Lazy Computing
This undergraduate seminar at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design interrogated the tension between digital simulation and physical reality in contemporary architectural practice. The course examined how current design software's embedded constraints and automated behaviors create a "disciplinary nonchalance" that divorce architects from material forces and physicality.
Students engaged with "inconvenient motion made easy," utilizing physics engines, particle systems, and simulation tools to explore new working methodologies. The curriculum combined theoretical discourse on post-digital aesthetics with hands-on experimentation using Rhinoceros, Blender, photogrammetry software, and Adobe Creative Suite. Weekly readings addressed topics ranging from field conditions to computational color theory, while student-led presentations drove critical discussions on digital discourse.
Through its various iterations taught between 2019-2022, the course emphasized process over product, examining how innovative digital tool usage repositions the architect's role from direct formal engagement to director of simulated parts, often yielding unexpected outcomes that challenge traditional notions of authorship and labor in architectural design.
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May Soto, Hemani Kohli, Vashnavi Nagulendranathan