The development of architecture in the 20th century is inextricably bound up with the rise of the automobile. The integration of resulting computational capabilities within a systems engineering framework has given birth to a revolutionary approach in the form of quantitative conceptual design of materials. Carbon fibre is architecture's biggest untapped resource according to architect and researcher Achim Menges, who claims that robots could be programmed to build stadium roofs using the fibrous building material. For high-performance materials science principles provides a hierarchy of computational models defining subsystem design parameters that are integrated, through computational thermodynamics, in the comprehensive design of materials as interactive systems. Menges is currently developing a software program to make robotic construction more intuitive and has been experimenting with the system to build a carbon-fibre pavilion. Two of the most important architects of the early Modern era—Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier—were both heavily influenced in their work (though in very different ways) by the automobile; they each even went so far as to design an automobile.
The architect believes projects like this, which combine digital technology and physical fabrication, have the potential to completely revolutionize the construction industry. But long before the somewhat dystopic present, "carchitecture" had a somewhat utopic past. A systems approach that integrates processing, structure, property, and performance relations has been used in the conceptual design of multilevel-structured materials. The future will be intriguing to see what grand "carchitectural" theories the 21st century brings.
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