ALGORITHMIC DESIGN

In the Huffington Post Arts and Culture section, there is an article titled “Towards a Science of Design” by Lance Hosey. As the title suggests, the author is expressing the oft lamented duality of art and science. Is architecture art? Is architecture science? Is art holding back architecture?  Are the pretty pictures the problem?  The author recommends that architects become more data driven. Let’s call this algorithmic design.

Improved human performance based on the variables of the enclosure is quantifiable. And the author states that architects need to start paying attention to completed research regarding what quantifiably works and what does not. Seems like a good idea.

Yet the article makes the typical lament that if architecture is not fundamentally art, then it will no longer be architecture. If we harness data driven design, then indeed the art, at least as we know it, will be lost. Or changed beyond something that we are currently comfortable with.

Certainly the more that data driven design is employed, the more that it can be algorithmically generated. I have every confidence that someone can write an open plan office design algorithm with specific sets of inputs such as floor area, number of people, which way is south, etc. The output would be an algorithmic design. And this design would optimize, for example, the amount of sunlight that each person gets, because we know that we all perform better with natural light rather than artificial light. Or the algorithmic design would balance energy usage with window distribution while taking into consideration increased human performance from this natural light. Or something like this. You get the idea.

While algorithmic design certainly is somewhere in the future, Luddite that I am, I am looking to forestall this as long as possible. While I am no doubt tilting at windmills to some extent in these pages, I continue to believe that there is a fertile confluence between science and art.

As I have said many times in these pages, there really is no difference between the approaches of science and art. Each advances a hypothesis. Each conducts experiments to test the hypothesis. And both then evaluate our hypothesis.

This is not a zero sum game. To move forward, we really need to get beyond this either / or mentality regarding science and art. It does not help to continue to reinforce this duality. Instead, we need to look toward the shared aspects. We need to look toward the shared method.

When we do, art and architecture will be better for it. And science will be better for it. Which means that humans will be the better for it.