The beginning of a new year is often accompanied by invigorated optimism for what lies ahead. We asked 12 design and tech juggernauts to step back from their own work and pinpoint which developments in architecture they anticipate the most in 2016. From digital products to physical materials, their responses reflect the multifaceted progress being made in the profession.
Streamlined File-to-Fabrication—Finally
Randy Deutsch, AIA
Associate professor, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
We will see the maturing and scaling of digital design-to-fabrication
tools for the profession. Until now, architects had to output digital designs
for laser cutting, 3D printing, or CNC production by cobbling together Kluge-like 2D-to-3D workflows that require multiple
software tools, screenshot sharing, and a lot of hoping for the best. The line
between design and construction means and methods—which existed for liability,
legal, and insurance reasons—will start to blur, and the industry will be closer
to a unified workflow, placing one more nail in the coffin of 2D CAD. Based on
a software preview at Autodesk
University, Autodesk Revit 2017 (which will debut in 2016) should have features
that bring design-to-fabrication into the mainstream.
Scott Marble, AIA
Founding partner, Marble Fairbanks; chair, Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture
Custom design tools will become more prevalent due to an
incoming generation of architects well versed in scripting and because more vendors
are releasing Web-based software customized to their product lines and
manufacturing workflows; see Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope’s BIM IQ and Zahner’s ShopFloor.
This represents the next phase of file-to-fabrication workflows at an
industrial scale made possible by CNC technologies.
Robots that will Help Us, Not Hurt Us
Mark Collins
Co-founder, Morpholio Apps; adjunct assistant professor, Columbia University GSAPP; director, GSAPP Cloud Lab
2016 will be the year of the digital assistant—and I don’t mean that talking paper clip. Today's technology is more about getting our software to see, hear, and think about us more than ever before. Machine-learning algorithms, advances in data science, and broader accessibility of open-source artificial intelligence (AI), such as Google's TensorFlow project, will collide. The result: Everything from email to CAD will be busily thinking, and perhaps drafting, along with us. The suggestions, corrections, and serendipitous connections of AI will be leaping from the likes of the data-behemoths Amazon and Google into almost every service. The outcome will be sometimes compelling and sometimes comical, but the sense of working in partnership with software will be truly positive and ubiquitous. Don't expect to fall in love with a machine this year—the Scarlett Johansson operating system from Her is still struggling in the research lab. Consciousness, as it turns out, is very hard to code.
Joyce Hwang, AIA
Director, Ants of the Prairie; associate professor and director of professional studies, Department of Architecture, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
At the Chicago
Architecture Biennial, I was transfixed by “Rock
Print,” a proof-of-concept structural form built with robotic technologies
and low-grade aggregates by Gramazio
Kohler Research at ETH Zurich, and the Self-Assembly
Lab at MIT. My interest was similarly piqued by the STIK (Smart Tool Integrated Konstruction)
Pavilion, developed in an advanced design studio led by Yusuke Obuchi at
the University of Tokyo, which uses wooden
chopsticks as an aggregate material that could be formed through a large-scale,
next-generation 3D printer. These projects begin to explore how high-tech digital
fabrication can be deployed in indeterminate conditions. How might the jamming
of aggregates help in post-earthquake scenarios? Can the STIK Pavilion process
point toward building with surpluses from mass-production or waste material? I
expect these provocative tests to manifest beyond prototype and instigate
similar ambitions in collaborations between academia and industry.
Robert Yori, Assoc. AIA
Senior digital design manager, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; 2016 chair, AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Knowledge Community
For years, I’ve been following the work of the Institute for Computational Design
(ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, led by ICD director and professor Achim Menges. ICD has been
exploring thoughtful uses of computation and robotics in design and
fabrication, resulting in a series of pavilions that show what technology is
capable of when used as a tool set for skilled craftsmen, rather than their
replacement (see examples here
and here.) Too often robotics are thought of as automators of
repetitive tasks, facilitating high-quality, consistently produced
items. Menges’ studio approaches design and fabrication from a singular,
craftsman-oriented perspective. Computation and robotics are as integral to the
realization of the work as the designers driving them. I can’t wait to see more.
Material Milestones
Stephen Van Dyck, AIA
Partner, LMN Architects
This year, composites will go big in architecture, thanks to
a few major breakthroughs. First, we have the tools to engage them. As the
worlds of architecture and manufacturing continue on their collision course, more
offices are in possession of advanced modeling platforms as well as staff with experience
in the fabrication means and methods of composites. Second, we’ll have codes
and guidelines that govern the application of composites in architecture. In
2016, the American Composites Manufacturers
Association will release a comprehensive document that will be intelligible
and user friendly. Finally, we will overcome the fear factor with the opening
of the first large-scale composite architectural façade system on Snøhetta‘s design of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expansion, which was
fabricated by Bill
Kreysler, president of Kreysler & Associates. This
project will demonstrate that composites are not only feasible in architecture
but the residual savings and benefits are within reach for a wide range of
projects.
