Parametric Approaches II

An international symposium on the development of digital architecture for students and professionals. Organised by Centre for Information Technology and Architecture, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

Speakers
Prof. Mark Burry -  Director of SIAL, RMIT
Prof. Neil Leach - Professor of Architecture at University of Brighton
Mark Foster Gage - Head of Gage Clemenceau , Ass. Prof. at Yale University School of Architecture
Achim Menges - Partner Ocean North , Studio Master at the AA, London and Professor at HfG Offenbach
Prof. Mark Goulthorpe - Associate Professor MIT, Head of dECOI

Digital practice can no longer be seen as separate from architecture. The means by which we design, produce and communicate the built environment is firmly set within digital media, from the software in which we design and detail, to the new Building Information Models that communicate and organise our building processes.

In recent years the fabrication tools by which the built is realised is becoming increasingly digitised. Traditional industries such as manufacturers of wood frames, steel profiles and concrete elements are digitising their production tools allowing for new levels of detailing and the production of non standard series. As such, Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) tools, such as laser cutters, milling machines and 3D printers are entering architectural practice no longer only as a modelling or prototyping environment, but as means to realise and build architecture.

The symposium Computation and Material discusses how new digital tools challenge the practices of designing and fabricating architecture. What happens to architectural design practice as craft becomes digital? How does the possibility of the bespoke change the thinking of repetition and series? How do digital tooling enable new relationships between the drawn and the built? And how do these practices instigate a challenge to the aesthetics of architecture?

Within the symposium Computation and Material the Center for IT and Architecture invites international speakers to discuss the emergence of new digital production techniques and their practices. Show casing recent projects and discussing their historic framing in the crafts of building and drawing, practitioners as well as theoreticians will discuss the new international discourse, design paradigms and formal languages that are arising with these technologies.

Program
12:30 - Coffee
13:00 - Mark Burry
14:00 - Mark Foster Gage
14:45 - Discussion (chaired by Neil Leech)
15:00 - Coffee
15:20 - Neil Leach
16:00 - Achim Menges
16:45 - Debate (chaired by Neil Leach)

Mark Goulthorpe unfortunately had to cancel his participation.

Context
The Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation is exploring the emergent intersections between architecture and digital technologies. Identifying core research questions into how space and technology can be probed, CITA seeks to investigate how the current forming of a digital culture impacts on architectural thinking and practice.

CITA examines how architecture is influenced by new digital design and production tools as well as the digital practices that are informing our societies culturally, socially and technologically. CITA is a cross disciplinary research environments consolidating new collaborations with partners from the fields of computer science, engineering, human computer interaction, robotics, artificial intelligence as well as the practice based fields of furniture design, fashion and textiles, industrial design, film, dance and interactive arts.

This autumn CITA is engaged in a series of parallel research and dissemination activities surrounding the Computation and Material symposium. These events, ranging from workshops, to seminars and conferences, invite students, researchers and practitioners to gain insight into the current international design practice.

In the autumn of 2007 CITA have co-organised and participated in:

Performing Surfaces: A joint workshop with Prof Neil Leach, University of Brighton and Mette Ramsgard Thomsen/Norbert Palz, CITA.

Subdivision Constitutional: Workshop and exhibition at the Danis Architectural Center (DAC) with Brennan Buck, Die Angewandte/Vienna, and Martin Tamke, CITA.

Computational Aesthetics: A conjoint workshop and think tank, with Mark Gage, Yale University School of Architecture and Martin Tamke, CITA.

ArchiTronics: An exhibition event at DAC in which CITA presents the interactive work Calcification.

Genesis: Lecture presentation at Seminar on Becoming in Art, Nature and Technology, Steno Museum, Aarhus.

Metabolistic Networks: Workshop into textiles, electronics and architecture, ACADIA, Halifax 2007.

Dancing in Wired Natures: Workshop into dance and technology questioning new digital ecologies and performative space. Critical Path, Sydney and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth.

Temporal Interactions: A workshop with Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and Camille Utterbach, US, on interactive environments, embodied interfacing and space.

Date
Friday, November 23rd, 2007 .
12:30 - Registration and coffee
13:00 - Introduction and keynote

Venue
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, Philip de Langes Alleé 10, Copenhagen, Auditorium 2.

Support
Villem Kann Rasmussen Fonden.