“Dog Bites Man,” so the chestnut goes, is not news; “Man Bites Dog” is. That’s not, in fact, altogether true: one of the most memorable American photographs of the 20th century is of a dog—a police dog—doing its damnedest to bite a man.
Nevertheless, in the main, the press—of which I write here as a member—subscribes to the notion. The architecture press, as well.
90% of the work we architects do has the newsworthiness of “Dog Bites Man,” and appropriately so. Much of it, as many of us would concede, is unworthy not only of press coverage but also of the resources invested in it and of the space it takes up in the world, often for decades.One answer to the question, “What distingulshes homo sapiens, in kind, from other animals?” is, “We’re the only creatures who clutter the world with the artifacts of our failures.”
(An aside: perhaps one reason we cherish the exaggeratedly small estimates of the percentage of construction designed by architects is that we shrink from admitting how much we’re actually responsible for.)
One way of looking at this issue of arcCA is that it’s a hybrid of “Dog Bites Man” and “Man Bites Dog,” although our gentle readers may differ on which—parametric design or IPD—is the man and which is the dog. I will confess that I went into these topics with prejudices against each. Enjoying the luxury of the armchair critic, I suspected that IPD was about nothing more than bringing projects in on time and on budget; and parametric design was largely a vehicle for the indulgences of the “Damn the torpid people! Full speed ahead!” crowd. Neither of which passes the epitaph test.
While these motives are not altogether absent, the full reality is much richer and perhaps even reassuring. As Craig Hartman, FAIA, counsels in “Parametric Voices,” “The past, from Borromini to Eero Saarinen, is replete with masterworks of fluid, organic space, and the future will be even more so, given the possibilities of computational design in the hands of talented architects,” and, “Parametric design is a great leap forward in achieving intelligent built form, whether a teacup or a city.” And Armando L. Gonzalez, FAIA, and David L. Goodale, AlA, write, in “Toward Integrated Project Delivery,” “We have come to believe that IPD is not only an imminent technological delivery method. It will become . . . a design and construction methodology that has the potential to vastly increase both efficiency and quality.”
“lntelligent built form” and “quality” are ever newsworthy.
p.s. A special thanks to two individuals who guided me expertly through these new territories: for IPD, Nicki Dennis-Stephens, Hon. AIACC, Director of Member & Component Resources, AIA California Council; and, for parametric design, Lisa Iwamoto, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley, and Partner, IwamotoScott Architecture. Thanks also to Jim Bedrick, AlA, LEED AP, VP of Virtual Building and Design, Webcor Builders; J. Stuart Eckblad, Director, Design & Construction, UCSF Medical center; Attorney Howard W. Ashcraft of Hanson Bridgett LLp; and Zigmund Rubel, AlA, for their guidance on lPD.
Originally published 4th quarter 2009 in arcCA 10.1, “Parametrics and IPD.”
