Avoiding Digital Pitfalls

-Picon- 1.Picon suggests: "Architecture is neither a collection of things nor a set of rules...Architecture might very well be grounded in virtual reality." In what ways are we as designers able to depart from standards of "structure" to create virtual works of architecture? Are these works as architecturally relevant as ones that are structurally mitigated? 

2. How has the context for virtual works changed through the advent more capable digital technology? Or will the technology always be secondary to the concept of virtual reality?

 3. If "space as sensorial perception was too rich and complex to allow for any kind of design" before the modern movement, and if "the ultimate ambition of modern architecture was to find a compromise between these two extreme conceptions of space in order to stimulate thought as well as sensation," what might be some conceptual goals for our emerging generation of architects?

 4. Picon consistently refers to architecture as a discipline that reflects the same cultural constructions of perception that science and technology does. Discuss examples of the influence of scientific perceptions over architecture in present day. How might architecture depart from this model?

 5. "Architectural form used to appear as the ultimate result of a process of research." however "Computer-generated architectural form can no longer pretend to achieve this status." How has the new virtual reality changed the role of the architect? -Allen-

 6. If working on the computer is cumulative and nothing is lost, do we acquire an impermanent and frivolous attitude to our design process? Consider the practice of drawing versus 3D modeling, and their influence over the resulting design.

 7.Do you agree with Allen's concept that "Computer fabrication can also provoke a rethinking of modernism's conventional formulations of repetition and standardization?" Or less directly, are there other ways we can revisit architectural movements through a new context using computers?

 8. How has the digital age influenced how we think?

 9. Allen discusses the idea of the "information landscape." Are we capable, through technology, of properly representing urban complexity in a rich way? What are the advantages of doing so?