The application of topological geometry to the architectural concept design process in the flow of digitalization

PurposeThe paper aims to research the applications of topological geometry to the architectural concept design process and their combination with the modern digital technology to find novel architectural spaces and forms which are dynamic, easily adaptable to the context and surroundings.Design/methodology/approachThe article uses the method of studying the existing literature on topological geometry and architectural design theory including design thinking, architectural design methods and architectural compositions to analyze and compare them with architectural practices and suggest new topological design tools and methods. Moreover, the paper tests the proposals with a number of preliminary design research experiments. In addition, graphic design software, parametric design, building information modeling (BIM) and digital development trends in architecture were explored and experienced to reveal the application potential of topological design thinking and methods in the trend of architectural digitization.FindingsThe paper has analyzed, synthesized and systematized the basic theories of topological geometry in order to clarify their applications in the architectural concept design process. On that basis, the paper proposes a novel topological design thinking and method for finding rich diversified architectural ideas and forms based on original invariant design constraints. Finally, the paper clarifies the combination as well as the mutual, motivating relationship between topological geometry and modern digital technologies when applied to architectural design.Originality/valueThe research contributes a novel design thinking and method based on topological geometry combined with modern digital technology to the architectural design theory. It will be a valuable tool capable of suggesting architects how to think and innovate in architecture in the era of industrial revolution 4.0.

The end of architecture as we know it, the genesis of tomorrow’s tourism

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader of some emerging trends in placemaking and digital destination management, while providing a conceptual background on shifts in architectural design. Design/methodology/approach The trend paper is based on a fundamental bibliographic view on evolutions in placemaking, from architectural design to spatial agency, integrated by and contextualized in tourism trends, however possibly anecdotal. Findings The trend paper identifies a fundamental shift from architectural processes to spatial agency as organizing principle for placemaking, discussing how digital tourism trends are formed or forming change in this. Originality/value The trend paper newly relates otherwise distant and unrelated fields, namely architectural design theory and tourism trends, by connecting at the level of IoT and IT digital technologies, exploring the impact and the mutual role played by its two constituencies.

The architectural essay film

Recent advancements in digital technology, have not only deeply transformed the production of film and architecture but brought the two disciplines closer than ever before. The digital has allowed ground-breaking, if not hasty, changes in the way that architecture is not only produced, but also designed and conceived. In contrast, however, to the extensive use of computational design to interrogate the formal, material and structural possibilities of architecture, this article explores how new time-based media and computer generated imagery in film can unlock the story-telling, political and philosophical potential of architecture. I will focus on three projects – Agit-Prop (2014) by Liam Davis, Wates House (2014) by Daniel Cotton and my project Déjà vu (2009) – which combine techniques and tropes from both cinema and design as a means for reflection and commentary in architecture.Originally coined by the German artist Hans Richter in the 1940s, the term ‘essay film’ describes an intimate, allusive and idiosyncratic genre at the margins between fiction and documentary. Richter poignantly suggests that the essay film makes the invisible world of thoughts and ideas visible on the screen; it produces complex thought-reflections that are not necessarily bound to reality, but can also be contradictory, irrational, and fantastical. Dealing with political and philosophical issues, the essay film is cinema at its most engaged and liberated.Examining the three projects in comparison to examples of essay films that reflect on architecture or the city, such as Dziga Vertov’s, Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Wim Wender’s, If Buildings Could Talk (2010), and Alain Resnais’s, Toute la mémoire du monde (1956), my aim is to propose a new hybrid genre lying at the boundaries between architectural design, theory and film, what I call: the ‘architectural essay film’.