ArchShowcase Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. INOTERA HAEDQUARTERS in Taipei, Taiwan by tec DESIGN STUDIOJune 19th, 2014 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: tec DESIGN STUDIO “Modern day works of architecture look like computer dreams, almost as if the machine were capable of designing a world of self-suffi cient forms on its own, without people being involved. Architecture without people or automatic writing in space, places with no need to actually be inhabited. Equivalent architecture that is self-generated, just like those generators
Perhaps a revival in the Dadaist-Surrealist thrust and drive really lies behind this new generation process, so that we can have a randomly generated form from a subconscious source, which not longer lies in the human ego, but in the heart of a computer. A computer is an ingenious means of re-energizing this sort of cultural relativism that envelopes everything in chance. No longer being able to building upon the strong foundations of tradition, history, ideology, religion, typology, archetypes and the great Masters of the Modern Movement, architects are now fl oating in a huge void. Space in which all gestures are on a par and where technology can transmit any image, even though we probably can no longer decide which image to transmit. So it takes real courage to face this void, look it in the face without losing your bearings, grabbing onto hand and footholds like a reeclimber as he feels his way across the rock face until he gets hold of something that helps him in his ascent. This is how we see the work of Tec Architecture: and approach to “randomized” modern day reality with no set paradigms, a daring exploit without the aid of a safety net. Drawing on nothing but technology, the basic tools of the trade, and what emerges in each individual case study but most signifi cantly calling for human intervention to guide the process of architectural creation. The Inotera Building is a highly topical design: a microchip factory and offi ces in Taipei. We are in those neighborhoods where technology of the future is developed at the speed of light, where cities grow at the same rate as the economy that is genuinely booming at the moment. Architecture does not follow any particular blueprints or patterns to represent this new world of high-tech production, so what is to be done? Foundations may be found in allusions to the local and its historical sense of place. For instance in Taiwan there is a tradition of tile manufacturing, so technology fi nds a very up to date way of recovering these historical roots. The building façades are used to explore the issue of fragmentation, the assembly of hundreds of colors and forms, such as tree branches and river streams. Nature is complex and so is architecture (literally its second nature) with all its maze-like interplays and weaves. Where as the offi ce facades feed off the transparency of glass, the production spaces draw on the opacity of ceramics. There are 29,000 square meters of offi ces and 20,000 square meters of production facilities, so it is anything but easy to keep careful control over forms like this. Tec Architecture has revived a sort of craftsmanship for the third millennium, in which the virtual nature of technology allows a skin to be designed which is encrusted with numerous fragments of design, A cathedral of complexity, a desire to make every single square meter of façade count, as a testimony to the human eff ort that has gone into bringing the construction to life. The quest for foundations seems to have been successful, since it all hinges on practice and actually doing architecture, and the project comes to life because it rejects the empty formulas of virtual automatisms and looks for energy in complexity, the revelation of a world the architect gets to know during the actual act of building, where you are hit by, rather than hit, the target.” Contact tec DESIGN STUDIO
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