Lect ure not es: 3D Generat i ve Di agrams // 01 Apri l 2010

3D Generati ve Di agrams
Joanne Jakovich
Joanne.Jakovich@uts.edu.au

This week we are building 3D Diagrams of architectural strategies. The idea of this process is to
build an abstract representation of a set of design ideas that can form the generative source for
our design ideas.

[MOTI VATI ON]
The motivation for developing the 3D diagram is to allow the cognitive processes of abstract
designing to work intuitively with the hands. In this studio, we are transferring the material skills
you learned in Year 1 Forming and Making into a more detailed procedure of representation. It is
my belief that through hands on model-making spatial ideas can manifest that are not foreseeable
in two dimensions.

[DI AGRAM EVOLUTI ON]
Diagrams in architecture have recently taken a turn in functionality. Traditionally they have been
used for representation, both of form or program to be realised and or form already existing. That
is they have functioned in a descriptive manner.
In contemporary architectural practice, the role of diagrams have taken on a generative function.
They have shifted from simply being methods of representation to being tools for speculative
thinking in design.
There are two basic types of diagrams in architecture:
representational
- sketches, markings of form or site
- plans, sections as diagrams
generative
- abstractions of strategies, systems, relations
- mixed dimensional representations
In its traditional representational manner, the diagram offers the designer a mode of thinking
through sketching. That is, the process of incrementally modifying a series of diagrams
representing site, form, program and structure, allows the designer to critically reflect on
numerous factors of the project in an ongoing, interactive manner. Hence:
Design drawing is an iterative and interactive act involving recording ideas, recognising
functions, and finding new forms and adapting them into the design. Thus drawing is not
only a vehicle for communication with others, it helps designers see and understand the
forms they work with.
Lect ure not es: 3D Generat i ve Di agrams // 01 Apri l 2010
[Thinking with Diagrams in Architectural Design, Ellen Do and Mark Gross, 2001]
In contrast, a generative diagram has a more abstract representation between more diverse
parameters of an architectural project (e.g. atmosphere, politics, materiality, narrative,
ephemerality, gesture, information, desire, novelty). As a result, diagrammatic modes of designing
too become more complex and speculative. Rather than offering a mode for clarifying a complex
system, the generative diagram functions to provide a plethora of interpretive solutions. It
generates opportunities through tension, conflict, contrast and schism.
It is this mode of creative reading of the 3D diagram models that we will begin in Phase 2.1
(Week 7).
Some definitions of the generative diagram by architects:
Operating between form and word, space and language, the diagram is both constitutive
and projective: it is performative rather than representational.
[Anthony Vidler]

A diagram is not a plan, nor is it a static entity. Rather it is conceived of as a series of
energies which draw upon the interiority and anteriority of architecture as a potential for
generating new configurations.
[Peter Eisenman]

Fundamentally a disciplinary device in that it situates itself on and undoes specific
institutional and discursive oppositions (and that it provides a projective discipline for new
work)
It suggests an alternative mode of repetition (... repetition as the production of difference
rather than identity)
...it is a performative rather than a representational device (i.e. a tool of the virtual rather
than the real).
[R.E.Somol, Diagram Diaries p.8]

