PARAMETRIC DESIGN AS A CREATION TOOL FOR THE MEMORY SPACE

Abstract

ABSTRACT

In 1980s, when digital technology flourished, computer was used solely as drawing tool, while in today's architectural environment, digital technology has undertaken the role of being the main component of the architectural production process. Parametric design, algorithmic design and similar digital design methods, gathered under the title of computational design, have been an important tool in the emergence of contemporary architectural products. With its alternatives, parametric design has been one of the most important current architecture’s problem solvers, enabling control of all criteria, from production of forms to efficient use of topography and natural conditions to reflection of local cultural architectural texture. Parametric design with its ability to use all the criteria limiting design as a forming tool has become an instrument that arranges relations of architecture with different disciplines such as ecology, climatology, engineering, geography, sociology, history, archeology, lighting.

In this context, parametric design with its potentials such as reinterpretation of traditional architectural forms, understanding of cultural infrastructure with its all layers and considering it as a form source has become a preferred approach in societies expressing their social and cultural changes through architecture, especially in buildings such as museums and libraries they construct. On the other hand, structures’ harmony designed by using parametric design with cultural and environmental factors has been another reason for preference of this method. In UAE, which is a newly established country and attempt to create its cultural memory together with its economic power, in China, which weakened its ties with past after the Mao Revolution and is struggling to change its existing culture to contemporary one to support its economic power, in Istanbul/Turkey which has multilayered historical structure, the parametric form creation methods have been utilized for the museum building’s design.

In this study, firstly, parametric design’s role method in memory space design will be discussed theoretically. Subsequently, it is aimed to embody the discussion over three pillars that deal with parametric design method with different approaches. In this sense, the Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum in UAE, which endeavors to create its social and cultural memory, the Yinchuan Museum in China, whose ties with the past have been weakened due to political reasons, and attempts to reconstruct its ancient culture with contemporary understanding of culture, and Istanbul City Museum, which uses parametric design method to present the stratified structure of its local and cultural memory, will be reviewed as model architectural structures of the study.

One of the main objectives of the study is to show how parametric design is benefited in these three structures’ designs, how parametric-based form creation methods varies with these three structures, and how the relationship between cultural memory and space is configured differently with parametric methods. Additionally, in the context of the possibilities provided by parametric design, an analysis of the artefact-form relations with the environmental factors of all three museums and discussion of these relations are among the objectives of the study. In the study, descriptive survey method was pursued, and an interview was conducted with Alper Derinboğaz, architect of the Istanbul City Museum (ICM).

In the conclusion, information use provided by the parametric design as a form source in formation of societies’ cultural memory, cultural-environmental adaptation possibilities and flexible design understanding were assessed, and the fact that non-euclid and topological form understanding strengthens the monumentality of museum structures were discussed.

Keywords: memory, memory space, museum, parametric design.