Week 10

Who is the moderator of style? Architects strive to uncover the next ism within their work, like Mies is to modernism, is ZHA to Parametricism? Neil Leach aggressively deliberates Patrick Schumacher’s branding of parametricism as the new style, by first outlining the divide between; parametric (software based incremental manipulation of design aspects or parameters, which intern manipulate the entirety of the assembly) and algorithmic design (the use of scripting language, allowing the designer to invert the user interface and design through the direct manipulation of code, not form) stating that one should not become confused between the two and a clear distinction must be maintained. To then reconcile that the parametric and algorithmic are intrinsically dependant “we now find ourselves in a dialectical situation where code and form rely upon another.” Leach then gives expression to the use of Parametricism as title, not function for the new order of style.

How does a digital age, where the use of ‘the cloud’ which dictates a disillusion between reality and cyberspace, manage to establish architectural relevance when computation jargon usurps the established principals of architecture (form, structure, program, etc…)? John Frazer hypothesises that the digital realm enhances sensory and emotional response in the physical realm to an extent where the human condition is a hybrid cyborg of blood flowing through coaxial cables. Inevitably, Frazer draws conclusion that due to the linear processing nature of computerisation, the emphasis of architecture has shifted from product to process, highlighting an algorithmically based design process where code dictates geometry. However, this hybridised state must give way to the human within. Processing is made palatable through parametricism, as the rational of beauty and style take over from the cyber-centric object, devoid of reality, gravity or taste.

I come back to the idea that Parametricism is the new style; I am torn between Schumacher and Leach. I do think that the new form of curvilinear, data based design is the forefront of our digital age as we know it, however if the form is not being designed but the process has now become the design. Are we creating a new style or a new process? Can this then become quantifiable as shape, or is the constructs of ism’s ideologically centric? All I can confidently conclude is that Microsoft word is yet to catch up on the ‘new style’ as red squiggles suggest the inconclusiveness of parametricism as the new style, or maybe I just spell it wrong.