Blaine Brownell, AIA
Associate professor and director of graduate studies, School of Architecture, University of Minnesota; Mind and Matter columnist, ARCHITECT
To design high-performance building envelopes, building
scientists are paying closer attention to thermal bridging. After windows,
structural connections and load-bearing materials are the most problematic
areas in a façade. As such, I have taken an interest in Foamglas, by
Pittsburgh Corning Corp. Foamglas is a dense, closed-cell foam material made of
sand and recycled glass that exhibits good insulating properties and
compressive strength. With a thermal conductivity of R-2.5 per inch of thickness and
a compressive strength of 400 psi, Foamglas
Perinsul HL (High Load) can support masonry walls at the foundation,
creating a well-insulated connection at an otherwise thermal weak spot. This
combination of material properties invites one to envision an envelope created
entirely from Foamglas instead of, say, both masonry and insulation, reducing
material intensity. In short: Could Foamglas become the next brick?
Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello
Cofounders, Rael San Fratello
We expect structures will go soft and biology will blend with buildings. See the work of Simon Schleicher,
assistant architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UC
Berkeley), who is examining flexible
plant movements to create bio-inspired
flexible structures that can, for example, shade double-curved façades. Increasingly we will find
bio-inspired technology employed in building construction, such as in the use
of microorganisms to improve air and water quality. Several UC Berkeley
researchers, including architecture associate professor M. Paz
Gutierrez, are testing a water-recycling system that combines ultraviolet
disinfection of graywater with thermal storage for energy management and light
transmission control.
Smarter Tools that Lead to
Better Design
Benjamin Ball, Assoc. AIA
Lead artist and principal-in-charge, Ball-Nogues Studio
I’m
looking for LIDAR scanning technology to move beyond surveying and into design so
we can make models of the world without having to model the world, and have
models of almost any object as raw material for making architectural form and
space. Look for notions of “sampling,” “assemblage,” and “kitbashing” to become
part of our lexicon. 3D
scanning will enable us to make very precise surveys of existing building
conditions, with which we will be able to make building components to fit those
conditions accurately, and redefine the notion of “tight fit.” Check out
the work of ScanLab Projects, in London, or my firm's Yevrus 1 project.
Billie Faircloth, AIA, and Matthew Krissel, AIA
Partners, KieranTimberlake
We expect more augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality
(VR) tools that embrace a “one-button solution”—though users may prove that
more engagement, and not less, is needed. We’ll begin to see more examples of
fluid integration of AR and VR in design workflows; for example, VR’s use
beyond visualization to become a platform for both modeling and simulation.
While we’ve previously had access to VR through gaming engines, it’s through
the examination of our own design workflow that we may find novel applications.
We should be driving these tools to non-normative outcomes; they can support
deep querying in ways we’ve only begun to imagine, from ideation and
information sharing, to client engagement and even building management. In 2016
proof-of-concept applications for these tools will be more pervasive, both
academically and professionally.
Scott Marble
Data-driven decision making will increasingly guide the
design workflow and tracking of building performance. Information captured in
BIM will include real-time environmental analysis and material data, such as
local availability and maintenance profiles, for architects to consider when
designing. Flux Metro, by Google
startup Flux, exemplifies a design tool at the city scale; it aggregates and
formats available data sets, such as zoning and code information, to relay a
specific site’s building and development constraints visually. VR tools will also make headway into
the AEC industry to allow more experientially immersive and data-rich
representations of projects. A recent example is VIMtrek,
which rapidly translates standard BIM models into a high-resolution,
file-efficient virtual environment.
Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello
Big data will influence local design. Architecture will
robustly engage new developments in digital mapping. Using GIS, massive amounts
of data that define the makeup of cities can be searched and organized within
minutes. Nicholas
de Monchaux, associate professor of architecture and urban design at UC Berkeley,
is developing design software that examines how place-based data can better
connect us to larger systems on a massive scale.
Innovation Backward
and Forward
Eric Owen Moss, FAIA
Principal and lead designer, Eric Owen Moss Architects; director and professor, Southern California Institute of Architecture
I’m arguing for the use of technical tools in a pragmatic
way that’s driven by the needs, concerns, or problems that exist outside of the
tools. One of the problems with architecture now is the confusion between the means
and the ends—that somehow content is related to the software or technical tools.
The results are buildings that look, to a large extent, like a product of tools
that are being used. An interesting exercise would be to use the tools in a
sophisticated way that’s not necessarily how their seller imagined, but in ways
that you, your clients, friends, and culture think are important directions for
architecture to move. We need to remember that we don’t belong to the tools—the
tools belong to us. My firm is currently using virtual modeling to understand
the construction sequencing of a
building that has no beams or columns. The tool is helping us demystify not
the end result, which we can draw and engineer, but whether it will stand up in
the process of construction.
Gordon Gill and Alejandro Stochetti, AIA
Partner and design director, respectively, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
We are designing in a somewhat revolutionary era of data and
analytics, where very few things are taken for granted and almost everything is
challenged. This leads to great opportunity to effect change. The increasing
ability to customize and tweak things, including software, technologies,
materials, and even master plans, will allow us to achieve the highest
performance for every object, building, and city. In The Future of Building: Perspectives
(Detail, 2012), Zaha Hadid Architects’ senior associate Nils Fischer
figuratively refers to this concept as “intelligent clay,” an “interface that
allows the designers to work as intuitively as possible while important
decisions-making parameters are communicated in real time.” Our goal is to see
these iterations adjust toward optimal performance and ultimately define form. We also expect future-looking manufacturers to modernize and
focus on innovation rather than production. In our own quest to install
photovoltaic cells in double-curved glass, which hasn’t been done before, we
found many companies in Europe willing to adjust their process and help us. New
and sometimes small modifications to materials and technology required for
performance optimization can alter entire industries.
