Persistent Modelling

The relationship between representation and the represented is examined here

through the notion of persistent modelling. This notion is not novel to the
activity of architectural design if it is considered as describing a continued active
and iterative engagement with design concerns – an evident characteristic of
architectural practice.
But the persistence in persistent modelling can also be understood to
apply in other ways, reflecting and anticipating extended roles for represen-
tation. This book identifies three principal areas in which these extensions are
becoming apparent within contemporary practice: the duration of active influ-
ence that representation can hold in relation to the represented; the means,
methods and media through which representations are constructed and used;
and what it is that is being represented.
In drawing upon both historical and contemporary perspectives, this
book provides evidence of the ways in which relations between representation
and the represented continue to be reconsidered. It also provides critical insight
into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together with an
examination of the implications their use has within the territories of architectural
design, realisation and experience. Featuring contributions from some of the
world’s most advanced thinkers on this subject, this book makes essential reading
for anyone considering new ways of thinking about architecture.

Phil Ayres is Assistant Professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts School of
Architecture (RASA), Copenhagen, Denmark.
Persistent
Modelling
Extending the role of
architectural representation

Edited by Phil Ayres

First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 selection and editorial material, Phil Ayres; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Persistent modelling : extending the role of architectural representation /
edited by Phil Ayres.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Architectural design. 2. Architecture. 3. Representation (Philosophy)
I. Ayres, Phil. II. Title: Extending the role of architectural representation.
NA2750.P47 2012
720.1–dc22
2011015683

ISBN: 978-0-415-59406-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-59407-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-78254-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Stone Sans

by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
Contents

Notes on contributors vii

Acknowledgements xv

Introduction: persistent modelling – reconsidering relations 1

Phil Ayres

Part 1 Modelling material 11

1 The historical context of contemporary architectural

representation 13
Alberto Pérez-Gómez

2 The persistence of faith in the intangible model 26

Mark Burry

3 Intention and the user 41

Ranulph Glanville

4 A Communications Primer revisited 51

Omar Khan

5 A suggested model of a-functional architecture 62

Stephen Gage

6 Modelling modelling: trajectories in developing instrumental

design processes 71
Michael U. Hensel

7 Design issues of time-based phenomena and the notion of

a persistent model: a parametric exploration of acoustic
performance 81
Brady Peters

8 Defining adequate models for adaptive architecture 91

Sean Hanna

Contents v
 9 The death of determinism 105
Jordan Brandt

Part 2 Material modelling 117

10 The fall 119

Rachel Cruise

11 Persisting with material: engaging material behaviour within

the digital environment 132
Paul Nicholas

12 The active model: a calibration of material intent 141

Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and Martin Tamke

13 Beneficial change: the case for robotics in architecture 155

Tristan d’Estrée Sterk

14 The building and its double: entropic modelling in the

Hylozoic Soil series 170
Philip Beesley, with Rob Gorbet, Will Elsworthy, Jonah Humphrey
and Christian Joakim

15 Persistent approaches to designing functionally graded

materials 185
Sarat Babu

Illustration credits 195

Index 197

vi Contents
Notes on contributors

Phil Ayres is an architect, researcher and educator. He joined the ranks at CITA
(Centre for Information Technology and Architecture, Royal Academy of Fine
Arts, Copenhagen) in 2009 after a decade of teaching and research at the Bartlett
School of Architecture in London, and after completing his PhD in Denmark at
the Aarhus School of Architecture. He has also been a partner of sixteen* (makers)
since 1998. As a self-taught computer programmer, skilled machinist and maker,
his work seeks to construct complementary potentials between the worlds of the
digital and the material. His teaching and research allow him to bridge the realms
of representation, fabrication and interaction, and feed into his interest in devel-
oping exploratory design techniques that are often computer-mediated, but
always lead to physical output. Much of this work has been exhibited and
published internationally.

Sarat Babu is a Research Engineer in Virtual Environments, Imaging and

Visualization at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies. He is also founder and
associate of BREAD, a London-based design and engineering research con-
sultancy. With academic grounding and professional experiences in material
science, industrial design and computation, his research continues to explore the
converging frontier of materials and the creation of objects and structures.

Philip Beesley is Professor in the School of Architecture, University of Waterloo,

an examiner at University College London, and an architect developing respon-
sive kinetic architectural environments that approach near-living functions. His
work is widely cited in the rapidly expanding discussion of responsive architec-
tural environments. He has authored and edited eight books, three international
proceedings and a number of catalogues, and appears on the cover of Artificial
Life (MIT), LEONARDO and AD journals. He was selected to represent Canada for
the 2010 Venice Biennale for Architecture, and has received worldwide press
including Wired magazine, TEDx, and Discovery Channel features. Distinctions
include Prix de Rome in Architecture (Canada), VIDA 11.0, FEIDAD. He was
educated in visual art at Queen’s University, in technology at Humber College,
and in architecture at the University of Toronto.

