ORDERING CHAOS 1 Ordering Chaos: “Computerism” versus “Humanism” TERRI MEYER BOAKE University of Waterloo Overview Current trends in high profile Architecture, offer forms and structures that are well beyond the basic comprehension of most human beings. In fact, the rationalization and eventual construction of the structures that are presented as initial sketches are likely beyond the personal technical abilities of those who design them. This is not meant with any disrespect, but with simple observations based on examinations of early napkin sketches, architectural massing models, renderings and representations of steel with little pieces of balsa wood where it is represented – intriguing visions – absolute lack of technical detail. Such proposals present a frenzied vision of massing and structure that requires an intense use of cutting edge computing technologies and advanced human intellect. The chaotic steel structures that characterize the current work of Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry have driven enormous changes in the way that such structures are designed, fabricated and constructed. They have altered the tools that are used and largely shifted the architect’s technical dependency from the Engineer to the steel fabricator and detailer. Is technical architectural education keeping up with such changes? Are our teaching methods and tools too deeply entrenched in detailing practices that have been relegated to the mass construction of “Big Box” stores, and are rarely to be found in the projects that our students design? How do we criticize their work if we don’t understand if it could or how it is to be built. Is it visionary? Is it impossible? How do we process, root, and respond to this shift in technical culture? How do we continue to assist in the design and detailing process? Shifting Centers: “Man Vs. Computer” There has been such a remarkable centric shift in architecture and technology, which critics may argue displaces “man” from the architecture of chaos. Reconciling current thinking about the design, detailing and construction of purposeful disorder, with minds that remain faithful to the beauty of classical forms, is challenging. It pushes those who teach design, and challenges those who teach construction and structure. With such apparent disparity in form, it might be questioned whether experience in the field will help or hinder in solving problems that arise in detailing such chaotic forms. Humanism marked a point in history where “man” was deemed to be at the center of the universe and was considered to be the measure of all things. Humanist architects, from Leon Battista Alberti through Andrea Palladio, strove to create a definition of architecture that was based upon human proportions, historic successes, and that permitted a rationalized repetition of forms and elements that were derived from the perfection of nature and sacred geometry. “Both our organs of perception and the phenomenal world we perceive seem to be best understood as systems of pure pattern, or as geometric structures of form an proportion. Therefore when many ancient cultures chose to examine reality through the metaphors of geometry and music, they were already