Zac Porter

Technology presents a problem for the individual. When placed inside a system, they become just another cog in the system. Their interpretation of the environment does not matter when systematic analysis drives design. The individual becomes the righteous hero, fighting for their individual liberties. With the imagery this rage against the machine brings, garnering support for this heroic view is not hard.

At the core, Zac seems to encourage above all else, the subjectivity of analysis. The point gets muddled somewhere between the landscape, and anti-technology arguments, but it is not an unreasonable position to take. Of course everyone experiences architecture and landscape differently. He takes the position, however, from such a distant point, that architectural interventions become impossible. Taking his view, the architect has no right, or no way, to interpret the environment successfully, as only the individual can truly see [the subjective] meaning.

To respond, I don’t think we should ignore the individual experience in space. The position Zac takes is not wholly unreasonable. But that should not stop us from taking a systematic (technologic) approach to design. He may be trying to “swing the discourse back” towards individualism, but that seem preemptive when digital architecture is still in a relatively infantile stage. The individual may be de-emphasized, but they system does not have to do away with their interpretation.

The greatest paradox of Zac’s argument arose with his analysis of imagined landscapes. He used them as a basis for individual interpretation and non-systematic logic, but never acknowledged that the entire system was of his design. He made the landscape, he drew the grid, he drew the analysis graph, and he provided he labels for each significant point. From an artistic standpoint, this all fine, but the process is so insulated from any exterior forces, that it becomes impossible to say that the analysis proves anything. The only difference between a technologic system, and his imagined landscapes, is that the technologic system must choose to, or admit to, ignoring context. In his imagined landscapes they only conflicts that he had do deal with were imagined.

Individual-centric design is not bad, but from a development standpoint, it is not a productive position to take. We can not make any progress if we keep holding back.

Geodesign

The intro to geodesign was interesting for the fact that is exactly the thing architects’ hate, having to design based on a set of evidence. However, the study of the surrounding area, and integration of information in the design process is very prevalent in urban design and landscape architecture. In these fields, the product of the design process is not a singular piece of a larger designed system. Instead, the product is the system in which architecture sites, and as a system, it must respond to emergent properties of the area. This is why architecture can get away with not following evidence of its surroundings, because it responds to the larger “designed” landscape and can choose to integrate or reject it. On the contrary, an urban system cannot reject itself; only change the trajectory of the current system.

In the case of urban design and landscape architecture geodesign, and the tools that allow it to be integrated into the design process are extremely useful. The ability to study and design around existing and predicted growth means that designers can control, or influence, the 4^th dimension of design, time. It’s a quality that is readily visible to the two fields, but really only accessible to architects through the weathering of materials. While its possible to create form that is derived from a topological understanding of time, it is not yet possible to create buildings that respond to the passage of time. Barring a sudden, dramatic shift in our anthropological understanding of buildings, people will still walk the same way through the halls, they will enter through the door, and the way that people inhabit spaces will be the same. Urban spaces change, and that is the reason that evidence, or layers of information are extremely important to the design process, and I think geodesign, and its quest for better tools to integrate information into the process will eventually sway the opinion of architects who will find a good use for the vast amounts of information available about the city and the environment.

Ideas Seminar: Ming-Chun Lee

Ideas Seminar: Ming-Chun Lee

Date: September, 27, 2013

Professor Ming-Chun Lee has been working the digital technologies in urban design, planning processes and integrating computers into every aspect of urban design and planning. He talked about GeoDesign, digital visualization, GIS, 3D graphic media in urban design. GeoDesign is an approach to city planning, land use and natural resource management that takes into geospatial modeling, impact simulations to facilitate urban design using geographic information system (GIS) data. GIS is collection of data for managing, visualizing and analyzing geographic information. GeoDesign brings GIS into the design process and allows initial design sketches to be investigated for suitability against a lot of database layers describing a variety of physical and social factors of our real world for the spatial extent of the project.

GeoDesign enables designers to think about data as part of a creative decision-making process and to translate geospatial analysis into urban design. Through design thinking, coupled with GIS analysis and digital programming, we can make urban scenarios as much we want. Data mapping helps us assess the consequences of different scenarios. I can understand the analysis of physical planning issues and problems, and how to use digital technologies in urban design processes, and the creation of design solutions during his lecture. I think the advantage of the digital approach to GeoDesign, GIS is an effective tool for analyzing complex spatial relationships within urban environments and further refining their design solutions based on knowledge learned from spatial analysis processes. In addition, designers can explore ways to better integrate GIS with other digital visualization programs for effective presentations and communications. Similar tools will save a lot of time spent in the debugging process and increase efficiency.