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.