Jordan Brandt is the CEO and co-founder of Horizontal Systems (www.

horizontalsystems.com), a technology company known for innovations in real-
time 3D collaboration for designers and builders. He began his career in Product

Notes on contributors vii

Lifecycle Management strategies at Boeing and transferred this knowledge
to A. Zahner Company, where he worked on notable projects such as Frank
Gehry’s MIT Stata Center and Herzog & de Meuron’s De Young Museum. Jordan
also led the BIM programme at the structural engineering office of Adams,
Kara, Taylor in London. He has worked as an adviser for several public agen-
cies and programmes, including the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force
Research Laboratory, and the GSA, where he co-authored the BIM Guide to
develop standard best practices. He holds a Bachelor’s in Architecture from the
University of Kansas and a doctorate in Building Technology from Harvard
University.

Mark Burry is Professor of Innovation (Spatial Information Architecture) and

Director of Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) at RMIT University,
Melbourne, Australia. The laboratory focuses on collocated design research
and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching with associated advanced
computer applications and the rapid prototyping of ideas. SIAL has a design-
practice emphasis and acts as a creative think-tank accessible to both local and
international practices. He is also Founding Director of RMIT’s Design Research
Institute which brings together researchers from a range of design disciplines
and harnesses their collective expertise to address major social and environmen-
tal dilemmas. He is Executive Architect and Researcher to the Temple Sagrada
Família in Barcelona and was awarded the title Il.lustrisim Senyor by the Reial
Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in recognition of his contribution.
He holds various senior positions at academic institutions in Australia, New
Zealand and Europe, including Velux Visiting Professor at CITA, Royal Academy
of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark, is a member of the Advisory Board
of Gehry Technologies in Los Angeles, and was a member of the Australian
Research Council College of Experts 2003–2007. In 2006, Mark was awarded
the Australian Research Council’s most prestigious funding award, a ‘Federation
Fellowship’ for five years.

Rachel Cruise is a Lecturer in Structural Design in the School of Architecture at

the University of Sheffield. Her background is both in architecture and structural
engineering and her teaching and research explore the relationship between the
two disciplines and their approaches to designing with an understanding of the
material world.

Tristan d’Estrée Sterk is the founder of the Office for Robotic Architectural
Media & Bureau for Responsive Architecture, a small design and technology
office interested in rethinking the art of construction alongside the emergence
of responsive technologies. His work focuses upon the use of structural shape
change and its role in altering energy consumption in buildings. The Office’s
work has been exhibited, collected and published by the American Institute of
Architects, the Architectural League of NY, the Museum of the Art Institute of
Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia, the XIII Biennale
of Architecture in Santiago de Chile, the Discovery Science Channel, CNN’s
Future Summit, The Economist, Wired magazine, the BBC World Service and the
Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Radio National. In 2005, the Office’s

viii Notes on contributors

works were awarded first in the Chicago Architectural Club’s ‘Emerging Visions’
award for young practices in the Chicago Metropolitan area.

Will Elsworthy has been working at Teeple Architects in Toronto since 2006, and
has contributed significantly to such projects as the Perimeter Institute for
Theoretic Physics Expansion, Waterloo; 60 Richmond East Housing Co-op,
Toronto; the Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church, Toronto; and the Langara
College Student Union, Vancouver. He has collaborated with Philip Beesley on
several sculptures and installations including Hylozoic Soil, Implant Matrix, Cybele
and Orpheus Filter. Elsworthy graduated from the University of Waterloo School
of Architecture, Cambridge, Canada, in 2005. He is also a co-founder of
Elsworthy Wang, a collaborative that engages in speculative projects, architec-
ture, fibre art, and installations, among other dynamic practices of making.

Stephen Gage is Professor of Innovative Technology at the Bartlett School of

Architecture, UCL, London. He is a founder member of the Bartlett Interactive
Architecture Workshop and currently directs the M.Arch (Architectural Design)
programme at the school. His professional career spans the design and construc-
tion of buildings, academic teaching and research in government, private
practice and academic contexts. His many published buildings are recognised
as leaders in their field. His current research investigates the way that the
technology of building can subtly modify the internal environment – sustaining
an interest held during his long career as a designer. His other area of research
comes from a long-standing interest in the time-based aspects of architecture
that relate to human occupation and building use and takes forward an early
interest in cybernetics and building brief writing.

