The Discrete Turn: A Reconsideration of Architecture's Ontology

Chapter Title: The discrete turn: A reconsideration of architecture’s ontology
Chapter Author(s): Mollie Claypool

Book Title: Expanding Fields of Architectural Discourse and Practice
Book Subtitle: Curated Works from the P.E.A.R. Journal
Book Editor(s): Matthew Butcher and Megan O’Shea
Published by: UCL Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv13xps41.29

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24. The discrete turn: A reconsideration of architecture’s ontology

Mollie Claypool

Time, in other words, reappeared in the world as something real, as a destabilizing but creative milieu; it was seen to suffuse everything, to bear each thing along, generating it and degenerating it in the process. Soon there was no escaping the fact that transformation and novelty were the irreducible qualities that any theory of form would need to confront.

—Sanford Kwinter��

There is a rich tradition in architecture for technological advancements to influence the way that architects design the built environment. For example, the Industrial Revolution had a huge impact on how, and what, buildings were made of, with the invention of mass-produced steel and concrete, and the post-World War II period of rapid expansion of housing stock was due to technological advancements made during the war, such as the development of mass-standardised production methods. Digital technologies have also transformed the very landscape of the way the world is experienced, from electronic devices and cars that have dramatically increased in quality and efficiency to the use of smart gadgets, machine learning and IoT devices in homes, offices, civic, cultural and public spaces. The digital economy is the underpinning for powerful platforms such as Airbnb, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Uber that have shifted the way that our cities are inhabited, products are consumed and people’s data are utilised.

Architecture has been eagerly complicit in the adoption of digital technologies since the early 1990s, experimenting with the potential of digital tools adopted from the manufacturing and film industries, as well as innovations and developments in fields outside of architecture such as biology, philosophy and chemistry. This can be seen in the work of architects such as Greg Lynn’s early simulation studies of pedestrians, cars

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'begetting a new way of thinking.4 Data, the time required to process it and the computational systems used to process it have become ever-more accessible to designers to search for possible design outcomes or solutions that can mirror their physical counterparts. In addition, processes used to produce design outcomes can be coded into the design space and used alongside other parameters to predict and accommodate the changing behaviour of material, technology and people.

A return to architecture itself: The discrete

This shift between the first and second digital turn is a shift from emphasising process over formal appearance, from discontinuity to continuity between the virtual and physical manifestations of architecture, from systems of construction which are analogue and traditional to ones which are digital, agile and dynamic, from understanding matter as inert to understanding it as active. How was this manifested at the start of this shift? How, retrospectively, was the groundwork for the second digital turn laid? And how has this influenced architectural understandings of the relationships between information, material resources, society and space? This chapter documents this shift through early projects of the second digital turn that laid the groundwork for what today is referred to as the discrete.

The discrete is an architectural approach informed by mereology – or the study of part-to-whole relationships – that completely rethinks the role of the digital in architecture, in terms of tectonics, space, materiality and environment. The discrete also takes a sociopolitical position critical of the generation of architects of the first digital turn, arguing that in addition to the digital forms of production – both virtual and physical production – that are available today, architecture itself – its parts, assembly, tectonics, materials – also needs to be digital. This has been done by understanding a set of architectural elements as digital data, like the 1s and 0s of computer code, not entirely dissimilar to Lego, which can be combined and recombined in multiple but finite orientations and used in many different ways across different scales. Discrete architecture is argued by others, such as Gilles Retsin and Jose Sanchez, and me in a recent Architectural Design (April 2019) issue as being a more accessible, versatile, open-ended and participatory approach to architecture.

As discrete architectural parts are self-similar in tectonics and geometry, discrete parts are able to harness aspects of mass production and mass standardisation in production in both manufacturing and assembly

years ago, to recognise they both have existed throughout the history of architecture. Achieving form was, by and large, a process of forcing inert material to become something the architect wanted it to be. Material was often treated as a passive mono-material, active only when manipulated to achieve an idealised form. For example, in the work of Louis Kahn, brick was viewed as a homogenous series of idealised elements, relatively undifferentiated in its accumulations. However, this is not limited to the work of modernists. One only has to look at the many built works of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) to understand that this phenomenon is still at work today where the post-rationalisation of matter must occur in order to realise the geometric complexity of ZHA buildings.

