A Survey of Students
We belong to a generation of students for whom, almost at the same moment we entered the school of architecture, computer-aided design software also arrived in the universities. In the first years one rarely saw a project in which a computer had been used at all — even in the presentation. It was generally the final-year students who used this software, and such work, because it was new, made a strong impression on students and even on the teaching staff. At present, however, projects in which computer software has not been used in some way are few.
From the very moment the computer entered the universities, a great deal of argument broke out over whether or not to use it. At Azad University, whose own activity began at roughly the same time as the computer's arrival, there was less debate about it and it was on the whole regarded favourably. But at other universities — Tehran University, for instance, where freehand drawing existed as a value in its own right — the question was met far more sharply, and most students and teachers took a negative position against the use of the computer. Even now, a decade later, these arguments largely remain where they were. The reality, though, is that the computer now occupies a position that cannot, and should not, be ignored. In this issue, by distributing a questionnaire among students of various Iranian schools, we have tried to learn the different opinions and points of view that exist among students on the matter. Since the essence of architecture is the idea that makes it, and the designer's creativity is the principal force that produces an idea, the question put was this: can the use of computer software increase students' creativity in architectural design?
Forty percent of the respondents answered no. One group among these opponents of the computer holds that using the computer not only fails to produce creativity but that, as a tool compared with the tools already available, it offers fewer possibilities and "the power to transmit creativity — the time spent using this software is reduced, because it creates no sensory connection" (Maryam Harakati, Shahid Beheshti University). Apparently one belief has had a large share in the emergence of this attitude, and that is the question of "freehand" in architecture! "It seems that many students, despite being ignorant of many of the principles of perspective and unable even to draw a straight line, use the computer to take many Views of their own project… From the moment we entered the university the slogan has been that drawing a line is the architect's sign of existence…" (Mahta Ostovari, Tehran University)
"Freehand" too, like the computer, is a skill that in the end serves to present the architectural idea. Insisting on it beyond all measure causes the substance of the matter — the very essence of architecture, the idea — to be lost. The principle of architecture takes shape in a part of the body other than the designer's hand: in his brain and his mind. The notion that if an architect's hand were broken, as Renzo Piano's was, he could no longer design seems a little heavy-handed! Of course one cannot and should not deny the capacities of designing by hand as against the computer. But on the other side, computers too place before the design possibilities that were previously out of reach. Insisting on either of these skills cannot serve to refute the other. Besides, the computer has given those who had difficulty presenting architecture with the older means the opportunity to present their ideas more easily.
One of the opposing respondents said: "Of course the computer may increase creativity in the packaging of projects and give the work some colour and gloss, and this unfortunately attracts the greater attention of those teachers who are not familiar with the computer…" (Natasha Fahim, Azad Tehran)
In this answer, which is a kind of complaint about the computer's distorting role, the criticism is in truth directed at teachers who, through insufficient knowledge, fail to assess the substance of the architecture. The attractive and beautiful presentation of a work is in itself a worthy piece of work. In any case, the new possibilities this tool has placed at designers' disposal will certainly bring about fundamental changes in architectural design.
As one example, computers have made it possible for the architect to have control over every component of his architecture at the moment of designing. The affirmative answer of sixty percent of the students questioned reflects exactly this, and an understanding of conditions as they now stand in the world.
A Conversation with Reza Daneshmir
Reza Daneshmir, born in 1344 (1965), graduated in architecture from the Iran University of Science and Technology in 1370 (1991). Since 1373 (1994) he has taught architecture at the Azad universities of Tehran and Tabriz, while at the same time collaborating with various architectural offices — among them Naghsh-e Jahan Pars and Shirdel and Associates — in the fields of architectural and urban design. On two architectural projects, the Ministry of the Interior Club (1374-75 / 1995-96) at the Talaei office of architecture and urban design, and the international competition for the Kansai Library in Japan (1375-76 / 1996-97) at the Naghsh-e Jahan–Pars consultancy, he held responsibility for the projects, both of which were awarded prizes.
As a first question: broadly speaking, what place does the computer occupy in architectural design in the world today, and what change and transformation has it brought about in the design process?
There have been two ways of engaging with this subject. One is an instrumental engagement and the other a structural one. As a rule, any new phenomenon is first engaged with as a tool. For example, in the nineteenth century, when iron began to be produced in ingots, it was used first in neoclassical buildings as a metal structure hidden inside the piers of the building. Later it was realised that this same metal structure has a space of its own and can bring into being an architecture of its own. The computer is more or less the same, and its effect is as great as the industrial revolution or greater. The dimensions of that effect are such that they perhaps do not easily fit in the mind. What is really at stake is a change of technology. In the particular case of architecture we can describe the matter as follows: the technique of producing space has passed from the T-square and set square, which could draw only horizontal and vertical lines in plan and section, to the technique of the computer, for which the drawing of any line or segment in any direction and any shape is simple. To explain the above it is enough to point out that it is in fact a naive supposition to think that modern architects wanted Cartesian or Euclidean volumetric compositions and then produced them. The matter may in truth be that their tool for describing their thoughts was the T-square and the set square, and that this technology is capable only of drawing simple volumes in simple compositions. Modern architects were therefore led unconsciously in this direction, to order their thoughts on that basis. To make the point clearer it is enough to look at the space of the paintings and sculptures of that period. Apart from a few limited currents such as Neoplasticism and De Stijl, all the artistic currents of modernism generally create a different space, one that differs glaringly from the space of the architectural works of the same moment. You ask why? Because the T-square and the set square played no part in producing those works. There were, of course, architects in that period who were aware of the problem and tried to do something else — Frederick Kiesler and André Bloc, for example. The first designed projects based on curved lines in plan and section; the second, in some of his projects, in order to escape Cartesian space, gave up drawing plans in the conventional manner and began from the outset to execute architecture without any previously drawn plan. But because these currents did not fall within the mass production of architectural works of that period, and lacked the capacity to be reproduced and generalised by other architects, they always remained at the margin. In other words, they did not lie along the line of the technology of that period. With these explanations, the question for architecture today is the understanding of electronic space — the understanding of computer technology and of the space that this technology is able to produce. That is, the question is this: what can be done with digital technology, and on the basis of this technology what concepts can be devised for the production of form?
