Formulations: Practices of Architectural Mathematics

Year: 2022 Authors: Andrew Witt

Core claim

A fusion of design and scientific processes can expand what architecture can become.

Topics

architectural mathematics, computational design, historical case studies, visual practice

Domains

mathematical processes, morphological classification, computational methods, architecture, design practice, visual modeling

Methods

lecture, case studies, design office projects, historical analysis

Media

Certain Measures projects, book Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture, Figure 1

Paper text

The text below is the locally extracted OCR/Markdown version of the paper. Raw PDF files remain local and are not published here.

Bridges 2022 Conference Proceedings

Formulations: Practices of Architectural Mathematics

Andrew Witt

Harvard University, MA, USA; awitt@gsd.harvard.edu

Abstract

Since the Renaissance, and particularly since the advent of computation, mathematics has served as a dynamic engine for striking new forms and ways of creating architecture. In this lecture Andrew Witt will consider the past and future of mathematized design as a creative and visual practice, through the work of his design office Certain Measures and through his new book Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture. First, he will show how a contemporary design practice might embrace mathematical processes as a core dimension of creative process, through a series of projects ranging from extreme material reuse to morphological classification of the world’s buildings. Second, through case studies drawn from his book Formulations: Architecture, Mathematics, Culture, he will reflect on the transdisciplinary past of design mathematics and uncover how mathematical techniques inflected the ways architecture was seen, drawn, modeled, and imagined in the predigital period. Witt argues that a fusion of design and scientific processes can open new possibilities for the nature of design itself.

Figure 1: Certain Measures