W8 Reading

In architecture, superficiality is linked to more practical factors. With the increasing importance of electronic media, it is tempting to transform architecture into a giant information display. Stephen Perrella, who is an architect and theorist, has coined the term "hypersurface" to name the convergence between cyberspace, envisaged as hypermedia, and architecture conceived primarily as a surface of projection or a terminal. Projects like the Signage concept for Digital Media City in Seoul designed by a MIT team led by Dennis Frenchman have already begun to explore their possibilities for urban public space. Another set of practical arguments in favor of surface is linked to energy requirements implied by the quest for sustainability. Journals of architecture are now filled with projects and realizations based on skin conditions suposed to drastically improve the behavior of buildings. The strategic importance of surface also has to do with the complexity, instability and required flexibility of many contemporary architectural programs. Due to the complexity, instability and flexibility, architects are often obliged to limit their pretensions by accepting to produce a mere envelope. In this situation, the seduction exerted by the envelope derives from its potential to counterbalance programmatic heterogeneity and uncertainty. Between philosophical arguments indicative of broad cultural evolutions and down to earth programmatic constraints, digital architecture's obsession with surface corresponds also to a series of more specific motives. The greater degree of arbitrariness that volumes seem imparted with may explain the spectacular decline of blobs in recent years. After their initial success and despite their diffusion beyond the circles of digital designers proper, they no longer epitomize cutting edge research.

W7 Reading

In the 21 century, new strategies for design and new technology of making materials or large constructions have emerged, based on biological models of the processes by which natural material forms are produced. The self organization of biological material systems is a process that occurs over time, a dynamic that produces the capacity for changes to the order and structure of a system, and for those changes to modify the behavior of that system. Natural materials develop under load, and the intricate interior structure of biological materials is an evolutionary reponse. At the level of individual, there is also an adaptive response as, for example, bone tissue gets denser in response to repeated loads in athletic activities such as weightlifting. In the industrial world, polymer cellular foams are used for insulation and packaging, but the high structural efficiency of cellular materials in other, stiffer materials has only begun to be explored recently. Comparatively few engineers and architects are familiar with the engineering design of cellular materials, and this has contributed to the slow development of cellular structures in architecture.

As digital architecture remains in its infancy, one must be cautious not to draw conclusion about the temporary features it presents. Far from being jeopardized by the generalization of the computer and the development of virtual worlds, materiality will probably remain a fundamental feature of architectural production. One can furthermore speculate whether the use of the computer, with its web extensions, represents a substantial departure from the traditional features of architectural representation. Digital technology are getting familiar in architectural, and its going to be more and more important in the furture.

W5 Reading

In twentieth century, machine technology start getting familiar with to the people. As machine technology was able to produce a mass of goods and services that help us in normal life. Thomas Edison or other technological enthusiasts wished to and tried to organize not only technology, but also turned the nontechnological world mechanistically. During the second industrial revolution in 1880, inventors and industrial research laboratories carried on invention, research, development and innovation. Things like telephone, electric light, airplane and etc got benefit by the electricity and the internal combustion engine, and followed by the new materials which are steel, aluminum, plastics, and reinforced concrete, and all these materials helps us in different field nowadays. Nonetheless subways and underground networks along with tall buildings gave the cities three dimensions that allowed us to mass in unprecedented numbers. Technological enthusiasm prevailed in the popular press during the second industrial revolution much as it does during today’s information revolution. However, especially in Germany, some intellectuals, social scientists and historians questioned popular technological enthusiasm and cast doubts about the social and cultural impact of technology. Oswald Spengler who is a German historian, associated machine technology with the decline of Western civilization. He argues that a cultural sea change occurred when humans began using technology to exploit nature, or in other word, began to distroy nature. Yet, his arguments are both insightful and irrational. In my opinion, machine technology brought us a better life, everything we are using today were produced by machine, may be in 19 century, there were some people who disagree with this technology, but undeniable, machine technology do bring us a high technology world.