人物訪談

導報：隨著參數化技術的發展進步，您認為對于建筑師的創作和人們的建造有什么影響？

我認為我具備評估新數字媒體和制造技術方面的優勢，原因是我在職場的工作涉及銑削、真空成型和3D打印、機器人等技術出現前后的階段。

例如，在洛杉磯愛樂樂團（LA Philharmonic）的傘形結構曲面玻璃項目中，那是在前數字化時代，我們必須發明自己的玻璃彎曲技術，并找到愿意試驗的分包商。盡管試驗期間玻璃碎片破裂了好幾次，但最終我們取得了成功。因此，我們要獨自承擔發明創造，開發新的建筑工具的責任，還要承擔成功或失敗的責任。有些人認為，曲面玻璃是不可能實現的，或者它太耗費時間，又或者其成本太過昂貴。但我們也得到了富有創造力的玻璃制造商和建筑商的支持，他們勇于接受挑戰。

在Trivida項目（同樣在前數字化時期）中，我們要用機器切割相同的1000塊混凝土塊，用手工建造的矩形框來建造一堵曲面墻，然后使用傳統的繪圖和施工方法搭建一個木制的支撐腳手架。結果每個混凝土塊都被切割成了不同的形狀。再一次，我們要獨自承擔發明和實施的責任。

與新的數字工具相比，在概念和構造上的不同之處在于：第一，這些工具使得在制造和構造形狀不一、形式各樣、空間獨特方面更有可能成功，也因此更加常見。這從根本上來說也更加容易。在前數字時代，所涉及的風險只由我們自己承擔?，F在，人們認為可以將這些挑戰變成現實，并且通過每個人都可以接觸到的制造和組裝過程，可以分擔挑戰風險。

其次，數字工具的巨大成功反過來又使得構想新形狀，設想新空間這一挑戰成為一個迥然不同的問題。其中一個選擇是，挑戰新的軟件和新的數字制造和建造工具，而這些方法并不是人們最初設想的。鋼結構制造、焊接以及在Wrapper高層中“焊帶”的安裝，便是一個有關重新發明新工具能力的例子。

導報：在當今建筑市場里，您認為年輕建筑師最需要什么能力呢？

有一個答案是合乎邏輯的，能夠熟練掌握了最新的、靈巧的繪圖，建模，和制造工具。但關鍵的問題始終是繼續保持好奇，不斷思考。當代建筑到底省略/遺漏/忘記了什么？這是年輕建筑師應該問的問題。

如何重新構想形式、空間、材料和目的？就推動概念建筑向前發展而言，新的工具到底能讓我們發明什么？讓我們重新思考什么？這就是他們將要發現下一個建筑的地方。

導報：您是怎么看待建筑與環境的關系呢？在建筑設計中您是如何回應場地的？

土地屬于建筑物；建筑物屬于那塊地。

去挖掘？去堆積？盡量減少土地改造以減少對環境的破壞？最大程度上進行土地改造，以盡可能地提高對環境的積極影響？ 這些是每個項目中都應該詢問的關鍵問題。但是，由于項目的情況和優先次序不同，得到的答復也可能不盡相同。

所建造的建筑和建筑所在的景觀之間存在著本質的相互關系，這是一種傳統的觀念，一種我們應該接受、修改和改進的觀念。建筑賦予土地以形式、賦予風景和陽光以聯系，賦予公共設施以目的、類型和用途，這是我們在土地使用和氣候影響之間相互聯系的責任的基礎。

例如，水資源的再利用（包括由于水力生產導致的重力下降）以及光伏電池的應用，都是有用的新型組成部分。有目的地利用土地形態本身來塑造場地、建筑空間和項目是一個重要的概念選擇，正如從數字計算中衍生出新型玻璃和外部表面鑲板類型，由此產生了與太陽隔熱膜和內部環境管理有關的更精確的結果。

