Construction Thematic Subnetwork
2007
Call for the Sixth EAAE-ENHSA Construction Teachers' Sub-network Workshop
Emerging Possibilities of Testing and Simulation Methods and Techniques in Contemporary Construction Teaching
Facult e Polytechnique de Mons, School of Architecture, Mons, Belgium,
22-24 November 2007
Contemporary architectural education in Europe , to a greater or lesser extent, has not encapsulated in its teaching practices advanced testing and simulation methods. Despite the technical possibilities and potential of the existing advanced technological infrastructures, schools of architecture use technology mostly at the level of representation or of morphogenesis.
However, there is a great deal of innovation on contemporary construction in the building industry regarding the simulation of reality and the control over the behavior of forms, structures and materials, their aesthetics, loading conditions, environmental particularities and properties before their materialisation.
These changes impose to the design process new logics that support parametrically the design-construction choices within a flexible and continuously changing context of decisions and constraints. These logics enable a direct control on the constraints that affect the materiality of a building and to the possibility to get direct feedback for potential errors , problems, as well as the potential advantages in the ways certain parameters can be manipulated.
These new approaches to the production of the built environment render design as a process of continuous testing and put the term ‘testing' on the pedestal of the contemporary design process as a crucial keyword. Moreover, the development of simulation techniques has allowed for the significant convergence of the design process with construction.
From the static, timely, costly, passive, tedious and inaccurate simulation of reality that physical modeling has served until recently, we are nowadays in a position to simulate reality dynamically, in no time, at the cost of the digital infrastructure (that schools of architecture and architectural practices possess) but above all interactively and accurately. Interaction and accuracy could be considered the most important characteristics of contemporary simulation and modeling as they directly involve the design team with the dynamic forms/structures that emerge and allow for their freezing, modification and through computation to the actual prototype building and eventual manufacturing. Architects more then ever have more control over the building process. Simulation through computation and model building offers greater control of the construction of their ideas that derives from the digitally produced design information that can automatically become construction information ‘through the processes of data extraction and exchange'. Models are capable of consistent, continual and dynamic transformation and replace the norms of conventional processes.
Analytical computation techniques have shifted the value system of the design process from modularity to variability, from singularity to multiplicity and finally from mass-production to mass-customisation. Designers no longer ‘create form' but ‘find form' from an infinite spectrum.
Moreover, analytical computation techniques accurately perform structural, energy and fluid dynamics, airflows within and around a building and dynamic behaviours of other fluids such as smoke, water etc. The use of 3-D and 4-D models software releases all necessary qualitative and quantitative dimensional information for the design, analysis, fabrication and construction, assembly and sequencing. Models are used for conceptual, formal and tectonic exploration. The debate of the irreplaceable tactility of physical modeling comes to support rapid prototyping which is an affordable opportunity to investigate design iteratively with physical modeling.
The outcome of the design process is no longer a simulation that differs dramatically from the characteristics of the real building and functions primarily as representation. On the contrary , the design outcome encapsulates with great accuracy the characteristics of the building that is being designed and can be directly manufactured. These fundamental changes in the domains of design and construction , as expected , demand a different work environment, knowledgebase, priorities and certainly values which will legitimize and reflect all the above.
Are the ways methods and practices we employ to teach construction friendly and welcoming to these new changes? Do we give our students the possibility to enter a labor market which is rapidly adopting, and is orienting itself in the extensive use of these new techniques and logics?
Are the traditional teaching methods and techniques capable of receiving this new context or do they need an overall reassessment? What infrastructures do we need to have, and how close to the building industry do we need to get? What is the cost of such adaptation and what is our benefit? What examples have developed that could inform us about their effectiveness, the problems and the possibilities that they have created firstly to our students' competences and skills and secondly to the dynamics of our teaching? How do students respond to such innovations, what are the learning modes and patterns, what are they capable of doing with what they learn?
The workshop wishes to open up a debate among construction teachers on the above questions with the aim to inform , as well as to develop a forum for the exchange of ideas with a critical spirit and a good will to synthesise views which will neither approach the new defensively nor will they see the old aggressively but will comprehend the importance of collaborations as a presupposition for new educational experiences and academic knowledge.
The debates will develop on five thematic areas, each one of which will elaborate on the teaching examples of testing and simulation in construction teaching with special emphasis on topics of:
- form and structure,
- the environmental control,
- the materials and
- the building components .
Invited speakers will address the issue of testing and simulation on each on of the above areas.
Extended abstracts of 300 words have to be sent to mvoyat@arch.auth.gr no later than 20 September 2007.
For more information please visit www.enhsa.net or email at mvoyat@arch.auth.gr