Some architects today begin the project with the computer altogether — Greg Lynn, for instance, one of Eisenman's students, who creates the three-dimensional model by way of the computer and then carries the design forward and alters it until it leads to an architectural project. That is, the computer brings into being a volume that could not be brought into being with a physical model. Or Frank Gehry, who works with the CATIA program, a program used for designing aircraft and missiles. Gehry too looked on the computer at first as a tool, but on the Bilbao project he became aware of the particular properties of the computer, and of CATIA in particular — both in architectural design and in adjacent fields such as cost control, scheduling, method of construction and its explanation to the contractors. Carrying out the project without that program would have been almost impossible.
It appears that in some of these projects, from a certain stage onward, the architect's design and idea enters a process of transformation inside the computer over which the designer no longer has control, and the result is entirely accidental. Is the role of the design not somewhat compromised here?
Even in ordinary projects, spaces come into being that the architect had not foreseen. Many of today's architects, because of these unattainable spaces, base much of the work of design on accident. Eisenman himself, for instance, says of the Cincinnati project: I could by no means have designed its interior space, and this the computer has given me. What matters here is the effort to diminish the notion of the author in the contemporary period. This is a criticism of Renaissance thought, which is the origin of the separation between the knower and the object of knowledge. That is, if we can imagine a world in which the author does not exist in this present sense, then concepts and the relations among phenomena change altogether. Perhaps computer technology is a bridge between the pre-modern world and the contemporary period.
Eisenman has a remark on this: that every architect, in the ordinary way, always draws what he knows, and relies mostly on axis and centre line; but the computer, because it sees the problem in vectorial terms, allows the architect not to be confined within the bounds of what he knows. And he refers to the morphing program, which is a way of transforming a form into varied shapes — shapes so numerous, and so far between the original form and the final transformed one, that the ordinary mind cannot conceive of seeing them, whereas for the computer it counts as a simple task. In effect the computer gives the architect a mental aid, so that he may observe objectively the thing he is thinking of but cannot make precise.
So do you think the computer has caused a particular school or worldview to appear in architecture?
The question has been raised at several levels. Eisenman, in an article on what philosophical prospect the computer holds, says that the computer's way of working is such that it treats everything digitally, as zero and one; and once the making of form and space proceeds by way of number, the transfer of images too proceeds on the basis of number. From this he concludes that once we are able to convert shape into number we arrive at a new condition in space. That is, in this new condition it is the number that is copied onto another CD and carries the same information, and if you copy it again the quality is the same. What he means, in effect, is that the original (digital) copy is no longer at issue. Another topic he raises is the question of Singularity: that we can arrive at an architecture possessing wholeness and principle, and possessing the capacity for its parameters to change, or to accept changes into itself in such a way that its structure is neither lost nor repeated. Like a signature! Your signature may take a particular shape each time — larger or smaller — because in fact certain parameters within it change while the overall construction remains. Another category is the question of Simulation, which the computer has made very easy. The point here is that the virtual image may appear more natural than reality itself.
What we see in our own universities, though, is the use of the computer merely as an instrument and as a skill. What is your view of the way this instrument is used in the universities?
The computer is a very effective aid and has made the work easier too; but here we have neither those facilities nor those particular programs, and if there is anything it is at a very rudimentary level and is used only by halves.
In any case the computer does not produce creativity. That is, if you give someone a computer and then expect brilliant works to come of it, it will not happen! Just as at present ninety percent of students work with the computer, yet we have very few good projects and perhaps none at all. The question is not whether we draw the project with the computer or not. The question is what technique we can draw out of the computer for the production of form.
That the spirit of our age demands as much is not in dispute. But we live in a country like Iran. In America more than eighty-five percent of schools use the internet, and a great many people live in the environment the internet has created. Well, in such an environment it is natural that one should try to use the computer in designing and creating new spaces; but we do not see these conditions in our own society, while we do observe the leap in the use of the computer in architectural design.
For that reason the works produced are of little value. Even so, it cannot be prevented or denied. There need to be people who can explain to students how to use it. I think one of our difficulties is that our architecture teacher has a problem with the matter. Let me add, though, that the school can have at most a twenty percent effect. At present in the universities a number of students produce images and, without solving many of the fundamental problems, get a good grade at the end of term merely by a kind of grandstanding. Then, when they enter the job market, they want to produce these images; the client naturally will not bear the cost, and in the end these same people turn into speculative builders!
So in your view what should a student who wants to be part of current architecture do?
In my view architecture has to be worked at with an architect — with someone who is himself an expert. Someone who knows one definite, principled thing. Someone who can teach you a path he has himself experienced. You must have a personal strategy for the work. Every architect of consequence has a theoretical base and a definite intellectual order. If something happens under such conditions, that happening will have meaning. What happens in our universities is chaos. The reason is that there is no control over it; and control comes about when a definite and logical intellectual apparatus supervises the work and has control over the project.
Given that you are yourself engaged in teaching design, do you have any particular program in mind for your classes?
Yes. My aim is to research with the students to see how architecture can be brought out of the condition of an object and turned into a spatial field. For that reason I hold the classes under a particular restriction and work on one particular topic.
