On technological limits

Author: Clare Olsen Year: 2018 Source type: chapter (Ch. 23 of The Interior Architecture Reader, ed. Gregory Marinic, Routledge, 2018) Raw file: raw/chapters/olsen-2018-on-technological-limits.md

Summary

Olsen's chapter argues that limits — project constraints (site, code, budget), disciplinary boundaries, machine capabilities, structural possibilities, and production protocols — are not design's enemies but its material: "It is through artful understanding of these limits that design becomes stronger and more real." The chapter organizes interior architecture's recent technological history as a sequence of limit-interrogations — disciplinary (working at the "border," via Linder), machinic (CNC scale and 3D printing's costs, via Emerging Objects), structural (form-finding installations at SCI-Arc: Iwamoto Scott's Voussoir Cloud, Wiscombe's Cantilever, Roberge's En Pointe) — and then reverses direction to argue that some limits need asserting rather than expanding: parametric modeling's infinite variation demands the curated object (Murmur's Bioform, Ruy-Klein's Klex 1) and Dewey's "pauses, places of rest." The chapter contributes to Marinic's Reader a limits-interrogation register of interior architecture: the interior as "dynamic site[] for technological experimentation" whose quasi-autonomy (Lavin) makes it uniquely suited to test what machines, structures, and sensibility can do.

