Commentary on the Meiso No Mori crematorium in Kakamigahara, Japan. Architect: Toyo Ito & Associates.
Noise Control offers a specific approach to design where noise is understood as a productive rather than destructive force. This approach is distinct from others in architecture, where the noise produced by entropic processes is simply accepted as inevitable, or from those that celebrate the purely picturesque nature of matter in a state of decay. Noise Control draws from an eclectic collection of sources ranging from contemporary dis-courses on matter and digital design, to disciplinary history and neighboring disciplines. It argues that the distortion produced by noise can be productively associated with the precision of digital design in order to produce specificmaterialsensibilities.These sensibilities lean towards the strange, because of their pe-culiar pairing of immediate, sensory experiences of matter with a slower set of associations that rely on manipulation of vaguely familiar objects.
This thesis investigates materialization and representation in contemporary architectural design practice. Due to cultural and technological shifts, the act of design is no longer squarely located in the abstract realms of drawings or digital geometries. Computer aided manufacturing, simulation and scanning offer new design opportunities that are located in the transfer between representation and material. This has given rise to a post-digital model of practice and thought, in which ‘real’ and discrete chunks of matter are incorporated at the earliest stages of design.
The thesis is practice-based, and spans in scope from design to technology to theory. The design work included explores materialization and representation from a particular point of view. In addition, it suggests a methodological approach to design, and explores the theoretical implications in this approach. These implications are addressed in two connected research questions: How can material processes, whether real or simulated, turn transfers between geometry and materialized objects into productive design opportunities? And how might material simulation alter the ways in which representations are conceptualized and used by architects? In parallel with practice-based work, the thesis suggests a theoretical framework for current issues of representation and materialization in architecture. This framework draws from the recent history of the digital turn in architecture as well as from recent design research work and theory in a post-digital turn.
This thesis makes contributions in three main areas. Through the design work Erratic, it makes a visceral case for how the use of material simulation might open up new ways of harnessing material agency. It positions simulation in the field of architecture in-between established polarities such as geometry vs. matter, virtual vs. real and drawing vs. mock-up. It discusses the conceptual difference between design based on geometry and design based on discrete pieces of material. Finally, it proposes that form in architecture increasingly can be conceptualized as ‘chunks,’ as opposed to reduced descriptions of geometry.
This paper examines how designers can invigorate designs with a sense of liveliness and indeterminacy through manipulation of pliable materials. Two approaches to material manipulation are defined and juxtaposed in the paper: The control associated with Frei Otto's elegantly tensioned membranes and the noise associated with Sigurd Lewerentz's intensely material brick walls. These historical approaches become pertinent in relation to current opportunities offered by material simulation software in architecture. Simulation may be used to increase control over the materialization of design, but is at the same time a way to introduce the noise of real-time, real-world experiments into digital design. The paper presents this discussion in parallel with documentation of the research project 'Erratic', a recent installation carried out by the authors' practice Norell/Rodhe. Constructed from polyurethane cold foam, the project combines analogue experiments with digital simulations to target architectural qualities like mass, figuration and relief.
The exhibition Taming the Erratic: Artefacts of Making examines the artefact as locus for the design process. It gathers a diverse set of studies carried out for the installation Erratic, ranging from digitally simulated models to full-scale material assemblies. Together, these artefacts outline an approach to process where transfers back and forth between the Euclidian space of the simulation and the real space of the material assembly become productive opportunities.