11 Studio Werner
Excessive Repetition. SYNT[H]ACKS MUTATION
Studio Master: Prof. ASSOC. Liss C. Werner
CONTEXT
In 1995 Nicholas Negroponte stated that the “The change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable”. In 1972 Martin Caidin the author of ‘Buck Rogers: A
Life in the Future’ writes the sci-fi novel ‘CYBORG’, which later was adopted for the
movie ‘The One Million Dollar Man’, followed by ‘The Bionic Woman’ in 1978. At the
same time wearable computers experience their advent, the Internet (at the time
ARPANET) is in its first decade and the term ‘bionic’ creeps into disciplines such as
medicine, architecture and engineering. While Artificial Intelligence is flouring in the
world of hard computer sciences, Frei Otto investigates Natural Material Intelligence
for lightweight structures in architecture.
S
STATEMENT
20 years after Negroponte’s statement we may claim that atoms and bits will merge
and perpetuate further with the rise of smart skin and biological computers. The human body as physical interface to the world has been complemented by smart devices and the Internet; using wireless, invisible, fast data-autobahns. It has excelled
itself as communication device between the individual and its physical and virtual
environments.
THE PROJECT
All disciplines are challenged by a tabula rasa convergence of hard and soft matter, biological computing and the artificial intelligence body in a semi natural world
overridden by communication devices alien to nature. CITC VIII investigates architectural and urban transformations and novelty deriving from the body’s modification,
where cyborgian and humanoid genes cross; describing a fundamental change of
the body’s actual material and its tasks as semi-autonomous communication interface in the local and urban environment, in a macro- and micro-scale. We will hover
between the real and the virtual, asking the question, which is what, trying to find
common ground between the two. Lost and found worlds of serious coding will
meet architectural skills, evolution and imagination. We will analyze current design
trends in order to design architectural scenarios for the near future:
a) the architecture of communication
b) the architecture of urban utopia between material and virtual world
c) the architecture of emerging design challenges
1st year studios | summer semester 2015