What (a) future for architects
Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.¹
— NIETZSCHE
When you type “Architects” on “Will robots take my job?”² the probability of automation you get is 1.8%, with the “Automation Risk Level” equal to “Totally safe.”³ These are quite reassuring figures for a profession whose destiny is intrinsically connected with the socioeconomic, cultural and technological advancements of our time. The robotic threat, then, seems to be apparently warded off. As a matter of fact, a not too distant heavy robotisation scenario — of which mass unemployment is the most natural effect — is slightly apocalyptic and needs to be faced or at least mitigated (since inevitable) in a capable way at the risk of unprecedented economic crisis. Nevertheless, whether the date with Maschinenmensch is only pushed back, the role of digital technology in architecture in the last decades has been undeniably remarkable and we (as architects) have never been so close to a practice in which every single phase — from design to construction — is becoming automatized or, eventually, “automatic.” This is just a repercussion of the third millennium society transformation, after all, namely part of that anthropological mutation that everyone has witnessed.
Progressively developed from the 70’s with the coming of Computer-Aided Design (or Drafting; CAD), the architectural digital revolution had its relentless outburst at the beginning of the 21st century, heavily influencing the progress and direction of the practice.⁴ Besides the natural evolution of CAD, other software has gradually played an important role for the AEC Industry development, reaching a high systematized level with the coming of Building Information Modelling (BIM). On one side, this accentuated the building design and construction complexity; on the other, it made the whole production process more effective.⁵ Omitting the construction phase of the work — which belongs to BIM by now — , and attempting to separate parts of an increasingly incestuous electronic relationship, the design graphic stage is historically formed by the 2D drawing, 3D modelling and Visualisation triad, each one with its congenital degree of complexity.⁶ But if we had to select the most significative milestones related to this triad, as well as the most able to influence the architect’s mind, we would not be able to leave the new Parametric design and Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) technology out of consideration.⁷ Parametric design is a way of controlling the form by means of parameters and rules defined by algorithmic methods. For this reason, its application allows designers to easily play with their own architecture, analyzing its different aspects thanks to a quick manipulation of construction data (such as materials, structural properties, manufacturing technologies, etc.), regulations, context, environment, etc. That is a 3D design process characterized by a purely digital workflow, in which a genuine interpretation is replaced by an automatized analysis. Therefore, it is “an iterative, generative and reactive process rather than one of evolution.”⁸ If Parametric design is indissolubly tied to 3D modelling as well as to an “active” phase of the project, the latest AR/VR technology only apparently belongs to the visualisation field, and then a “passive” design phase — as it will be explained later. Recent studies proposed the idea of a 4th platform wave for Consumer computing⁹ driven by the AR/VR (plus Mixed Reality)¹⁰ — the other three waves are, chronologically: PC, Internet and Mobile. They also forecast a Mobile market disrupted by AR with a total $120 billion revenue by 2021. On the other hand, since the success of these technologies seems to be unstoppable, also its application in architecture — to simplify the technical progress of a building — makes the alliance (designer, client and contractor) apparently happy.
The IMAX effect
The coming of a virtual going beyond the simple static nature of a rendering has mutated the architectural visualisation DNA. Thus, another significant anthropological change is expected: “faux” images of the screen are superimposed to the “true” images of reality. So far, the project “reality” and its “virtual” image were lying on alternate planes and the quality of an architectural space could be evaluated by means of perspectival drawings, collages and, lately, more or less realistic renderings. In any case, that was done separately. But now, AR visors allow a full immersion in what we are realizing and that deceptive contraposition between reality and virtual has been actually dissolved. Or perhaps, the most common mistake may lie here: reality and virtual would not be two opposed entities — while the first is natural and authentic, the second is artificial and specious — but rather two sides of the same coin. “Virtual” does not mean “illusory.” It still shares an aspect of truth with the real world, instead, representing still a thought and, therefore, something that could happen. In the words of Hegel, if all that is rational is real; and all that is real is rational; so, all that is virtual is real; and all that is real is virtual. In this sense, the identity between the architect and his world, between his architectural thought and the physical space, invalidates any kind of contrast: the architect takes control of the space at the same way he bends to the surrounding world. As a matter of fact, among the many practical implications of AR/VR in architecture, there is, for instance, the possibility of modelling entire spaces through the visor and specific joysticks: a new frontier for architects to explore yet; a new way of interacting with the latent space, transforming the physical reality transcending any sheet of paper or screen. Furthermore, another interesting development might be a more “active” role played by the client. What would happen if he could both immerse himself in the architect’s mind and also hint any virtual modelling? If until yesterday, the interpretation of the architectural idea needed a certain dose of knowledge or, let’s say, a critical sensibility by the client, now that, using a visor, he himself can go beyond the physical restrictions of the single rendering, totally understanding the work (like his author), the risk of cedeing the control might be an unprecedented scenario, calling the Kunstwollen into question due to a decrease in size of the room for imagination. In any case, despite natural professional fears before the innovation, the positive dynamics introduced by AR/VR technology in architecture are surely greater than negative aspects, representing a source of captivating incitements for designers, thanks to new kinds of exploration, cultural challenges and constraints. As long as the application of the virtual (or augmented) reality did not foment what we could call the “IMAX effect,” that is a much more immersive architecture but contentless, like a bad written and shot movie but still showed at its maximum celebratory performance — just as the IMAX projection. Therefore, time will tell us if we as architects will be able to break the chains that still imprison us in the cave of the Platonic myth, meanwhile turned into a narrower and more suffocating space.
