Form | Function | Fiction
"Any relationship between a building and it's users is one of violence"- Bernard Tschumi. This is shown in architecture today, there has always been a conflict between those stern believers that form follows function or vice versa. But the truth is, both are correct but that does not mean the latter is wrong. Bernard Tschumi's firm belief that form does not follow function, function does not follow form; both are independent, contrasting in nature but inescapably interrelated. It is conflicting in nature as man is inexplicably fickle.
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Today’s architecture has a completely different quality compared to back then,way beyond form and function. If form follows fiction, we could think of architecture and buildings as a space. Buildings now are made to disappear, to blend with nature and to blur the boundaries between inside and out. Japanese architect, Sou Fujimoto does a great job at manipulating space, a free expression of the fluidity of the movement of man.
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Serpentine Pavilion / Sou Fujimoto
The pavilion, which has already gotten its "cloud" nickname because of its shape and lightness, is generated through a three-dimensional steel grid modules which morphs on each side. The structure is broken to allow people access as well as to generate different uses around, below and upon it. For the Serpentine Pavilion, he has created a translucent architecture, a terrain that encourages people to explore the site in new and diverse ways, where the structure can be a chair or table or floor to be stand on. The largest of the terraced areas can be used as an events space, while other terraces provide further spaces for visitors to inhabit and explore, its visitors suspended in the space between architecture and nature. A new form of environment has been created, where the natural and the man-made fuse.
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Function change over time. As time goes by, advancements in the technology we use in our daily architectural practice will continue to rush at us like breaking waves which allow us to go beyond functionality in a tectonic sense. As much as the design technology of the future excites our imagination. We have seen 3D printing of consumer items, but new algorithms can actually value engineer a structure, while solving the equation for structural resilience and material use. In architecture, we have seen parametric design tools assist in creating amazing structures.
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Serpentine Pavilion / BIG
The 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by BIG, at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, London. The design consists of an "unzipped wall" in which a straight line of tubular fiberglass bricks at the top of the wall is split into two undulating sides, housing the program of the pavilion. BIG's Pavilion is created from pultruded fiberglass "bricks," which let in light and views to the interior of the pavilion through each wall. The floors and furniture are constructed of wood which, along with the translucent fiberglass, provide "every surface with a warm glow and linear texture." From the inside, the offsets of each individual brick creates an interesting play of light and shadow which is visible from within.
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In short, the building's function determining the form; the form enabling the function. The fiction that drives the forms is just another type of function, a bit a more human approach to function. It was never one or the other, form and function were made to compliment each other and architecture today is continuing to outshine these boundaries