Paradigms in Computing: Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture

Paradigms in Computing: Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture investigates and instigates critical, theoretical, and practical research and design that illustrate the plurality of computing approaches within the broad spectrum of design and mediated practices. This book is an exploration of critical discourse in the form of theoretical work, as well as design projects illustrated through the pervasive and tightly coupled nature of computing and digital theory with modes and models of design research and production. This book proposes, explores, and argues for and against the plurality of paradigms of computing within contemporary research and architectural practice. Through the combination the book investigates the digital as a form of agency within architecture and the expanding design disciplines akin and adjacent to it. Arguably, the convergence of the cyber, physical, and social is producing a potent set of possibilities that challenges and fosters an open polemical debate of the notions of Design Agency and the pluri-potent Paradigms in Computing for design practice. By soliciting contributors from the fields of Design, Architecture, Media Arts, Science, Engineering, Philosophy, and Cultural Theory, Paradigms in Computing will lend itself to furthering this discourse. In order to elicit critical discussion, the book sought answers and provocations to the questions of integration, disintegration, and or novel realizations of computation for design practices from within these fields of inquiry and for the highly information-rich built environments of today and the future. Paradigms in Computing: Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture is a curated series of essays and projects. Articles that provoke discussion around and about the theme of Paradigms and Design Agencies  are particularly interesting to our sense for the making, machines, modes, methods, and models that incorporate, invent, and/or illustrate ‘Design Agency’, and discuss similar or contrary positions with respect to contemporary paradigms of computing in and for design.

In 2009 Dr. Gerber was appointed Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California. He has since been awarded a courtesy joint appointment at USC’s Viterbi School of engineering. Upon joining the USC faculty he developed and taught primarily as a design studio and design technology professor in architecture for both undergraduate and graduate core and electives and curriculum in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate sequence. Prior to joining the USC faculty Dr. Gerber was full time faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture from 2006-2009. Dr. Gerber has also taught at UCLA’s school of architecture and urban design, the AA’s DRL graduate program as a technical tutor, the Laboratory for Design Media at the EPFL in Lausanne Switzerland, Stanford University’s CEE department as a guest instructor, and the Tecnologico de Monterrey School of Architecture, Mexico. He is a frequent instructor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and lectures globally on architecture, digital practice, and design technology. Professionally, Dr. Gerber has worked in architectural practice in the United States, Europe, India and Asia including for Zaha Hadid Architects in London, England; for Gehry Technologies in Los Angeles; for Moshe Safdie Architects in Massachusetts, and The Steinberg Group Architects in California. Dr. Gerber has been a board level advisor, and an executive officer for a number of design technology startup companies. As Vice President of Innovation he has lead teams in consulting for architecture, engineering, and construction firms on global digital practice, Building Information Modeling, simulation, advanced uses of design computation and technology integration, and was subsequently a Vice President for Gehry Technologies. Dr. Gerber’s research focus is on architectural design and computation and the development of innovative systems, tools, methods, and theories at that intersection. He currently advises, and co advises PhD students from Architecture and Engineering on topics including, domain integration, interactivity and system intelligence, digital media and fabrication, multi-objective design optimization and design agency. David Gerber received his undergraduate architectural education at the University of California Berkeley (Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, 1996). He completed his first professional degree at the Design Research Laboratory of the Architectural Association in London (Master of Architecture, 2000), his post professional research degree (Master of Design Studies, 2003) and his Doctoral studies (Doctor of Design, June 2007) at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Mariana Ibañez is Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She teaches in the architecture core design studio sequence. Ibanez is an Argentinean architect and designer. Before attending the Architectural Association in London for her Master of Architecture, she was one of the principals of FIV Architectura, a firm that focused on the design and construction of ephemeral structures for performance spaces. Her thesis work at the AA focuses on the issue of responsive environments through the implementation of adaptive structures and interphases. The project has been exhibited at the Delft Institute of Technology, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and the International Biennale of Architecture in Beijing. Reference to this work can be found in publications like AD, Archicreation and Icon magazine. Ibñnez has been a guest critic at the AA, MIT, RISD and other institutions since 2004 and previously taught Design Studio from 1999 to 2002 at the University of Buenos Aires where she had received her Bachelor of Architecture. In 2005 she co-founded I/K Studio with Simon Kim, a research and design practice with projects in London and Buenos Aires. After her graduate studies, she joined the Advanced Geometry Unit at ARUP before going to the office of Zaha Hadid where she developed several projects as well as leading the design for the London Aquatic Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games.