Key Claims

Design is constituted by limits: "project goals define a scope of work that is further informed by the boundary conditions of site, contextual surroundings, code requirements, and budgetary restrictions. These bounding (and sometimes binding) conditions of each project create explicit limits to production."
Constraint requires expertise: "Project constraints are not always apparent. Requiring both time and expertise, architects and designers need to know how to define them, as well as when and how to interrogate them"; "Once these are understood, innovation and novelty arise through experimentation and sometimes risk."
Michael Speaks (via Latent Utopias, 2002): "If architecture is to remain relevant it must also adapt and learn to see innovation where it arises – often on the periphery or outside the limits of its own body."
Mark Linder (via Hunch 9, 2009): disciplinary identity without "posturing and siloing"; working at the "border" of the discipline "produces new knowledge and an expansion of disciplinary expertise"; "it is at the limits 'where we become most aware and in need of the tools, techniques, and technologies of the discipline.'"
"Advances arise by harnessing disciplinary expertise associated with the technologies of production to push against disciplinary boundaries."
Two historical waves of technological transformation: Industrial Revolution materials and manufacturing → the International Style; computational design and production since the 1990s → transformation of "both working methods and the work produced."
Greg Lynn as the pioneer of computational design: he "mined the design and production methods of automobile and animation industries to inform new working methods and formal typologies. Disciples and allies following similar practices proliferated those technologies, thereby expanding the normative set of disciplinary tools. The effects of the digital turn are evident in all aspects of interior architecture, from design tactics to construction techniques."
"Interior architectures, in particular, provide dynamic sites for technological experimentation."
Antoine Picon (2013, p. 27): "digital technology has allowed [texture] to become a more autonomous dimension, present from the start in the design process and imbued with a definite ornamental character" — a "reinvigorated interest in ornamentation" has "energized discussions about the sensorial experience of interior spaces."
Sylvia Lavin (2011, p. 111): architecture should "make perception enter the realm of experience rather than vision, to make images that produce material impressions, to make experience that is vivid."
Olsen's own mediation analogy: "In the same way that Pier Vittorio Aureli describes exterior facades as mediating 'between private property and public space,' interior surfaces mediate between the private collective (program functions) and the private individual or sensorial experience."
Jacques Derrida (2005, p. 103): "To touch is to touch a limit, a surface, a border, an outline" — the tactile quality of the boundary between architecture proper and the affective experience within it, what Deleuze calls the tactile-optical experience.
Lavin (2011, p. 64) on the interior: "The interior is quasi-autonomous – it relies on and is even often isomorphic with architecture, but remains distinct from architecture's identification with building. As a result, the interior is uniquely free to seek out provisionality, changefulness, and to provide architecture with a site of experimentation. The interior coordinates surfaces that are in sufficient proximity with one another that they amplify each other's effects."
"Technologies of production" defined as "the software and hardware used in the design and construction processes"; "As technologies are introduced into the profession, their use produces novelty. As technologies become embedded within the culture of the discipline, innovations require a deeper level of technological expertise."
Machines as design material: "Machines are generally understood as finite tools – they do what they do – but within the context of design where norms are questioned, machines can be a productive subject for experimentation."
The interior-scale thesis for CNC: "CNC machine size limitations lend well to the interior scale. Tooled materials are usually easy to carry and within a dimension similar to standard, off-the-shelf building materials and furniture" — mills "around four feet by eight feet," laser cutters "less than four feet wide," 3D printers "a buildable area smaller than one cubic foot."
3D printing's asymmetry: "Aside from scale, 3D printers have the fewest limitations on the types of forms that can be produced. As an additive process, printing machines are superbly capable of manufacturing fantastically intricate objects, yet there have been few examples of building-scale use of 3D prints, due to the expense of printing standard materials like plastics, metals, and powders, which can cost upwards of US$75 per pound, and the more durable, the more costly. This circumstance renders 3D printing largely unaffordable for interior construction."
Emerging Objects (Rael San Fratello's offshoot) as the workaround: a "MAKE-tank" that "hack[ed] additive printing machines" to print "materials such as salt, sand, and sawdust"; the "salty glue" of "salt harvested from the San Francisco Bay and glue" is "strong, waterproof, lightweight, translucent, and inexpensive" — by mining sustainable materials and manufacturing by-products, the modules are "highly intricate, eco-conscious, and much more affordable than standard rapid prototyping materials."
San Fratello: "I think architecture is still about customization and uniqueness. Architecture still responds to unique sites and contexts, and 3D printing actually facilitates the role of customization in architecture, and the number of issues we can respond to as designers" (2013).
The Saltygloo (Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco): "The translucent shell, embedded with texture and tiny apertures, created a soft disco effect and ephemeral atmosphere" — salt modules demonstrated "at the scale of a room"; "questioning the limits of machines can enable new potentialities for interior design and spatial experiences."
Structural materials wave: "Glass fiber–reinforced gypsum, for example, allowed Zaha Hadid Architects to more easily create the illusion of a seamless, fluid interior with embedded lighting and acoustical performance for the Guangzhou Opera House in China"; thinner-yet-stronger materials enable "greater lightness and ephemerality in interior architecture."
Structural analysis software's history: FEM "parallels CAM software that emerged from the development of supercomputers in the 1950s. These room-sized machines provided computational power initially harvested by the aerospace and military industries"; market demands later "permit[ted] designers to gain a better understanding of material performance and risk associated with complex forms."
The risk economy: "there is a natural aversion to profound risk in the building industry associated with reliance on codes, analyses, mock-ups, and testing. As a counterpoint and informant for structuring large-scale interiors, installation projects can provide low-risk opportunities to expand the limits of structural performance."
Voussoir Cloud (Iwamoto Scott with Buro Happold, SCI-Arc 2008): "digital form-finding to create a hanging chain model to produce efficient parabolic geometries that, when virtually flipped, created vaulted forms in pure compression"; laser-cut, folded paper-thin wood veneer voussoirs held "partly in tension and partly through mechanical fasteners"; "The resulting installation is perceived as continuous, yet differentiated, stable, and also incredibly light."
Cantilever (Tom Wiscombe with Buro Happold and SCI-Arc's Materials Lab Program, 2011): ANSYS analysis "to test the limits of composite materials"; a form "assembled through molding and welding rather than mechanical fasteners"; "tattooed with vectors of two-inch-wide reinforcing fibers, producing both structural support and an aesthetic effect of networked continuity"; the biomorphic form "hovers above a heavily traveled corridor… evoking a sense of weight with its scale, which is counterbalanced by both its translucency and impossibly long cantilever."
En Pointe (Heather Roberge / Murmur, SCI-Arc Gallery; from the UCLA studio "The Genealogy of the Column"): "a celebration and critique of structural form-finding projects, closing a gap between the impossible thinness of the computer model and the reality of constructing actual lightness"; asymmetrical, base-diminishing columns that "no single module would stand alone," clustered "en pointe" through folded triangulated geometries and material innovations (aluminum sheets, composites, epoxies, tapes); gravity-loaded digital physics simulations; "the team arrived at the assembly, which is the thinnest it can possibly be, which is stable without appearing static."
"Murmur designed a co-dependent column system, thereby developing a new typology, the column cluster"; inspired by the Hypostyle Hall, "En Pointe is similarly sublime – despite its small scale"; "questioning the limits of structure can provide new tactics to achieve interiors offering atmospheric lightness."
The critical turn: "some might argue that certain technological limits need greater fortification rather than expansion" — critics may object "simply by virtue of taste; the technological innovations discussed here do not appeal to all audiences."
William Massie (2002): "The ability for direct dialogue between virtual and actual provides a substantial increase in artistic autonomy. With the removal of traditionally mitigating forces in the logistics of architectural production, the onus of accountability received by the architect becomes greater."
Iteration's cost: more versions made "more quickly, but assessing multiple versions to arrive at the 'right' solution also necessitates testing and analysis. Of course, this making and testing feedback loop requires time, potentially impacting designers' work life and profit margins."
"Computers are excellent tools for optimization and efficiency, and they are also superb at generating excess." Parametric modeling "facilitate[s] an endless number of results, begging the question, is more really more?"
Farshid Moussavi (2006): "Differentiation is a contemporary effect."
The limit-asserting counter-exemplars (Matters of Sensation, Artists Space, New York): Murmur's vacuum-formed aluminum Bioform ("the modules that compose Bioform are the size of a hand, making it more understandable, relatable, and biomorphic") and Ruy-Klein's CNC-milled high-density foam Klex 1 ("framed ornament could be imagined as either remaining as a singular exquisite object or becoming a bordering element at the seams of a room") both have "an aura of objectness, making them tactile and corporeal"; juxtaposing "highly articulated, detail-rich surfaces against a blank wall" achieves "the beauty and surprise that can be achieved by limiting the parametric project."
John Dewey (1934, p. 206) as the theoretical warrant: the continuity of moving through a space creates "an experience," and it is through "pauses, places of rest" from "something to something" that experiences become notable; "As one part leads into another, and as one part carries on what went before, each gains distinctness in itself. The enduring whole is diversified by successive phases that are emphases of its varied colors." Design application: "an emphasis on spatial design can provide more notable sensorial experiences" by "celebrating the boundaries and blankness between things."
Closing thesis: "By questioning disciplinary, manufacturing, or structural limits while acknowledging the ramifications of overproduction, designers can find rich inspiration for the emerging practice of interior architecture"; "Better understanding and interrogation of limits will enable opportunities to create new and powerful aesthetic experiences in interiors."

