Theoretical Framework _ Primitive Future by Sou Fujimoto

In his text “Primitive Future”, Fujimoto questions the notion of locale and unintentional spaces. He relates architecture to the idea of a cave that allows people to spontaneously adapt to its various contours and hollows. As to re-introduce this theoretical format into physical terms, a spacial intervention is proposed in a way to suggest improvised means for inhabiting public spaces.  Mis-using urban objects creates a sense of disturbed relation with the context, questioning our conformity to conventional habits.

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www.patrikschumacher.com

“As a style, parametricism is marked by its aims, ambitions, methodological principles, and evaluative criteria, as well as by its characteristic formal repertoire.”Patrik Schumacher.
Parametricism has fully emerged in recent years becoming a new dominant style for Avant- garde Architecture. Based on advanced parametric design systems and scripting techniques, this new style can be implicated on all scales from architecture and interior design to large scale urban design having the capacity to articulate programmatic complexity. Avant-garde architecture is being able to adapt to the demands of the socio-economic era of post-Fordism through various parametric techniques like animation, simulation and parametric modelling. These techniques have led to new architectural movement which by using these tools are inspiring new values and ambitions.
While some disagree with the notion of categorizing work to fit into a style, Schumacher calls for a conceptual reconstruction, meaning that we must disregard style as a matter of appearance, and move to understand style as “a design research program conceived in the way that paradigms frame scientific research programs.”
Although parametric tools are prominent drive for this new style parametricism, however they are not the main factor which shifted modernism to parametricism. Rather it’s the usage of these tools from a way to absorb complexity into a way to amplify visual differentiation logics.
The advancement within prametricism relates to 5 agendas that shall push design processes further:
1. Parametric Inter-articulation of Sub-systems: Scripted association of multiple subsystems with interrelations of differentiations.
2. Parametric Accentuation: Emphasizing differentiations and deviations.
3.Parametric Figuration: When quantitative paramentric modifications create amplified qualitative variations.
4.Parametric Responsiveness: Real time kinetic adaptation to occupation patterns and environment.
5.Parametric Urbanism: To integrate the building morphology – all the way to the detailed tectonic articulation and the interior organization.

In the first two paragraphs of City of tomorrow, le Corbusier contrasted the straight line with pack donkey way. He admired the regular roman cities and believed that the house the city and the urban scale should be ordered otherwise it would oppose itself. However today we can reveal an underlying logic out of nature’s chaotic patterns. Frei Otto, has done several studies to find the hidden logic of nature’s complex patterns, and also his pioneering work analyzing urban settlements based on two fundamental processes: occupying and connecting. Frei Otto distinguishes three fundamental types of configuration: direct path networks, minimal path
networks and minimizing detour networks. His form finding processes could raise the talk about relational fields comprised of correlated sub-layers. Likewise parametricism aims to construct new field logics that operate via the mutually accentuating correlation of multiple urban systems: fabric modulation, street systems, system of open spaces etc. The agenda of deep rationality implies that the fabric modulation also extends to the tectonic articulation.

What’s a bit problematic about Patrik’s text, is that first he relate computational techniques to for an aesthetical realm, when aesthetics has nothing to do with design processes. Further he strictly defines parametricim as a style while it could be more defined as a research technique and form finding process. To categorize it into a style would be overwhelming especially when he emphasize about the parametric role to compute and to manage paramount effects through technical variations. Yes, prametricism is a new technique rather than a style in avant -garde architecture, and it has to do with manipulation complex system to control various inputs in architecture. Whether it’s more or less differentiated, organic or with sharp angles, ordered or chaotic , it is an irrelevant estimation for what defines a better architecture from another.
As a research topic, I would like to investigate in what ways parametricism could enhance performative architecture and specific sensory experiences. When different atmospherical variations are controlled, in what way would these qualities appear?

Text Analysis:
In his manifesto “Primitive Future”, Fujimoto addresses the future of architecture as a return to a primordial, intuitive moment in the process of design, free of constraints and open for possibilities. He starts with relating architecture to a cave where the body needs adapt to the space to meet its needs. As the body adapts, the space takes on a new subjective and temporal definition, unique to each occupant. The cave represents a flexible architecture that’s more like an unintentional improvised space lying between nature and artifact.
In the text, Fujimoto describes the richness of in-between spaces, gradient spaces that lie between outside and inside, public and private, home and city. These are the porous places that are full with architectural discoveries. Spaces are created within spaces that blur into one another and have no definite boundaries or pre-determined routes through them, requiring the user to create their definition through use – akin to the cave or a natural setting. Therefore a part of the space is not a piece of the whole architecture, neither is the whole the sum of parts. Architecture shall be more abstract and absolute, formed of nested compositions producing more impurities and diversities that occur in-between intervals.
Fujimoto emphasizes the state of designing prior to division through which the architect should try to produce a unified condition where the interaction between natural and artificial is re imagined. He also questions the matter of scale and how it should be redefined when the exterior envelope disappear and the house becomes a city and the city turns to a huge house. Hence, new sensibilities may arise to enhance spatial qualities.

 

Case Study:
Wall house was designed for a couple in suburban area in Chile. It has been designed based on a layered wall system to enhance environmental conditions and to convey atmospherical qualities.
It has a series of four layers: inner concrete core, stacked shelving, milky shell, and last a soft skin. The innermost zone contain the most demanding functions (i.e. kitchen and bathroom). Moving from room to room plays with a perception of moving deeper into or further out, with changes of materiality and lighting providing a range of qualitative experiences and cues. Surrounding the inner core is a pair of upper and lower structural shelving bands, built of engineered wood, the bands set up varying configurations for placement of domestic articles, privacy or openness, and levels of illumination according to program and orientation. Moving out to the climate threshold, an upwardly folding translucent skin, or milky shell, of high-insulation polycarbonate panels filters the harsh Chilean sun. Finally, a soft fabric membrane typically used in greenhouse environments acts as an energy screen, filtering out up to 70% of the solar energy hitting the building, and at the same time creates a protective barrier against the mosquitoes and insects prevalent in the area. Wall house proves to be environmentally oriented to protect from climate. Also its layered skins create a pleasant atmospheric ranges.

Research Topic:
I’m interested in examining the notion of “Architecture of Chance”. As we have always been subjected to the belief that an architect shall defend against the indeterminate, it would be intriguing to create an alternative form of design process that welcomes a wide play of probabilities and indeterminacy. And because Accidents operate beyond the realm of representations: they cannot be forecasted or drawn. That’s where an equilibrium is constituted to confront performance of chance rather than trying to rule it out. We can extract from natural phenomena, how evolution of species have only been achieved through randomness of factors and probabilities, where vulnerability and chaos have significantly enriched adaptability.