Complexity from the ordinary: exploring timesbased iterative architectures

The production context of architecture has recently blossomed with the advent of a multitude of new techniques that cross the realms of both representation and realisation. Generally referred to as CAD and CAM, these technologies bring the world of manufacturing directly within the grasp of the designer. But rather than simply establishing a form of neo-medievalism, these technologies permit the reappraisal of design as being an iterative process with a linear trajectory towards ‘the made’. The potential exists for design to become an iterative process with circularity in which ‘the made’ can feed local environmental and performance data back to the digital representation, the representation modified, and ‘the made’ to be ‘remade’. The recent awarding of an ‘Architectural Residency’ in the Kielder Forest, Northumberland, UK, is providing the context for a case study exploring the issues raised by the statements above. The forest territory is a vast managed landscape exhibiting a multiplicity of conditions in constant flux resulting from the management strategy of the 50 year cycle – a period defining the planting, maturation and harvesting of each forest plot. The cognitive psychologist Herbert Simon proposed that complexity is an emergent property that can result from the interaction of a simple mechanism within a complex environment. The Kielder context exhibits continual variation across many time scales and offers a rich resource for exploring the notions of novelty, variety, specificity and complexity. By considering the design process as a continual iterative cycle in which the digital and analogue are closely coupled, we might imagine a construct that continually redefines itself in relation to its context, attempting to become increasingly specific to location and purpose over time.