My name is Elise Weavers and am currently a 3rd year Archi-tecture student at the University of Melbourne. Design Studio Air will be my 6th design studio and my 3rd studio that will make use of the design program Rhino. Before Air I have complete Virtual Environments, 2nd semester, 1st year and taken the Rhino workshop that was made available in Visual Communications, 1st semester 2nd year. However, I would describe my Rhino skills as still quite basic and this design studio will be my first introduction of the Grasshopper soft-ware.Although I have found working with Rhino quite challenging to say the least, I found Virtual Environments to be one of the most rewarding subjects, in terms of learning and satisfaction with my work, in the course to date. I look forward to another challenging semester of Rhino that hopefully will see my skills improve and result in an equally suprising and satisfying out-come as I found with Virtual. Architecture as a

DiscourseRichard Williams’ ‘Architecture and Visual Culture’ (2005) introduces what I believe to be a very interesting discussion about the societal implications and power Architecture has to shape and influence the public realm, as Architecture is often viewed as an exclusive field in which an in depth un-derstanding and formal training are compulsory prerequisites which without, do not qualify one to participate. The field is so exclusive that Just as other social cliques it is not uncom-mon to come across double standards. Take the point raised by Williams; not all buildings can be considered architecture, however not all architecture must a building. Williams (2005) discusses what he defines as ‘three related, but distinct, approaches to architecture: architecture as a form of art; architecture as a symbolic realm; and architecture as spatial experience. The main conclusion of the article as reinforced by Stanislav in the lecture; ‘Architecture ought to be seen as a discourse. Buildings as materials are a small part of the overall field of architecture, a field which is better regarded as a network of practices and debates about the built envi-ronment.’ (Williams, R., 2005).

Introduction

‘An immense amount of spec-tacular new architecture has been built in the past two decades, a product of the desire on the part of social and political authority to update the public realm in the context of unprecedented prosperity.’ (Williams, R., 2005) This new architecture, with relatively unseen or imagined forms and structures, some-times described as “blobs”. This is discussed in Lynn’s ‘Blob Tectonics, or why Tectonics is square and Topology is Groovy’ (1998) challenges the pre-conceived idea a building, like a human must stand upwards and discusses that understanding these new forms requires a ‘reconsideration of identity as neither reducing toward primitives nor emerg-ing toward wholes’. In other words, from what I understand, a completely new way of thinking about architecture can-not be related back to a pre-existing theory. This brings me to my precedents of discussion that I believe, although approximately 100 years old, are exist-ing examples of what Williams and Lynn discuss- the coming of new ideas and developments in architecture. These precedent make example of the influ-ence and importance architecture, as a discourse rather than a built form, can have on the understanding or imagining of what architecture might be and the social impact this can have. I believe the De Stijl movement is a prime example of the successful and influential reimagining of architecture through a discourse predominantly in the unbuilt form. I would particularly like to focus on the De Stijl journal published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg. (figure 1.)

The group’s principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, and Bart van der Leck, and the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van ‘t Hoff, and J.J.P. Oud. (Wilis, J., Dutch Opposites: de Stijl and the Phantasts, 2013). Van Doesburg was heavily influ-enced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s philoso-phy on organic architecture and used this as the basis for the works produced in this era. During this time Doesburg and his associates took to analysing and reimagining; of space and move-ment. Some of the most influential ex-amples of this analyisis are the artworks. For example Modrian’s Pier and Ocean. (figure 2). A bird’s eye view of the move-ments of the ocean into horizontal and vertical lines. This analysis being refined and represented as horizontal and verti-cal forms was a key development and motif of the reimagining of architecture done by De Stijl members. This work was abstract and unlike any of the archi-tecture that preceded it. It is important to note this move-ment occurred during the period of world war one, which heavily reduced architect’s and client’s capacity to build, leaving a lot of the innovation and ex-perimentation of De Stijl un-built (Wilis, J., Dutch Opposites: de Stijl and the Phantasts, 2013). As discussed in the lecture a new level of creativity can be reached when the preconceived ideas and constraints of what a built object or building should be are lifted from the design process. The abstract imagining and analyisis of shape, form and com-position unlike anything seen before is a strong example of the power designing in this way can have on creativity and the buildings that were actually built were direct developments of the thought processes and artworks that preceded them. (figure 5.)

Figure 1. De Stijl Cover, September, 1921.Source: Willis, J., 2013

Figure 2. Pier and Ocean, Piet Mondrian, 1914Source: Willis, J., 2013

Designs saw buildings with no gravitational anchorage- no defined top or bottom, visual clues as to what something was (ie. The entrance) were removed. For example Gerrit Rietveld Schro-eder House, Utrecht, 1924. (figure 3). Another important development that occurred during the De Stijl movement, and my second precedent, was a new form of architectural representation. This new form being Axonomet-ric drawings to represent forms in the 3D. (figure 4) Popularity in axonometric representation grew after Doesburg published his drawing illustrating his ideas on fundamental building planes (Wilis, J., Dutch Opposites: de Stijl and the Phantasts, 2013). The way in which something is represented can be very influential on the way we understand something, the way we envisage some-thing and the way in which we conceptualize what some thing can be. The growing popularity of using axonometric representa-tion could be seen, subtly perhaps, as the changing discourse and ideas of architecture during this period of experimentation. I believe this is a relevant precedent to discuss from the perspective of what we may learn in this course. For many of the students parametric design may be something relatively new to us. Using this new tool and knowledge we gain throughout the semester learning how to use rhino and grasshopper, will bring with it a new understanding and perception of what design and creativity is and how it may be represented or created through 3D modeling and parametric design.

Figure 3. Schroder house, Utretch, 1924. Gerrit RietveldSource: Willis, J., 2013

Figure 4. Above. Theo van Doesburg, Architectural Analy-sis.Figure 5. Below. Theo van Doesburg and Cornelius van Eersteren, House Design, 1923. Source: Willis, J., 2013