The word design is mainly associated with the design of objects – that is, external objects that relate to the human scale. In the world of materials, design is something internal. The development of production methods on the micro scale has led to far greater control of how we design and construct new materials – a kind of design mainly invisible to the eye.
As tooling evolves into adaptable design controls, with proper strategy and administration, this approach to design will go well beyond form generation, collaboration, time-saving and bottom-lining into the manipulation of our understanding of the role we architects should, could or would want to have.
Within the relevant discourse, target could, again, be formulated to generate speculative design scenarios for enduring architectures.
Jenny Osuldsens is partner at the architectural office Snøhetta, Norway. She has been at Snøhetta since 1995, as a managing director of the Snøhetta New York office in 2006-7. Jenny Osuldsen is educated as a landscape architect from Norwegian University of Life Sciences and from CalPoly Pomona, Los Angeles, USA.
