Thesis Paper, April 2002
Understanding Virtual Reality
in Architecture:
The Merging of Theory and Praxis
Architects,
Designers, and engineers have been using computers for decades to increase
productivity, solve seeming insoluble problems, and for sophisticated presentations.
It is relatively recently that offices and "paperless studios" use
computers not only as a tool, but also as creative devices capable of generating
unconventional design ideas and forms for the built world. Our long held conventions
of architecture, space, and time, are being challenged as the digital supersedes
the real.
Though many architects prefer to stick to traditional
methods of practice and ignore the significance of new media, the relationship
of architecture to digital technology can be related. "In a general way,
the world of architectural praxis has negotiated a phase of uncompromising
skepticism towards digital instruments this phase given way to blind positivism"(Brizzi,
p.524)
The electronic revolution has supplanted the
industrial revolution. Through insight and inspiration is drawn from our predecessors
of the machine age, the architecture of the information has its own array
of leading figures. Using advanced computer applications, new spatial sensibilities
enable architects to challenge the most fundamental principles of structure,
order, and human perception. In this essay the understanding of virtual reality
will be critically addressed as a means of communication in architectural
theory and praxis.
II. Pertinent Definitions
In order to understand how the computer can enable architects to challenge
traditional notions of space, the aspects of space must be define clearly.
The terms virtual stems from the Latin virtus: potential essence or force;
when effective dormant forces become actualized, infinite trajectories vs.
a single truth. The actualization of the virtual is not the same as the realization
of the possible: it can never reach a state of closure. It is a blurring of
the distinction between perception and the representation of a rational notion
of space. In popular social construction of the virtual vs. real, everyday
experience is mirrored across an unbridgeable chasm in another reality. These
references in literature and film often seem threatening, futuristic, and
not human. Cyberspace is depicted as a lifeless and cold world; it is an anti-physical
vortex where we loose mind and body altogether.
Separating science fiction from science fact,
Peter Zellner, graduate of Harvard school of design, coined the term "coterminous
territories" to describe how architects are continually blurring the
electronic-virtual and material real structures (Hyper, p.14). For Zellner,
to guarantee the eternal life of existing architecture into the virtual requires
the combination of that architecture with other media disciplines. Examples
of this impact will be seen later in this essay.
Coterminous territories calls into question some
of the most basic and rational principles of Euclidean geometry. Euclidean
geometry is the study of point, lines, planes, and other geometric "flat"
figures, using the axioms of Euclid (c. 300bc). Modifications of Euclid's
parallel postulate provide the basis for non-Euclidean geometry. Non-Euclidean
is a term describing dynamic, durational, and transitional spaces where time
and space are connected variables represented by vector flows. This is in
opposition to the classical Cartesian philosophy. Continuous curvature, hyperbolic
surfaces, and intersecting geometric systems are examples of non- Euclidean
space. In these activated spaces, static and fixed points are replaced by
the stability of vectors and values that balance one another in phase space
(Lynn, p.15).
The representation of geometric quantities that
form the Cartesian conception of space was invented by Descartes. It is a
triple-axis XYZ fixed coordinate box or container. In this view, time and
force are independent variables adding a fourth, formally distinct, dimension
to the traditional three points in space. The Cartesian theorem states form
is not immanent to space but transcends it. Cartesian space thus revolves
around the central opposition between empirical dimension defined as having
spatial features, and the transcendent or spiritual dimension, autonomous
from empirical support (Hyper p.28)
The philosophy of Naga Studio Architecture reinforces this need to break out
of the Cartesian box and further explore topology: the branch of mathematics
dealing with continuous transformations. Turbulences
and flow lead to topological manifestations: "gravitational" enfoldment,
twisting, or bending of planes or volumes. For Tarek Naga, "Within this
philosophical paradigm, morphological concepts cannot be adequately generated
within the framework of Cartesian coordinates. An alternative spatio-temporal
coordinate system suitable for simultaneous unfoldment of space and time becomes
an inevitable evolutionary step…this architecture aspires to creating
space that is simultaneous emergent and convergent, imploding and exploding.
Space is physically and metaphysically charged with the desire to transform,
transmutate, and transfold itself (Naga p.1).
III Common Criticisms & Response
Criticism 1: In virtual
reality, it is too easy to loose your mind and body altogether in an insatiable
anti-physical vortex.
Response 1: Should virtual reality comfortably replicate physical reality?
Is there an architecture which in principle is impossible to build? The pursuit
of an object that can never be expressed in reality is not a new phenomenon.
At the end of the 18th century the dramatic structures of Etienne-Louis Boulee
were too gigantic to be realized. Similarly, the abstract art of Malevich
recognizes magnetism, gravity, radio waves and other invisible forces and
pulses in a world of objectless paintings. For architect Marcos Novak, the
liquid architecture of cyberspace is clearly immaterial and what he calls
"expressionistic formalism" (AA) It is an architecture composed
of changing relationships between a variety of abstract elements.
Conversely, even in the physical realm of our daily tasks, asks Zellner, how
often can one become lost or continue to operate on habitual auto pilot driven
by half conscious tendencies?