再一次，個人對土地/建筑主題的好奇心和重新塑造土地和建筑形式解決方案的可能性是其中的關鍵因素。

導報：您認為建筑如何改變人們對世界的認識？

有些人說，這個世界從本質上來說是已為人們所了解，它以一種我們可以明白和控制的歷史模式進行著重復運動。

還有一些人覺得我們不知道的總是會超過我們知道的，總是有更多未知的東西有待我們去發現，我們永遠抵達不了發現之旅的終點。此外，在尋找新的概念可能性的過程中，我們也可以想象，那些舊的、曾經有用的觀點將會消失。所以不論是眺望未來還是回首過去，如果我們愿意的話，在建筑方面，我們總是可以用新的方式來看待、思考和體驗。

建筑是一種價值的表述，目的的表達，也是我們從文化以及社會層面所關注的。它也表達了我們之前所忽略以及回避的內容，我們以往沒看到以及忽視的內容。建筑有時也可以呈現價值和目的的另一種概念——一種對以前價值的重新評估。建筑也是這樣。所以建筑可以重申文化的規則。也確實如此。建筑是眾所周知的。

它可以表達文化的自我修改，適應不同的觀察、思考和設想方式。建筑可以挑戰文化的規則。如果是這樣的話，那就意味著世界及其文化可以是與現在不同的樣子，也應該是與現在不同，或許文化聽到……

導報：您認為建筑形式的可能性會朝什么方向發展？

具體的建筑形式響應應該是一場個人的討論，一次只有一個建筑師參與。而設置特定的形式/空間模型或標準是不正確的行為。如果我們這樣做，那么這個模型就成為一個可能的目標。我所青睞的目標是需要不斷發現形式和空間，而不是一個特定的，接受為他人復制的模式。

無論如何強調社會和環境的優先次序，無可爭議的是，形式、形狀和空間的力量推動了文化前進，并向文化表明，在建筑方面以及在人類事務的各個方面，都需要不斷地去重新評估、重新評價，并用不同的眼光去看待，不同的方式去理解，并使新的有利觀點可信。因此，從根本上說，建筑可以發現新的形式和新的空間，而且在重新構想的過程中，建筑可以為文化和個人的重新評價提供教訓，并樹立榜樣。

導報：參數化設計的發展對很多造型前衛的設計過程是否具有重要意義，您是怎么看待類似的建筑領域中新的技術的？

參數化建模方便了復雜建筑物空間的建檔和構建。如此，我們可以與制造者、顧問和建造者分享概念過程。然而，這并不能減輕我們重新思考和重新構想的責任，盡管它可能會使得復雜的施工建議變得更容易建造。

奇怪的是，通過使復雜建筑物空間更易于構建，參數減少了復雜建筑物空間的稀有性、唯一性和定義，或者說是參數要求我們重新構想復雜建筑的定義。如果我們說復雜建筑物空間不再復雜，無論從文檔還是從可構建性角度來看，我們都要找到一個空間的定義來取代現在傳統意義上的彎曲、褶皺扭和曲等等，這些在不久以前還很少見，恰恰是因為它們很難產生。但現在已不同于以往。

在醫學行業，經常有關于新型技術工具的討論，如討論CAT掃描和MRI，它們提高了精確醫療診斷的能力。有趣的是，隨著這些機器的能力的提高以及人們對其的依賴性增強，也有人討論了醫生自身診斷和評估能力的相應下降，原因是機器降低了醫生對解釋能力的使用。所以從某種意義上說，新技術既增強了醫生的能力，也削弱了醫生的能力。

對建筑師來說也是如此，因為他們現在相信自己可以通過內置在優先事項中的軟件來規定他們的項目內容。就像在醫學中一樣，在建筑領域，要想減少人類對設計內容的最終責任，軟件或新技術不應發揮這種作用。

