Abstract
Contemporary architectural surfaces created by various pattern and image formations have become possible with the advancement of computer simulation technology and through fabrication that allows the effective production of repetitive and variable materials. These architectural surfaces are perceptively stimulating and individualized in urban settings. Digital technology generates architectural surfaces with simulated images that reflect today's consumer-oriented society. This research represents an attempt to demonstrate the appropriateness of digital technology as a tool for the active creation of simulated surface effects in urban environments. This connection establishes the association between images of superficiality and the human sensory experience in architectural surfaces. Contemporary architectural surfaces overcome the "old school" formula that links reality with its representation. With the utilization of digital fabrication technology to produce simulacra, modern day architects have reconfigured the perceptions about architectural surfaces, thereby enhancing their performance in urban settings. Keywords: surface effect; digital fabrication; simulacra; superficiality; perception 1. Introduction As a result of technological development at the end th Exterior surfaces of buildings have expressed the of the 20 century, a new paradigm appeared in which unique styles of each era through the appropriate advanced media images and advertisements sparked application of social, cultural, and technological the new phenomena of artificial and virtual designs backgrounds. An exterior surface articulates important on architectural surfaces. Contemporary architectural subjects such as material characteristics, surface surfaces are covered with images that evoke sensory treatment techniques, and productivity. Surface stimulation, which is characteristic of the modern expression reflects the desire to form geographical age of information technology, a consumer-oriented and cultural representations of each period's customs. culture, and widespread use of public and social media. The International Style, representing modern French philosopher Jean Baudrillard described the architecture, incorporates white walls and repetitive focus on consumerism in terms of the phenomenon parts as a major surface expression. White walls of simulacra, in which images appear to supersede symbolize purity and the uniform (i.e., repetitive) wall reality. Thus, objects are transformed into symbols, represents mass production, which was facilitated by and these symbols produce endless images, which are the Industrial Revolution. Problems in symbolism in illusions of reality that seem more realistic than reality modern architecture have resulted from an excessive itself. preoccupation with purity, which has led to a failure Innumerable images are applied to architectural to represent societal preferences and technological surfaces with emerging new media, advanced advancement adequately. This conflict between technology related to surface fabrication, and new production and representation is intrinsic to the materials. Current digital fabrication technology technology of mass production. allows the effective analysis, simulation, fabrication, and assembly of virtually constructed architectural images. Notably, this technology reconstructs the *Contact Author: You-chang Jeon, Associate Professor, unit information of materials and then removes the Department of Architecture, Ajou University, individual characteristics and identity of each material San5 Woncheon-dong, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon 443-749, Korea to simulate an image. Thus, the desired surface effect Tel: +82-31-219-1818 Fax: +82-31-219-2945 is achieved with the use of virtual images. E-mail: ycjeon@ajou.ac.kr ( Received April 8, 2014 ; accepted October 28, 2014 ) Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering/January 2015/32 25 Especially in metropolitan commercial districts, silent surface in modern architecture was seemingly images appear on architectural surfaces as expressions understood without the attachment of meaning or of capitalistic mass production and transformation. In content. The surface of modern architecture has been these areas, reproduction (cloning) follows a certain influenced significantly by modern objects including production code. In architecture, the exterior surface impressionist paintings and machinery. In modern is created through restructuring and building of the architecture, the elimination of ornamentation has cloned parts. led inevitably to a focus on surfaces. White walls This process allows an image to be simulated with a and regular surfaces can be viewed as lacking visual 3-D modeling program; the image instantly appears on symbolism or representations. However, surfaces of a surface through the reconstruction of individual parts. modern buildings can be interpreted as visualizations Thus, digital design technology brings the surface of the period's technology and images. into the real world by creating a virtual image that can be perceived with the human senses. The surface creates a virtual depth, and the image is consumed with the formation of simulacra. In summary, architectural surfaces characterized by virtual imagery and dematerialization are created through digital technology. This research demonstrates that in contemporary architecture, digital technology is an appropriate tool for the active creation of popular surface images. Furthermore, changes in production levels as they relate to architectural surfaces, representation of images, and the use of symbols are discussed, especially in terms of the influence of today's consumerist society on Fig.1. Villa Stein by Le Corbusier, Garches (1927) architectural trends. The corresponding surface effect identifies the architectural purpose of stimulating human Through the metaphor of machinery, Le Corbusier