Salonfähig Architecture or: on Post-Architecture and Architectoid
In 1950, Alan Turing published an article about the advent of computers with such a level of programming and learning mechanisms that they could compete with the human intelligence.¹¹ Maybe we cannot assert that yet, but in almost seventy years of research and technological development, computers have reached a very high level of growth that makes Turing’s dream less utopian. In a certain way, what we are living today as digital revolution is just the last stage of this incessant progress as predicted by the father of the computer science. A path along which the so-called “formal language” (that is based on mathematical models) became increasingly established — the other language, the human being’s natural speech, is called “ordinary.” In fact, more complex and effective algorithmic systems have been replacing part of the ordinary language. Consequently, the whole amount of modern data contained on the Internet (“Big data”) is processed and managed by algorithms at inconceivable velocity, in order to manipulate and extract the requested information. At this point, the resulting analogy is significative: what is Parametric design, if not a syntactic manipulation of data inputted or already present in the system? Does not the parametric architecture express itself through an algorithmic treatment and analysis of reality? Admittedly, an architecture based on well verified algorithms and analytics information could also be interpreted as maximum expression of the form and, why not, of the substance at that moment. Frequently, nothing can be more precious than an algorithm for managing a huge amount of data. After all, the same history of architecture is rich of some good positivist figures who tried to improve the conditions of human life through architecture, going beyond the simple concept of a box, with geometric and scientific interpretations — for instance, let’s consider Richard Buckminster Fuller and his Dymaxion Philosopy. However, is not just the part the algorithm cannot process (because unmanageable) that distinguishes us from computers? Is not our ability of experiencing by thought that differentiates machines syntactic competence from human semantics?¹² The architectural language cannot be reduced to a mere algorithm, simply because it is not. As well as the natural, the architectural thought is truly defined by formal rules, but this does not mean it can be reproduced in a mechanical way, at the risk of banalization. In the last decades, though, we have witnessed a supremacy of formal expression in architecture at the cost of the natural language. This simplification of meaning as well as signifier is principally due to an almost compulsive interest about the architectural form. We as designers are concerned about the form (new or not). A form as unique expression of the form per se. With a further paradox: an architecture only based on the form, with the intent of being “authentic,” finds its raison d’être in the architectural homogenization. In fact, even if different, it is conceptually identical — hence banal — because what is changing is exactly the form. It is an explosion of extravaganza of which the only aim is shocking, putting on a show. We could maybe call it “Globetrotter-Architecture.” But there is a serious risk that this mechanism, as well as the resulting media amplification, led the public opinion to accept this “architecture” as such. A phenomenon that we could defined as “architectoid”: a faux architecture without any character or architectural tension that, hiding itself among true architectures, becomes indistinguishable.¹³ Its conventional being (or politically correct), its aesthetically enjoyable, contemporary, innovative and functional appearance, could eventually lead us to define a “Post-Architecture.”
La grande illusion
Using the Hegelian identity, we have removed any kind of label as “illusory” and “false” from the virtual, making it equal to the real. Then, how can we face the raging post-architectural artefact? Which role does it represent? Does that alienating and consolatory appearance make it the “simulacrum” that Baudrillard raises to the only possible reality?¹⁴ And how can we defend ourselves from the architectoid? Looking at this new “virtual” architecture as just the result of modern design technologies would be certainly a mistake, so is renouncing data elaboration through mathematical algorithms. Using parametrization to make forms otherwise impossible, or transforming complex problems into simple decisions, is something necessary as inevitable, and then it should not be precluded. Nevertheless, it must be a tool at the service of the architect and not the opposite. A consequent and a greater demand of knowledge for mathematical, geometric or computer problems does not have to lead to a loss of control by the designer. Big data manipulation has a remarkable interest but does not have to end in itself or automatic results. Knowledge should not only be the main goal to obtain new power, but also the driving force of the same architect’s activity.¹⁵ And that can expand only by way of research. In fact, it is not by chance that, during the centuries, the technological progress on one side, and the research on the other, have been the greatest responsible in the architectural knowledge growth. Making architecture by research is an act of rebellion: the architect digs the reality up to call it into question, upsetting the pre-established order to improve the living conditions of the human being. An architecture conceived by a questioning attitude will never be reassuring or partisan: it will rather create a dissent and, therefore, a critique. Ça va sans dire, for this path to be covered, the role of the education is essential. Unfortunately, the academic world seems to be still far from the profession: increasingly younger graduates — for a job where youth is a dramatically reshaped concept — embark on practice sometimes without being able to operate with the necessary craft tools. Hence, in this age of sharing, what is missing for these generations is a form of “awareness” rather than a technological expertise.¹⁶ What they really need is not just a technical tool but, above all, a tool of “feeling.” Sadly, the illusion of a quicker and favored access in the professional world, together with a limited ease of use and learning of advanced design and visualisation software — from whom that arguable formal rapture — make young architects servants of the same “machines” they are using, insofar physiological inabilities lead to harder efforts, whether not impossible — unless chasing much exasperating as ephemeral refresher activities. Like a slave of his tools, the architect becomes incapable of rule them — because unable of rule himself — as well as frightened of realizing his ideas since unfit to materialize them through digital means. And that is when the fine line between “automatization” and “automatism” becomes thinner.
