3.3.1. The technological choices of Greg Lynn and Peter Eisenman 146
3.3.2. Bernard Cache’s technological choices 149
3.3.3. From pencil to computer mouse 151
3.3.4. Architects who became digital specialists 153
3.3.5. Standardization in question 154
3.3.6. Fascination for the curve 156
3.3.7. Back and forth between theory and practice 158
3.4. Mapping of theoretical transfers 159
3.4.1. Deleuze and architecture 159
3.4.2. The Fold across the Atlantic 161
3.4.3. An operational fold 162
3.4.4. Deterritorializing the Fold: at what cost? 163
3.5. Strategies: productive effects of the Deleuzian Fold on architecture 166
3.5.1. Objective and modulation 166
3.5.2. The blob, a theoretical and geometrical curiosity 168
3.5.3. Towards a surface architecture? 171
3.5.4. Morphogenesis and accidents 172
3.6. Conclusion: towards a technological determinism? 174
3.7. References 176
Chapter 4. Hijacking the Tool: Towards a Transformation of the Architectural Representation 181 Samuel BERNIER-LAVIGNE
4.1. The detour 181
4.1.1. From tool to instrument 182
4.1.2. The question of representation in the digital age 184
4.2. Hijacking the software 187
4.3. Hijacking the machine 198
4.4. Conclusion 207
4.5. References 207
Chapter 5. The Designer in the Informational Shift 211 Aurélie DE BOISSIEU
5.1. Introduction 211
5.2. Leaving the notation regime: introducing emerging practices 212
5.2.1. Data in the computational turn 212
5.2.2. The information regime in practice with BIM 213
5.2.3. Computational design. 216
5.2.4. Towards a definition of "data-driven design" 219
5.3. Evolution of possibilities and design postures in the informational shift 221
5.3.1. Possibility space in relation to the data, some examples 221
5.3.2. "Evidence-based" and "performance-based" postures 225
5.3.3. Issues of integrated multi-objective performance 226
5.4. Risk and data requirements 229
5.4.1. Biases and limitations of the datasets 229
5.4.2. The contributions and constraints of BIM to produce and maintain data collaboratively 230
5.5. Data management opportunities for new approaches to projects 232
5.5.1. BIM and the rise of data-supported collaboration 232
5.5.2. The risks of data silos and the challenges of interoperability 234
5.6. Conclusion 235
5.7. References 236
List of Authors 241
Index 243
While it is undeniable that architectural practices have been transformed with the advent of digital technologies, they nevertheless continue to occupy an ambiguous or even problematic place within the design process. The underlying premise of this book on architectural design instruments is not to see them simply as means to an autonomous end, one that is pure and detached from any other technological aspect, but instead to see these instruments and their formative abilities as a different way in which architects can approach design. We maintain that it is through the very act of experimentation with these instruments that their various potentials are revealed and established. It is through such repeated experimentation, which is constantly being revised and consolidated, that practice is successfully and sustainably transformed.
About the Author Sébastien Bourbonnais is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture of Laval University, Canada. He has taught at several Écoles Nationales Supérieures d'Architecture (National Architectural Colleges) in France, is a research consultant at Asynth and a research associate at EVCAU.