導報：您的作品大多數都極其富有動感，這種動感的呈現有什么隱喻或想要表達什么特別的意義嗎？

我不知道“動態（dynamic）”這個詞是否正確。我總是擔心思想和概念的深度，以及概念的微妙之處可能會丟失在對某個項目的形狀或形式中的最初反應中。我確實有一種感覺，生活經驗是運動的、動態的。這就是我所說的‘一場到達移動終點線的比賽’。我感興趣的是了解我們所構建的世界的可能性-它是什么樣子，它可能是什么樣子——理解這個主題的困難，以及理解和不可能之間的緊張關系。我認為作品所關注的不是一種或另一種理念，不是一種形式優先于另一種形式，不是對一種被信仰和重復的特定空間形式的擁護，而是形式可能性之間的緊張關系，其中沒有任何對一種形式的堅持。

我稱之為臨時范式，意思是每個項目在形式、空間和目的上都有一個信念，但隨后我意識到，有些東西被前一個項目遺漏了，所以總是必須去調整，去重新構想。這意味著概念思維過程應該始終保持動態。

導報：施工結果與最初設計的設想經常會大相徑庭，您如何看待這個問題？

有兩種方法可以對這個問題作出反應，就建立的東西與繪制的東西而言，這個問題肯定是真實的。第一，我們更希望每一個概念性細節，設想的、已解決的和描繪的都被按照所繪制的那樣來實施和建造。

根據具體情況，例如業主、建筑商、國家，我們當然可能會做出一些我們無法始終監控或控制的更改。因此，作為回應，這個項目應該有一種力量、一種信心、一種明確的信念，那就是依賴于設計優先級的層次結構，這樣，如果丟失了幾個優先級，那么最小的就是妥協的部分，而建筑作為一個抽象物，看起來不會受到牽連。

導報：你的作品所體現的破碎、碰撞和沖突是您預先植入的想法，還是作為設計過程的最終結果，又或者是它們從始至終都貫穿你的設計呢？

在我所說的可能性之間的緊張關系方面，設計的細節是一個前提。如果我承認從一個項目到另一個項目都有規則，那么作為臨時的概念或范例，而不是一個不斷重復的設計理念或形象，就是一個規則。

問題中使用的詞匯更難翻譯為建筑。我不認為一個概念的各個部分是碎片化的，至少不認為是相互沒有關系的單獨的形狀或碎片。我認為他們的愿望是希望這些碎片“在下一個項目中”能找到一種聚集在一起的方式或空間？就像一個拼圖的碎片，這些碎片分散在一起，但是，也許最終會被拼成一個整體，盡管這個整體還不存在。但可能會。因此，該項目應既提出解決辦法，又指出困難之處。

如果你所說的碰撞是指你開車撞到樹上這樣的意外，是沒有料到的情況，那么我不認為碰撞是一個有用的術語。構建碎片之間的相互關系實際上是經過精心管理和組織的，以表明，是的，它們實際上是適合的，結合在一起的，但也許不是以一種觀眾通常會預料到的方式。是還有待發明一種新的組合。但是現在我們已經在研究的過程中了。這也是我們所期待的。暗示實現這一目標的可能性和困難“而不是不可能”。

導報：您如何看待城市中傳統歷史與潮流建筑師激進的想法之間的對抗關系？

我想我們經常逃避歷史；我們不喜歡歷史；我們否定歷史。這當然是傳統的現代觀點。但歷史在追趕我們。它驅使著我們，即使我們的反應是堅持自己與歷史的形象或規則相矛盾，或者從來不受歷史先例的約束。

我曾經想過什么是歷史，歷史意味著什么，誰決定了歷史？很明顯，世界各地的建筑、建筑類型、圖像和秩序、城市類型都有著幾千年的歷史。而什么持續下去，什么消失，往往就是一個歷史性的偶然事件。什么先例被當作對當代工作的預期，或作為當代思維本身的反面，這些都隨著時間的推移而變化。

誰決定哪段歷史與我們相關？我的答復是，歷史必須是個人的，解釋性的，而不是一個簡單地回憶畫面、地點和日期的問題。建筑常常建立在它自己的基礎上，但在最好的情況下，并不是真的這樣做--不是輕率的重復，也不是顛倒義不容辭的責任。