[HOW TO MAKE A GENERATI VE DI AGRAM]
A generative diagram is formed from a series of informational sets (or mappings) that may
comprise:
! Site information such as geographic, geological, topographical, spatial, or climatic factors
! Contextual analysis of socio, political, demographic, historical factors
! Other data/information sets from any conceivable body of knowledge that may be pertinent
to the program or function of the proposed building, e.g. temporal patterns of occupation,
material systems, aerodynamics, market systems, narrative devices,
Lect ure not es: 3D Generat i ve Di agrams // 01 Apri l 2010
These informational sets offer dimensions to which a diagram is illustrated against. The diagram is
the single entity within which these disparate bodies of information can be brought together and
tested and compared. Within a single representational device the two (or more) dimensions must
necessarily have separate identifiable and meaningful benchmarks against which they are
measured. These need not be measurable per se, but have rigorous (and repeatable) methods of
layout and representation.
For example, a diagram integrating topographical information with demographic statistics has two
modes of representation of those sets that are separately definable yet intertwine with each other
in a relative manner. This relativity offers a new way of reading or interpreting the interplay
between elements (peaks, intersections, conflicts etc) between the two normally non-comparable
factors of an architectural project. Diagrams may take on more than two sets of information, and
in this manner develop a complexity of interrelations that may (or may not) provide a deeper
capacity for architectural speculation.
The methods of representation within a single diagram are as important as the integrity of the
informational sets themselves. Any given collection of informational sets may be represented in a
variety of ways. The means of representation will subtly or substantially change the role of the
information based on how it shifts the perception of the designer.
Deciding how to represent the informational sets, however, does not have to be a difficult process.
The method can take on some basic intuitive decisions, such as linearity promotes comparison,
up is north, a perimeter is a temporal cycle, and so on. For the 3D architectural diagram, any
conceivable method of plotting an informational set in space is acceptable. In building a set of
creative and exploratory rules against which mappings occur, the design process begins to take a
path along a particular methodology inherent to the project and/or the designer.
The following diagrams illustrate the multitude of methods for informatic representation in simple
2D statistical diagrams, and perhaps are a useful trigger to the range of possibilities available in
3D:
Lect ure not es: 3D Generat i ve Di agrams // 01 Apri l 2010

[Diagrams from Ben Frys Computational Information Design]
You can also see http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/ for an enormous range of
representational methods of complex informational sets in two dimensions, although for the goal
of this particular phase of this project many of these are too graphically complex and/or
excessive.
Lect ure not es: 3D Generat i ve Di agrams // 01 Apri l 2010
[HOW TO USE A GENERATI VE 3D DI AGRAM]
A generative 3D diagram as described above is a multi-dimensional machine that holds diverse
informational sets in one coherent system. It is a creatively produce system because there exists
no prior method for combining these sets and so each diagram is a new solution.
Using a generative diagram in design is a process of speculation, testing, interpretation and more
testing. It is a system that within this process can be contested, reconfigured, and remembered. It
is dynamic and volatile. As Peter Eisenman writes, the diagram is conceived of as a series of
energies which draw upon the interiority and anteriority of architecture as a potential for
generating new configurations. [Peter Eisenman]
Diagrams are constantly evolving machines in themselves. While the process of iterative
interpretation will generate design options, the diagram itself may need to be regenerated in order
to test a different series of inquiries.
We will cover the processes for using the generative 3D diagrams in detail in Phase 2.1 (Week 7).

[THE BI GGER PI CTURE]
This evolution of the diagram in the design process of architecture is interesting because in many
ways it mirrors the increased operability of new buildings today. Forms of responsive
architectures, from interactive display surfaces to ambient intelligent environments, are enabling
architecture itself to be generative.
Buildings that work in an operative or generative mode provide clients or the public with
opportunities to interpret the spaces. They can create entirely new modes of interaction with the
space or with each other in the space, and the building provides its own interpretation of their
behaviour.
Through interactive computing, diagrams themselves have also become interactive. Interactivity is
enabled either through a gestural interface, or the diagram can be live, interacting directly with a
constantly changing data set. An example showing a combination of both of these is Toshio Iwai &
Klein Dytham Architectures ICE, which is a visualisation of stock markets from around the world
that are accessible via a full-body scale gestural interaction screen. In this way, the diagram is
both the visualisation and the people who use it in-situ; it is a conflation of body and information in
space.

[CONCLUSI ONS]
In the design process, diagrams offer a dynamic means for working with architecture (regardless
of whether it is static, operative, or interactive) since it provides the designer a modality for
thinking about multiplicitous solutions.
Each of you will be able to take this method into your upper year architectural studios and into
your career. Your tutors will individually illustrate to you their methods of interpreting diagrams
and generating solutions for design briefs.