

Negroponte’s beliefs do not go as far as Yona Friedman’s whose belief, as stated in “Toward a Scientific Architecture”, is that the architect should be removed completely from the equation of the creating architecture, and that the machine should provide such an interface that can be used directly by the beneficiary. In this theory, the architect as a mediator between human needs and machine, as a translator of languages between human desires and digital input, disappears, and with this, Friedman believes that architecture will no longer be subject to the architects obsessions and “repertoire”, but it will respond directly to the requests of a community. While not directly sharing Friedmans views, both their works intersect at ethical points when the question of intelligent machines is raised. It is interesting to see such concepts discussed in a clear detailed manner way before their time.

The issue of computer aided design and software design decisions and their strong influence on how architecture today is conceptualised and expressed is still a question of great importance. This idea that a computer can have a learning process and then develop its own idiosyncrasies is one that still has to be applied in the computer aided design softwares. More than that, a sci-fi exploration of man-machine interaction can give way to new communication models of high theoretical value. Participatory design, in the sense of a user programmable architecture machine, could be a good topic to explore. These early studies and works, like the ones of Nicholas Negroponte, constitute a good base and a direction for a productive criticism and further research.

Where does the environment fit in our contemporary lives? 

In 2006 Andres Jaque Arquitectos were commissioned to build a house in Ibiza, Spain. The Ibiza of today is a result of a new social foundation that was created there in the 1960; it was a place of experimentation and recreation. The architects approach was two dimensional. First they wanted to link architecture to the intangible spheres of modern life. Secondly, they wanted to have a direct connection with the surrounding environment. These two dimensions were to allow the owners to simultaneously experience nature and the worries and indulgements of daily life. The house promotes a deep respect for nature. The design process started off by a mapping of all trees and shrubs and a decision to elevate the house from the ground was made. The result was a very little impact of the house on the natural environment. The unconventional distribution of space in house explores the role architecture plays in combining social spheres of modern life.

Philippe Rahm argues that its exactly this unconventionality that will help us achieve the modern architecture of the 21st century. In his essay “Form and function follows climate” he discusses that the concept of sustainability has been stuck in archaic mindsets about what architecture should contain and respond to.

“ sustainability = development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”

There is a paradox in sustainable architecture. The most ecological type of buildings are completely sealed off from the natural environment. Rather than using whatever nature has to offer, we have hermetically sealed ourselves in.

Philippe Rahm states that if the process of designs starts off with an early recognition of the problems and how new technologies can provide solutions, then new and unexpected architectural forms can emerge. This type of approach can open up many more possibilities than we would have managed to achieve if we were trying to integrate new technologies into stale principles. He argues that a free interpretation of space and a deprogrammed architecture will help us adapt to the present and future faster and more efficiently; functions have become obsolete and act like a weight tied to progress. Adaptation is needed in the sense that we stop building our future on the foundations of our close past. We can simultaneously recognise what defines the present while we go back to the fundamental questions and try to rebuild our design principles.

Nature nurturing architecture and vice-versa 

In the late 19th century Louis Sullivan stated the famous, rational and functionalist “ Form follows function”. It was only later in the 1960s when Louis Kahn agued that “Function follows form” trying to free himself of the functional rigidity. I would argue that “follow” is a word that doesn’t describe the relationship I see ideal between human beings, needs, technologies, architecture and nature.  Maybe “coexist” or “symbiosis” are more appropriate words. Architecture and technology are slowly merging to their own singularity point. In this process we forget that the organic should take the first place.  In his book “Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life”, Albert Borgman states that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives. This pattern, discernible even in such an inconspicuous action as switching on a stereo, has global effects: it sharply divides life into labor and leisure, it sustains the industrial democracies, and it fosters the view that the earth itself is a technological device. He argues that technology has served us as well in conquering hunger and disease, but that when we turn to it for richer experiences, it leads instead to a life dominated by effortless and thoughtless consumption. Borgmann does not reject technology but calls for public conversation about the nature of the good life. He counsels us to make room in a technological age for matters of ultimate concern—things and practices that engage us in their own right. Although his discourse is not directly related to architecture, his point can easily be extrapolated. Our definitions of things and concepts change because we evolve constantly. We are right now in a very important historical point. Technology has advanced more in the past hundred years then ever before, but it left behind humanity. I believe that people should change technology, not the other way around; technology should not change our identity. Evolution of architecture could probably include empathy towards nature and human beings and stop trying to build barriers between them. I would research on how technology can help us remove as many of those barriers between us and nature as it can. It is absurd to propose that we should go back to where we were 2000 years ago, when the environment chose for us. But integrating architecture and technology with more sensitivity can help us reconnect with nature. The architect is the driver of the fundamental principles; I propose designing for todays needs and taking advantage of todays possibilities to the maximum, but with nature and the concept of symbiosis in mind.

In his science fiction book “The Jesus Incident”, Frank Herbert deals with concepts such as genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and resource allocation. He described a world very advanced technologically but the built environment in the sense of dwellings and other programmes didn’t exist. The planet has a globally interconnected, sentient plant which all lifeforms on the planet are dependent upon. Just like in “Dune”, the inhabitants had to endure very harsh environments, but rather than building barriers between them and the environment, they learned to use technology to coexist and adapt very efficiently to the surroundings. These stories have more fiction than science in them, but I find the imagined utopias and distopias of science-fiction to be a good source of inspiration, because such products of imagination are completely liberated from the old principles.

To conclude, my point is that rather than using this tool, that is architecture and technology combined, to run away and seal ourselves in from our problematic environment, we could use them to face nature in all its force, beauty and inconveniences.

When we reach the ultimate singularity point, why not integrate nature into it?