Ranulph Glanville shared in most young boys’ delight in model trains and model
planes. However, that delight was mainly in the idea and not much based
in doing anything: he liked the idea of models. Fortunately, in later life, he has
been able to enjoy liking the idea of models in an active way, turning liking the
idea into thinking about models as one of his academic concerns, in which he
acts by making models of models. In his contribution to this volume, he sum-
marises and brings together much of his thinking about models over the past
several decades. He is Professor of Architecture and Cybernetics, The Bartlett,
UCL, London; Senior Professor of Research Design, St Lucas Architectuur, Brussels
and Ghent; Visiting Professor of Research, Innovation Design Engineering, RCA,
London; Adjunct Professor, School of Architecture and Design, RMIT, Melbourne;
and Visiting Professor, School of Architecture, University of Newcastle, Newcastle
NSW.

Rob Gorbet is Associate Professor at the Centre for Knowledge Integration and
is affiliated with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Waterloo. He is a principal at Gorbet Design, a Toronto-based
design and consultancy firm specialising in public interactive artwork and
experiences. His interdisciplinary expertise includes mechatronics, advanced
technology, and visual art. Gorbet is an award-winning teacher, interested in
the design of interactive artworks and the process of learning across disciplines.

Notes on contributors ix
His current engineering research focuses on modelling and control of actuators
made of shape memory alloys (SMA), and the specialised development of a new
generation of sensing and actuation systems emphasising tune and subtle,
empathy-connoting motion. Gorbet’s collaborative interactive artworks have
been exhibited across Europe and North America, including at ISEA 2006 in San
Jose, the Matadero Madrid, the Ars Electronica Centre in Linz, the Musée des
Beaux-Arts in Montreal, and at the 2010 Venice Biennale for Architecture. His
works have won several awards, including a 2008 FEIDAD Design Merit award
and the prestigious Primer Premio at the VIDA 11.0 competition in 2009. They
have been featured in major print media including Wired magazine, Domus,
LEONARDO, and on the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet.

Sean Hanna is a Lecturer in Space and Adaptive Architectures at UCL, London,

director of the Bartlett Graduate School’s MSc/MRes programmes in Adaptive
Architecture and Computation, and academic director of the EngD VEIV. He is a
member of the Space Group, noted as one of the UK’s highest-performing
research groups in the field of architecture and the built environment. His
prior background is in architecture and design practice, which includes several
awards and major projects with architects Foster + Partners and sculptor Antony
Gormley, and his current research is primarily in developing computational
methods for dealing with complexity in design, including the comparative
modelling of space and machine intelligence.

Michael U. Hensel is an architect, researcher, educator and writer. He leads the

Research Centre for Architecture and Tectonics (CAT) at the Oslo School of
Architecture and Design, where he is also Professor for Architecture and Tectonics.
He is a founding member of OCEAN and board member of the OCEAN Design
Research Association, as well as board member of BIONIS, the Biomimetics
Network for Industrial Sustainability. His research interest is the development
of a theoretical and methodological framework for Performance-oriented
Architecture. He has written, published and lectured world-wide on this and
other topics in architecture and urbanism. See www.ocean-designresearch.net
and www.performanceorienteddesign.net.

Jonah Humphrey is an avid communicator of architectural concepts and spatial

experience, working in various design visualisation media. He received his
M.Arch. from the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Cambridge,
Canada. His pursuits in research and design are supported by an integration
of architecture, landscape design, photography, animation, video, and music
composition. Both Humphrey’s current work and his collaboration on the
Hylozoic Soil work exemplify his main pursuit, envisioning architecture as an
instrument of interactive transformation. Through this work he encourages an
understanding of the relationships existing between ourselves, our technologies,
and the natural environment. Ongoing research in the areas of architectural
aesthetics and perception stems from interest in the experiential and atmos-
pheric qualities that emerge through layering the various virtual, imaginary, and
physical spaces in which we are immersed. He currently lives and works in
Toronto, Canada.

x Notes on contributors
Christian Joakim currently works for Teeple Architects in Toronto. He has worked
with dECOi, a digitally-based architecture practice led by Mark Goulthorpe in
Boston; Delugan Meissl Associated Architects in Vienna; Asymptote Architecture
in New York; and Philip Beesley Architect Inc. in Toronto. He holds a BASc in
Mechanical Engineering and an MArch., both from the University of Toronto. He
is also a LEED Accredited Professional. Joakim is also a founding member of
kimiis, a constellation of architects, engineers and artists fully immersed in the
digital praxis of architecture and design. The work of kimiis oscillates between
composition and computation, ever in the pursuit of dynamic architectures and
new patterns of creativity. kimiis is characterised by diverse interests such as
computation, fabrication, atmosphere and aesthetics, all of which seeking to
create meaningful user experiences generated through design. The work has
been exhibited and published in several notable venues including ACADIA 2008
Silicon + Skin Exhibition Catalogue, MARK Magazine, Canadian Architect, Azure,
ArchDaily, the technology pavilion at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Nuit
Blanche in Toronto, and suckerPUNCH (www.suckerpunchdaily.com).

