Future Computing Lab

8/23/2013

Of the labs that we have toured, I think that computer vision is the easiest to understand as architects. They deal with space, the study of space, and the way that people use space. Their motivations for study are roughly similar to architects, and the relevance of their research is immediately recognizable from the architectural perspective. While they are not interested in the form-making aspect of design, I think their work provides the greatest amount of overlap into the study of architecture, and through a mutual understanding allows us the greatest insight into the motivations of computational study.

Firstly, I’d like to address the process of spatial study using computer vision, and then move onto the larger implications, and motivations. I know, that one of the greatest challenges is the technology behind the scenes. Each research project is limited by the type and amount of information that can be gathered. They can not easily tell the qualities of a person that are readily available through observation, thus studies focus on positional qualities, and time spent at any one location.  I don’t think this is really a bad thing from a spatial study perspective, since the path that people take through a space is much more interesting than what color shirt they are wearing.

From an architectural perspective it’s interesting because throughout the design process we can, but do not have to think about the way people will inhabit the space. Whereas the FCL only study the way people move through space, architects can take multiple inspirations to flesh out a design. They can draw from precedent, general design guidelines, or even take a form-making approach, where the inspiration is not inhabitation at all, but rather the overall configuration of space. In this way, the research is just a focused study of one piece the spatial design that seeks a more scientific approach to our understanding of space.

It seems to be a common theme among the labs that we visited. Each topic, from a computational perspective is about creating a technological framework through which graphics, interaction, or spaces can be measured and analyzed. From a simplistic perspective, it would seem that the research encroaches on much of the work that designers have traditionally done. However, computers can not understand the abstract work that designers do, and all of this research is not about replacing designers, but getting computers to a point were they can understand all of these things.