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lattice.space is a platform for critical and creative research at the nexus of design and computation.
Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design
A book visually examining the twentieth-century emergence of new methods for representation, simulation, and manufacturing linked to computers, and reflecting on their contemporary repercussions across creative fields.
During the three decades following the Second World War, and before the advent of the personal computer, government investment in university research in North America and the UK funded multidisciplinary projects to investigate the use of computers for manufacturing and design. Documenting the eponymous curatorial project, Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design explores this period of remarkable inventiveness and traces its repercussions on architecture and other creative fields through the work of computational architects, designers, and artists working today.
Alongside a compelling visual archive showcasing hundreds of unpublished or lesser-known computational images, drawings, films, and software, the book features essays by architecture, media, and science and technology scholars offering close readings of specific images, as well as conversations and interviews with historical protagonists and contemporary practitioners. Together, these materials illuminate in unprecedented detail the confluence of technical innovations in software, geometry, and hardware with a fledging technological imaginary of design and creativity, tracing the emergence — and reimagining the potentials — of a vibrant field of interdisciplinary research and practice.
Contributors
Introductory essays by Daniel Cardoso Llach and Theodora Vardouli; guest essays by Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda, Matthew Allen, Andrés Burbano, Moa Carlsson, Mario Carpo, Emek Erdolu, Jacob Gaboury, Sean Keller, Anna-Maria Meister, Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal, Akshita Sivakumar, David Theodore, and Olga Touloumi; conversations/interviews with Kristy Balliet, Nathalie Bredella, Joseph Choma, Dana Cupkova, Golan Levin, Carl Lostritto, Jonah Marrs, Leslie Mezei, Frieder Nake, Paul Pangaro, George Stiny, Molly W. Steenson, Rachel Strickland, and Elizabeth Vander Zaag; artworks by Kristy Balliet and Kelly Bair, Philip Beesley, Joanna Berzowska, Joseph Choma, Dana Cupkova and Daragh Byrne, Felecia Davis and Delia Dumitrescu, Jean Dubois, Madeline Gannon, Benedikt Groß, Andrew Heumann, Daniel Iregui, Jürg Lehni, Golan Levin, Zach Lieberman, Carl Lostritto, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Jonah Marrs, Leslie Mezei, Vernelle Noel, Ben Snell, John Stehura, Lillian Schwartz, George Stiny, Jer Thorp and Diane Thorp, Elizabeth Vander Zaag, Alan Warburton, and Shaheer Zazai.
Authors and Editors
Daniel Cardoso Llach, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of numerous publications, exhibitions, and technologies exploring the interplay of design and computation including the book Builders of the Vision: Software and the Imagination of Design, published by Routledge in 2015.
Theodora Vardouli, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University. She is co-editor of Computer Architectures: Constructing the Common Ground, published by Routledge in 2020, and author of a forthcoming book with the MIT Press entitled Graph Vision: Digital Architecture’s Skeletons.
- Daniel Cardoso Llach, Theodora Vardouli
Book Production Glimpses
In the video below, produced by publishers Applied Research + Design (AR+D) / ORO, printers are seen annotating and binding pages of the book Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design. Stills from the video are included at the bottom of the page.
Sep 26, 2023 - 2023-09-27 17:00:00 - 2023-09-27 19:00:00
Book Launch at STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
Please join us at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry on September 27th for the launch of Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design, a new book visually exploring the formative period and contemporary interplay of design and computation. Many of the book’s contributors will participate in-person or on-screen. Authors and editors Daniel Cardoso Llach and Theodora Vardouli will present the book, which documents a series of exhibitions and conversations featuring computational design pioneers as well as contemporary practitioners, and includes over a dozen essays by architecture, art, and media scholars.
Daniel Cardoso Llach, Theodora Vardouli
Digital.Visual.Material
Virtual Symposium: May 26 – 28, 2021
Digital.Visual.Material is a three-day virtual symposium that explores the cross-disciplinary construction of a computational imaginary of design through scholarly presentations and first-hand accounts on pioneering efforts to transform computers into visual and creative media.
- Matthew Allen
Kaleidoscopic Historiography
Commentary on Digital.Visual.Material: PROCESSES
Mar 10, 2023 - Eliza Pertigkiozoglou
Messy Lines of Pure Structures
Commentary on Digital.Visual.Material: STRUCTURES
Mar 10, 2023 - 2021-05-28 10:00:00 - 2021-05-28 16:30:00
Digital.Visual.Material: PROCESSES
Processes explores clashes and alliances between computational images and performative, embodied, temporal engagements with architecture and its representations.
Olga Touloumi, Gabriela Aceves-Sepúlveda, David Theodore, Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal, Elizabeth Vander Zaag - 2021-05-27 10:00:00 - 2021-05-27 17:30:00
Digital.Visual.Material: STRUCTURES
Structures confronts histories, effects, and opportunities of algebraic and topological abstraction through histories of mathematics, architecture, and computer graphics.
Alessandra Ponte, Alma Steingart, Anna-Maria Meister, Moa Carlsson, Frieder Nake, Leslie Mezei, Rachel Strickland, Paul Pangaro - 2021-05-26 09:30:00 - 2021-05-26 17:30:00
Digital.Visual.Material: SURFACES
Surfaces exposes the hidden underbelly of “digital architecture’s” imagery and cultural imaginary by revealing their material, technical, and labor dependencies.
Michael Osman, Jacob Gaboury, Akshita Sivakumar, John May, Mario Carpo, George Stiny Vers un imaginaire numérique
Exhibition at the Centre de Design de l’UQAM, Montreal: September 15-November 7, 2021
An exhibition illuminating the twentieth-century emergence of new methods for design representation, simulation, and manufacturing linked to digital computers’ capacities for information processing and display, and reflecting on its contemporary repercussions across architecture, art, and design.