As the three-dimensional model slowly became the output of many architecture practices and construction firms, object-orientated design (OOD) became more common. In 2012, 71 per cent of design and construction companies in North America utilised building information modelling software. This emphasis on the three-dimensional modelling software transformed the two-dimensional drawing into a three-dimensional object embedded with specifications and data for the design of a building. The difference between drawing and building therefore became lessened as both the fields of architecture and construction were able to interpret and utilise the same three-dimensional model in real time.

At the time, this process was limited to the design process, rather than being extended to methods of fabrication, construction or inhabitation, and resulted in the object of architecture being considered inert and static once constructed. But what would the implications be if there was an ontology for architecture which enabled it to be adaptable, flexible, changeable, in real time or throughout a longer life cycle? What if the very matter of architecture did not require homogenisation due to the imposition of equalising of materialist and structuralist practices with existing – and old – methods of construction or means of inhabitation? And what would it mean for architecture to utilise technologies in a way to enable this shift?

The discipline has a now well-established interest in industrial digital fabrication technologies of production such as CNC milling, three-dimensional 3D printing, laser cutting and robotic fabrication, amongst others. Although these are interlinked but outside the direct realm of operation of most architects of the late twentieth century, automated machines have a clear history within architecture. One only has to look at Sigfried Giedion’s Mechanisation Takes Command (1948) to see that this is the case. However, through object-orientated thinking, only in recent years have these technologies become a means of developing an approach

School of Architecture, UCL students Nan Jiang, Yiwei Wang, Zheeshan Ahmed and Yichao Chen (taught by Retsin and Jiménez Garcia) titled ‘Space Wires’ (2015) looked at how to optimise, in real time, a structural heterogenous three-dimensional space frame, utilising robotic fabrication.

Disorete thinking: Four projects

Philippe Morel has used discrete mathematical models in architectural design research primarily through explorations into material behaviour. Morel’s work into this area is not particularly recent, as he has had a well-established body of research into the topic since the mid-2000s with his work titled ‘Computational Chair’ (2006), but the piece that his practice EZCT Architecture & Design Research exhibited in the FRAC Centre exhibition ‘Naturalising Architecture’ (2013) in Orléans, France, titled ‘Studies in Recursive Lattices’ (2013), has become an emblem for the continued problem of homogeneity versus discreteness in architecture. Where Morel differs from the other projects included in this piece is in his recognition, at the time, of the very historicisation of this problem. Morel argues that it is due to our phenomenological perception of traditional building materials and material practices that we see it as homogenous, when in actuality, it is very much discrete – that is, bricks are distinctly separate elements. However, one still cannot ignore the fact that although bricks are components of the same thing, the use of the brick historically is treated in a continuous and homogenous way.

What Morel’s ‘Studies in Recursive Lattices’ (2013) achieved is both continuity and discreteness in material efficiency, both geometrically and, as a result, structurally. There is continuity in terms of the material used throughout: UHPFC. This material has a degree of strength and ductility that far outweighs the normal concrete used ubiquitously worldwide in the construction industry. It was, however, still extremely expensive. By aiming to provide an alternative to the high cost of current strategies for the use of UHPFC, Morel and his collaborators worked on three-dimensionally modelling geometries derived from studies of recursive behaviour in biological lattice structures. They were then able to divide the lattice into structurally and geometrically optimised segments. This process used substantially less concrete material than in traditional concrete construction, as the three-dimensional prints of the segmented moulds were highly optimised and able to be tested digitally for their structural and geometric accuracy (figures 24.1 and 24.2) before being produced, thus saving both time and cost.

400 Expanding Fields of Architectureural Discourse and Practice

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most forms of digital fabrication) on a large scale to produce structural lattices. However, Morel's project did take into account the necessity for a structural lattice to be discrete, meaning that on-site construction of segments of moulds into a continuous lattice was not, at the time, viewed as being far off from being a reality. Through this project, Morel demonstrated that the processes of design and production can exist in synthesis: virtual models and physical behaviour are the same.

