Cover of Conditions # 4

Article published in Conditions # 4: THE PRODUCTION OF ADDED VALUE , 2010

This issue of CONDITIONS is an investigation into the production of added value in architecture. The economic crisis has put architecture under increased pressure. Everybody wants “more for less” from architecture. The promise of “more” is everywhere in the world of architecture. Architects are in danger of getting reduced to mere service providers, unless they are able to increase the ambition beyond the given assignment.

Abstract:
The past 15 years have seen an open-ended, innovation driven development in the field of digital design in architecture, where the current ambitions are focused on fabrication and production. In many ways this is concluding a phase of free exploration by proving that things before envisioned can be actualized as built work. In parallel, the discourse has targeted critical practice, suggesting its replacement with projective practice, and design intelligence has been defined as a mode of operation that allows innovative architecture in a commercial arena. Recent attempts to conjecture a heterogeneous discourse into a collective manifesto, as well as a regard of the first decade of this century being characterized as “un-serious” in its formal approach, has been answered by critical voices that suggest that this trajectory of architectural development is superficial, internal, self-absorbed or even subversive.

This text is investigating the shifting field of digitally based design within architecture, and its recent turns, including internal discourse, external debate, and samples of especially potential design. It suggests that we need to multiply our agendas and combine techniques with agency. This needs to be supported by the establishment of new conceptual tools that incorporate digital techniques, the notion of the parametric and the potential of network practices in order to step up to the challenges of the future while building on the recent past. The text is illustrated by the work of Elliot Krause, Diploma Unit 16 2010.

www.conditionsmagazine.com

Abstract:

As the agenda of many digitally driven practices has shifted to physical fabrication and full scale production, this paper suggests that new conceptual layers need to be integrated into the design agenda. Throughout the field, architects are formulating conceptual frameworks for future development, often defined by aesthetic identity or fabrication principles, and in some cases full manifests for implementation of parametric principles in all scales of the built environment are stated. I would argue that there may be alternate ways of widening the scope of experimental digital practice by looking at fields outside of architecture all together, and I suggest that one such field is literature, in particular Science Fiction. Rather than seeing the possibility of rational fabrication as the only motivation for the full implementation of recent digital explorations, or considering the digital design field mature enough for the establishment of a common manifest, this line of thought suggests a more open framework, situated between technology and utopian thought. By looking at a number of concepts identified within Science Fiction theory, the paper proposes that a design approach in analogy with the way an SF author designs worlds to be explored through a narrative, could be a fruitful way forward as the digital design field risks either an introverted discourse or a mundane application.

Unpublished paper

thesis cover

My licentiate thesis Architectural Prototypes is now available for purchase in the Konstig bookstore in Stockholm. Very limited number of copies.

On the making of Holocene, a mutimedial event at Berwaldhallen, by Jonas Bohlin, Majgull Axelsson and Lars Siltberg. Performed by Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Radiokören with Malena Ernman.

Column in Rum journal 10/2008

Article speculating on the future role of the architect in industrialized production. Relating recent experimental practices to developments within other disciplines, such as Lean Thinking emerging in the automobile industry, the article also shows examples of best practice such as several project by the New York based architecture firm SHoP.

Published in Swedish in Arkitekten

Presentation of the Morphosis courthouse building in Eugene, Oregon, based on intervews with the architects in Los Angeles. Article in RUM 6/2007

Publication based on the report on modular housing for Boverket, researched and written by Ylva Gunterberg Ädelqvist and Jonas Runberger. Focused on the pragmatic aspects of modular housing and complete material of the featured case studies. Available in Swedish from Arkus

Overview of personal practice in research, teaching and practice, featuring the Krets projects SplineGraft and PARCEL as well as design project Show Unit in article in Skapande Människa 10-year anniversary publication.

This report is the result of a in-depth study on the industrial production of volumetric modules for housing in Scandinavia. The study was initiated by Ylva Gunterberg Ädelqvist and Jonas Runberger through Scheiwiller Svensson Architects. It is based on explicative case studies of five Swedish projects, as well as over 200 interviews with actors in teh field. The published report also includes a conclusion and vision on the role of the architect in future industrialized building processes. Available in Swedish from Byggkostnadsforum. Also available online here: www.boverket.se/upload/publicerat/bifogade%20filer/2006/bostader_byggda_med_volymelement.pdf

Co-authored with Ylva Gunterberg Ädelqvis. Study done as employee of Scheiwiller Svensson Architects.

This paper dwells on the notion of remediation in relation to collaborative spaces of design development and production within the Krets research group. The term implies the transformation of a material by shift of media, in which some characteristics native to the former remains in the later.

Paper presented at the Research Spaces conference at the Bartlett + the Slade, London