Omar Khan is an architect, educator and researcher whose work spans the
disciplines of architecture, installation/performance art and digital media. His
work and teaching explore the intersection of architecture and pervasive
computing for designing responsive architecture and environments. He is Chair
of the Department of Architecture at the University at Buffalo, where he
co-directs the Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies. His current
research includes transitive materials, responsive architecture and crowd sens-
ing. He is an editor of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet series, published by
the Architectural League of New York and a co-principal in Liminal Projects, an
architectural design office, with Laura Garofalo.

Paul Nicholas holds a PhD in Architecture from RMIT University, Melbourne,

Australia, and joined the Center for Information Technology and Architecture
(CITA) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen,
in 2010. He has a particular interest in the use of computational tools to intersect
architectural and engineering design thinking, facilitating new modes of
interaction and collaboration. His academic and practice-based work explores
this topic in the areas of generative and performance-based design, and the
development of low-resolution tools for trans-disciplinary design collaboration.
He co-founded the design practice Mesne in 2005, and has exhibited in recent
Beijing and Venice Biennales.

Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City in 1949, where he studied

architecture and practised. He did postgraduate work at Cornell University, and
was awarded an MA and a PhD by the University of Essex (England). He has
taught at universities in Mexico, Houston, Syracuse, Toronto, and at London’s
Architectural Association. In 1983, he became Director of Carleton University’s
School of Architecture. He has lectured extensively around the world and is
the author of numerous articles published in major periodicals and books. He is
also co-editor of a well-known series of books titled Chora: Intervals in the
Philosophy of Architecture. The sixth volume in this series will be appearing in

Notes on contributors xi
2011. In January 1987, he was appointed Bronfman Professor of Architectural
History at McGill University, where he chairs the History and Theory Post-
Professional (Master’s and Doctoral) Programs. His book Architecture and
the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) won the Hitchcock Award in 1984.
Later books include the erotic narrative theory Polyphilo or The Dark Forest
Revisited (1992), Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (co-
authored with Louise Pelletier, 1997), which traces the history and theory of
modern European architectural representation, and most recently, Built upon
Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (2006). In his last book,
he examines points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural
history and philosophy, and draws important conclusions for contemporary
practice.

Brady Peters is a PhD Fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and
Architecture (CITA) in Copenhagen, Denmark. His current research focuses on
parametric and computational design strategies and the acoustic performance
of complex surfaces. He has degrees in architecture from Dalhousie University
and in geography from the University of Victoria. He worked for the international
architecture practice Foster + Partners as a member of the Specialist Modeling
Group (SMG), an internal research and development consultancy. As an Associate
Partner with Foster + Partners, he worked on many large architectural projects
involving complex geometry and helped to establish the office’s rapid proto-
typing capabilities. He has also worked in the London office of Buro Happold.
He has taught architectural design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts School of
Architecture in Copenhagen, the University of Ghent, the University of
Nottingham, and at many SmartGeometry conferences.

Martin Tamke is Associate Professor at the Centre for Information Technology

and Architecture (CITA) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture
in Copenhagen, where he pursues design-led research at the interface of com-
putational design and its materialisation. After graduating, he worked at the
Institute of Theory and Design in Architecture (ige) at TU Braunschweig in 2003,
where he refined his focus on developing and reflecting upon new strategies for
architectural design that are concerned with speculative design and the means
of its realisation. He has been a key collaborator in numerous projects of varying
scales including a 70m organic shaped infrastructural hub in Hamburg, devel-
oped in partnership with Blunck-Morgen Architects, which won the Building of
the Year award in 2010. Martin joined the newly founded research centre CITA
in 2006, and has helped shape its design-led research practice. He has been
instrumental in developing research-led projects that investigate new design and
fabrication tools for wood production, curved and creased surfaces in a variety
of materials and fractal systems. These projects have resulted in a series of digi-
tally fabricated speculative probes, prototypes and 1:1 demonstrators. He has
taught extensively in workshops in Vienna, Berlin, Barcelona, St. Petersburg,
Hamburg, Istanbul, Moscow, Copenhagen and Aarhus.

Mette Ramsgard Thomsen is an architect working with digital technologies.