對于空間的使用或目的，有可重復的歷史形態，這通常與特定歷史時間和地點的政治、經濟或社會學相關聯。隨著社會優先事項的不斷變化，這些模式常常變得無關緊要。歷史模式也有可能重復出現，盡管最初的目的已經被不同的優先次序所取代。重復一種歷史上可識別的設計方法或順序，同時與它的外觀相矛盾，就像重復一種視覺上可識別的，與社會目的相矛盾的格式一樣，是可以想象的。歷史先例的意義和應用體現在個人層面，而非大眾化層面。

選擇保留什么，拒絕什么，取決于每個建筑師的價值觀，過去的時光以及未來的時光——歷史作為先例的創立者，既要理解，也要進行辯論。我們的目標是既要理解歷史，又要重寫歷史。

WARA: With the development of parametric technology, what impact do you think it has on architects' creation and people's construction?

I think I have an advantage in the evaluation of new digital and fabrication technologies because the life time of my offices spans a period both before and after the advent of milling, vacuum forming, 3d printing, robotics, etc.

For example, in the Umbrella bent glass LA Philharmonic project, pre-digital, we had to invent our own glass bending techniques and find subcontractors who were willing to experiment.The glass pieces cracked a numbers of times, but ultimately we succeeded.So the responsibility to invent the fabrication and construction tools and to succeed or fail, was ours alone.Some suggested that bending glass wasn’t possible or it was too time consuming, or too expensive.But we also were supported by inventive glass makers and builders who looked forward to the challenge.

In the Trivida project, also pre digital, we had to machine cut 1,000 identical concrete blocks to build a curving wall from rectangular increments, constructed by hand, then produce a wooden supporting scaffold using conventional drawing and construction methods.Each block was cut differently.Again the responsibility for invention and implementation was our alone.

The conception and construction difference with the new digital tools is first, that those tools make the fabrication and construction of unique shapes, forms, and spaces much more likely to succeed, and therefore much more common.Easier in a fundamental sense.In the pre-digital time period, the risks involved were ours alone.Now those challenges are understood to be realizable, and are shared with a fabrication and assembly process to which everyone has access.

Secondly, the very success of digital tools in turn makes the challenge of imagining new shapes, new spaces a very different problem.One option is to challenge the new software and new digital fabrication and construction tools in ways for which those weren’t originally intended.The steel fabrication, the welding, and the installation of the ‘ribbons’ in the Wrapper high rise is an example of reinventing thecapacity of the new tools.

“傘”彎曲玻璃的制造Bent glass fabrication for Umbrella

為Trivida單獨切割塊（注意背景中的比例物理模型）Individually cut blocks for Trivida (Note scale physical model in the background)

在中國石家莊，為Wrapper項目制造鋼架Steel band fabrication for (W)rapper in Shijiazhuang, China

WARA: In today's architecture market, what skills do you think young architects need most?

There’s the logical answer which is to be both up-to-date and dexterous with the most current drawing, modeling, and fabrication tools.But the key issue is always to continue to be curious, to wonder.

What has contemporary architecture omitted/left out/forgotten? That’s the questions young architects should ask.How can form and space and material and purpose be reimagined? What do the new tools allow us to invent, allow us to rethink, in terms of moving conceptual architecture forward? That’s where they’ll find the next architecture.

WARA: How do you see the relationship between architecture and environment? How did you respond to the site in the architectural design?

The land belongs to the building; the building belongs to the land.

To excavate? To mound up? To minimize land modification to reduce environmental disruption? To maximize land modification to maximize positive environmental effects? These are the key questions that should be asked in each project.But the responses will likely be different as the project circumstances and priorities vary.

The idea that building and the landscape on which the construction take place have an essential inter-relationship is traditional, one that we should accept, modify, and advance.That the building gives form to the land, to relationships to view and sun,and to the purpose, type, and use of utilities is fundamental to our responsibility for the interconnection between land use and the consequences to our climate.

