interview fromA&B issue 03 | 2022
The architect's profession has gone through many different stages in its history, and the architect himself has constantly redefined the scope of his competencies and responsibilities going by the title that only a few could boast. The role of the architect went from builder to consultant, designer. We moved from construction sites to enclosed spaces, so that there, using drafting tables, we could continue to shape the world around us. Not so long ago, on the other hand, the profession went from a completely private mode of passing knowledge from father to son to a public profession, and almost yesterday our profession was completely transformed by the introduction of cadow programs and the move from drawing tables and sheets to the computer screen. So what does the constant development of new architectural design tools mean for us, and are we in for another revolution? This is what I discussed with Marcin Strzela, a lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology and a doctoral student in the field of computer paradigm.
Marcin STRZAŁA - Designer exploring the transdisciplinary nature of architecture in the digital era. His academic work explores the interplay between digital data and its physical representation, particularly in the context of additive manufacturing methods. He is a former lecturer at Monash Art, Design and Architecture in Melbourne and a visiting teacher at Xi "an University of Architecture and Technology in China. He lectures on the digital paradigm in design at the School of Form at SWPS University and at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, where he has been involved with the Architecture for Society of Knowledge program since its inception.
Klaudiusz Szwajka: Marcin, you have been involved in parametrics for more than a decade, what exactly is parametrics and what made you interested in it?
Marcin Strzała:I more often use the term "algorithmic design" or "computational design," because parametrism itself is very much associated with the architectural style identified with Zaha Hadid ergo Patrik Schumacher, which is not so much a change in thinking as simply an evolution of style. Another of the many "-isms." In contrast, the parametrism we're talking about refers more to the impact of digital tools on how we think, and therefore how we design, rather than what style. A design that is remotely parametric can be at once like a Zaha Hadid masterpiece and a Palladian villa. Parametric design in this view, as opposed to the standard use of the computer as an advanced drafting tool, uses digital tools to create processes, algorithms that lead us to design solutions. The etymology of the word "digital" itself describes it well. In Polish, it is borrowed from the Arabic sifr, meaning "empty," but the English digital already derives from the Latin digitus, meaning "finger," and algorithms appear wherever we run out of possibilities from counting on our fingers. Computational design is where we stop relying on fingers, trusting intuition, thinking arbitrarily about what we are doing, and every line, even the simplest, becomes the result of articulated logic. Of course, processes of this type have been around since the beginning of architecture, particularly vernacular architecture. One of the most frequently used parameters in history is the brick. Usually the builder didn't think that he had to build a wall for 2 meters only for, let's say, 30 bricks, and this is a kind of parametric thinking. That's why highly parametric can be both Zaha Hadid's designs and a Palladian villa. What has changed in terms of the fact that we have new tools is that we can perform such simple algorithmic transformations-calculations infinitely more and more easily than ever before, to a degree that eludes our powers of perception. As Mario Carpo points out, today the cost of storing and processing digital data is negligible.
3D model of a structure composed of several thousand elements not thicker than two millimeters
© archives of Marcin Strzała
Claudius: You mention that parametrism is associated by many with fluid forms, with the structural aspect of design, while at the same time you refer to vernacular architecture. How do you connect computing with something as subjective and delicate as vernacular architecture?
Marcin: Vernacular architecture alludes to a building tradition that stems from the physicality of the material and pure necessity, rather than an afterthought of a theoretical nature, it comes up from time to time. At the moment when, while working in the digital paradigm, we come to full abstraction, the thought comes: well, okay, but why all this, and then we usually start looking for sources. In my case, it was related to research, in which I was dealing with methods for designing, simulating and optimizing the microstructures of building components produced using additive manufacturing methods, the so-called 3D printing. Imagine the brick referred to earlier with a consciously designed internal structure. Such a module contained a few to several thousand elements in each cubic decimeter. To quote Cedric Price, "technology is the answer, but what was the question?", and it is in the context of this that the return to vernacularity appears. We are developing more and more sophisticated tools to find the answers, while we have to look for the questions in the return to the roots: how to build more efficiently, how to use local materials effectively, how to optimize architecture in the context of local environmental conditions?
