Week 12

In Towards an Associative Architecture, Bernard Cache opens with a company named Objectile whose soul intention was to develop a software that was able to be utilised in every architecture firm whilst still being effective and affordable. Using digital technology meant that architecture could become more cost effective, time efficient and be able to modify and generate quicker.

Cache describes associative architecture as “the key issue of digital architecture”. The limitation of geometries and numerical parents makes it more complex and restricting. As Cache explains “ ..associativity means to establish a seamless set of relations between a few control points and the 765 programs needed to manufacture it.. “ .

He uses the Semper Pavilion as an example of its use of associative architecture. He explains its complexities and geometries, and the software that was available to the creators at that time that would restrict them. Furthermore construction detailing of the project was over viewed. Objectile’s panel machine program enables the user to send information to create the curvilinear geometries. However in the Pavilions situation the complexity of it meant that a program that could support it would’ve needed to be generated.

In the Editorial of Open Source Architecture, the idea of sharing on the internet becoming a map of internet nodes is raised. The connectivity and networking of information is a vision that brings people together, physically and digitally. The internet provided people with ways to come together with other people that shared the same interests.  “People wanted to find people. They wanted to share their lives.” Sites and companies such as Facebook and Twitter make visions like this possible, however the instability of privacy becomes an issue when people are projecting their lives so vicariously on the internet.

Open Compute Project is a company that constructs data centres which are energy efficient. The idea is that other companies could learn from what they have achieved, which coincidentally was achieved through the networking of ideas through mediums such as Facebook.

Through the internet, connectivity and the ability to collect and project ideas is possible. Without it many incredible ideas that have benefited all spectrums of interests and communities may not have been realised and created. 

Readings:

“Editorial – Open Source Architecture,”* in Domus 948 (June 2011): i-iv.

Cache, Bernard, “Toward an Associative Architecture,”* in Digital Tectonics, edited by Neil Leach, David Turnbull & Chris Williams (2004): 102-109.