The work of Gilles Retsin (Gilles Retsin Architecture) and Isaie Bloch (Eragatory) also took forward a similar topic that was explored by Morel. Yet, in the search for heterogeneity, Retsin and Bloch took the notion of discreteness from mathematics and applied it alongside the principle of irreducibility, or the notion that a unit is one that 'retains all the basic properties of the whole, and which cannot be further divided without losing them'. This concept can be brought closely to the concept of computational irreducibility described by Stephen Wolfram in A New Kind of Science (2002). Wolfram defined this term due to the lack of precise, formulaic mathematical description for many common systems in science, using cellular automata as an example.

This idea is related in history to Thomas Kuhn's work in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). In this seminal and widely contested text, Kuhn wrote that within the practice of normal science, or puzzle-solving, scientific knowledge was gained in a linear, accumulative manner, a 'piecemeal process by which these items [of knowledge are] added singly and in combination'. The process of normal science took place within widely established theories and practices. However, revolutions in science occurred if what Kuhn termed as a paradigm shift took place, when anomalies that arose through mistakes, omissions, miscalculations and failures highlighted inaccuracies in the everyday practice of science.

Furthermore, these inaccuracies highlighted the incompatibility of dominant methods of practice with novel technologies, or emerging contemporary modes of thinking and experimentation. Scientific revolutions for Kuhn could broadly be assimilated to Wolfram's notion of computational irreducibility. As Wolfram wrote, 'in effect there can be no way to predict how the system will behave except by going through almost as many steps of computation as the system itself'. Novelty arises from these computationally irreducible processes. Retsin and Bloch took this notion and utilised it as a framework for design process in their proposal titled 'Karosta Kube' (2013) (figures 24.3 and 24.4), actively attempting to set up binary and dichotomous design processes that resulted in unpredictable tectonic behaviour.

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24.4 Gilles Retsin/Gilles Retsin Architecture & Isaie Bloch/Eragatory, 'Karosta Kube', London, UK, 2013. Detail of 'Karosta Kube', showing two tectonic languages converging: steel rebar and concrete. © Gilles Retsin and Isaie Bloch.

there is more difference within the concrete, there is more articulation of rebar material. The result of this is a strange object which is not the result of any singular, traceable computational process. It is irreducible, as its properties emerged from the computational processes of articulating material behaviours and their tectonics (figure 24.5).

Moving on, we can see the impact of Frei Otto's experiments with catenary structures and varied material systems (soap bubbles etc.) from the 1960s to 1980s, as well as the research into the material behaviour of concrete catenary systems by Antoni Gaudi in Colonia Guell (1908-14) and Sagrada Familia (1882–1926) as a precedent for the work of Manuel Jiménez García. Many pieces of digital modelling software emulate the analogue processes that these two architects and engineers worked with. However, as the use of physical digital simulation in architecture has exponentially increased, new problematics of utilising these tools have arisen. Advanced simulation software allowed, on the one hand, a more accurate understanding of material behaviour at an architectural scale and, on the other, a form-finding method. The potential of continual structural evaluation in form finding allowed for the morphology of an architectural system to be informed by physical laws instead of mathematical definitions in real time, enabling the evaluation of multiple iterations of the same system to happen simultaneously. Despite the ever-increasing familiarity of form-finding tools in architectural design practice, there

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24.6 Manuel Jiménez Garcia/MadMDesign, SoftModelling, 2012. View of the design interface simulating particle-spring systems and geometry simultaneously. © Manuel Jiménez Garcia.

directly on the model when it is in the physical simulation. Kangaroo for Grasshopper works similarly, as you have to model the architectural object and then run the simulation, et cetera. Jiménez Garcia improved on this problem in SoftModelling by seamlessly integrating between modelling and physics.