senses through simulacra. Further, the connection used white geometry that was pure and without between images of a consumer-oriented society and ornamentation. In the artist's Villa Stein, materials and the human sensory experience is achieved through structures are hidden, yet they are expressed through simulated effects produced by digital fabrication abstraction. The white façades and the side elevations technology. The increasing influence of simulacra of early residential buildings do not reveal the internal has provided new meaning to building surfaces by structure or material components; instead, they reconfiguring the primacy of images over technology. represent modernity by revealing elements of modern civilization or modern life and culture. Clearly, the 2. Methods aesthetics of modern architecture represent modernity 2.1 Surfaces of Modern Architecture and Representation by mimicking its elements (Fig.1.). International Style, an iconic name for modern The white surface of modern architecture, which architecture, typically employs methods that eliminate seems devoid of ornamentation, is a medium for visual sensitivity and appeals to recognition. The advertising that reflects the perspective of fashion style has been understood as a standard of modern (Wigley, 2001). In modern architecture, symbolism is architecture that uses abstract and geometric spaces and disguised as silence; thus, architecture plays the role of surfaces without ornamentation. Buildings constructed a medium of silence. Modern architecture's white mask prior to the era of the International Style represented promotes modern production, technology, logic, and and reproduced outside elements and narratives through abstract concepts (Colomina, 1996). architectural media. However, modern architects refuse to rely on mere representation; instead, they have denunciated and reorganized the principles of interior composition. Architects associated with the International Style include Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Their influence on modern architecture has caused frivolous and excessive surface design to become taboo. As a result, use of colors, patterns, and surface areas as media for communication has declined, and the use of pure volumetric silhouettes and silent surfaces has become more widespread. With ornamentation removed and representation denied, the Fig.2. Seagram Building by Mies van der Rohe, New York (1958) 26 JAABE vol.14 no.1 January 2015 You-chang Jeon Building surfaces of modern architecture have been that the human experience is a simulation of reality subjects of intellectual interpretation, rather than of expressed in four stages: reflection of image, denatured visual or tactile appreciation. Productivity is not a image, absence of image, and no relation to reality. target of expression, but rather a technological and The simulacra that Baudrillard referred to reflect the economic issue that guarantees efficiency (Fig.2.). influence of culture and media in creating perceived In modern architecture, advanced productivity reality (i.e., hyperreality). The philosopher believed that significantly influences the appearance of a building's society had become so reliant on simulacra that it had surface. When architectural expressions are applied lost contact with the real world (Baudrillard, 1995). to buildings to reflect the mass production era, visual Andy Warhol was significant for depicting effects are pursued to escape the monotony resulting Baudrillard's concept of simulacra. Warhol's repetition from modular and vacant repetition. of silkscreen prints of Marilyn Monroe (Fig.4.) In contrast to white expressionism and regular initiated the dissolution of old identities that would surface patterns characterizing the International be replaced by simulated objects. In this era of the Style's repetitive productivity, later trends in modern simulacrum, which is not related to reality, an image architecture demanded retrieval of the architectural is hyperrealized, going beyond its own limitations and function of visual and tactile appreciation. Many leaving no essence of itself (Baudrillard, 1995). attempts have been made to expand the range of Contemporary society is faced with the existential expression through productivity, as honesty of material condition associated with simulacra in which one is is expressed in this way. Surface expressions that surrounded by images that replace and take precedence appeared with the development of the International over reality (i.e., the hyperreal). An important condition Style reflect a willingness to reinterpret modern for consumption in contemporary society is the customs geographically and culturally. expression of oneself through To disguise the white surface, there have been images provoked by objects. attempts to expand the range of expression through According to Baudrillard's emphasis on the honesty and tactile usage of materials. analysis, the value of a cultural Consumer societies tend to provide familiar visual sign/symbol is greater than the services for their audiences and express the pictoriality functional value or preference of a surface through materials and productivity. value of the object represented. 