Week 14: A Strategy for Advanced Building Technology (progress)

To what extent is architecture a derivation of technology in contemporary times?

Introduction

Architecture is the art of building in which human requirements and construction materials are brought to bear in a practical and aesthetic solution. It has been described as a social art and an artful science. Architects aim to look at the overall scope which involves in environment and impacts of the society. Architecture involves the design of buildings, cities and spaces, whilst taking account of culture, history and innovation to produce new architecture. Throughout the present century architects have made obsession of technological and scientific concepts out of context. Technology focuses on the technical and buildability with the intention of providing efficient and effective solutions to the design and construction of buildings. The rapid development in technology has caused different attitudes in designers and changes city life. It creates more sustainable designs that respond to the environment. With the increasing weight of technology in the built environment, it influences the architect’s artistic and spatial consideration.

Stereotypical Attitudes towards Technology

Embrace (accept)

Architects embrace technology to raise attention with the client’s economic, functional and structural considerations. Addressing artistic issues in technical manner promises greater success than insisting on artistic integrity. But this embracement of technology always carries the danger of losing architecture altogether. It cannot be denied that the lure of the technical progress has always tempt architects to force technical novelties into their designs, often by claiming that by doing so architecture itself would be transformed. Therefore, popular technical aspects of building like the virtualization of planning, new computer-aided design possibilities, ecological or energy issues are finding their way to the theoretical level. When referring to the matter of architectural theory, this attitude results in an ideology that is not advisable to the building industry to maintain relevance for the profession of architecture while at the same time trying to operate its business. The danger of this approach lies in the blind appreciation of technology. It might turn out to be at odds with the needs of the client and to create meaningful environment by the architect. Justifying building – technology is not what should be of interest in theory of architecture. 

Depreciating (undervalue)

Some architects deal with technology is by depreciating it. For them, technology is understood to be applied to architecture rather than being an integral part of it, no matter how much the importance of the role of technology in architecture is stressed. To those, technology always appears to be some kind of plumbing and therefore circumstantial to the assumed ‘essence’ of architecture. In this situation, the complicated relation between technology and architecture is determined by the assessment that technology is seen as a material required to building but also that it establish a limiting factor to the possibilities of architectural expression that the architect needs to overcome or surrender to. It highlights the trouble that architects face in the process of executing a design.

Summary

These stereotypical attitudes towards technology highlight the importance for architects to take a step back and reconsider the way they deal with technology, There is no denying that technology is as much part of every cultural discipline as it is a cultural discipline in itself and in this regard must be distinguished from other domains like architecture. In my opinion, architecture concentrates on technology and cultural disciplines to understand its capability to create place by cultural means.

Relationship between Architecture and Technology

One might be tempted to distinguish between architecture and technology by simply separating its task and subjects. The task of technology was to deal with the constructive and economical aspects of building, whereas architecture should provide for the aesthetic satisfaction of the customer. The overwhelming success of technology that generates rewarding sensual experiences for its users is as much an example as are new construction techniques and materials that create a new experience of space in architecture. Using the button of a mobile phone to compare with the Eiffel Tower; what then defines and separate architecture and technology today?

Digging into the history of the relation between architecture and technology, we must be aware that even the concepts of these two terms only developed over time. The way we define architecture and technology today is informed by the background of the stage of our cultural progress and therefore cannot be measured by the concepts of architecture and technology of the past.

Sense of Dwelling

There is no denying that every act of dwelling requires some technology even in the most basic sense of handling material in a self-aware move to force it into an intended form. Architecture in its most basic description of ‘self-aware dwelling’ and technology in its most basic description as ‘intentional handling to attain form’ almost instantly evoke the image of the primordial hut’, the theoretical idea of a first house describes as the source of not only architecture but also of technology and even civilization. The art of building and technology were departments of architecture. Technology and architecture as an ‘order of making’ only became distinguished with the canonization of building rules and the calculation of load bearing. Technology is an external factor of architecture simply because there was neither an understanding of technology nor of architecture as distinct cultural disciplines. The architect as the matter builder would incorporate both art and craft. Later in the development of what would then be called technology, tools became defined not by the person that made them or by the inherent magic of their capacity to overcome the limitations of the body and the challenges of the environment, but began to be understood by the task (function) that they could carry out.

Only when technology became detached from sensual perception did it gain a new quality. When still associated with tool-making and magical thinking, technology was, like building, a bodily experience. Technology, gains physical form through human will. In this regard, the object also reflected its creator, thus creating an animated bond between maker and object.
Technology as Tools


With the introduction of tools, technology was set onto a different route that eventually developed into a way of cognition of its own. The personal imprint of the producer diminished ever more in the history of technology, to the point that the work of technology became an endlessly reproducible object of the material world. Tools expanded the possibilities of production and at the same time, not only helped categorize and classify the possible products, but also shaped language in its development towards logic and abstraction. As for technology, the material presence and the practical aspect of its description as an ‘order of making’ keeps it from becoming purely relational in the way language and science are, but in its ability to venture into the relational world, it is easier to detach from individual experience and sense-based perception.

Summary

Architecture is the result and reflection of the human activity of meaningfully locating oneself in the physical and cultural world, whereas technology is the result and reflection of the will to improve or overcome bodily limitations. While the technical invention or discovery is just as much an act of creation as the design of a room, the goal and measure of success in technology is to integrate it into the sphere of science.

Technology in architecture is always subject to the expressive abilities and limitations of architecture. It is the image of technology that is transported in architecture, not technology itself. If the architect lets technology itself overtake the building task, he or she will risk the distinctiveness of architecture and will solely engineer, In this case, he or she will pass the burden on to the user, who might still mentally attach architectural qualities to the building.

If architecture comes from the making of a room, always owns an element of dwelling, it becomes obvious that personal experience cannot be separated from architecture. Sense perception and experience will never be sufficiently described in terms of measurability or rigid scientific terms. It needs a different terminology, different set of cognitive tools to play its part that all symbolic forms compete to achieve.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the only reason how it could be successfully argued that technology is becoming more important in architecture would be if technology contributed to a larger extent to the sense of dwelling as the core value of architecture. Of course, cultural forms can evolve and change over time. This in turn would make the concept of architecture obsolete. But since no change in the perception of architecture, therefore architecture is not a derivation of technology. It is being embraced and appreciate as part of the tools to develop architecture.