WK2 Reading

The term of versioning is not relies on the necessity of the archetype to be manipulated and changed over time with the end goal of producing a master type for eventual mass production. Instead, versioning can be characterised by a set of conditions organised into a menu or nomenciature capable of being configured to address particular design criteria. By not replying on a formal apparatus or protoform, the practice of versioning is capable of responding in a nonlinear manner to multiple influences. By developing an elemental vocabulary of conditions in the planning stages for each project or project type, the practice of architecture becomes less about a search for a specific overriding form and more about a specific formal means of production to address variable conditions. Versioning also extends to methods of practice where nontraditional use of architectural theory is appropriated by other disciplines. If versioning operates at different scales within a design it should also operate at different scares of practice. It allowing the structures to controll all aspects of the work. Versioning is instrumental in allowing the practice of architecture and design to return to a vertical organisational structure similar to the 'master builder' of the Renaissance. Their invention of new forms of digital drawing and manufacturing is closer to Brunelleschi's systems of variable brick models than it is to the image-gemerating machines of the architects of the 'dot-blob bust'. When building the Duomo in Florence. The work of the architects can be local or international, but the designers use the technology to create a true integration of the process of construction no matter what space/time conditions exist. They are using innovating building materials and construction techniques to expand the possibilities of design and effect, and to keep all aspects of construction under their control. The forces that shape it, and the assemblage of materials in which we execute the ideology are part of the same gesture. This is not a call to replace the human act of design with algorithms, but a critical search for a common language between design and execution. The resulting control of these processes empowers the architect to take on the role of the translator of unforeseen relationships simultaneously in imagined and real space. The terms of Kolmogorov's definition of descriptive complexity: a printout of the program code together with a table of all parameter-sets still needs less paper than all the workshop-drawings. But this is misleading: both descriptions define the same degree of complexity, only in different languages. The algorithm is much easier to handle than the set of drawings - especially when it comes to changes - but it is just a translation of the same description. This translation, does not come for free. It takes energy in the form of brain action to come up with a clever algorithm. All the parametric planning effort would be largely useless without digitally controlled(CNC) fabrication tools that allow the production of individual components at almost the price of mass production. Those tools are widely available by now, but they are neither small, nor cheap. This knowledge is available at early design stages, in order to optimize the design towards the fabrication method.