2.2 Simulacra and Superficiality If an object is a symbol, and Since the modern period, mass production has if its meaning and function facilitated the formation of a consumer culture that is are to be analyzed without Fig.4. A ndy Warhol's characteristic of contemporary society. The modern contradiction, the concept Marilyn Monroe (1962) period emphasized o f c on sum pt i on m ust b e productivity, but the understood as well. Rather than supplying necessities, contemporary period producers manufacture objects that stimulate consumers' focuses on consumption. desires (Baudrillard, 1998). As production is controlled In a consumer-oriented by consumer logic, public media create symbols to soc i e t y, vi si on ha s provoke such desires. In the past, symbols represented b e c o m e t h e m o st objects or reproduced them. Today, however, symbols important human sense. represent themselves and create, rather than reproduce, Movies and television, objects. Therefore, reality matches its symbols. This which appeared at the relationship is potentially encoded by the organizational th end of the 19 century strategy of a mass-producing consumer society. A symbol Fig.3. Times Square, New York th and mid-20 century, becomes more real than reality (i.e., hyperreal) as it respectively, and various visual media that continue passes through the four stages of simulacra. Through the to develop, have generated the term "Society of the processes in which hyperreality surpasses natural reality Spectacle" (Debord, 2006). by symbolism and the distinction between nature and In the Society of the Spectacle, images rather than artificiality is eliminated, simulation creates a superficial objects are consumed (Fig.3.). Determining how to express phenomenon visually and perceptually (Fig.5.). oneself by consuming specific objects is an important consideration in contemporary society. The importance lies in the image rather than the function of the object. Baudrillard suggested that contemporary society is ruled by images and symbols of consumerism (i.e., simulation). Simulacra and simulation are best known as images and signs that represent present reality. Baudrillard claimed that modern society has replaced all reality and meaning with these symbols and signs, suggesting Fig.5. Diagram of Simulacra Process JAABE vol.14 no.1 January 2015 You-chang Jeon 27 Often, superficiality is discussed as a characteristic contemporary surface implies the mixing and synthesis of a consumer culture. The term has a double of imaginary and real, and science and art, whose entendre of surface exposure and lack of depth. boundaries have become undistinguishable. Here, the Superficiality implies that, aside from the exposed basic category of mimesis substituted with simulation. meaning, any hidden message is no longer important. If mimesis bridges reality and imagination as well as The contemporary visual culture is based on such essence and simulation when such binary distinctions superficiality, which brings everything to the surface. exist, then simulation acts without such distinctions in Consequently, this culture that tends to expose the technological media. things externally has seeped into architectural fields. 2.3 Digital Fabrication and Surface Generation Invisible elements have been called into visible realms. Digital design technology, which has taken a major The desire to visualize every element has made the step forward recently, is foundational to various distinction between internal and external realms changes in architecture. Since early digital technology meaningless. People have maintained an unfaltering began with the virtual presentation of architectural interest in the external surface of architecture. In the design using 3-D graphics, it has been utilized actively contemporary visual culture, aside from the outwardly as a tool for reproducing irregular architectural forms exposed building surface, any hidden meaning is of no with the advanced surface design functions of graphic interest. Although industrial production of economic software. A recent important development includes commodities was central in modernity, simulation the virtual reproduction of design through simulation creates superficiality as a model that leads today's tools. Current digital technology can link simulations social order. Fantasies of hyperreality, unfounded in the virtual reality realm. beautification, and dramatization of reality have The advent of the fabrication system created become prevalent. Prada Aoyama by Herzog and De opportunities to apply data of repetitive mass production Meuron in Tokyo (2003) uses a combination of convex technology to architectural design. Virtual design ideas and concave glass walls to reflect and distort images could be interpreted directly in actual construction. of neighbors, and the glass surface mediates the Current computer modeling software can be used to phenomenon of simulacra (Fig.6.). apply diverse pattern and material variations created by encoding images on the surface. Complicated dimensional architectural forms are integrated into a surface on which various elements with material characteristics can be built. Since the introduction of computer-aided 3-D applications, automated construction machines and lighter, cheaper composite materials have promoted economic feasibility, leading to the active construction of architectural surfaces. Fig.6. Prada Aoyama by Herzog & De Meuron, Tokyo (2003) In the contemporary process, a new surface is constructed through the repetition of dynamic The surface design of simulacra, which appears combinations of various distinct components. Repetition as the transformation of superficial images, is based makes it possible to organize variations manually, control, on a combination of immaterial and unrealistic and construct them with a simple procedure. With the characteristics; thus, the distinction between the real rise of digitally oriented materiality, the frontier between and phantasmal is vague. Simulacra also signify systems and variations has been renegotiated, and instantaneous events that occur without changing architecture now connects diverse and complementary objects or reality. Regarding the creation of form, logic. Rather than directly transferring the identity or simulacra can be explained as formal expressions of material characteristics of each component, simple time, movement, and vector force that move toward materials are individualized to form a visually stimulating creating a space where events occur continuously. surface from previous materials (Figs.6., 7.). The In other words, simulacra can be interpreted as ever- surface material is