Standard Architecture. From Durand to BIM

Standardization has played a key role in architecture and construction since the Enlightenment. It accelerates building production, reduces costs, and assures quality control, at least in theory. The classical modernists of the twentieth century treated standardization and normalization as engines of social and technical progress. Despite claims to cultural specificity, standards continue to shape processes and products all around the world through the formalization of cognitive and material processes. 
This symposium event will trace the development of standardization in architecture over the last two hundred and fifty years; with this as a basis, it will also address contemporary developments such as BIM (Building Information Modelling). With a focus on how standards influence or shape the design process, the symposium is organized in thematic sessions.

Standardized Design Processes
Modernity has given rise to processes that rationalize, systematize, and accelerate the designing of buildings. More structures need to be built more quickly all the time. Designs are often executed by unskilled or semi-skilled workers. Buildings are being erected in disparate places around the world through the use of identical specifications. To make all this possible, design tools have been created that enable people to generate and implement a great number of design-related tasks simultaneously. Today, Building Information Modeling Systems (BIM) use standardized forms of information to automate planning and design and to supplement human with artificial forms of intelligence.

Standardized Building Elements  
Ernst Neufert tried to standardize architecture at all scales, from the very small to the very big. Adopting paper formats as his model, he sought to systematize building components using (among other means) his octametric system of dimensional coordination. This project reached its climax in the 1970s, but lost a good deal of its currency in the years thereafter. Today, there are more standards than ever—and they often operate on a national and international level—but their influence on form-making has proven harder to trace. It goes without saying that they continue to shape the design of spaces that have a great number of technical needs and requirements (kitchens and offices, for example), as well as temporary buildings and storage facilities (containers and container ports, for example).   

Standardized Building Processes 
While knowledge rested squarely with the individual producer in pre-modern societies, it can be said that it is anchored today in objectified rules and specifications, many of which are sanctioned by liability concerns and multi-national contractual agreements. Arguably, standardization ensures that products that are manufactured by different companies are in fact compatible. This is important where the manufacturing of building components is concerned.  According to some, however, it can also stifle innovation and compromise the exercise of know-how and common sense.  

Drawing on the results of the symposium, ARCH+ will publish a special issue dedicated to the topic.

Wann
20. Oktober bis 22. Oktober 2017
Wo
Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt am Main
Schaumainkai 43
60596 Frankfurt/Main
Organisator
Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt am Main
Link
www.uni-kassel.de

Magazin