Reading5 Willis (Parametricism, Tectonism, and Biomimicry...) Q&A

Q1) What are the virtues and limitations of parametricism in architectural design?
Q2) Are there building types or locations where parametric design may be inappropriate? why?

One idea that we haven't really looked at yet - despite its obvious relationship to the design brief - is biomimicry.
Q3) Biomimetic design is now possible thinks to advances in parametric technologies and, as such, has many of these same virtues and limitations. Would you employ biomimetic design into your new SBS building, and why?

    For me, it can be a quite long answer, but it will become a meaningless self-memoir if I write it all, so I will talk briefly.

    After I entered the school since my freshman year, I spent three years researching the parametric design, from the initial use of others' ready-made battery packs, then writing gh files myself, and finally using processing to doing all design by code. I had spent three years mainly on technical issues.

    There is no doubt that I have made continuous progress in technology, and I master many software from rhino to maya to zbrush and so on. But looking back, the feeling was like: when I first started to learn to crawl, I dreamed of flying, which was undoubtedly unrealistic. Many of my works have received a lot of criticism and are considered to be simple sculptures that do not consider space in the first two years.

    China once experienced a short period of special-shaped building peaks, which represented the CCTV building of Koolhas and the Galaxy Soho of Zaha, which triggered a huge domestic discussion about the appearance of such forms in our historic capital Beijing.（Only the second one is parametric design）

    Finally, in 2014, our chairman came forward and said, "Don't do any more weird buildings", (Links to an external site.) which put an end to this era.

    In the third year, I was fortunate to have the guidance of our school's top professor of parametric architecture, Yuan Feng.

    In contact with him again and again, I rethought the meaning of parametric design. His philosophy is to use parameterization as a tool to shape space and perception, not to explore the form itself. To be honest, I was not a good student of him and insisted in my way to design at that time. I used code to analyze the site and the flow of people, and completed the entire building in the computer program only. (Below one)

    So after this semester, I reconsidered the direction. The main problem at that time was there were few domestic customers. I turned to other fields of architecture design and urban design finally.

    To me, parametric architecture is more like a dream when I first encountered architecture. It made me interested in architecture, but as I gradually penetrated into architecture, I began to understand that what people really need is not just pure visual impact.

    In 4th year, Patrik was invited to give a speech at our school, with the theme of urban design. After an hour of lectures, I am convinced that people cannot be simply simulated by computers.

    I am well aware that I probably wrote this article a bit off topic, and it seems to have no logic. Maybe in the future, with the continuous progress of science and technology, if one day all buildings can be generated by 3D printing, maybe our efforts are valuable.

    Regarding bionic design, my personal opinion is that it can be divided into two types.

    The first is morphological bionics. In order to look good, some rational code are used to genetically optimize the morphology, but the final judgment is still emotional. Zaha and Steven Ma (he switched to product design after graduating from architecture) are such representatives.

    The other type is based on its optimized structure. I have seen some successful examples of AA and SCI, such as a bionic design using sand as a sculpture, which impressed me. (Not below, just for example)

    As for myself, I will not use it. I have already determined the general design direction and the structure has been set. I think my understanding of architecture is not enough to control the complex parametric design right now.

    By the way, in a narrow sense, parametric architecture refers to the ability to change the shape of the building by adjusting the parameters, thereby using the parameters to optimize and improve the design. Many curve buildings themselves are not parametric design, but may use parametric means to optimize their structure and curtain wall in actual construction.