An exact architectural practice: Strategies for post-digital architectural design in China’s construction context

In the past two decades, the present generation of Chinese architects has been increasingly paying attention to potential design opportunities offered by computation. This trend is illustrated by their built projects of new architectural forms made possible by digital design tools. However, tensions identified between these architects’ increasing design capacity and the affordability of developing construction contexts where advanced means of implementation are limited. This work observes a series of non-standard architectural projects designed by this group of architects. I have sought to determine whether there are commonalities among their strategies that helped them overcome process constraints thereby achieving material outcomes. Thus, this work postulates that, by maintaining indeterminacy during a design process, architects of Post-Digital Era have been able to accommodate contextual limitations and absorb site serendipities so that feasible design solutions can gradually emerge. The goal is to summarise a methodology that hinges on parametric modelling, which suggests architects to accordingly and pragmatically adjust design intentions for project-specific matters; and to optimise the information transition from design to realisation. By employing this idea, a traditional notion of digital design may shift as architects are utilising design tools for gaining higher authorial positions rather than for a solely expressive purpose. Literature study constructs the thesis’s theoretical framework positioning its understanding of design theory, project complexity, and parametric design applications in architecture. These standpoints are carried through later discussions of architectural projects selected in this work. The employed case study method investigates the gains and losses among these non-standard buildings. From their design decisions and construction operations, this work illustrates a peculiar mindset presented by some of the architects in response to the challenges of uncertainty. These idiosyncrasies are extracted for higher-order knowledge and can be applied to an overall field of study. The methodology suggested in this work calls for the use of anexact architectural practice to cope with site-specific opportunities and constraints. The anexact architectural practice starts with a fuzzy design problem space, allowing slippage in design requirements thereby allowing an initial idea to change according to specific matters and forces. All design variations derive from the same algorithmic structure and the parameters of a feasible design solution space gradually become clearer as the project progresses. This work suggests architects control project complexity from a technological and organisational perspective, by which is meant that digital design tools can help them develop a design solution space where their authorship can reach a maximum extent yet design requirements can be effectively materialised. Anexact architectural practice challenges the conventional linear design-to-build work mode where project materialisation is a literal translation of its virtual representation. This methodology positively embraces a project’s indeterminacies, incorporating them into the design exploration and using them to move the design towards a rational outcome. It narrows the gap between the increasing design capacity offered to architects by digital design tools and the site-specific construction affordability among developing regions.