For instance, the re-use of water resources including gravity fall for hydraulic power production, and the introduction of photo voltaic cells are useful new components.The purposeful manipulation of the land form itself to shape site, building space and program is an important conceptual option, as are new glazing and exterior surface paneling types derived from digital computation which produce more precise results relative to sun control and interior environmental management.

Again, personal curiosity about the land/building subject and the possibility for reimagining land and building form solutions is the key ingredient.

WARA: How do you think architecture changes people's understanding of the world?

There are those who say the world is essentially understood, known, and that it moves in repetitive historic patterns we can understand and manage.

There are others who feel that what we don’t know will always exceed what we do know, that there is always more to be discovered, and that we will never reach the end of that discovery journey.Further that in the process of searching for new conceptual possibilities, it’s also conceivable that older and once productive ideas will be lost.So both looking ahead and looking back, the possibilities for new ways to see, to think, to experience in architecture are always open if we’re willing to look.Architecture is an expression of value, of purpose, and what we are concerned with as a culture, as a society.It is also an expression of what we’ve ignored, avoided,what we haven’t seen, what we’ve neglected.

And on occasion architecture also has the opportunity to present alternative conceptions of value and purpose, a revaluing of previous values.Architecture does that too.So architecture can reassert the culture’s rules.And it does.Architecture as a known.

And architecture can suggest the culture modify itself, adapt alternative ways of seeing, thinking, and imagining.Architecture can challenge the culture’s rules.And if it does, it suggests the world and its culture can be other than it is, should be other than it is, and perhaps the culture listens……

WARA: Where do you see the possibilities of architectural form evolving?

The specific architectural form response should be a personal discussion, one architect at a time.It’s a mistake to set a specific form/space model or standard.If we do that the model becomes a likely goal.I would prefer the objective to be the ongoing need for discovery of form and space, not a specific, agreed to model for others to replicate.

What’s indisputable, regardless of the emphasis on social and environmental priorities, is the power of form, shape, and space to move the culture, to suggest to the culture that not only in building but in all aspects of human affairs there is a need to continuously revalue, to reassess, to see differently, to understand differently, and to make new vantage points credible.

So in a fundamental way architecture can discover new form and new space and in the process of that reimaging, architecture can teach a lesson, set an example for both cultural and personal reevaluation.

WARA: Is the development of parametric design important for many avantgarde modeling design process? What do you think of the new technology in simiIar architecturaI fieId?

Parametric modeling facilitates the documentation and construction of complex space.It allows us to share the conceptual process with fabricators, consultants, and builders.It does not however alleviate our responsibility to rethink and reimagine,although it perhaps makes difficult construction proposals more readily buildable.

Strangely, by making complex space more buildable, parametrics diminishes the rarity, the uniqueness, and the definition of complex space, or it asks that we reimagine the very definition of complex.If we say complex space is no longer complex, both in terms of documentation and buildability, we have to find a definition of space that supersedes the now conventional bends, folds, twists, and the like which not so long ago were rare, precisely because they were difficult to produce.No longer so.

In another profession, medicine, there are often discussions about new technical tools like CAT scans and MRI’s that have changed the capacity for precise medical diagnosis.Interestingly as the capacity of these machines is increased and reliedon, there is also a discussion of the correspondingly reduced capacity of doctors themselves to diagnose and evaluate precisely because the machines have reduced the need for a doctor’s interpretative skills.So in a sense the new technologies have both strengthened and weakened the doctor’s capacity.

斜杠與反斜杠 Slash and Backslash

That juxtaposition is also possible for architects who now believe they can depend on the software’s built in priorities to define their project content.As in medicine the reduction of the ultimate human responsibility for design content in architecture should not be the software’s or new technology’s role.

WARA: Most of your works are very dynamic.Is there any metaphor or special meaning of this dynamic presentation?

I don’t know that dynamic is the correct word.I’m always concerned that the depth of thought and conception, and the subtleties of a concept may be lost in the initial reaction to the shape or form of a project.I do have a sense that life experience is in motion, kinetic.It’s what I’ve called ‘a race to a moving finish line’.