Connections

Concepts: technological-limits, digital-fabrication, 3d-printing, computational-design, digital-architecture, parametricism, mass-customization, form-finding, column-cluster, quasi-autonomous-interior, fabrication, interior-architecture, sustainability, architectural-ornament, performative-ornament, aesthetic-experience, authorship, boundaries, atmosphere, sublime, discipline, disciplinary-frontiers, typology, interiority

Authors: olsen-clare (author), marinic-gregory (volume editor), hadid-zaha (Guangzhou Opera House), deleuze-gilles (tactile-optical experience), derrida-jacques (quoted)

Debates: interior-design-vs-architecture (Linder's border-transdisciplinarity; Lavin's quasi-autonomous interior), ornament-vs-purity (the digital ornament renaissance; Moussavi's differentiation), static-vs-dynamic-architecture (En Pointe: "stable without appearing static"; Voussoir Cloud: "stable, and also incredibly light")

Related source notes: source-notes/manack-2018-fabricating-interiority (digital fabrication as interior architecture's disciplinary instrument), source-notes/carraher-2018-spatial-agency-digital-praxis (the economic history of nonstandard design), source-notes/satterfield-swackhamer-2018-swimming-upstream (production-stream agency), source-notes/anderson-lovell-anderson-2018-transforming-interior-volumes (computational register), source-notes/garofalo-khan-2018-sensorial-interior-landscapes (ornament and digital fabrication; also the SOL Grotto of Rael San Fratello), source-notes/taylor-2018-shape-shifting-dynamic-design (the dynamic interior), source-notes/schneiderman-2018-inside-the-prefab-house (production history), source-notes/seabrook-2009-the-abstractionist (Hadid's digital pipeline)

Direct Quotes

"These bounding (and sometimes binding) conditions of each project create explicit limits to production. It is through artful understanding of these limits that design becomes stronger and more real."

"If architecture is to remain relevant it must also adapt and learn to see innovation where it arises – often on the periphery or outside the limits of its own body." (Michael Speaks, quoted)

"Linder also asserts that it is at the limits 'where we become most aware and in need of the tools, techniques, and technologies of the discipline.'"

"Interior architectures, in particular, provide dynamic sites for technological experimentation."

"digital technology has allowed [texture] to become a more autonomous dimension, present from the start in the design process and imbued with a definite ornamental character." (Antoine Picon, quoted, p. 27)

"Architecture's new confounds are not just making buildings visible, but are encouraging them to find ways to make perception enter the realm of experience rather than vision, to make images that produce material impressions, to make experience that is vivid." (Sylvia Lavin, Kissing Architecture, p. 111, quoted)

"In the same way that Pier Vittorio Aureli describes exterior facades as mediating 'between private property and public space,' interior surfaces mediate between the private collective (program functions) and the private individual or sensorial experience."

"To touch is to touch a limit, a surface, a border, an outline." (Jacques Derrida, On Touching, Jean-Luc Nancy, p. 103, quoted)

"The interior is quasi-autonomous – it relies on and is even often isomorphic with architecture, but remains distinct from architecture's identification with building. As a result, the interior is uniquely free to seek out provisionality, changefulness, and to provide architecture with a site of experimentation. The interior coordinates surfaces that are in sufficient proximity with one another that they amplify each other's effects." (Sylvia Lavin, Kissing Architecture, p. 64, quoted)

"Machines are generally understood as finite tools – they do what they do – but within the context of design where norms are questioned, machines can be a productive subject for experimentation."