Through a focus on intelligent programming and ideas of emergence she

xii Notes on contributors

explores how computational logics can lead to new spatial concepts. Her work
is practice-led and through projects such as How would it be to live in a
soft space, Slow Furl, Strange Metabolisms and Vivisection she investigates the
relationship between computational design, craft and technology. Her research
focuses on Digital Crafting as way of thinking material practice, computation
and fabrication as part of architectural culture. She is Professor at the Royal
Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, where she heads the Centre for
Information Technology and Architecture (CITA), Copenhagen. The centre has
been successfully built up over the last five years and now includes 14 active
researchers and research students.

Notes on contributors xiii

Acknowledgements

This book would not have materialised without the decisions, discussions, help
and support of many people – principally the contributors who have showed
tremendous generosity in time and intellectual effort to provide the material
contained within. My sincere thanks go to you all.
Many of the ideas behind the theme of this book owe a great deal to
numerous years of conversation with Professor Stephen Gage within Diploma
Unit 14, aka The Interactive Workshop at the Bartlett School of Architecture, where
I had the tremendous privilege to be a student and tutor between 1996–2009.
Unit 14 has been the source of many close and continuing friendships – in
particular, Chris Leung who, as a co-student, was a constant source of inspiration
and critical insight. He continues to be so.
Chris also features among my colleagues and close friends to be thanked
in sixteen*(makers), together with Nick Callicott, Bob Sheil and Emmanuel
Vercruysse. sixteen*(makers) has provided a unique and invaluable environment
of experimentation, thought and action through our combined mix of interests.
There are many to thank at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of
Architecture; first, to my colleagues at the Centre for Information Technology
and Architecture (CITA), for providing such an inspiring, nurturing and ques-
tioning environment of serious play. I extend my thanks in particular to Professor
Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and Martin Tamke for their continued encour-
agement and support of this work, and also to Paul Nicholas for perceptive
suggestions regarding the material of the Introduction. Thanks also to colleagues
within Institute 4 for many stimulating conversations; Peter Bertram, Morten
Meldgaard and Jørgen Hauberg in particular. Jørgen is also to be thanked for
providing financial assistance with the indexing. Thanks also to my colleagues
and the first round of EK students at Department 2 who have been open and
willing to pursue themes of persistent transform in their own terms.
I would like to thank Caroline Mallinder who helped tremendously with
the instigation of the project in her capacity as independent architecture editor,
the Routledge editorial team who have managed it – Laura Williamson in partic-
ular – and the typesetting team at Keystroke – Maggie Lindsey-Jones in particular.
Finally, my thanks go to Caroline, my wife, and our beloved boys Hayden
and Clement who, I am convinced, have suffered the demands of this project as
observers of, more than myself as an observer in. They have done so with unfal-
tering patience and humour despite enduring many hours of absence, and my
distraction in moments of presence.

Acknowledgements xv
Introduction
Persistent modelling – reconsidering
relations
Phil Ayres

Intentions and opportunities

Persistent Modelling: Extending the Role of Architectural Representation probes the

relationship between representation and the represented, in an architectural
context. It does so through an examination and discussion of historical, familiar
contemporary and, perhaps, not so familiar emerging manifestations of this
relation. What persists from this probing, fully intact, is that representation and
the represented remain inextricably related in our contemporary and emerging
practices. What comes into focus is that the nature of this relationship is becom-
ing increasingly variegated. This is apparent in three main areas: (1) the duration
of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented;
(2) the means, methods and media through which representations are con-
structed and used; and (3) what it is that is being represented.
If we accept Stephen Groák’s assertion that ‘the very conventions of
representation also can affect the character of the buildings to which they sub-
sequently give rise’,1 it follows that as we continually re-construct our methods
of and concerns for representation, we also construct qualitatively different
spaces of opportunity for the characteristics of our built environments. This
implicates all aspects of architectural production, offering creative potentials
within an expanded set of horizons and territories for design, research, discourse,
realisation and experience.
The title of this book employs a term recently introduced to the archi-
tectural lexicon – persistent modelling.2 The main intention of this book is to open
this term up to scrutiny and interpretation. It aims to identify what persistent
modelling refers to, and what it anticipates, within both the practice of archi-
tectural design and the realised spaces and places of architecture.
Another major intention is to search out how the relation between repre-
sentation and the represented is being reconsidered, and why; what are the

Introduction 1
concerns and drivers? Closely related, the book also aims to provide evidence as
to how the role of representation is being extended, and to provide critical
insight into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together
with an examination of the implications their use has within the territories of
design, realisation and experience.