encoded on an image through visual changing. interference, and the roles and characteristics of digital The contemporary recognition of simulacra reflects technology as a production method are visualized. the object system formed through mass production. At the same time, they represent architecture as a Capitalistic production is no longer the production commodity. Materials gain new physical properties with of unique objects, but rather a systematic production digital technology, and it is possible to reinterpret the following a certain code. Thus, production occurs as relationship between the properties of each material. The reproduction and cloning. Gantenbein Vineyard Façade by Bearth and Deplazes The simulacra surface, as a medium composed of (Fig.7.) is a fabricated brick surface with programmed the immaterial, dismantles the conventional binary wall construction by R-O-B Robot. Differences in distinctions between reality and simulation, between hardness cause varied degrees of transformation, and real and imaginary, and between science and art. The brick materials are part of the light veil creation, rather 28 JAABE vol.14 no.1 January 2015 You-chang Jeon and simulation, originals and clones, and meanings and symbols disappear, and they become integrated to generate a massive simulated world. 2.4 Simulated Surface and New Sensuality Electronic media, which appeared after the Industrial Revolution, transformed the paradigm of sensory perception and reproduction; in fact, they have had the most significant influence on the visual system since the invention of the linear perspective during the Fig.7. Gantenbein Vineyard Façade by Bearth and Deplazes, Renaissance. Since the invention of photography and Fläsch (2006) electronic media, "seen" images in the human sensory environment have been developed through science and than a conventional solid and hard design method. When technology. Some balance was restored to the human material loses its identity, seriality is indicated. sensory system with the advent of television, which The stage at which intuition becomes rationalized demands use of multiple senses. Clearly, entertainment through the senses is eliminated; instead, intuition leads and concurrent experiences through audience directly to action. Simple materials are recomposed, participation and interaction influenced changes in the creating a new surface effectthat stimulates desire. media and sensory experiences. The new composition of materials through digital Simulacra have transformed capitalistic production technology eliminates the identity of individual from the production of one-of-a-kind objects to mass materials and produces simulated images. customization controlled by codes. Production is In parametric fabrication, the physical property carried out in the form of reproduction (cloning), of materials is not important, whether a creation according to a certain code. The effects on building is an original or a clone. Quantity production in a surfaces change the human sensory experience. Such consumer-oriented society may be characterized by effects are known as virtual media, the visualized improvements, even though surfaces contain images representation of media technology. rather than actual materials with physical properties. Modern ocularcentrism, a western concept, has The New Museum designed by SANAA is clad with been criticized from several perspectives. Some an expanded aluminum wall surface; its deformation architecture focuses on the simultaneous interaction of creates depth between double skins. The surface effect the senses. To achieve this effect, architecture focuses of lightness resulting from the technological expression on the surface properties beyond the 3-D depth of of methods creates immaterial images, or simulacra the perspective drawing, stimulating the emotional (Fig.8.). Unit areas can be recomposed through sensitivity unique in humans. computer programming and fabrication technology; ultimately, new surface effects can be created. Economic feasibility and multiple expressions are possible. Further, the identities of individual materials are lost to simulated images. Creation of contemporary architectural surfaces has moved beyond the conventional mimesis method of altering and reinterpreting given objects to a world of self-reference simulation. Physical properties of materials become insignificant, and only fantastic images exist on the surface. In other words, only Fig.9. Trutec Building by Barkow Leibinger Architects simulated ef fects (2007), Seoul remain. Digital Senses have been reinstated in today's society, and fabrication technology sensory images have been revived. Various sensory is not mimicry of images that beautify life are not unique characteristics another subject, but th of contemporary culture. At the end of the 19 century, rather a creative when rapid industrialization was being propelled, process of simulation city life had been invaded by various images from a that produces models. multitude of images produced technologically. The virtual surface Fig.8. New Museum by SANAA, Images have a close relationship with sensual lives, created through this New York (2007) and the transition into the world of sensual images simulation process signifies breaking away from opposing reason-centered is no longer related to its reference in the real world. worldviews. The Trutec Building by Barkow Leibinger Liberated from its original state, new realities are Architects contains reflected glass surfaces produced created through the liberal use of symbols. Here, the with 3-D laser cutting technology, representing a distinctions between reality and virtual reality, essence JAABE vol.14 no.1 January 2015 You-chang Jeon 29 visual transition from reality to hyperreality through exaggeration of the reflection effect over time. (Fig.9.) The conventional philosophy of the past dismissed sensual lives as shallow and substandard. Further, they