Mass Customised Cities

Abstract

This conference paper speculates upon the ramifications of computationally-driven design and production technologies, whose methods and applications are well-rehearsed in architectural design, practice, teaching and research, yet remain largely untested at the vast scale of the contemporary city. Prototyping methodologies have become increasingly adopted in the making of non-standard architecture at the scale of discreet iconic buildings, interiors and furniture. The main theme to be interrogated concerns the implications of the tools of mass customization upon cities in the twenty-first century. At the cutting edge, and increasingly in the mainstream of architecture, we find evidence of a paradigm shift from mass production to mass customisation. An important paradigm which had emerged as a result of the Industrial Revolution was the Fordist assembly line model of production, which had, in turn, contributed immeasurably to standardisation and mechanisation of cities. Just over a century ago, the German Werkbund introduced a new potential to standardise and repeat components of products through mass production made for mass consumption, relegating to history the notion of the bespoke, on-off product, made by a single craftsman for a single consumer. As an effect of mass production, the industrial city began to take on repetitious qualities, both within a city, and as well, cities began to increasingly share characteristics. The Modernist heritage was upheld by the mass production of architecture, which in turn, had perpetuated a generic approach to city formation and expansion. Standardisation pervades nearly all industries, driven by efficiencies of minimising cost and time, and reducing complexity. Whether one focuses on the architecture of mass housing, or the ubiquity of office towers in CBDs worldwide, it is clear now how twentieth century mass production failed to achieve sufficient variation and differentiation to express the world’s diversity. At the core of the ambition of so-called non-standard design, lies a critique of ubiquity, universality, and monotony, of the modernist industrial paradigm. Cities are inextricably tied to a society’s model of production, and the prevalence of generic urbanism, which can be found anywhere and everywhere, comes out of the legacy of globalised Fordist mass production. Alternatively, mass customization, as a model of contemporary production, aims for non-standard effects of simple parts leading to more complex and compelling wholes. Today’s design technologies link more directly to engineering, manufacturing, and construction delivery systems, with the potential to create more specific and distinctive urban environments. Taking a speculative position to architecture and the city will open issues in the domains of engineering, manufacturing and construction. Addressed for decades by various historians, theorists and critics, the pursuit of heterogeneous urbanism can now be addressed through parametric and algorithmic ordering systems and automated manufacturing. In sum, this paper will survey various disciplinary approaches, in which the potential of contemporary computational design and fabrication can be extended from small scale experiments to urbanism. The specific and differentiated attributes of a Distinctive Urbanism is perhaps contrary to The Generic City, biasing the specific and unique, over the general and reproducible.