Digital Diagrams in Architecture by Mircea Mogan

Digital diagrams in architecture K. Soliman Dessau Institute of Architecture, Dessau, Germany

M.A. Mogan “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania

ABSTRACT: The present study captures the importance and recent evolution of diagram use in the architectural discourse, seen as a mediation between intrinsic abstract ideas and communication of ideas. Besides the main characteristic of the brief explanation of the process and the end result, the diagrams can turn their role to a more creative direction as a core medium in digital design process. This duality is expressed through a case study envisioned in our Maser Thesis. 1 1.1

INTRODUCTION Meaning

Architectural diagrams are methods of developing, configuring an idea, concept, space, through various graphical means. Departing from the etymological sense, the diagram or ‘diagramma’ composes of the two terms: dia—across, between two and gramma-a figure, mark, line that is made, and represents an abstract concept which describes a transfer of meaning between two parts by graphical elements. The information transmitted reflects one or more parameters and specific features of the design process, many times being a simplified sketch or a complex drawing with data clusters. In fact the diagram is the abstract space where the information-data is embedded and evolves into the architectural realm. This area of transformation and configuration has a wide potential for the design process. Here is the moment where the concept is generated, where meanings are sorted, analyzed, folded and elucidated. It is the space where various knowledge streams and the subject converge to the point where the story is created and the spaces are articulated. 1.2

Medium

Two main diagram components can be highlighted: once is the message, content, information, concept which holds the entire construct together and secondly, the varied graphical language that enables multiple readings and expands the architectural innovation potential. In other words it reduces to answering the questions: which is the story and how is it drawn. In this sense, when speaking

about the intentionality, we could observe the main feature in the case of the diagram as reductive or additive. The reducing process doesn’t encounter a mode of eliminating the valuable or the meaningful characteristics of a construct, but filters the wide range of properties which defines it. Almost like a dissecting process which variously takes apart particular features, from the main concept to other significant characteristics of the project, like materiality, functionality or energy. Looking at the creative approach, many times the ideas crystallized through diagrams are hidden within the process, pending to stand in front with accuracy and clearness at the end. Further, when being brought to the light, the diagrams need to be designed at their time, in order to express the design story, such as a scenario would do for the play. 2 2.1

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Diagram territories

From a broader debate and philosophical perspective, Gilles Deleuze, examining Foucault major topics of knowledge, power, subjectivity, defines the diagram as “a supple set of relationships between forces” (Deleuze 1986/88:36) and further more highlights that “it is no longer an auditory or visual archive, but a map, a cartography that is coextensive with the whole social field. It is an abstract machine” (Deleuze 1986/88:34). This key concept refers at an infinite state of existence, where the diagram unfolds in a process of grasping all the interconnectivities between anteriority, interiority and exteriority. Those terms formulated by Eisenman in the same article, round up the creative

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space of the diagram. Firstly is the anteriority as it ‘summation’ of architectural history, and then comes the interiority which goes to the subtle ideas of project’s possible options and in the end the exteriority represented as an outer source of meaning, such as the specific site, the program or the history. The abstract machine comes along with some key concepts such as field and force, and substitutes a rigid approach based on types and relations. The terms express another vision towards objects, mediums and open up wider understanding on the design process. In this case any entity is composed out of forces that configure the shape and the program and ultimately this forces act as fields of influence between subparts. At a first glance many times this apparent excess of graphics, connectivity, data with multiple inputs and outputs such as a complex machine, might seem as a diffuse, vague, even messy condition, but this is a matter of the multiplicity and in the end it calls for finding the optimal solutions. In consequence the challenge remains to create this exploration territory where all elements, forces and fields dynamically interact and lead to multiple scenarios. The hierarchies are no longer fixed and it is a matter of finding the sequences of understanding the importance of the items involved in the design process. 2.2

Digital platform

Within the context of new digital tools and advanced technological fabrication, the design process is enriched by the variability, flexibility and multitude of methods which come along with the new paradigm. This new design perspective opens new fields of understanding and experimentation where the complex approach to geometries, program, and structure leaves a lot of space for the unexpected situations and innovation. From the digital point of view the diagrammatic process could reveal this openness towards design. 2.3