were regarded as representative of clouded awareness. Sensual lives were controlled under a hierarchical order, created for transparent and rational causes. Hyperreality produced by digital fabrication Fig.11. Diagram of Surface Effect Process technology produces architectural surface effects changes by seriality. Physical properties surpass actual that are tactile and perceptive. They provide multi- attributes to produce a dispersion effect, and the surface sensory experiences through the sensory relationship dematerializes. In the image codification process, created by the effects on related surfaces and specific the physical properties of each material are changed perceptive experiences. Interactive relationships are so that superficial images emerge. Such changes are formed between humans and architectural surfaces, and attributable to relationships, movement, and time, a new kind of perceptive experience has emerged in rather than texture and surface characteristics. This the contemporary consumerist city. Simulated surface concept in which a surface effect enables visualization effects are expressions of productivity, and architecture of invisible realms is illustrated in Fig.11. is a commodity that creates virtual simulacra. 3. Conclusion Various formations of patterns and images appear on contemporary architectural surfaces based on the following factors: social changes reflected in methods used by media, advancements in computer simulation, and fabrication technology through computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), which allows effective and Fig.10. Blur Building by Diller & Scofidio, Yverdon-les-Bains streamlined production and serial use of materials. (2002) Rather than conveying the identity or physical property of each component, each material is individualized Constructed surfaces display continuously moving and transformed onto a visually stimulating surface. images over time. Although the sensual image of Additionally, a contemporary architectural surface reality may be foundational to a design, distortion and is virtual, superficial, and immaterial. In contrast transformation create a virtual surface that seems more to the silence represented repeatedly in early real than reality. The Blur Building designed by Diller modern architecture and the technological and and Scofidio in Yverdon-les-Bains (Fig.10.) features physical representation of later modern architecture, a man-made fog surface designed by a programmed contemporary digital fabrication technology minimizes vapor nozzle. Its form changes and blurs boundary the representative role of the architectural surface and continuously according to environmental conditions. emphasizes its own virtual effect. Thus, the perceptive This virtual building is based on imagination, and it gap between production and reality is overcome depicts images freely. Such virtual imagery appears as by the simultaneity of simulacra and the digitally a new reality without reference to another; however, fabricated surface. Digital technological representation it is a reproduction of reality in the sense that it elicits has transformed building surfaces through simulated similar sensory and emotional reactions to those i m a g e s t h a t p a r a d o x i c a l l y o ff e r t r u e se n so r y elicited when facing something real. Simulation can experiences. be characterized by the ability to visualize specific Virtual effects are created on the architectural situations through the concept of time. The exploitation surface, describing and reproducing reality for sensual of potential surface effects generated by simulacra re-perception/reinterpretation of the city. Digital and the expansion of architecture's sensory spectrum fabrication technology goes beyond visualization to include non-optical stimuli has transformed of the invisible—it is used as a tool for existential architecture into a surface organizer of a novel form of exploration (i.e., an area not yet perceived in collective behavior governed by competitive criteria. existence). Contemporary architectural surfaces are In other words, the interactive relationship between no longer functional or symbolic; instead, they are surface depth and sensory perception affects the human strategic for exploring and interpreting the surrounding senses. urban environment. Advances in digital technology In the reconstruction of the surface by digital have been incorporated in architectural technology, technology based on various examples, the mass enabling the creation of a new reality based on production instantly encodes image data on the reinterpreted symbols. Surfaces' simulated effects surface; individual elevation elements are removed; overcome disparities in essence and virtuality, in reality and then the modules are reordered through sequential 30 JAABE vol.14 no.1 January 2015 You-chang Jeon 3 Building Skins by Schittich (2001) studies the tectonic and and truth, and in the original and the reproduction. performative aspects of façade components. The Function of The architectural surface has been transformed into Ornament, edited by Mousavi and Kubo (2006), diagrams the a strategic medium for symbolic creation, bringing components of performative elements of building enclosures. to the surface images of superficiality that fathom Digital Fabrication by Iwamoto (2013) examines a new the embedded. Simulacra engender a response of the possibility—integrating design and fabrication digitally. All of these studies focus on the concept of architectural representation human senses to the perceptive surface. Therefore, based on newly applied architectural tectonics. digitally fabricated simulation effects on the Regarding international architecture, two authors define the architectural surface connect digital design fabrication aesthetic principles of International Style sequentially as follows: technology and human sensory perceptions. emphasis on volume, regularity, and