Most kinds of modelling software recomputed the order of edges when any mesh operation is given. This is why a two-step process was normally utilised, since the serial numbers of the particle springs will not match the new edges’ serial numbers after this operation occurs. SoftModelling developed a strategy for each of the mesh operations in order to solve this. First, the app relocated the serial numbers of each edge on the mesh to maintain parity between the particle springs linked to them (figures 24.7 and 24.8). Then, instead of a recompilation of the particle-spring system, a detailed analysis of the mesh identified the parts that have been modified, without affecting the rest of the object.

This process not only improved the efficiency of the physics simulation but also facilitated a seamless integration between modelling and simulation. The synchronisation of particles – vertices/springs to edges – enabled the constant updating of the positions of each part of the model. What one models is automatically physics, and vice versa. There was a continuous feedback between the physical behaviour of every

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24.8 Manuel Jiménez Garcia, MadMDesign, SoftModelling, 2012. Zoomed-in detail of the design interface showing systems interaction. © Manuel Jiménez Garcia.

interest in the appropriation of three-dimensional printing and robotic fabrication technologies for multi-hierarchical and multi-material architectural design strategies. The aim was to discover material and fabrication anomalies in normative uses of both three-dimensional printing and robotics (figures 24.9 and 24.10), as well as traditional uses for materials such as concrete, clay and plastics, and utilise these anomalies

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Barcelona's Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia at Joris Laarman Lab and 'Chairs for Charity' by Dirk Vander Kooij. Through the invention of new technologies for robotic three-dimensional plastic filament extrusion – such as printing heads for materials that can have the potential for multiple extrusion geometries – the research was able to achieve heterogeneity in terms of both structural complexity and spatial complexity in both robotic fabrication and digital computation.

Where the group was most innovative is in their combination of two observations: first, that space-frame lattices bear loads much greater than their own self-weight; and second, that traditional three-dimensional printing technologies waste a lot of material. Oftentimes, much more waste is produced than utilised. They therefore utilised agent-based systems in combination with robotic plastic filament extrusion to generate structural data in real time, mimicking the geometric patterns of a space-frame lattice structure. The structural data and resultant behaviour of material is analysed in real time. Any anomalies, mistakes or failures that occurred in the output of the material system were fed back into the digital model, allowing for the output to be continuously updated.

The discrete turn

All of the projects described above attempted to bring together more closely the design process with construction through the utilisation of novel digital tools and fabrication technologies in combination with a critique of the ways previous generations of architects utilised these tools. In 'Space-Truss Prototype', discrete thinking was embedded in the tectonics of continuity that structural space-frame lattices require in order to cope with their structural load. Furthermore, the infrastructure for production considers material behaviour in relationship to cost and accommodates for this from the outset of the project, as it was a design parameter. Similarly, the kind of design-to-manufacturing system 'Space Wires' developed holds the potential to revolutionise construction techniques due to its ability to adjust to changes in tolerance due to site conditions such as weather, soil composition or the inaccuracy of the machine itself. It is a system that is able to be combinatorial, versatile and agile. It is also capable of achieving multi-hierarchical resolution of surfaces, utilising the same system but slightly modifying its printing pattern, the viscosity of the material being printed and the path of the robotic printing head. SoftModelling folds real parameters of multiple systems into a single virtual design and simulation space, allowing for

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6 Robin Evans, ‘Translations from Drawing to Building’, in Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (London: Architectural Association Publications, 1997), 153–93.

7 The Business Value of BIM in North America: Multi-Year Trend Analysis and User Ratings (2007–2012) (New York: McGraw Hill Construction, 2012), 4.

8 Lev Vygotsky, Thought and Language (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962), 4.

9 Gilles Retsin, unpublished work shared with author, ‘Alien, Messy, Discrete: Strange Mereology and Discreteness’, 2014.

10 Stephen Wolfram, A New Kind of Science (Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media, Inc., 2002), 737.

11 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 1–2.

12 Wolfram, A New Kind of Science, 739.

13 Manuel De Landa, ‘Uniformity and Variability: An Essay in the Philosophy of Matter’, in Digital Tectonics, ed. Neil Leach, C. Turnbull and C. Williams (London: John Wiley, 2004), 19–20.

14 De Landa, ‘Uniformity and Variability’, 19–20.

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