Thoughts on “Keepers of the Geometry” by Yanni A. Loukissas

Digital processes have changed creativity.  First of all digital modeling is not simply simulation. The designing process happens through the modeling process. This feeds into the psychology of the practitioner. People can potentially see the digital model as fixed, and unchangeable. They may say things like “That’s how I drew it, so that’s how it will be.” But everything is changeable, and this attitude speaks to the human resistance to change and not the nature of the technology. Especially in designs which we conceived we are reluctant to discard aspects despite the likelihood of finding better solutions. Seeing a design manifest on the screen makes it that much more solidified, and iterating is hard. Knowing what aspects to attack, and what to leave in is hard, but that has more to do with human nature than the software. Change is easy in a digital model.

Digital modeling is an epistemology. It is a worldview. It liberates through its functionality and capacity to represent, but it is also limiting. The way that you must plan to build things in a program shapes the way you think of the thing you are building. Each program has a certain paradigm driving its digital modeling environment. This shapes everything that comes after it. The dividing line where most programs start is Nurbs vs. Polygons. Rhinoceros is a Nurbs Modeler, while Catia is a Polygon based program. If a person where to approach a loosely defined conceptual project in Rhinoceros the eventual outcome would vary greatly from what they would create if they had started with Catia. This is the same as an oil painting looking very different from a watercolor painting of the same scene.

Is the digital model the final product, or is it the built architecture? Could a sufficiently skilled and cognitively gifted designer get to a final built architecture without the models? If they could, it would not be as rigorous or well thought out as the design modeled on the computer. That being said, it appears that being a technician with a highly developed digital skillset precludes you from working on more general ‘managerial’ tasks. In other words, by being an expert at 3D modeling you pigeon-hole yourself away from becoming the boss. Then again, there are such things as “Masters of the Virtual.” This term refers to a specific type of competition architect who does not actually implement their designs. So you could be the boss in such a practice based on your digital skills. Despite it being a shared goal by most, we can’t all be the boss, so becoming as skilled as you can at the digital is probably a prudent endeavor in this ever changing technological world.