THE NEW STRUCTURALISM

DESIGN, ENGINEERING AND

ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGIES

INTRODUCTION

By Rivka Oxman

and Robert Oxman

Architecture is in the process of a revolutionary

transformation. There is now momentum for a revitalised

involvement with sources in material practice and

technologies. This cultural evolution is pre-eminently

expressed in the expanded collaborative relationships

that have developed in the past decade between

architects and structural engineers, relationships which

have been responsible for the production, worldwide, of

a series of iconic buildings. The rise and technological

empowerment of these methods can be seen as a

historic development in the evolution of architectural

engineering. If engineering is frequently interpreted as

the giving of precedence to material content, then the

design engineer, in his prioritising of materialisation,

is the pilot fi gure of this cultural shift which we have

termed the ‘new structuralism’.

Architectural engineering has traditionally been

characterised by the sequential development of ‘form,

structure and material’. A formal concept is fi rst

conceived by the architect and subsequently structured

and materialised in collaboration with the engineer. If

there is a historical point of departure for the evolution

of a new structuralism, Peter Rice, in An Engineer

Imagines, locates it in the relationship which developed

between Jørn Utzon, Ove Arup and Jack Zunz in the

structuring and materialisation of the Sydney Opera

House (1957–73).1 In the fi nal solution the problem of

the geometry of the covering tiles infl uenced the design

of the rib structure and the overall form of the roof. This

effectively reversed the traditional process to become

‘material, structure, form’. 

The role of material and structure in design expression

occurred again, famously, in the hands of Edmund Happold

and Peter Rice, with the cast-steel solution of the gerberettes

of the main facade of the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1971–

77). The thread of an emerging material practice in the

collaborative work of architects and engineers has continued

in a sequence of canonic works including those of Frei Otto,

Edmund Happold, Jörg Schlaich and Mamoro Kawaguchi,

and more recently in the collaborations of, among others,

Cecil Balmond with Toyo Ito, Matsuro Sasaki with Toyo Ito,

and Buro Happold with Shigeru Ban.

The Anatomy of Design Engineering

Over the last decade, ‘design engineering’2 has developed as a

highly interactive medium for collaboration between architects

and structural engineers. The approach has developed new

models for the design of structures of geometric complexity

that challenge orthodox methods of structural engineering.

As a result, a series of processes have evolved which defi ne a

new relationship between the formal models of the architect

and the materialising processes of the engineer.

The traditional designation of the interaction between

the architect and engineer has frequently been one of

post-rationalisation. Transcending that relationship, a new

generation of structural engineers3 has taken up a range of

contemporary challenges such as dealing with the emerging

professional responsibilities of incorporating new architectural

technologies within the process of design. No longer a

posteriori, the design engineer is now up-front at the earliest

generative stage, bringing to the fore the design content of

materialisation and fabrication technologies. It is characteristic

of the cutting edge of contemporary engineering that the

process has developed new media that mitigate between

the optimisation of structural designs and the enhancement

of the architectural concepts. If the ability to accommodate

material considerations early in the design process is added

to this emerging dynamic, it appears to be developing as an

almost perfect model of design collaboration and is ultimately

relevant to all classes of architectural practice.

Design Engineering as Paradigm

Contemporary design engineering is of very recent origin.

Cecil Balmond has a unique position in establishing the

profi le, roles, design ambitions and research practices of the

design engineer. In a three-decade career at Arup, his work,

such as the long-term collaborations with Rem Koolhaas and

involvement in enlightened projects such as the Serpentine

pavilions, London, and particularly that with Toyo Ito in 2002,

have spearheaded innovative form-fi nding. His publications

and exhibitions have been of important cultural signifi cance to

architects and other disciplines, as well as to engineers.4 The

formation of the Advanced Geometry Unit (AGU) at Arup in

2000 was among the fi rst of such interdisciplinary research

groups in architectural and engineering offi ces, and Balmond’s

teaching in the architectural departments of Yale and Penn

universities is characteristic of the signifi cance of design

engineering as a subject of interdisciplinary importance in

defi ning the new knowledge base of architectural education.

In his ability to deal with non-linear complexity, Balmond is

also a proponent of the importance of the designer engineer’s

knowledge of mathematics and the geometric principles of

structuring and patterning as part of a new design knowledge

portfolio. Among other distinctions, he has reformulated

design knowledge to include the mathematical and natural

principles of ‘structuring’.