Persistent modelling: a framework for accommodating

change

The premise of persistent modelling rests upon two temporally sensitive assump-
tions:

1 Change is inevitable.
2 Architectural design must be conducted as an iterative activity.

In order to establish a frame of reference for persistent modelling these two

assumptions will be briefly contextualised.
Three commonly identified phases of architectural production and
experience can be distinguished when investigating the relation between
representation and realisation. These are design, construction and use. Each of
these can be described as a process – an activity occurring over time, and
therefore subject to change. Change may come from many sources, ranging
from the actively instigated and predictable, to the dynamic and contingent.
Design, construction and use are all subject to change from the breadth of this
spectrum, but they can also be considered as engines of change. Let us examine
this in relation to design.
Herbert Simon defines design activity as the devising of ‘courses of action
aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’.3 If applied to a timeline
in which preferred situations become existing situations, the logical conclusion
must be that design should be re-iterated in the light of new preferred situations,
thereby accommodating but also instigating further change. This defines a
circular and iterative relationship which should persist. This kind of persistence is
not novel to architectural design if modelling is considered as a continued and
progressive engagement with design questions. However, in relation to the reali-
sation of design proposition, design activity is not generally pursued indefinitely.
In Translations from Drawing to Building, Robin Evans observes that the
architect does not deal directly with the object under investigation, but always
does so through some intervening medium – principally the drawing. This char-
acterises the architect’s practice as one rooted in the making-of-information such
that intent can be projected towards the making-of-things – which is generally
done by others.4 Evans asserts that the major role of representation is to provide
a ‘complete determination in advance’.5 From this perspective we can dis-
tinguish design as being a discrete phase of activity that necessarily precedes
the successive phases of construction and use. In such a model, the active role
for representation can be located within the design process where it acts as a
space for speculation and specification. This active role also extends into fabri-
cation and construction where representations serve to convey design intent.

2 Phil Ayres
However, once the design proposition has been realised, the body of repre-
sentation no longer retains the same status. Roles can still be identified, and
clearly have many productive uses (for example, as evidence tracing a design
conversation, or as a record of an architecture that no longer exists), but the
realisation of the proposition eclipses the active role of representation; it no
longer maintains a directly transformative capacity, and the realised no longer
holds a tentative and provisional status in relation to the body of representation.
This describes the familiar ground – a linear progression from the architect’s
conception to the occupant’s use. In this context, modelling occurs as a discrete
phase of activity, and the role for representation as a ‘complete determination
in advance’ suggests a reading of persistence in the sense of remaining unaltered
in the face of change, until it has served its purpose.
The aim here is not to dismiss the framework that Evans identifies, but to
question its predominance and appropriateness against particular contexts and
concerns. For example, if one accepts that a central concern of the architect must
be human use and occupation of buildings, as expressed by Gropius, then Forty
tells us that we must acknowledge the contradiction that arises between this
concern and the practice of the architect. This contradiction revolves around
the fact that the architect’s role is generally complete the moment occupation
begins6 – a condition that is also reflected in the active role of representation.
The persistence in persistent modelling might be understood in other ways
that transcend the distinctions of the discrete phases identified above, extending
the role of representation into a more persistent relationship, and supplementing
the palette of available modelling frameworks through a critical reconsideration
of the way in which representation and the represented are bound. The potential
to implement this has been greatly facilitated by the recent supplementation of
representational tools that the architect can draw upon, or indeed, construct.

The role of the digital

In 2004, Kieran and Timberlake lamented the following:

The architecture industry’s move from T-square and linen to com-

puter as a means of documentation has essentially been only a
switch in media. The potential to solid model with a computer has
not been adopted, rather architects still use the computer for 2-D
drafting and ‘movie-set’ 3-D representations.7

Much of digital practice has been maturing from this use of the digital medium
to imitate prior methods. The forefront of research and practice is fully exploiting
the critical distinctions that digital tools hold over traditional methods of archi-
tectural representation – the limits and implications of which are discussed by Hill:

Most architectural drawings offer only a limited understanding of

use. Their primary purpose is to describe an object and, as they refer
only to certain aspects of the physical world, they limit the types of
object architects usually design.8

Introduction 3
A digital computer is a programmable symbolic manipulator operating against a
time-base. These attributes radically expand representational possibilities from the
more constrained realm of traditional architectural drawing, significantly supple-
menting the palette of representational techniques available to the architect.
Evidence of this expansion can be found in the shift of focus from a predominant
consideration of ‘objects’ towards the modelling of relations, processes and
behaviours. Computation is being used to represent and support the examination
of systems and their interdependencies, to drive them over time and to extrapo-
late implications (to a limited extent) in ways that would be difficult to accomplish
by other means. The medium of the computer enables the consideration of time
to become explicit rather than inferred, greatly facilitating the ability to address
long-held concerns such as those expressed by Groák in 1992:

We have traditionally given less formal attention to the role of time

in building affairs and to the ways in which we can represent it in
order to change processes of assembly and the processes of use. By
extension, similarly, our methods of representation have scarcely
begun to confront the true complexity of buildings and building
processes.9

The abstract representational medium provided by computation, and the plethora

of tools that operate upon it, provide a rich potential for developing many
incarnations of modelling infrastructure. While the notion of persistent modelling
may carry interpretations that are not necessarily predicated upon the use of
digital tools, it is clearly evident that these tools can provide a significant impetus
to the reconsideration of relations between representation and the represented.

