A Social Dimension to Digital Architectural Practice

In 1995 the first in a series of three books were published by Academy Editions, that have since become a vivid handbook that documents how designers responded to the development of architectural drawing applications and the growth of the internet, to establish a form of digital architecture. Offering dramatic images and emotive texts, many of the architects and designers featured in these books deeply affected the perception of digital architectureis mission by students and elements of the design community. Concentrating upon how to resolve the view that time and space are separate dimensions, and the immersive and dematerial potentials of cyberspace, the developments of this “cyberromanticism” (Coyne 1999) ultimately were not used to sustain digital architectural activity. This paper uses the Academy Editions series to understand how such a vivid aspect of digital architecture failed to fulfil its aspirations. The paper begins by establishing the premise for digital architecture through a link with mainstream architectures interest in the concept of shelter. Through a summary of the practical and theoretical methods outlined by the early designers within the series of publications, the paper demonstrates the critical potential of the field. However a summary of how the proliferation of early imagery fuelled a visual mannerism traces how the third Architects in Cyberspace publication represented a crisis in both identity and practice. The paper then identifies an opportunity for recovering the theoretical imperatives within digital architecture by reflecting upon the emergence of “interactive architecturesi use of a “sociali dimension that was previously hindered by the use of computer applications in early digital architecture. The paper closes with a reference to two of the authors practical projects that use social data to inform the generation of digital architecture.