Probabilities that robots “stole” the architect’s job are almost null and that is widely due to what makes our language different from the automatized code: the architectural language is not a mere reproduction of reality but rather its interpretation; not simply a data exchange but, above all, expression. Like Ander’s prognostic interpreter, the architect needs to see with the imagination where the naked eye cannot succeed.¹⁷ Ironically, the contemporary architectural homogenization could represent a bug that would allow digital technologies to deprive ourselves of any autonomy and imagination ability. The apparent facility of Post-architecture to play in vain with forms — by means of powerful tools like parametric design or AR/VR technologies — as well as its intrinsic “automatism,” might accelerate the process of human abdication in favor of machines. With a difference, though: this time, the “machines” could be the architects.
Notes
¹ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, ed. Tom Griffith, trans. Anthony Common (London: Wordsworth Editions, 1997; initially published in German as Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen in 1883–85), 21.
² Will robots take my job, accessed April 4, 2018, https://willrobotstakemyjob.com?
³ On the same webpage, a professional projected growth equal to 7% by 2024 is additionally reported. The figures are specific to the US job market and further developed from the website authors based on analysis expressed in: Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, “The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?” (working paper, Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, London, 2013), http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/view/1314.
⁴ Without recalling the 40’s digital computer projects for military purposes, the Sketchpad program written by Ivan Sutherland as PhD dissertation at MIT in 1963, is probably an illustrious forefather of the modern CAD. cf. Ivan Edward Sutherland, “Sketchpad: A man-machine graphical communication system” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1963), https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/14979.
⁵ After all, the European Union introduced the 2014/24/EU directive regarding the use of BIM for public works design and construction for the Member States.
⁶ The same evolution of generally used software in the field of architecture makes this subdivision by species hard, since many of them oscillate within these different categories by now. Nevertheless, overlooking that genres mixture and trying to make a (never thorough) list, we could (improperly) divide them like this: Archicad, Autodesk AutoCAD, Microstation for 2D drawing; Autodesk 3dsMax, Autodesk Maya, Blender, CATIA Cinema 4D, Rhinoceros, SketchUp for 3D modelling; Corona Renderer, Mental Ray, V-Ray as rendering engine for the architectural visualisation. As previously mentioned, this list is imprecise and does not consider BIM solutions provided by software such as Autodesk Revit, Vectorworks and Archicad itself.
⁷ Among parametric design software we can at least mention: Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Dynamo, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Revit, CATIA, Digital Project and Grasshopper 3D.
⁸ Adel Zakout, “Top 10 Buildings: Parametric Design,” HuffPost, updated January 8, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adel-zakout/top-10-buildings-parametr_b_838268.html.
⁹ Digi-Capital, “Augmented/Virtual Reality Report Q3 2017,” January 2017. https://www.digi-capital.com/reports/#augmented-virtual-reality.
¹⁰ In brief, the Augmented Reality (AR) superimposes virtual objects in the real world; the Virtual Reality (VR) shifts users in a virtual world; finally, the Mixed Reality (MR) sets virtual solid-like objects in the real space so that users can perceive and treat them as they were real.
¹¹ Alan M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 59, n.s., no. 236 (October 1950): 433–60, http://phil415.pbworks.com/f/TuringComputing.pdf.
¹² cf. John Rogers Searle, “Minds, brains and programs,” The Behavioral and brain sciences 3, no. 3 (September 1980), 417–24, https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/3413-searle-j-minds-brains-and-programs-1980pdf.
¹³ The term is borrowed from the locution “factoid” that indicates — according to the Oxford English Dictionary — “an item of unreliable that is reported and repeated so often that is becomes accepted as fact.”
¹⁴ cf. Jean Baudrillard, The perfect crime, trans. Chris Turner (New York: Verso, 1996).
¹⁵ According to Peter Drucker, in the present era “knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement….The learned are…the true ‘capitalists’ in the knowledge society.” cf. Peter Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to our changing society (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 372–73.
¹⁶ Nicola Di Battista, “On awareness,” Domus, no. 1010 (February 2017), X–XIV.
¹⁷ cf. Günther Anders, Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen: Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1956).
