In designing the dialogue I propose that we start with three primary roles characterised by Sailor, Scientist and Moderator. however we are not trying to typecast people – rather the reverse – so the idea is that any one can post in any of the three roles. We can then begin to observe and direct the emergent structure of both ideas and people.
This was how navigation was done before GPS !
This beautiful instrument – a Plath sextant – was salvaged from a German submarine in 1943 and then in my father’s hands completed another fifty years of international offshore racing.
RMIT Workshop HW-02
So why choose Sailor and Scientist as the scenario – and what are the expected education and research benefits – particularly when there is no obvious direct relevance to the world of architectural design?
Sailing is acknowledged to be an addictive pastime and sport. In the early days of yacht racing it used to be described as ‘the sport of kings’. Enthusiasts even claim it to be a metaphor for life itself. Certainly it is good for mind body and soul. It is very physical and highly technical – while the teamwork of a race crew can develop almost telepathic communication in their search for high performance. Both logic and intuition are used in formulating course strategy and boat to boat tactics. Out on the water the effects of continually changing winds and currents mean that the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line – and the fastest course is never the shortest distance!
From experience the sailor knows this well – but the scientist is immediately puzzled and intrigued at the apparent contradiction. Already we have a dialogue that will lead to fresh thinking – but how can we focus and direct an exploratory search?
Let us start with the basics – of trying to understand what makes a boat go fast to windward. This is not just basic – it is fundamental. The ability to sail fast upwind presents tactical opportunities – which if played well can make a boat very hard to beat.
But what makes a boat sail upwind at all? Of course a boat cannot sail directly towards the wind but must follow a zig-zag course. This is described as a series of tacks, whose precise timing is usually critical to both strategy and tactics.
In between tacks a boat can point at approximately 40 degrees to the wind – although this varies significantly according to type of boat, weather conditions, set up of the rig, trimming of the sails – and of course the human interaction which tries to continually optimise the whole system to achieve better performance.
Architecture today is very much a team game. Increasingly designers work as generalists who try to combine the work of specialists to best effect and so explore new territory. The underlying theme of the workshop will be to bring together people with diverse skill-sets and different backgrounds. A possible approach would be to set up clusters based on an unusual pairing of complementary roles such as :-
Architect and Mathematician
Urban Designer and Environmental Strategist
Sailor and Scientist
What these examples have in common is the potential to develop fresh thinking through a combination of modelling and simulation techniques combined with scripting and computation. The shared goal of each challenge will be to develop systems which provide dynamic performance feedback as a stimulus to experimentation.
The advantage of this SG style approach is that clusters can be formed as soon as possible to take maximum advantage of the run-up period to November to do initial research, engage in dialogue and make preparations so that we all hit the ground running.
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