Hybrid Space: Generative Form and Digital Architecture

Architects, designers, and engineers have been using computers for decades to increase productivity, to solve seemingly insoluble problems, and for sophisticated presentations. Frank Gehry is particularly recognized for his innovative use of the computer. It is only recently, however, that computers are being used not just as tools, but as creative devices capable of generating startling new design ideas and entirely unexpected forms for the built world. For the first time in decades, a generation of technocratic architects and designers are producing buildings and structures that are redefining the practice and understanding of architecture. By breeding ideas with form, the real with the virtual, they create hybrid spaces that challenge long-held conventions of space, architecture, and time.

This innovative publication presents the work of twelve leading international practitioners of architecture who are spearheading the creative wave. The explosive growth in the field has been fueled by a variety of new softwares and computer-programming techniques. Whether derived from digital animation or complex algorithms, the results of these methods are sending shockwaves around the architecture world. From Greg Lynn's animate forms to UN Studio's diagrammatics, from dECOi's multidisciplinary researches to NOX's crossbreeding of biology and technology, little of this work has been seen in any but the most exclusive design circles.

The author introduces the various approaches that lie behind Hybrid Space, while placing the new work within the context of contemporary developments in architecture and technology. The book's core features extensive profiles of the architects, which detail their philosophies and design processes, and present several of their most recent projects. A substantial reference section includes comprehensive information on each architect and a glossary of technical terms.

At a time when architects around the world search for new forms of creative expression, this timely publication considers the exceptional work of architects for whom technology is expression, not just a means to an end.

Peter Zellner holds a master's degree from the Harvard School of Design, where he studied with Rem Koolhaas. He has taught at Australia's RMIT in Melbourne and published numerous articles. He is the author of Pacific Edge (Rizzoli), and has exhibited his own architectural work around the world.