Claudius: You consider computerized design as another tool in the architect's work. Do you think computation will become a requirement in architecture, is it already happening, or is it still an aspect that sets applicants apart from the crowd?
Marcin: Both. A deep knowledge of tools still sets applicants apart from the crowd. I know many students who, coming out from under our wings, have easily found jobs in well-known architectural practices in Poland and around the world. Is this necessarily required? Perhaps not yet. At least in the Polish context, you can plot the design in CAD, and probably even on carbon paper, nevertheless, there is a trend and more and more such requirements are being imposed on the industry, within five or ten years computer-aided design will become standard. If only in the context of environmental analysis and simulation, which at this point ceases to be, as it was before, an additional aspect that adds value to the project, and becomes a requirement. I often tell my students that while in our offices it is still treated as a kind of novelty and something we are trying to implement, in many European countries the BIM model has become a basic element of documentation. I am convinced that it will soon become a requirement, and how quickly we adapt to these changes will determine how quickly we achieve new quality and how competitive we will be. We can continue to insist that it is possible to build a house based on hand-drawn or AutoCAD drawings, but that will end at some point, if only because of regulations.
{Image@url=https://cdn.architekturaibiznes.pl/upload/galerie/77245/images/original/0460422e89f8a3e5548a8a6e9e4f9dff.jpg,alt=analiza truncated octahedrons,title=analysis of truncated octahedrons}
left and below: a standard network created from truncated octahedrons with optimized element thicknesses, arranged along the axis of the coordinate system; the same structure whose arrangement is the result of an evolutionary algorithm whose goal was to find such an angle and axis of rotation at which both the sum and average loads in the elements will be minimal (above and right)
© archives of Marcin Strzała
Claudius: Apart from the fact that computerization streamlines our work and reduces the time it takes to do it, what can the digital paradigm give us that we can't achieve on a piece of paper and with traditional methods? What doors does it open for us?
Marcin: It doesn't allow us to do anything we couldn't imagine before. A computer is nothing more than an advanced abacus. It works in the same way as with the invention of the microscope and telescope, when we suddenly found that the previous achievements of mathematics were no longer enough for us, and John Napier and Henry Briggs created logarithms. With the invention of the logarithm, the astronomer's work reduced calculus, which often took him years, to a few operations. It is very similar with computer architecture. It's not that it allows us to do something, it just allows us (because of the speed of these operations) to get answers to problems that would have taken us hundreds of years using standard tools. I like to explain this with the example of Lego bricks. How many combinations can be arranged from two identical 2 by 4 pins? There are 24 such unique combinations, and probably each of us can count them, using our imagination. The problem begins to arise when there are already 6 of these blocks. It would seem that this is not much, and while stacking them one on top of the other is a simple task in combinatorics, if we assume that more blocks can be plugged in any way we want, traditional mathematics no longer provides the answer. Danish mathematician Søren Eilers, to solve this very task, created a computer program that calculated that there are more than 915 million such combinations. The computer took more than a week to do it. If we were to assume that we would perform this operation manually and put together another one of these unique combinations every 30 seconds, it would take us a mere 870 years. What computational tools enable us to do in this connection is, first of all, precisely to ask questions based on deeper mathematical problems and obtain answers that, as we said, elude our perception.
Claudius: If we are able to write an algorithm that does the work for us, does that mean that the role of the architect can be replaced by these programs? If not, what does that mean for us as architects?
Marcin: It is certainly not the case that the architectural profession will disappear. Some aspects will be automated, this is happening in all industries. Where we used to need an engineer, today the calculations are done for us by software; something that computers can't do on their own is to ask the right questions. If we have a lot of rules and parameters, it's easy to create the right computer program. Therefore, the first to be affected by the process of automation will be those aspects of architecture that are subject to a large number of legal, formal, but also material and technical factors. In contrast, the layer of intuition and expression is much more difficult for us to write down, even if we are its authors.
calculation of forces and moments, which, despite the growth of bars geometrically, on the scale of a few, tens and hundreds of thousands, respectively, takes a few seconds
© archives of Marcin Strzała
Claudius: Speaking of these changes that await us, it would be logical to say that we are also facing a change in the teaching system. You have been teaching architecture for more than a decade, as a lecturer at the Warsaw University of Technology, as a visiting teacher at Xi "an University of Architecture and Technology or at Monash University in Melbourne. How do you evaluate education in Poland compared to foreign modes of teaching architecture?
