Thursday, March 5, 2015

Talk Dennis Lagemann

Another approach to space – Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design

Date: Mar 11 2015, 12:00-13:00
Location: ETH Zürich Hönggerberg Campus (Science City)
Building HIL Room E 67.1 (Bloody Hell)

What if computation could do more than just deliver increasingly intriguing geometries? What if computation could offer us a look at the spaces that are conceivable but not yet imaginable: computed as pure information topologies. Metrical space, especially geometrical space could then be rendered into this relational framework. Life-Design of urban society has changed during the last decades. New media have entered our perception to a degree never imagined by future sciences of the past. So the question if space-time can still be considered as a single layer in reality arises in philosophy, physics... and Architecture? And for urban society? Individualization takes command. Being special becomes normality. Programs inhabit spatialities, people work and dwell and make company in short, due to increasing nomadism and fluctuation. Three protagonists are sent in for discussion. Alberti, who is deemed to have created the modern image of 'the Architect', Ledoux, who might best be described as a cultural engineer, preceded shape and transformation grammars and Habraken who reminds us that the ordinary may create spaces far more appropriated than any Architect will ever be able to invent. But in urban areas, where the life plans of many intersect but should not collide, where comfort should be provided on limited and affordable space, the question arises if these appropriations are still appropriate, whether stacking and adding single use areas in uniform grammars can still be the answer. Maybe the everyday use of space already does find answers Architecture did not yet take into account.