New type of representation

Opposed to any typical diagram, the digital approach spans the possibilities for high complex geometries and for reading and articulating huge amount of data, by processing them as complex drawings. Expanding the discussion to the formation process, the digital diagram is a generative drawing where multilayered information gets interwoven as a variable interchangeable network, afterwards are transformed into 2d maps or 3D models and further more into architectural space. Primary, the input data is assimilated and ready for updates along the process according to the needs and usage. Afterwards, the specific drawing scenario and its performance with open multiple

combinations, unfolds the speculative towards finding the optimal layout, geometry and organization of the space. This syntax process envisions the zone where architecture is being generated, as Patrick Schumacher is referring to as “proto representations” (Schumacher 2010). 2.4

Data processing

At the very bottom of information age lays the concept of data which is embedded in any possible medium such as society, landscape, urbanity etc. The main challenge of contemporary architecture is to decode and to highlight all the hidden integrated knowledge. With the new digital tools and algorithms, multiple information levels are taken in consideration, from a normative view to a progressive perspective where it unveils unprecedented facts and reveals new understanding, which will lead to more innovative, creative, specific context related architectural spaces. The architectural evolution makes a step forward from the object based design strategy, long time in action, towards a performance data driven process. We are now more than ever, able to consider influential factors, facts, information embedded in the surrounding context. Hence if we manage to analyze, confront, synthesize this livable cloud data, with a specific close-up to the scale, we might find out surprising situations, never thought before. Overall the actual challenge is about performance through design, and how we manage to create space with a higher sensibility to the users, context of material or immaterial sort. In the same time by grasping carefully data, the design process leads to sustainable results. Following the theory and ideas of Winy Mass (MVRDV) related to the Metacity, we can develop a comprehensive and extended study of urbanity and territories. Such datascapes demonstrate the high capacity and complexity of abstract maps as diagrams of our cities, to envision multiple criteria which together propose a more sensitive and flexible construct of the space. 3 3.1

CASE STUDY Mission

As a case study and experiment for digital diagrams, we will look on the project developed as our final master thesis, a proposal for the new headquarter of United Nations Organization. The brief in discussion appears to be an ideal condition for an experiment which encounters a huge set of parameters and represents a global challenge from political, social and cultural point of view. The preliminary questions related to the performance, evolutions, complexity and richness of all nations,

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should lead to the theoretical and representational reevaluation of the future nations house. The project intends to explore the data patterns and the possibilities of transferring all their meanings with the use of diagrams to express a statement envisioned in one coherent architectural proposal.

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3.2

Evolution traces

The features, values and performance tracks of all nations combined together create the real image of United Nations, which will be reflected in the new design. In this sense the strategy was to undertake a study on various data clusters around the topic of human development and growth, based on 192 nations. The forms of expression resulted through series of digitally generated diagrams, more specifically 2d and 3d graphs (scatter plot, historigrams, and network diagrams) describe with a scientific precision a cut out in the human development evolution. 3.3

Analysis

If we had to analyze the diagrammatic approach, according to Ben van Berkel’s theory in a text dedicated to the influential role of the diagram in design, we could consider splitting the process in three stages: “selection, application and operation”(van Berkel, Ben 1999). Taking them apart, in separate rational phases almost like an experimental procedure, this action compose the motherboard for the creativity which comes along. The first stage represented the collection of annual databases lists for each nation over the last half century, concerning four main factors: Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP), life expectancy at birth, literacy ratio, Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) which are taken in consideration to calculate the Human Development Index (HDI). In the second stage we developed code definitions that transpose the accumulated data into comprehensive diagrams, tracking down the nation’s development patterns (Figure 1). This application phase refers to the analytical approach, which reveals the evolutions of nations, observing an increasing trend among the medium developed countries. The development rhythms vary between the four groups very high, high, medium, and low developed. 3.4

Analysis conclusions

The top countries proceed with a more or less constant ratio, adding small steps, meanwhile the medium and low ones in general are performing with accelerated rhythms, having huge challenges and important steps to achieve till a better position, but in the same time with many risk of instability. The overall conclusion points out the substantial

Figure 1. Human Development Index HDI 1960–2010/ © MirceaMogan, Karim Soliman/Master Thesis: United Nations Headqurters/Dessau Institute of Architecture, 2011.

progress and evolution of nations, of human kind in the last century, due to groundbreaking improvements in technological, medical care system, emergent economies, all together with an increase of the population of almost seven times bigger today than the beginning of the last century. 3.5