elimination of ornamentation Through the reestablishment of the relationship (Hitchcock and Johnson, 1997). Modern surfaces have employed methods such as abstraction, between simulacra and digital technology, construction colorlessness, and transparency to deny representation; yet, of the sensual architectural surface is encouraged. simultaneously, advertising ideals of purity, honesty, ethics, Through the architectural surface, digital design rationality, machinery aesthetics, and functionality have been technology contributes to forming a closer existential claimed tacitly or explicitly. What troubled Le Corbusier was the relationship among humans, technology, architecture, way architectural constructions were designed to resemble modern objects, especially machinery (steamship, automobiles, and and the cities. airplanes). Here, the problem of machinery aesthetics in modern The digital design technology explored in this architecture is presented (Khang, 2006). paper is rapidly spreading in modern architecture, 6 Pictoriality refers to an architectural ideal that seeks the superficial but academically, its new concepts are still being effects of paintings based on structural engineering and the defined. Certainly, the interpretation of the relationship characteristics of industrial materials. Superficial effects can be defined as surface texture and the associated images achieved by between sociocultural perspectives and architecture the application of color, light, and material characteristics (Lim, can be analyzed through various viewpoints and 2000). complex relationships. This study has significance 7 The important concept of simulacra was originally employed by M. because the method of expressing an architectural McLuhan in the 1960s and extended by Baudrillard in discussions surface using digital technology was analyzed and the on art and popular culture. From McLuhan's quote, "The Medium is the Message," it can be assumed that media had so far been theoretical relation that elucidates the relationship of considered as empty vessels for delivering messages. However, this technology with modern sociocultural phenomena what is significant is the transformation of the social environment was introduced. In future research, application of the and patterns of human perception caused by the introduction of fabrication method based on physical reality and digital media. This concept is in accordance with the intellectual takes of technology in architecture and an in-depth study of an French philosophers, who stressed symbolism more than meaning (Jin, 2003). external surface suitable for a particular period will Baudrillard's (1990) Seduction associated surfaces and appearances be carried out to examine the relationship between the with the seduction of the "superficial abyss." He argued that architectural external surface in the modern age and the "seduction of the signs themselves is more important than social phenomena. the emergence of any truth—which interpretation neglects and destroys in its search for hidden meanings…. Seduce us in the literal sense, and render it seductive, is its very appearance, its Acknowledgements inflection, its nuances, circulation of signs at its surface." This research was supported by Basic Science According to Benjamin (1969) regarding the relationship between Research Program through the National Research art and technology, technology never surpassed its role as th Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of subsidiary to art, at least until the 19 century. However, with the Education (NRF-2014R1A1A2056250). development of print technology and the appearance of new media such as photography and film, the meaning of fine art became dismantled in the conventional sense. As works of art lost their Notes 1 inherent "aura," media began to mediate between technology The conflict between production and representation in architectural and art. Media art (Medienkunst), which is characterized by practice continues to exist. Even though the mass production of an immaterial state, was born. With the spread of technology building elements has led to an increasing source of materials, reproduction, perspectives on textual "information" were representations of surfaces oscillate between visual reflections of incorporated into "works" of art. As a result, media facilitated the production systems and pictorial recollections of earlier styles and convergence of transcendental art and ordinary communication. motifs (Leatherbarrow and Mostafavi, 2005). 2 "Surface generation" is a more accurate term than "surface The Latin term "simulacrum" has its beginnings in Plato's Greek production." It is associated with the method of production dialogues, where it appears as a term we would translate as controlled by the contemporary computer, rather than handicrafts "phantasm" or "semblance." Plato sought to distinguish essence of various parts in modern architecture. from appearance, the intelligible from the sensible, and ideas from Today, modeling software is surface-driven, compelling architects images. Plato located the simulacrum at the end of a continuum of to create designs that exploit the thinness and complexity of design reproduction, which begins with the original model and proceeds in superficial environments by folding, contouring, texturing, to a copy, followed by less recognizable imitations (ending in the coloring, and deforming. Traditional tectonic operations are being simulacrum). The simulacrum is a reproduction that differs to replaced. the greatest degree from the original but is still recognizable as a derivation from a model. Camille (1996) traced the origin and modern use of the term. 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Journal
Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering
– Taylor & Francis
Published: Jan 1, 2015
Keywords: surface effect; digital fabrication; simulacra; superficiality; perception