The structure of the book

This book presents 15 contributions from emerging and leading practitioners,

researchers and academics. One of the pleasures of inviting contributions upon
a theme is to draw together a range of perspectives and interpretations. In
the landscape of ideas and discussions that this constructs, many nuanced
trajectories appear upon the surface of underlying currents. Clearly, issues of
modelling, models and representation act as core foci across the board. Among
these discussions there is a clear seam of contributions in which issues of materi-
ality and material systems surface as central concerns – perhaps unsurprisingly
with the principle consideration being the relationship between representation
and realisation.
The book has therefore been organised into two parts; the first presents
material that examines methods, procedures, concerns and strategies for
modelling, models and representation; the second maintains this discussion with
specific consideration of materiality. The editorial intention behind this distinc-
tion is to construct a telescopic relation between the parts. There is also a circular
relation that exists between these concerns which is more challenging to
structure in the format of a book. This circularity is therefore inferred by the titles
of the parts – ‘Modelling Material’ and ‘Material Modelling’.

4 Phil Ayres
 Part 1 – ‘Modelling Material’ – presents and examines methods, pro-
cedures, concerns and strategies for modelling, models and representation that
draw upon both historical and contemporary perspectives, and provide evidence
of the ways in which relations between representation and the represented have
been and continue to be reconsidered. This material also provides critical insight
into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods, together with an
examination of the implications their use has in the territories of design, realisa-
tion and experience.
In Chapter 1, Pérez-Gómez opens with the reminder that ‘Tools of
representation are never neutral.’ They are also subject to change over time.
Pérez-Gómez constructs a rich historical perspective that traces the changing
relationship between the intentions underlying drawings and the architectural
artefacts that they depict, in order to contextualise contemporary architectural
representation. He poses critical questions regarding the general assumptions
underlying much use of digital tools – principally, the ‘seamless identification’
between the space of representation and the space of the represented to the
extent to which the represented is understood as a perfectly coincident ‘picture’
of a project. Pérez-Gómez argues for a use of digital tools that transcends
reduction, and points to the space ‘between dimensions’ as ‘fertile ground for
discovery’.
In Chapter 2, Mark Burry discusses the dialectic between design model
as clarifier and design model as signifier with reference to three case studies.
The notion of persistent modelling is found to resonate in differing ways through
the examination of the history of modelling at Gaudí’s Sagrada Família Church
in Barcelona, a studio project in which the positive effects of aging were posi-
tioned as a positive design driver and the modelling of performative architecture.
Burry identifies the binding commonality between these case studies as being
the use of a ‘persistent model’ to describe a design system rather than a specific
artefact.
By drawing distinctions in order to differentiate contrasting character-
isations of models, in Chapter 3, Ranulph Glanville interrogates both the notion
of the model and the intentions that lie behind its construction and use. This is
conducted from a cybernetic perspective. The principal distinction drawn is
between models of and models for; Glanville discusses how these satisfy different
aims, reflecting intentions ranging from illustration to exploration and the depth
of curiosity and questioning they support. Glanville further reflects upon the
value of the tentative in design, and the vital role models can play in maintaining
this condition.
The cybernetic perspective is extended by Omar Khan in Chapter 4,
who, through an examination of the Eames’ film A Communications Primer, con-
siders models of information (and its exchange) to explain communication. The
models examined highlight the distinction between first- and second-order
cybernetics, and the implications this distinction has for the role and capacities
attributed to the observer. The difference in understandings between these
models is then employed to re-evaluate the positions, claims and critique made
in an exchange between Baird and Banham regarding the potential for archi-
tecture to communicate with its observers and occupants, and the architect’s
role in determining this.

