From Physical Analogy to Digital Codification. Digital Turns, Complexity and Disruption

Drawing has been the most effective way to address architectural representation for centuries. This has allowed for the translation of these plans into built architecture. Based on projections, drawings define a one to one relation between the points of architecture and those cast onto the projection plane. That is to say: an analogy between the three-dimensional object –be it virtual, as in a project, or real, as in the case of the survey– and the drawing that anticipates or represents it, respectively, on the paper. The advent of the so-called digital turns has revolutionized architectural representation in various ways. Firstly, with the creation of the virtual space –a three-dimensional realm– designs came to be modelled instead of drawn. The relation of these models and the actual buildings remained analogical and the point to point correspondence persisted even if, instead of being limited to a bidimensional dominion, the prefiguring representation became three-dimensional too: a virtual model. Being this a substantial change as it may be, the real disruption introduced by computational design has to do with the substitution of analogy through coding. Parametric and algorithmic designs have replaced drawings or models by codes, breaking the visual relation between the designer and the object of his design. This should be credited as the most dramatic change introduced in architectural representation ever. Partially funded by the University of Alicante, Conselleria de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Generalitat Valenciana.