This issue of AD introduces those aspects of the

design engineering process that may have relevance for

architectural design viewed as a material practice. The

new structuralism integrates structuring, digital tectonics,

materialisation, production and the research that makes this

integration possible.

From Structure to Structuring

Structuring is the process whereby the logic of a unique

parts-to-whole relationship develops between the elements

of architecture. Historically, it is derivative of theory which

provides a cultural designation of tectonics. Beyond the

theoretical content, the new structuring provides the

mathematical/geometric, syntactic and formal logic which is

necessary for digital tectonics. Farshid Moussavi and Daniel

Lopez-Perez state that: ‘Tessellation moves architectural

experiments away from mechanistic notions of systems which

are used as tools for reproduction of forms, to machinic

notions of systems that determine how diverse parts of

an architectural problem interrelate to multiply each other

and produce organizations of higher degree of complexity.’5

It is characteristic of structuring that the static pattern of

confi gurations, tessellations or any form of structural order

can be mediated into a system of both generative and

differentiated potential.

Tectonic structuring and its digital representation provide

the basis for a shared representation upon which both the

architect and engineer collaborate. This tectonics functions

both for geometric design and for the performative analysis/

synthesis procedures of the structural engineer. Classic

examples of the correspondence of models as a medium of

design may be found in process descriptions of Balmond and

Ito’s Serpentine Pavilion in Hyde Park, London (2002),6 and

the collaboration between Ito and Mutsuro Sasaki on the

Kakamigahara Crematorium in Japan (2006).7

Structuring is a discretisation process which formalises

structural patterns, and structuring research provides

general knowledge of confi gurative potential for evolutionary

transformability as well as geometric attributes such as

heterogeneity or diversity. The resultant digital tectonic can

parametrically represent the transformational generation of

confi gurative pattern. The literature sources for contemporary

research into structuring principles are extensive and the

architectural literature on this subject has taken off over

the past fi ve years. As a source of design knowledge, this

work generally attempts to experimentally explore the

representational structure, behavioural properties and

architectural potential of two- and three-dimensional classes

of confi gurative principles including: mathematical/geometric

sources of formal structuring such as branching, 3-D packing,

voronoi patterns and fractals;8 biological sources of material

structures such as biomimetic organisational principles9 and

studies from developmental biology such as were undertaken

by Frei Otto at the Institute for Lightweight Structures (ILS)

and are still today of great interest to architects;10 and craft

sources of textile structures such as braiding, weaving,

knitting, knotting and interlacing.11

The objective of the geometric formalisation of 2-D

and 3-D confi gurative models is to provide a geometric

and topological basis for the description of these principles

as evolutionary classes. This representation supports

the sequential topological development of the adaptive

potential of the class which becomes the design substance

of the digital model.

The objective of the geometric

formalisation of 2-D and 3-D

confi gurative models is to provide a

geometric and topological basis for

the description of these principles

as evolutionary classes.

Digital Tectonics

Digital tectonics is the coincidence between geometric

representations of structuring and the program that modulates

them.12 Some of the design and research processes

associated with structuring are supported by such programs.

Using digital tectonics, structural topologies can be modulated

through encoding as parametric topologies.

Scripting is a medium for the generation of formal patterns

and formal three-dimensional procedures in textile and craft

structures.13 Scripting programs are the design media of

structuring. In digital tectonics scripting is used to produce

geometric representations within the topology of the pattern

or structure. Digital crafting is the ability to produce code that

operates on the basis of such tectonic design models.

Associative geometry may support a design approach

in which a geometrically, or tectonically, defi ned series

of dependency relationships is the basis for a generative,

evolutionary design process. Geometric variants of a class

of structures can be generated parametrically by varying

the values of its components; for example, the folds of a

folded plate, or the grid cells of a mesh structure. Parametric

software such as Bentley Systems’ Generative Components or

McNeel’s Grasshopper for Rhino are media for the generative

and iterative design of structuring that can produce the

geometric representation of topological evolution. In recent

years the Smart Geometry Group has done much to promote

these innovative design techniques through its international

conferences and teaching workshops.

