Bits of buildings: How is computing changing the architect’s job?
In 1957, when local officials in Sydney, Australia, were judging entries in a competition to design their new opera house, they settled on an unusual plan by a Danish architect, Jorn Utzon. In Utzon’s vision, the building would feature a series of curving segments, evoking the billowing sails of a ship, an apparent homage to Sydney’s harbor and maritime orientation. However, no one was certain if Utzon’s design was structurally possible. So over the next several years, the firm of a Danish engineer, Ove Arup, became increasingly involved in the project. The resulting building — the now-famous Sydney Opera House — became taller and narrower than the one first proposed by Utzon.“The form was reinvented to an extent,” says Yanni Loukissas, a postdoc in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS). And while the question of exactly which design...