Institute of
Architecture
This talk will explore the complicated relation between novelty, technology and architecture.
Under pressure of a rapidly changing world, architecture needs to innovate to adapt. But what does that mean? What is conservative
and what is progressive use of technologies? What is new and what has already been done? Does architecture need to become
“intelligent”? Or should it do the opposite - become a bit dumber? Ultimately, the talk will focus on the notion
of the Discrete and propose that approaching digital design and research under the umbrella term of “automation” could open
up a productive framework for architecture today. While architects relentlessly attempt to outsmart architecture with robots,
AI’s and new materials, the Discrete is perhaps just the project to calibrate automation with the blunt and primitive, granular
nature of architecture.
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ID: 658 2871 7182
Gilles Retsin
Originally
from Belgium, Gilles Retsin is an architect and designer living in London. He studied architecture in Belgium, Chile and the
UK, where he graduated from the Architectural Association. His design work and critical discourse has been internationally
recognised through awards, lectures and exhibitions at major cultural institutions such as the Museum of Art and Design in
New York, the Royal Academy in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He recently edited an issue of Architectural Design
(AD) on the Discrete and has co-edited Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation, with Detail Verlag. Gilles
Retsin is Programme Director of the M.Arch Architectural Design at UCL, the Bartlett School of Architecture. He is co-founder
of UCL AUAR Labs, which does high profile research into new design and fabrication technologies and its spin-out company AUAR
ltd, a start-up working towards an automated platform for affordable housing
Readings
:
in the folder 2021S-S03528
Carpo 2014, Breaking the Curve (Artforum)
Carpo 2019, Particlised,
The Rise of the Digital Discrete (AD)
Retsin 2020, Fresh from the Forest: Raw Discrete and Fully Automated (Tallin
Biennale, 2019)