Criticism 2: Form generation
logic is an arbitrary process, abstract in geometry, and does not relate to
the human body. Architecture is static-it cannot incorporate or embody non-Euclidean
space, animation, or transformation.
Response 2: Refer to Greg Lynn form later in this essay.
Criticism 3: The ethics
and overuse of VR technology in architecture is addictive causing "virtual
fever". VR still remains unessential in our daily lives.
Response 3: The degree in which our global society is being networked is one
indication of the ubiquitous nature of VR. Everything from the cell phone,
ATM, swiping a credit card, global positioning satellite systems in automobiles,
and the Internet are examples of telecommunication networks that affect our
daily life. Increasingly in urban contexts, the reliance on technology is
becoming more of a necessity. The integration of electronic interfaces in
our daily life affects our cogitative response to virtual environments, organization
of information, and disembodied navigation. Refer to Stephen Perrella later
in this essay.
IV. Selected Architects and Practice
Architect
Frank Gehry's use of CATIA complex-curve generation software originated form
aeronautic engineering and automotive design. Architecture need no longer
be generated through static conventions of plan, section, and elevation. Instead,
buildings can be fully formed in 3 dimensional modeling, profiling, prototyping,
and digitized for manufacture. These digital visualizations are conceived
in virtual space and are neither informed by construction methods, the properties
of physical materials, or the morphological principles of space and structure;
usually imposing a strong constraint on architecture. Though costly for such
projects, convenience economics and distribution capacity shouldn't be the
sole determinant for the project constructability.
Architect Greg Lynn references the philosophies
of Delluze and Guattari where geometry is seen as an evolving language. He
also cited cubist and futurist artists Duchamp and Boccioni as conveying memory
in captured motion. Lynn seeks to advance the essence of traditional architecture
from its current state, an inert mode of thought providing a culture of stasis
(in his mind this is the basis of Cartesian theory.) He sees opportunities
to re-think the discipline by using computer aided techniques. Software originally
developed for special effects and character animations are used to manifest
and model complex behavior over time. With "manifold implications, animation
touches on many architects most deeply imbedded assumptions about structure
(Lynn p.9)". More specific, topology, time, and parameters are able to
be controlled and adjusted using computer virtuality. This method of design
marks a distinct shift from earlier architectural practice in the conception
of a building.
Greg Lynn contrasts architecture based on Cartesian
coordinates to other design fields where space is conceived as an environment
of forces, interacting vector quantities having properties of flow and turbulence
that create motion. Inherently not static, a building is in stasis after gravity,
loading, shearing, and earthquakes are taken into consideration. This is not
to say buildings physically change shape in actual movement, but virtually
occupy a multitude of possible positions. Lynn argues architecture can be
a participant in immersed dynamism; its formal conception defined by the co-presence
of motion and force.
"There can be little doubt that the advent
of computer-aided visualization has allowed architects to explore
calculus based forms for the first time…the challenge for contemporary
architecture theory and design is to try to
understand the appearance of these tools in a more sophisticated way than
as simply a new set of shapes" (Lyn p.16-17)
For Architect Stephen Perrella, virtual technologies produce new, heterogeneous interactive realms of human experience that bridge real and virtual. Rooted in a culture defined by a daily layering of physical and electronic transgressions, the media image (2D) increasingly intertwines with architectural form (3D). "While new technology is taking media into an unbounded zone we know as cyberspace, architectural form is also coming to question its Cartesian foundations" (Hyper p.5) Perrella seeks to portray the convergence of topological architecture and media. Neither matter nor media, in his Hypersurface theory he proposes a multi-spatial diagram for configuring real and virtual environments. Using the computer as creative tool, hypersurfaces has a range of effects acting as catalyst for provocations, associations, and temporal experiences.
"Just as photography changed architecture, virtual architecture will change architecture. It will become an act of violence towards architecture, and will do so by means of differentiation with respect to real space (AA)."
Perrellas
hypersurface studies reconstruct spatial practice as a transformative dynamic.
By mapping images onto a modeled fabric, the dichotomy of form-ornamentation
and substance vs. image are rejected. Perrella uses animation software and
a computers extraordinary capacity for iterative production to actualize these
constructions.
For Foreign Office Architects virtuality is
used to proliferate the real towards unexpected directions. "It is obvious
that information technology has been a very important tool in the development
of out work…the computer not only allows us to mimic a pre-existing reality,
but also to construct organizations and images that we have never seen before,
and that we could have never seen- and therefore we could have never imagined-without
it's existence(CC) .
Conclusion
Developed for disciplines other than architecture,
the advent of advanced computer applications is helping these architects and
many others to redefine the theory and praxis or architecture. These new spatial
sensibilities enable inspiring forms through technology, embody elements of
dynamism, and break away from a traditional architecture of stasis. Most important
the potentialities of virtuality articulate a new human response and awareness
that is characteristic of the information age.
Bibliography
1. Animate Form, Greg Lynn, 1998 Princeton Architectural Press
2. Hypersurface Architecture, Edited by Stephen Perrella, 1999 Architectual Design vol 69
3. Hybrid Space, New Forms in Digital Architecture, Peter Zellner, 1999 Rizzoli New York