1st Edition

Cybernetic Architectures Informational Thinking and Digital Design

By Camilo Andrés Cifuentes Quin Copyright 2022
    164 Pages 38 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    164 Pages 38 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    For the past 50 years, the advancements of technology have equipped architects with unique tools that have enabled the development of new computer-mediated design methods, fabrication techniques, and architectural expressions. Simultaneously, in contemporary architecture new frameworks emerged that have radically redefined the traditional conceptions of design, of the built environment, and of the role of architects.

    Cybernetic Architectures argues that such frameworks have been constructed in direct reference to cybernetic thinking, a thought model that emerged concurrently with the origins of informatics and that embodies the main assumptions, values, and ideals underlying the development of computer science. The book explains how the evolution of the computational perspective in architecture has been parallel to the construction of design issues in reference to the central ideas fostered by the cybernetic model. It unpacks and explains this crucial relationship, in the work of digital architects, between the use of information technology in design and the conception of architectural problems around an informational ontology.

    This book will appeal to architecture students and scholars interested in understanding the recent transformations in the architectural landscape related to the advent of computer-based design paradigms.

    Preface

    Acknowledgements

    Chapter 1. Introduction

    The informational view

    Information, feedback and entropy

    The triangulation effect

    The triangulation effect in digital architecture

    Digital architecture as a seriation

    Chapter Outline

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Chapter 2. Cybernetics and the architecture of performance

    The performative turn in digital architecture

    The cybernetics of Performance Design

    The performativity of digital architecture

    Performative tools, buildings and users

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Chapter 3. Architectural Systems

    General Systems Theory

    Organization, totality and teleology

    The isomorphism and the unity of science

    The systems view of the world

    The cybernetics of the systems view

    The systems view in architecture

    The autonomy of architecture

    Biology as a model

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Chapter 4. Genetic Mechanisms

    Informational thinking, informatics and biology

    From the genetic code to bioinformatics

    Towards a genetic architecture

    The utopic turn of genetic architecture

    The genetic view and the ontologization of information

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Chapter 5. Complex Phenomena

    Complexity thinking

    Complex Systems

    The cybernetics of complexity thinking

    Architecture as a complex system

    Emergent and self-organized form

    The material computation of architecture

    End of the journey

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Chapter 6. The Platonic Backhand and Forehand of Cybernetic Architecture

    Political fiction or science fiction?

    A critical tool

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    Camilo Andrés Cifuentes Quin is an Architect experienced in architectural design. He is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Habitat Sciences at La Salle University, Bogotá. His research focuses on the impact of information technology in the recent transformations of the architectural landscape and the exploration of computer-based design paradigms in design practice. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Los Andes University, Bogotá, a Postgraduate Diploma in Computational Design from ELISAVA (Barcelona School of Design and Engineering), a Masters of Architecture from ENSAG (École Nationale Supériere d’Architecture de Grenoble), and a Ph.D. in Architecture from UPC-Barcelona Tech.