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.

Towards a Hyperspace

Advancement essentially requires a point of reference. This I believe can be derived with a deep understanding of the past, challenges of  the present and needs of the future.

A human being is fundamentally yet another living organism in nature, which to a large extent has adapted itself to the various force and elements within nature. Dubbed the “superior being” man has since time immemorial developed methods of sustaining himself by means of a symbiotic existence within nature. In the recent past however, this relationship was disrupted owing to various socioeconomic changes as well as technological advancements which brought about an utopia of “boxed comfort”. Over the years, this box has in turns produced a being that is inseparable from technology but at the same time one that has been undernourished due its disassociation with nature. Given this context, I believe advanced architecture stepped in to bridge this gap and continues to evolve towards achieving a symbiotic relationship with today’s high-tech being and his natural environment.

Text analysis:-

Talking about “Conditioned Outdoor room” or gardens Rudofsky stresses on the need to  adapt to nature and not isolate oneself from it. In his text he describes how the importance and functions of a house garden has changed over the history, taking examples of Pompeii to Japanese garden to lawns in an average north American house. He portrays gardens as a kind of in-between space; between the built(man-made) and the un-built(natural) environments where Man can be at his comfortable level with both. He delineates the possibility of using gardens as a buffer to harsh climate through an environmental relationship with the house and the outdoor. The advantages of  positional relationship of “enclosing” garden walls with that of house and a metaphorical relationship(in terms of function) of a less celebrated “non-utilitarian” wall with that of a tree are a few other insights of the text. This text however, completely overlooks the reality that today man is inseparable from technology which for the most part is at conflict with nature. This brings the need for a more holistic definition of “conditioned outdoor room” the relation perhaps could be a disturbed one. Also the inevitable questions;  if such a “room” is possible in every dwelling given today’s urban congestion,pollution and price of land.

House study:-

In more recent projects such as Studio House (by F451 Arquitectura),although the idea of a definite “conditioned outdoor room” as suggested by Rudofsky’s relatively older text is absent, nevertheless the concept of using natural environment to attain human comfort is evident. The building, through its functional organization, orientation and location on site is in an environmental relationship with its surrounding. The building, like a well adapted living organism cuts on the loss, stores and takes advantage of the available energy by being partially underground, through storage of rainwater and use of North lights respectively.

Conclusion:

As a possible conclusion we should rather strive to incorporate the effect or benefits of a “conditioned outdoor room” in a human habitat rather than get fixated purely on the more primitive idea of a “garden” itself.

The notion of a “hyperspace” where human beings, nature and technology does not merely coexist but forms a symbiotic relation with each other.

Possible Research topic:

To explore if  human relationship with environment is possible in a so called “extreme/harsh environment” taking into consideration technological advancement and if so, to what extent could this relationship be symbiotic.

In Philippe Rahm’s thinking the architecture is therefore mold according to the climate conditions: heat, humidity, air flows shape the space and allow the functions and its users’ behaviours to find a place in it, while the simulation of the radiation, convection, conduction, evaporation and pressure aims to reproduce a natural environment into the architecture. Effectively, the climate assume the role of Architecture, while the Architecture, in its forms and functions, becomes the vehicle to create a climate environment. Eventually, his architectural approach doesn’t want to establish an open dialog with the Nature, investigating the blurry and unclear space between the black and the white as in Fushimoto’s research. He is not even creating a physical contoured space as for the Alison Smithson’s grotto, but rather an atmosphere of trascendence, a series of sensations, feelings and mapped motions borrowed from the Nature and enclosed in a timeless space.

Dealing only with the air and through the integration of invisible limits, Rham’s effort is an envelope of atmospheres, an invisible architecture of flows modeling the livable space. His sense of Architecture is a poetic and technological approach to the creation of  a comfortable space, made by undefined colors and different air densities.

Nevertheless, the Architecture is reduced to a filter- if not a wall- between man and Nature. It’s not the external climate that shape the Architecture in its forms and programmes, but it is rather a hi-tech and controlled reproduction of it. The need to control the climate derives from a modern society which is not anymore able to deal within an ‘unfriendly’ environment. The technology helps the human being to reach a better comfort level, but at the same time permits the growth of new and more sophisticated needs. Since the artificial environment is affecting the natural sphere, this relation is going to be an endless escape from a reunion with Nature. Perhaps, an advanced architecture should be even that one that forces the human being to have a natural- more than artificial- relationship of acceptance with the climate and its ‘caprices’.