´Informational materiality; the project as a generative
ubiquitous process`
Adriana Ricciardi Rodrigues Lima
Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
PhD Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Rafael Antonio Cunha Perrone
Research Group Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Paulo Eduardo Fonseca Campos
adrianarrl@hotmail.com
Abstract.
The objective of the essay is to explore the concept of texture in architecture as a patterning of
the performance behavior of space. The concept of patterns is understood through the agency
of the invisible, abstract, yet performative potential of architectural elements: ´architectural
elements that operate at the convergence of bits and atoms. ` (Carlo Ratti, in AD Future Details
of Architecture)
Through this conceptual shift, the architectural project is thought as a process that acquires
different potentialities; in order to be able to change the initial configuration of the object, as a
spatial performance device of events that will take place in that space. The architectural
´texture` - as a dynamic pattern of a digital materiality - follows Antoine Picon`s (2003)
discursive concepts about the intangible aspects of an increasing abstract digital age,
instrumentalized as an element of agency between the abstract characteristic of information
and the perception of the real, tangible:
´Whereas the architect used to manipulate static forms, he can now play with geometric flows.
Surface and volumes topological deformations acquire a kind of evidence that traditional
means of representation did not allow. Other phenomena become also so easy to manipulate
that they appear as quasi-objects for the designer. Effects of light and texture are among them.
The computer enables to intensify or dim light, to vary its parameters, to play in a similar way
with degrees of roughness and smoothness, to an extent that makes them almost tactile`.
(Antoine Picon, ´Architecture and the Virtual. Towards a New Materiality?`, 2003).
Keyword: dynamic patterns; digital architecture; post-virtual age
1. Digital materiality
´How could today`s individuals, contemplate from outside a scene that is in continuity
with their inner self? ` (Antoine Picon, 2010, p. 123)
Figure 1. Julian Charrière, Tropisme, 2014. View of Future Fossil Spaces, Musée
cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, 2014. © Julian Charrière; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017. Courtesy: Musée cantonal
des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne. Photo: Clémentine Bossard. <http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/82982/biotopia/>