Diagram-design process

And we reach the last process phase, one that requires the transition from the analysis results towards the architectural proposal. The operation reflects the space generation, considering scenarios where particular features or reading of the data processed in the diagram deliver substantial tectonics, materiality, hierarchy, and structural conditions. And here is raised a critical point of whether these constructs are literal or abstract forms generated from the diagram. There might be cases where the diagram traces are more visible in the final model, but as long as the concept and intrinsic values stand as a powerful construct, which enables surprising spaces, innovative program and enriched materiality, this will turn out to release architectural qualities within the data driven design. In the case study elaborated above, the diagram transforms into the real space tectonic, described by the multilayered intersecting paths of development for each nation transforming into merged slabs. The operation implies a prediction towards 2050 by extending the paths towards the highest point of development, as a message and humanity’s goal to be reached in the near future (Figure 2). The final diagram represents a 3D graph implementing the data on a xyz system with time paths and HDI values of UN members from the 1960 to 2050 (Figure 3). The diagram’s potential translated within a system of intersecting multi strata brings two important ideas the discussion: one is

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Figure 2. Human development index HDI prediction 1960–2050/© MirceaMogan, Karim Soliman/Master Thesis: United Nations Headqurters/Dessau Institute of Architecture, 2011.

Following the example of this particular project, data transforms itself through a sequence of applications and operations into built form, making it possible to construct a space that performs and represents the values of a certain topic, in this case United Nations organization headquarters. The project triggers to raise the awareness to the unprecedented growth and development of human kind in the last century, and in the same time to highlight the gaps which still need to be solved, and ultimately to propose a new architectural set up that envisions the diversity of all nations in one common and open platform, human development city.

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Figure 3. Human Development Index HDI prediction 1960–2050/© MirceaMogan, Karim Soliman/Master Thesis: United Nations Headqurters/Dessau Institute of Architecture, 2011.

Figure 4. 3D HDI diagrams formation/© MirceaMogan, Karim Soliman/Master Thesis: United Nations Headqurters/Dessau Institute of Architecture, 2011.

the expression of the long term strategy towards a highly developed world, and on the other side the manifold of intersections between nations paths, suggesting an architecture system where floors are softly merging into each—other, resulting in a continuous flowing space where all members and UN nation representatives will collaborate, debate, vote for the prosperity of the future world (Figure 3). In opposition with a standard packed overlapped floor system, the continuous slab construct softly ramping from floor to floor allows for a seamless communication and circulation for an office layout, creating multiple spaces for meetings, both informal and formal. The same diagrammatic layout incorporates the complete program including the general assembly and other conference rooms, according to proportions between the intersecting tracks of development (Figure 4).

CONCLUSIONS

In order to condense the ideas behind the digital diagramming, there can be emphasized the main features for merging abstract data, proposing hybrid scenarios, transformations and explorations of architectural features like tectonics, performance systems, organizational systems and experimental programme. Whether perceived as analytical or generative tools, digital diagrams contribute to pushing new boundaries of scanning our environment and formulating an improved design of the surrounding medium. Combined with the high potential of computational methods, the capacity of informing architecture with tremendous data sets enriches the design’s variability, precision and complexity. In the same time the geometrical language deployed within the multiple configurations of the diagram emerges in a state of innovation and further exploration towards non linear dimensions. Digital Diagrams are the territories where geometry, data, intuition and creativity converge to envision the abstract space described in flexible patterns featured by precision and speculative strategies. REFERENCES Deleuze, G. 1986/88. Foucault, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Eisenman, P. 1999. Diagram Diaries, Universe Publishing, New York. Garcia, M. 2010. The Diagrams of architecture, Ed. Wiley & Sons, London. Gausa, M. et al. 2000. Metapolis dictionary of advanced architecture, Ed. Actar, Barcelona. Lefebvre, H. 1991. Production of Space, Blackwell publishing, XXXXX. Polhill, R.M. 1982. Crotalaria in Africa and Madagascar. Rotterdam: Balkema. Schumacher, P. 2010. “Parametric Diagrams” in: Mark Garcia, ed. The Diagrams of Architecture, AD Reader, John Wiley & Sons, London, 260–269. Van Berkel B. & Bos, C. 1999. Move, Goose Press, the Netherlands.

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