“Technology, Technique, Techné: Creation vs. Contingency in Computational Design”
This book chapter / essay presents work by Alvin Huang and appears in Instabilities and Potentialities: Notes on the Nature of Knowledge in Digital Architecture.
Author: Alvin Huang Publication:Instabilities and Potentialities: Notes on the Nature of Knowledge in Digital Architecture Editors: Chandler Ahrens and Aaron Sprecher Publisher: Routledge Year: 2019 Type: Book chapter / essay
Abstract
This chapter reframes computational design as techné: an embodied form of knowledge produced through the interaction of technologies, methods, and contingencies. Rather than treating technology as an answer, Alvin Huang argues for its use as a provocation that expands architecture’s capacity to imagine alternatives. Through SDA projects including the Durotaxis Chair, La Burbuja Lamp, Data Moiré, and Pure Tension Pavilion, the essay explores digital craft, performative patterning, and informed form as reciprocal processes joining representation, material behavior, fabrication, and architectural possibility.
“Informing Form: Morphogenetic Practices in Performative Design”
This book chapter presents work by Alvin Huang and appears in Routledge Companion to Paradigms of Performativity in Design and Architecture.
Author: Alvin Huang Publication:Routledge Companion to Paradigms of Performativity in Design and Architecture Editor: Mitra Kanaani Publisher: Routledge Year: 2019 Type: Book chapter
Abstract
This chapter traces the intellectual lineage and practical influence of morphogenesis and performativity in computational architecture. Beginning with biological models of local interaction, material agency, and emergent form, Alvin Huang examines how research once concentrated in the academy migrated into specialized professional practice. Through influential precedents and contemporary projects, the essay shows how computation can integrate geometry, material properties, fabrication, structure, and environmental performance—bringing experimental design methods into consequential architectural work.
