Collaboration and Altered Processes
Sean Ahlquist
Chapter from the book: Architecture Schools in Australasia, A. 2007. Association of Architecture Schools in Australasia.
Chapter from the book: Architecture Schools in Australasia, A. 2007. Association of Architecture Schools in Australasia.
The architectural technologist could be defined as a designer whose methods are driven by the intimate and experimental use of varying digital technologies. The technologist, in this scenario, is a designer by training, but typically, seen primarily for their technical expertise. Through an emerging practice of the architectural technologist as a design collaborator, an identity is forming of the technologist as a designer who balances general issues of architecture with an analytical mind towards digital/computational methods. Collaboration exists ultimately in the realm of design (not in production) but introduces a shift in process, where design involves the construction of digital means and the critique of process by all participants in the collaboration. This paper describes the necessity of this type of collaboration in relation to several specific design projects, to which Sean Ahlquist / Proces2 participated as the technologist. At issue is the technologist’s degree of influence on the processes, the level of exchange between designers, and the resulting influence on the success of the design. Three projects will be discussed to show the range of collaborative interaction. In one scenario, the technologist worked within a stratified and somewhat traditional process based on the applying digitallyderived systems to a specified form. A second scenario looked to find a generative, computational method through the collaboration. The intent was to discover an architectural pattern that had an advanced level of complexity, and simultaneously provide data for fabrication and construction. The last project saw the collaboration as a necessity to produce an array of highly complex 3-dimensional forms and provide means of communication between the highly digital environment and analog means for analysis and fabrication.
Ahlquist, S. 2007. Collaboration and Altered Processes. In: Architecture Schools in Australasia, A (ed.), Association of Architecture Schools in Australasia. Sydney: UTS ePRESS. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/aab.t
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Published on Sept. 27, 2007