Digital morphogenesis is the derivation of design solutions

through generative and performative processes. It is a process

of digital form-fi nding that has recently been employed in

engineering practice by Mutsuro Sasaki14 and discussed in the

writings of the Emergence and Design Group.15 Perhaps the

highest level of performance-based design is the exploitation

of performance data as the driver of the evolutionary design

process. Digital morphogenesis will eventually achieve

‘analysis driving generation/evolution’.

Structuring Materiality

As architecture begins to deal with fabrication as well as

with construction, the architect/structural engineering team

is poised to resume control of the central role of integrating

architecture and its material technologies. The idea of

Future Systems and Adams Kara

Taylor (AKT), Strand Link Bridge, Land

Securities Headquarters, London, 2005

below: Digital tectonics and parametric

structural topologies are applied in

these studies by AKT for structuring and

fabrication proposals for materialising the

architectural concept.

Hanif Kara (AKT) and the Parametric Applied Research

Team (P.ART) with the AA School of Architecture and

Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Architecture,

Fibrous Concrete Workshop, Istanbul, 2007

opposite top right: Within the workshop, these sketches

are a case study in the relationship between parametric

tectonics and material/fabrication design. ‘From Parametric

Tectonics to Material Design’ has become a cornerstone of

digital pedagogical content in the New

material structures integrates the concepts of structuring,

the behaviour of materials, and digital tectonics (see Yves

Weinand and Markus Hudert’s article on pp 102–7 of this

issue). The study of material structures and their role in

design and digital design has become a seminal subject of

professional as well as academic concern. The research and

understanding of the function of material in design, the ability

to design with material, and the techniques of manipulating

representations of material structures through digital tectonics

has become a burgeoning part of the architectural knowledge

base as well as one of its hottest research areas.

Fabricating Materiality: Design to Production and Back

The process of preparation for fabrication and construction

depends upon a reinterpretation of the tectonics of the

project. Frequently this is done by reuse of the digital core

model of the project as Fabian Scheurer describes in his work

on the digital production process for the formwork on the

Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart by UNStudio and Werner

Sobek (see Sobek’s article on pp 24–33 of this issue).16

Scheurer and designtoproduction have pioneered processes of

digital tectonic description in support of both fabrication and

conventional construction. The point here is that the tectonic

data of the digital core model can function as information

for the fabrication and construction processes. In a reversal

of this process, it is possible that the tectonics of material

systems can, in fact, drive the design process, a condition

which is the epitome of architecture by performative design

(see Neri Oxman’s article on pp 78–85 of this issue).17

Design as Research

Among the motivating themes of design engineering is

that design is a research-related and knowledge-producing

process. The fi elds of structuring, digital tectonics, digital

morphogenesis, materiality and performance-driven

evolutionary generation are the research fi elds of the design

engineer that are also common to the architect. This

phenomenon is seen in the emergence in the last decade of

interdisciplinary research groups such as the Arup Advanced

Geometry Unit (AGU) which deal with the new range of

geometric, computational and materialisation problems of

contemporary design engineering practice.

From the Design of Engineering to the Re-Engineering of Design

We have proposed that design engineering is a new model

of engineering methods and practice which also functions

as a general model of design serving the architect as well as

the structural engineer. It provides a head-clearing rationale

to a profession beleaguered by the lightheadedness of form

without matter.

How do we educate architects to function as material

practitioners? What we have termed a ‘cultural shift’

obviously has a profound infl uence upon the defi nition of

the requisite knowledge base of the architect as well as on

what defi nes architectural research. Many of the research

processes and subjects described above, including acquiring

knowledge of architectural geometry and digital enabling

skills, is already part of the agenda of the leading schools.

Fabrication labs in education which were rare even just a

few years ago are today commonplace.

Architecture’s reconstitution as a material practice requires

a theoretical foundation comprehensive enough to integrate

emerging theories, methods and technologies in design, practice

and education. The new structuralism is a fi rst attempt to

defi ne this emerging paradigm viewed through the prism of

engaging the structuring logic of design engineering and emerging

technologies. The structuring, encoding and fabricating of material

systems has become an area of design study and the expanded

professional knowledge base common to both the architect and

the structural engineer. The emergence of research practice is

establishing the new design sciences of materialisation that are

the threshold to the revolution of architectural technologies and

material practice. The new structuralism focuses on the potential

of these design processes to return architecture to its material

sources. Architecture is, at last, back to the future. It may also be

reformulating itself as a profession.

