In Formation: Curating Emergent Design Behaviours in Algorithmic Scripting and Robotic Fabrication.

Research Background: This essay was commissioned for the book Drawing Is/Not Building as a critical response to an installation by Roland Snooks in the exhibition at Adam Art Gallery in Victoria University of Wellington. The exhibition explored complex relationships between practices of drawing and making. It featured commissioned works by Australian architect/academic Roland Snooks along with New Zealand academics Simon Twose and Sarah Treadwell. Research Contribution: The essay situated Snook's algorithmically generated design practices and use of scripting. It examined the interrelationship between animated virtual modelling and dynamic material performance, enabled through robotic fabrication of non-standard modules. It examined the constitutive role of ornament in the work, conflated with and enhancing the structural and aesthetic performance of double curved surfaces. Research Significance: The essay considers broader shifts in practices enabled by new digital design and fabrication technologies and techniques. It theorizes a shift in the role of ornament in contemporary architectural design from decorative and representational to generative and performative. The Adam Art Gallery in Victoria University of Wellington is a prestigious venue by award winning architect Ian Athfield, specializing in architectural design research exhibitions, with a public programme of workshops, forums, lectures and books. Snooks' digital design research is internationally exhibited and published. Treadwell and Twose are leaders in the field of design research through drawing. This was one of three essays on the exhibitors. Other respected international practitioners and theorists were invited to contribute drawings and related writing to the book including Neil Spiller (Bartlett, UCL), Penelope Haralambidou (Bartlett, UCL), Leon van Schaik (RMIT), Heide Fasnacht, (Harvard/Princeton), Teresa Stoppani (Leeds Uni), Jo Dan Den Berghe (Leuven Uni) and Michael Young (Cooper Union).