I’m interested in the possibility of understanding the world in which we build - what it is; what it might be -- the difficulty of understanding that subject, and the tension between understanding and the impossibility of that.I think the work is concerned not with one ideal or another, not with one form priority of another, not with the advocacy of a particular spatial format which is believed in and repeated, but with the tension between formal possibilities, without the insistence on any one.

I have called this a provisional paradigm, meaning each project would carry a conviction in form and space and purpose, but subsequently I would recognize, that something was missed, left out of the previous project, and so an adjustment, a reenvisioning is always mandatory.That means that the conceptual thinking process should always remain dynamic.

WARA: Construction resuIts are often quite different from the originaI design.What do you think of this problem?

There are two ways to respond to that issue, which is certainly real, in terms of what’s built vis a vis what’s drawn.The first is we would prefer that every conceptual detail, imagined, resolved and drawn, is implemented, built as drawn.

Depending on the context, the owner, the builder, the country, for instance, it’s certainly possible that changes will be made that we can’t always monitor or control.So in response, the project should have a power, a confidence, a clear conviction,that relies on a hierarchy of design priorities so that if several are lost, what’s least is what’s conceded, and the building as an abstract, will not appear to be compromised.

WARA: Is the fragmentation, coIIision and conflict embodied in your work the ideas you implanted in advance, or as the end result of the design process, or do they run through your design from the beginning to the end?

The design specifics in terms of what I call the tension between possibilities is a premise.The concept or the paradigm as provisional, not a design ideology or image to be endlessly repeated, is a rule if I acknowledge that there are rules from one project to another.The words used in the question are more difficult to translate as architecture.I don’t see the parts of a concept as fragments, at least not separate shapes or pieces that have no inter-relationship with one another.I think the aspiration is that the pieces might find a way or a space [in the next project?] of coalescing, coming together, like the pieces of a puzzle that are scattered but, perhaps, might finally be assembled as an entity, as a whole, that doesn’t yet exist.But it might.So that the project should suggest both resolution and its difficulties.

I don’t think collision is a useful term, if by collision you mean what happens when you drive your car into a tree - an accident, unintended.The inter-relationships of the building pieces are in fact carefully managed and organized to suggest, yes,they make actually fit, come together, but not perhaps in a way that the viewer would conventionally anticipate.A new kind of unity, that remains to be invented.But is on the way.Again that’s the aspiration.To suggest both a possibility and the difficulty [not the impossibility] of achieving it.

WARA: How do you see the antagonism between traditional history and the radical ideas of trendy architects in cities?

I think we often run from history; we dislike history; we deny history.That was certainly the conventional modern argument.But history chases us.It compels us,even if our reaction is to insist we’re contradicting history’s images or rules, or are never obligated by its precedents.

I’ve wondered what history is, what it means, and who determines that? Clearly there’s a history of building, of building types, of images and orders, of urban typologies around the world for thousands of years.

And what lasts and what disappears is often itself a matter of historic accident.And what precedents are advocated as anticipating contemporary work, or as the inverse of contemporary thinking itself varies over time.

Who decides which history is relevant to us? My response is that history must be personal, interpretative, not simply a matter of images, places and dates to recall.Architecture so often builds on its own antecedents, but at its best, doesn’t do so literally-- not as thoughtless repetition, nor as an obligatory responsibility to reverse.

There are repeatable historic formats for spatial use or purpose often associated with the politics, economics, or sociology of a particular historic time and place.As societal priorities change over time, these models often become irrelevant.It’s also possible that a historic model is repeated, though the original purpose has been replaced by different priorities.

Repeating a historically recognizable design method or order while contradicting its appearance is as conceivable as is repeating a visually recognizable format with a contradictory social purpose.

The meaning and application of historic precedent is personal.The choice of what is kept and what is rejected belongs to the values of each architect, time passed and time future -- history as a setter of precedents to be both understood and debated.The goal is to both understand history, and to rewrite it.

廣東省博物館 Guangdong Provincial Museum

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