With the emerging technologies of fabrication, the current

impact of material upon architectural form has become one of

the prominent infl uences in architectural design. Fabrication is

not a modelling technique, but a revolution in the making of

architecture. The new structuralism designates the cultural turn

away from formalism and towards a material practice open

to ecological potential. This is an architectural design that is

motivated by a priori structural and material concepts and in

which structuring is the generative basis of design. This issue

is devoted to the exegesis of this cultural turn in which

the synthesis of architect, engineer and fabricator again

controls the historical responsibility for the processes of

design, making and building. 1

Notes

1. See Peter Rice, An Engineer Imagines, Artemis (London), 1998.

2. See Hanif Kara (ed), Design Engineer-ing AKT, Actar (Barcelona), 2008.

3. See Nina Rappaport, Support and Resist: Structural Engineers and Design

Innovation, Monacelli Press (New York), 2007.

4. Among others, see: Cecil Balmond with Jannuzzi Smith, Informal, Prestel

(Munich), 2002; Cecil Balmond, Element, Prestel (Munich), 2007; a+u

(architecture + urbanism), Special Issue: Cecil Balmond, November

2006; Michael Holm and Kjeld Kjeldsen (eds), Cecil Balmond: Frontiers of

Architecture (exhibition catalogue), Louisiana Museum (Copenhagen), 2008.

5. Farshid Moussavi and Daniel Lopez-Perez, Seminar, ‘The function

of systems’, GSD Course Bulletin, Harvard Graduate School of Design

(Cambridge, MA), 2009; see www.gsd.harvard.edu/people/faculty/moussavi/

seminars.html.

6. See ‘Advanced Geometry Unit at Arup’, in Tomoko Sakamoto and Albert

Ferré et al, From Control to Design: Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture,

Actar (Barcelona), 2008, pp 34–67.

7. See Mutsuro Sasaki, Morphogenesis of Flux Structures, AA Publications

(London), 2007, pp 6, 81–99, 105.

8. See Martin Kemp, ‘The natural philosopher as builder’, in Michael Holm

and Kjeld Kjeldsen, op cit, pp 90–9; and Irene Hwang, Tomoko Sakamoto,

Albert Ferré, Michael Kubo, Noorie Sadarangi, Anna Tetas, Mario Ballesteros

and Ramon Prat, Verb Natures, Actar (Barcelona), 2006.

9. See Julian Vincent, 2009, ‘Biomimetic Patterns in Architectural Design’,

AD Patterns of Architecture, Nov/Dec 2009, pp 74–81.

10. See Lars Spuybroek (ed), The Architecture of Variation: Research and

Design, Thames & Hudson (London), 2009.

11. Judith Reitz and Daniel Baerlecken, ‘Interlacing systems’, in Christoph

Gengnagel (ed), Proceedings of the Design Modeling Symposium Berlin,

University of Arts Berlin, 2009, pp 281–90.

12. See Rivka Oxman, ‘Theory and Design in the First Digital Age’,

Design Studies, Vol 27, No 3, May 2006, pp 229–66; Rivka Oxman,

‘Morphogenesis in the theory and methodology of digital tectonics’, in René

Motro (ed), Special Issue of the IASS journal, August 2010.

13. See Tomoko Sakamoto and Albert Ferré et al, op cit.

14. See Mutsuro Sasaki, op cit, especially pp 102–9.

15. Among others, see: Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael

Weinstock, AD Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies, May/June

2004; and Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock, AD

Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design, March/April 2006.

16. See also Fabian Scheurer, ‘Fromdesigntoproduction’, in Tomoko Sakamoto

and Albert Ferré et al, op cit, pp 160–193.

17. See also Neri Oxman, ‘Material computation’, doctoral dissertation, MIT

Department of Architecture, June 2010.

Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Image: pp 14-15 © Bollinger + Grohmann, Matthias

Michel; pp 16-17(t) © Arup; p 16(b) © Werner Sobek, Germany; p 18 © Barkow

Leibinger Architects; p 19 © RWTH Aachen University, B Baerlecken and J Reitz; pp 20,

21(tr) © AKT; p 21(b) © Amy Barkow/Barkow Photo; p 22(t) © Markus Hudert/IBOIS

EPFL; p 22(b) © Fabian Scheurer; p 23 © Neri Oxman