Unit 1

CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF MEDIA

and their influence on the perception of s p a c e and architecture
 representation
publication
news

MEDIA
communication
RENAISSANCE
MODERNISM
CONTEMPORARY

DIGITAL MEDIA

NEW IDEAS.…….
MEDIA THEORY
Media theory is, the study of technologies of representation and communication,
beginning with but no longer limited to printed books and the literary forms of print. Today
new media refers to any content accessible through a digital device usually containing
creative participation and enable digital interactivity.

Changes in media leads to changes in cognition and perception of space, new ways of
representations gives way to new forms (form-finding), new forms are facilitated by technological
innovations.

Cognition -> Representation -> Construction (through technological changes)

INFLUENCES ON PERCEPTION OF SPACE:

1. Visual culture: advent of new media

From text based narrative to visual culture of photography, digitization, etc

More importance to image production.

Pluralistic expression
“The outside is not a fixed limit but a
moving matter animated by peristaltic
movements, folds and foldings that
together make up an inside: they are
not something other than the outside,
but precisely the inside of the
outside.”

Deleuze’s Concept of the Fold

2. Changes in design media

From visual reasoning in paper-based design thinking through sketches and drawings

Architectural design has become engaged with the exploration of complex geometries, ‘free forms’ as well as related
materialization processes of fabrication and manufacturing technologies .
Digital Morphologies –
Riccardo Bovo, Concept chair

Novel shape exploration was enabled

by working with digital technology.

The outcome is the result of practical

experimentation with digital fabrication
technology such as CNC and other
more traditional upholstery
methodology.

By using grasshopper, the design could be broken up into small planes and send
for fabrication.
3. Formalist turn in design and production

New forms of media disassociate form from meaning

Sound Sculptures :

Computer manipulated formal systems where form-finding is the

result of interaction between human and the visual media.
 Shape-finding

the Spiral Tower by Zaha Hadid in Barcelona

Milwaukee art museum, Calatrava

BMW-Pavilion by B. Franken

Water cube, National aquatic

centre, beijing

form-finding
TECHNOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE
Technology and Art – Technology and Architecture – Technology as Rhetoric –
Digital Technology and Architecture
TECHNOLOGY
ETYMOLOGY

Techne: is a means of revealing the concealed (truth).

In pottery or any other art of making, techne is not merely a means to create an end product but is an
instrument of revelation of the new (hidden) form.

Architecture/creation in Gottfried Semper ‘s triad

TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCES THE CREATION OF FORMS.

 Zaha Hadid: Z Chair
Digital design: individualistic, formal exploration,
customized

William Morris : Arts and Crafts Mies Van Der Rohe: Bauhaus
arts and crafts: hand made, ornamented, Modern design: standardization, mass
individualism production, functional

Digital Morphologies – Riccardo Bovo

TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN
Craft
tradition
digital
design

Modern design
 Digital Technology and Architecture

The production of buildings that was once based on the materialization of paper based drawings is now increasingly being based
on digital information. Buildings today are being designed, documented, fabricated and constructed with the assistance of digital
media. The ability of digital models to connect between the design and the materialization or construction is the primary influence of
the architectural language.

Conceptualisation (Digital Design Process): Materialisation (Fabrication):

Architects work within the ways of making available to them to
Digital design technologies such as parametric or generative create expressions. New ways of making opens up new
modeling applications are not envisaged as tools, but rather as possibilities.
ways of thinking in and of themselves

Conceptualisation and materialisation goes hand in hand with the help of digital technology
Heydar Aliyev Cultural centre, Zaha Hadid
The building consists of two main systems that collaborate: concrete
structure combined with a system of spatial structure (space frame).
SKIN: glass fiber reinforced concrete and fiberglass reinforced polyester
Jeddah International Airport by OMA