Introduction 5
 Citing embodied energy and the role that places and spaces play in the
construction of individual/collective memory and cultural identity, in Chapter 5,
Stephen Gage constructs an argument for architectures that should persist –
buildings and public spaces that are long-lasting. He suggests a model for a-
functional places and spaces that can support transient functionalities. This is
developed through suggested models of the way observers make sense of such
spaces and the delight they find in them, and models of the way in which archi-
tects might design them. Gage further describes how the consideration of
transient functionality together with a-functional places and spaces provides a
rich and challenging future for architecture.
With a title referring to the idea that the activity of design is itself designed,
in Chapter 6, Michael Hensel charts the development of a particular trajectory
of design concerns and methods over a period of two decades bridging research,
education and practice. Hensel considers three phases of this development,
which has both paralleled and facilitated the methodology of research by design.
He identifies persistent theoretical and conceptual concerns relative to funda-
mental changes in methods and outcomes that focus on performative potential.
In Chapter 7, Brady Peters discusses how digital methods of representation
are aiding the consideration of acoustic performance within architectural design.
The time-based nature of aural experience poses significant challenges to its
representation by traditional drawing methods. Digital modelling tools are pro-
viding an extended and rich sensorial space of investigation in which geometry,
material and specific listener locations can be interrogated through dynamic
visualisation and auralisation, and adjusted through parametrically defined
relations. Peters also speculates upon the potentials of such models remaining
in dialogue with the buildings they describe, informing adaptations over varying
time-spans. He raises a number of questions and challenges regarding the ability
for these models to remain robust.
This issue of model robustness, and the design of adaptive models, is
examined by Sean Hanna in Chapter 8. He argues that although current
methods of computer-based modelling (through parametrics and building
information models) appear to provide greater adaptability and completeness
in design, they are in fact locked by highly constrained relationships and rigid
boundaries. That is their advantage. By setting the model within delineated
constraints, a predefined space of investigation is established. However, Hanna
maintains that a stronger version of an adaptive model should be able to persist
in the face of changing contexts – the point at which the rigid model may fail.
Drawing upon cybernetic and systems theory, he defines the attributes of a
stronger adaptive model, and the test of competence it should pass. He then
provides examples in which computers derive their own representations, and
can determine for themselves the most relevant features, directly from data
in design contexts ranging in scale from furniture to cities. As these contexts
change and present new data, the models adapt – persisting over time and
maintaining their relevance.
In the concluding chapter of this part, Jordan Brandt argues that despite
the adoption of digital design tools, they do not help the architect to predict
all the nuances of change that occur during the lifecycle of an architectural
artefact. He proposes an Isomodel through which a Building Information Model

6 Phil Ayres
(BIM) can be continually updated from live physical feedback – directly coupling
the representation to the represented, and re-informing the representation from
‘as-built’ data. Brandt reports on the use of a prototype Isomodel, tested on a
site during construction as a method of reconciling the tolerance disparities
arising between site built structures and prefabricated precision components
such as curtain wall systems. Brandt also discusses how the applications of the
Isomodel can extend much further, pointing to new active roles for represen-
tation throughout the entire lifecycle of the architectural artefact as the Isomodel
evolves into a ‘living operational model’ and persists as a ’spatiotemporal index’.
Part 2 – ‘Material Modelling’ – turns the focus towards discussions dealing
with both the materialisation of representation and the representation of
material (and material assemblies). It is clear that the immediate thrust of these
discussions has less to do with compositional concerns and more to do with
performance and the exploiting of inherent material dynamics – whether they
are native or introduced by design. One implication of these concerns is that
our built environments are being supplemented with architectures designed and
realised to extend their material capacity towards explicitly dynamic and per-
formative potentials. This further implies a conceptualisation of architectures as
‘open systems’ in exchange with their environments, rather than being con-
sidered as closed or isolated, as has often been the case,10 together with the need
to represent potentially both a priori and a posteriori physical realisation on a
persistent basis.
In the opening chapter of this part, Rachel Cruise discusses how prior to
an accurate model describing the desire for matter to move closer to the centre
of the earth (or as it is generally perceived – to fall), the built environment acted
as a material record of intuitive response to this endemic behaviour of matter.
Through an investigation of the building of the Campanile of Pisa, Cruise
suggests that the sophisticated haptic appreciation evident in the corrective
phases of construction could be interpreted as anticipating scientific models of
gravity yet to be devised. Cruise also reminds us that ‘This permanent demand
on construction materials to resist falling challenges a perception that piles of
stones are nothing more than passive physical entities.’ The awareness of the
inherent dynamic of matter and materials inferred by this statement frames an
underlying concern of this part.
For Paul Nicholas, in Chapter 11, the concerns of the modelling activity
are no longer reserved to an investigation of fixed geometries and material states
that make up spatial proposition. His interest lies in how ‘digital media can
expand our material imagination in more abstract ways’. Nicholas examines how
material relations and behaviours that occur in actuality can be encoded and
incorporated within the process of design, and through this an engaged concern
with the dynamics of material behaviour can persist across the digital/material
divide.
Complementary concerns are discussed by Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and
Martin Tamke in Chapter 12. Through the description of two parallel research
investigations – in which the construction of full-scale physical demonstrators is
methodologically essential – Ramsgard Thomsen and Tamke discuss strategies
for devising active models that are aimed at simultaneously constructing open
spaces of investigation together with the capacity for materialisation through

Introduction 7