Marcin: I very often say that if I were to hire someone for a job, I would definitely hire a student from the Warsaw University of Technology, because our system nevertheless prepares very well for the practice of the profession. On the other hand, if I were to talk to someone about theoretical issues, then I would definitely look among my Australian students, where much more importance is placed on critical thinking about who the architect actually is, what, for what purpose and for whom he or she is designing.
Claudius: So don't you think, based on what we said earlier, that this is the direction we should be going too? That is, to move from the technical aspect to a more humanistic, sensitive aspect that we can't replace?
Marcin: I think that the middle way is the best way, one where we have a basis flowing from practice and at the same time are prepared to talk intellectually about things that are less obvious. On the other hand, in this new paradigm, even theoretical considerations must be grounded in reality, because only then are we also able to ask the right questions and seek the right answers. Here we are juxtaposing two systems of education in the field of architecture. The dominant model at many major universities in Poland and Europe, which is an evolution of the Bauhaus school, and the Anglo-Saxon model mentioned above, which is more theoretical. I believe that in looking for this new path it is a little easier for us if we have years of engineering education behind us. We just have to allow ourselves to start getting into theory. On the other hand, in the Anglo-Saxon system, it is more difficult to introduce it if we talk about the architecture of big ideas from the beginning, and we don't know how it touches the ground. This process of moving towards a new paradigm in Poland is already slowly taking place. At the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, it has been happening more or less since I have been working here, since the English-language Architecture for Society of Knowledge (ASK) master's program was launched through the efforts of Professor Stefan Wrona, Professor Jan Słyk and current Dean Krzysztof Koszewski, among others. This was the first specialty program detached from what and how it was standardly taught at architecture universities in Poland. The classical curriculum was replaced by the study of process, digital tools and design through experimentation. Some of this homework based on ASK was later used when implementing the specialty track at WAPW. It has been the case for several years now that students in the master's program can choose one of the specializations for themselves, making their subjects more focused on the theoretical aspects of architecture that interest them.
visualization of the so-called parametric solution space, alternative versions of the design resulting from changes in parameters;
The parametric model describes the logic of the geometry of one of Félix Candela's designs
© archived by Marcin Strzała
Claudius: If you could change one issue in the current educational system, what would it be?
Marcin: This is a very complex topic, but I think the economic realities in our country are very important. There are still many students who expect first and foremost practical preparation for the profession, and not necessarily the ability to think creatively or participate in architectural discourse. The fact that our students very often have to start working during their studies for purely financial reasons reinforces the desire to enter the profession as soon as possible. The study program in many cases becomes an obstacle for them, an unpleasant obligation on the way to achieving this goal. At the same time, those of them who are interested in the theoretical aspects of the profession are overloaded by the volume of the basic training program. In a master's degree program, students spend an average of five hours a day in class, to which must be added time for preparation. This leaves students with far too little time and space, even for problem-based and experimental projects, including in an intellectual sense, to think critically and really focus on the issues at hand. In comparison, Australian students at the same level of study must complete one project subject, one accompanying theory seminar and one additional elective subject in a semester. Based on the experience of teaching in that environment, I believe we should further free the master's degree program from this burden of practice and core curriculum.
designing parametric spaces
© archives of Marcin Strzała
Claudius: If you had to give one piece of advice to people starting out in computer-aided design, what would it be?
Marcin: A lot of humility towards the issue and focus on what, why and finally how I want to design. Paradoxically, I suggest to students that before they even turn on the computer, they should write down all these questions on a piece of paper, and then plan in detail how to arrive at solutions. Computer methods are just tools to make it easier for us to get the answers, but, as I said, the question of the right question always remains with us.
Claudius: Thank you for the interview.
interviewed: Kla udiusz SWAJKA
Illustrations provided courtesy of Marcin Strzała.
