In a world where technology is crucial to our daily lives,
we don’t really pay attention to the rapid growth of the digital age. With the
invention of computers, architects began taking advantage of such complex
systems at the time to experiment through the use of cybernetics in
architecture fields such as patterns and ecology. With the emergence of
computers, it meant that architectural projects are multiplying as a result
through the studies between the relationships of the computer and architecture.
One of the main objectives during the 60s was to transform architectural design
into a computational practice based on the consideration of spatial and
functional patterns.
The introduction of the personal computer allowed numerous
changes towards the public. The use of computers to produce new forms is not
bounded to the limits of geometric regularity. Computers were able to accelerate
geometrical calculations which allowed precise technical drawings. One of the
pioneers of digital architecture was Chuck Hoberman whose thinking derives from
mathematics. AutoLISP, a form of custom scripted wrote by Hoberman was crucial
to solve complex geometric and mathematical calculations to control each
component in its design and engineering stages. The geometric and robotic influences
from Hoberman’s ‘Iris Dome’ were evident that digital technology helped a big
role in shaping the transformable design aspect such as material thickness,
profile and mechanism of the expanding sphere.