"Aside from scale, 3D printers have the fewest limitations on the types of forms that can be produced. As an additive process, printing machines are superbly capable of manufacturing fantastically intricate objects, yet there have been few examples of building-scale use of 3D prints, due to the expense of printing standard materials like plastics, metals, and powders, which can cost upwards of US$75 per pound, and the more durable, the more costly."

"3D printing holds tremendous potential for interior architecture, where a renewed interest in ornament and tactility can be manufactured at an approachable scale."

"made of a combination of salt harvested from the San Francisco Bay and glue, a 'salty glue', which makes an ideal 3D printing material; one that is strong, waterproof, lightweight, translucent, and inexpensive" (Emerging Objects, quoted)

"I think architecture is still about customization and uniqueness. Architecture still responds to unique sites and contexts, and 3D printing actually facilitates the role of customization in architecture, and the number of issues we can respond to as designers." (Virginia San Fratello, quoted)

"The translucent shell, embedded with texture and tiny apertures, created a soft disco effect and ephemeral atmosphere." (on the Saltygloo)

"installation projects can provide low-risk opportunities to expand the limits of structural performance."

"Iwamoto Scott used digital form-finding to create a hanging chain model to produce efficient parabolic geometries that, when virtually flipped, created vaulted forms in pure compression."

"The resulting installation is perceived as continuous, yet differentiated, stable, and also incredibly light." (on Voussoir Cloud)

"The translucent system was 'tattooed' with vectors of two-inch-wide reinforcing fibers, producing both structural support and an aesthetic effect of networked continuity." (on Cantilever)

"Roberge designed En Pointe as both a celebration and critique of structural form-finding projects, closing a gap between the impossible thinness of the computer model and the reality of constructing actual lightness."

"Through an iterative design and testing process, the team arrived at the assembly, which is the thinnest it can possibly be, which is stable without appearing static."

"Murmur designed a co-dependent column system, thereby developing a new typology, the column cluster."

"En Pointe is similarly sublime – despite its small scale."

"En Pointe demonstrates that questioning the limits of structure can provide new tactics to achieve interiors offering atmospheric lightness."

"The ability for direct dialogue between virtual and actual provides a substantial increase in artistic autonomy. With the removal of traditionally mitigating forces in the logistics of architectural production, the onus of accountability received by the architect becomes greater." (William Massie, quoted)

"Computers are excellent tools for optimization and efficiency, and they are also superb at generating excess."

"the variables plugged into the algorithms, animations, and scripts of parametric models facilitate an endless number of results, begging the question, is more really more?"

"these sculptures provide exquisite examples of the beauty and surprise that can be achieved by limiting the parametric project."

"As one part leads into another, and as one part carries on what went before, each gains distinctness in itself. The enduring whole is diversified by successive phases that are emphases of its varied colors." (John Dewey, Art as Experience, p. 206, quoted)

"By questioning disciplinary, manufacturing, or structural limits while acknowledging the ramifications of overproduction, designers can find rich inspiration for the emerging practice of interior architecture."

"Better understanding and interrogation of limits will enable opportunities to create new and powerful aesthetic experiences in interiors."

Open Questions

The chapter argues limits are design's springboard, but its own examples are all elite-institutional (SCI-Arc galleries, a ZHA opera house, a New York exhibition). Do limit-interrogations scale to Olsen's own starting point — the "boundary conditions of site, contextual surroundings, code requirements, and budgetary restrictions" of ordinary projects — or is interrogating limits a luxury of the installation economy?
Massie's autonomy/accountability trade: digital production removes "traditionally mitigating forces" — but does the "onus of accountability" land on the same figures (designers' "work life and profit margins") that the chapter's own closing admits are strained? Is limit-interrogation compatible with the labor economy it presumes?
Is "is more really more?" a genuine open question or a rhetorical one? The chapter answers it with Dewey's pauses and the Matters of Sensation objects — but the parametric project's defenders (Schumacher's differentiation thesis, via Moussavi) would deny that excess is a design decision rather than the contemporary condition itself.
Lavin's quasi-autonomous interior is quoted as the chapter's self-understanding — but the chapter's structural cases (En Pointe, Voussoir Cloud, Cantilever) all operate inside institutional buildings. Is the quasi-autonomous interior free of architecture, or does its freedom presuppose the host's already-built envelope?
Roberge's En Pointe is "both a celebration and critique of structural form-finding projects" — what would the critique's full argument be, and does the column cluster typology resolve the gap between "the impossible thinness of the computer model and the reality of constructing actual lightness," or merely dramatize it?
Emerging Objects prints salt, sand, and sawdust by hacking machines built for plastics — is hacking the machine the general tactic for interrogating machine limits, or does each hack (like the salty glue) remain a bespoke workaround with its own limits?