Sean Lally

Jessica Young

This well-illustrated book unites essayists and emerging architectural practices to examine how digital tools are increasingly being used in architectural design, not only to show form, structure and geometries but also to visualize and simulate energies and material qualities such as air, gas, sound, scent and electricity. Softspace takes stock of current advancements in design and research, while drawing on historical and ideological trajectories rooted in the past fifty years. The varied contributors examine the capabilities of such 'energy matters' to act as catalysts for design innovation today. This well-presented and impressively authored title will provoke architects of all levels to consider the potential for creative and innovative design through the use of digital design tools.

From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space

Softspace

At present, material energies – that is thermal variation, air velocity, spectrums of light and electricity – remain a largely untapped source of innovation and inspiration for architects. Commonly relegated to the production of ambience - ‘moods’ or ‘effects’ - energies tend to be explored, in a design context, as little more than metaphor or poetics. Alternatively, they are regarded wholly as a resource for providing preconceived, rule-of-thumb interior comfort zones or as a set of measurables for determining ‘energy efficient’ buildings. Energies looks at ways of elevating these materials from their dependence on surfaces and services and in so doing, deploying them as building materials in themselves; thus redefining our physical boundaries through a wholly new means of spatial organisation. The publication propels the sustainability debate forward by making ‘material energies’ the catalyst for experimental design. The issue deals with a wide range of scales of design, from architecture to building design and that of landscape and urban planning Contributors include Michelle Addington, Petra Blaisse, Penelope Dean, Helene Furjan, An Te Liu, Zbigniew Oksiuta, Philippe Rahm and WEATHERS.

Architectural Design

Energies:New Material Boundaries

This title introduces an architecture built and controlled by amplifying and designing the energy within our electromagnetic, thermodynamic, acoustic, and chemical environment.

Sean Lally

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