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Computation: The Latest Architecture and News

The Fractals at the Heart of Indigenous African Architecture

Fractals are complex geometric shapes with fractional dimensional properties. They have emerged as swirling patterns within the frontiers of mathematics, information technology, and computer graphics. Over the last 30 years, these patterns have also become important modeling tools in other fields, including biology, geology, and other natural sciences. However, fractals have existed far beyond the birth of computers, and have been observed by anthropologists in indigenous African societies. One of which is Ron Eglash; an American scientist who presents the evidence of fractals in the architecture, art, textile sculpture, and religion of indigenous African societies. In his book, “African Fractals: Modern Computing and indigenous design”, the fractals in African societies are not simply accidental or intuitive but are design themes that evolve from cultural practices and societal structures.

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38th eCAADe Conference

Humans and technology today form an inseparable link that have profound implications for Earth’s ecosystems – leading to the debate for a new era: the Anthropologic. In recent years, the transition from analog to digital architecture has materialized through increasing availability of novel software and new methods in digital architecture fabrication – tooling. The cognitive and digital turn implies ubiquitous computing, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and material intelligence, but to mention a few. The resulting design strategies overwhelm our discipline of architecture, encouraging a re-thinking of architecture, the architect’s role and responsibility, as well as architectural education. The development of

Local Computations

This issue of dearq seeks to shed light on a spectrum of spatial, material, and research practices intertwining architecture, design, and computation. We welcome contributions that address these from critical, de-colonial, and local perspectives, with a non-exclusive focus on Latin America and the rest of the “Global South”.

Recent debates on the role of computation in architectural practice and education tend to be framed within theoretical armatures that originate in the global centers of knowledge and economy. Likewise, dominant discourses on computation in architecture and design often normalize technologies
as autonomous forces that trigger inextricable historical ‘turns.’ It is thus tempting, but

7 Alternative, Interdisciplinary Graduate Courses for Architects

7 Alternative, Interdisciplinary Graduate Courses for Architects - Featured Image
The Harvard Graduate School of Design offers a "Master in Design Engineering (MDE)" in conjunction with the university's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Image © Flickr user peterhess licensed under CC BY 2.0

As final juries draw to a close, graduating architecture students are left with a crucial decision to make. While some might take a plunge into the scary real world looking to gain professional experience, others might choose to further reinforce their architecture education and skill set. Of the latter, most enroll in an MArch program, or take well-trodden paths into urban design and planning, landscape architecture, historic preservation, or theory and criticism. But in an increasingly complex world faced with myriad problems, what about those graduate architects looking to bolster their education in other related disciplines that will give them a more unique perspective on design problems? Here, we shortlist seven alternative, interdisciplinary graduate programs offered by architecture schools worldwide.