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Three Preoccupations: form-making, building practices, and development 1) The invention of new forms is an essential social task. New forms are a physical representation of new possibilities: they liberate thought. New forms put institutional and cultural habits and preconceptions into play: they allow a society to re-imagine itself. An expanded universe of forms is the central preoccupation of contemporary American architecture practice, and our work is also committed to this project. But architecture should be concerned with more than the form, the end result. Construction work is not only a means to an end, but also something of value in itself. The architect, like the director, composer, and conductor, should understand the abilities, desires, and limitations of all parties to the act of making. Architecture is a type of choreography, with drawing as its notation; for better or worse, every building is the record of a performance. 2) A new construction method/element/practice, even one that directly affects a small percentage of the total work, can have a catalytic effect on the entire process of construction. In post-industrial societies, new methods and practices can change our perception of the established “building delivery system,” with its codified rules and roles, by reminding us that things could be otherwise. In countries undergoing industrialization, new methods and materials of construction can play the role of “social technologies.” We have explored this potential in a number of small-scale development projects. Simple, adaptable building components, produced in community-based industries from recycled or readily available materials, create economic opportunities for people at the margins of the industrial economy. In developed societies the greatest obstacle to architecture is the desire to anticipate and predict the entire course of construction: to eliminate surprise and contingency. Image-based design methods dominate contemporary architecture in part because they propose an equivalence of conception and result: the building is no less and no more than the image that precedes it. This fantastic goal, total predictability, is the logical end-point of digital automation. We have seen the process unfold in three phases: CAD, CAM, and now parametric BIM. The next logical step would be “expert systems,” comprehensive problem-solving design routines. But digital technology could also be used in exactly the opposite way: GPS, point cloud mapping, wireless internet, and inexpensive design/fabrication software could give designers, fabricators, and tradespeople the power to make spontaneous, precise, well-informed decisions in the field. Our studio is searching for such new “scenarios of construction,” different approaches to building that preserve opportunities for creativity and invention at every stage of the process. Crafts and applied arts have always been characterized by heuristic, tacit knowledge. The hand of the craftsperson and the artist is guided by circumstances as they arise. Because traditional crafts have been displaced by industry, we assume that this very human, very contingent type of thinking is also obsolete. Actually, after two hundred years of industrial expansion, we are beginning to see that such a view is far too simple. Technological development causes a proliferation of unintended by-products, risks, and side-effects; it is always creating new uncharted territories, new kinds of contingency. If anything, this “reflexive modernity” requires more intuition and flexibility than ever before; rules-ofthumb no longer apply.
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