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Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917

15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for

Sustainable Development”

Project Management Methodology of Contemporary Architecture

Natalia Rochegova a,*, Elena Barchugova b
a
Moscow Institute of Architecture (State Academy) 107031, Moscow, Russia
b
Moscow Institute of Architecture (State Academy) 107031, Moscow, Russia

Abstract

Analysis of contemporary architectural practice enables speaking of profound methodology changes in project creative work due
to development of information and communication technologies. The present article deals with major factors that have
determined project management methodology of contemporary architecture.
© 2016The
© 2016 TheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Urbanisation as aresponsibility
Peer-review under Prerequisite of
forthe
Sustainable Development.
scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a
Prerequisite for Sustainable Development
Keywords: integration of architecture theory and practice, architectural diagrams, synergetic, field theory.

1. Introduction

Informatization (IT penetration) and computerization have initiated substantial changes in all spheres of
architectural activities, from practice and science to education. Two main tendencies in contemporary architecture
can be noted. The first is convergence and interpenetration of architectural theory and practice, architectural
perception leaving the boundaries of profession-limited range, thus expanding the scope of architecture and making
it a part of living cognitive process, increasing the intellectual part of design-making, its thoroughness and scientific
justification. The second tendency is the stepping-up of requirements to design process and its notable sophistication.
BIM-technologies have become the technological platform of design practice; scientific research works turn to
generative modeling and multimedia technologies, using them creatively.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +7-916-518-11-01

E-mail address: na.rochegova@markhi.ru

1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a
Prerequisite for Sustainable Development
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.11.941
1912 Natalia Rochegova and Elena Barchugova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917

Today’s practice of architectural form generation is the material embodiment of scientific research of the late 19th
century which determined by non-linear worldview. As early as in 1924 P. Florensky wrote about the limitations of
Euclid’s linear view of space. “Characteristics of space in full or to a large extent can be pinpointed to one
characteristics, namely to the notion of curvature, whereas the value of this curvature in Euclid’s space equals zero.”
[1, p. 20]. Citing the brilliant ideas of Bernhard Riemann who formulated the dependence of space characteristics
upon forces affecting it, and the discoveries of Einstein, P. Florensky laments that the vestiges of mechanical world
perception have narrowed down our notion of geometry. “As all processes have been cut down to mechanical
movements, and all forces considered mechanical, so geometry has become the science of mechanical movements’
space. And space can be explained by the force field of objects, likewise the objects can be explained by
composition of space. Composition of space is its curvature, and the force field of objects is the population of a
given area which determines the singularity of our present experience.” [1, p. 20].

2. Integration of Architecture Theory and Practice

Analysis of dynamics of relations between professional research work and architectural practice in the last 50
years shows that the share of intellectual efforts during design works increased. Project research prior to actual
design process will shape the scientific research. Such research deals mostly not with quantitative and qualitative
characteristics of the architectural form but with the motivation for its appearance, the algorithms of self-
development and the process of the shape taking place as a phenomenon.
Prior to the year of 1970 architectural research was purely academic. It was exquisite theoretical concepts,
crowning practice. By 1990 ‘academicians’ have substantially expanded the borderlines of research, they started
turning to sociologists, ecologists, archeologists, mathematicians, etc. They started cooperating with allied sciences
and drawing attention of practicing architects to innovations in natural and exact sciences.
For a decade from 1990 to 2000 more and more practicing architects took interest in professional research and
made it the basis for their design proposals. These ten years of cooperation between theory and practice resulted in
perceptible changes in design process.
The period after the year of 2000 can be called post-academic. The active exchange of information and
experience, close cooperation of scientists and design-makers created a kind of a continuum which provided practice
with a new level of creative freedom. In that respect, not only doers grew to become academicians but many
academicians started doing practical work! One best confirmation of this fact is the growing number of theoretical
research works written and published by practicing architects and dealing with issues of urban planning and
architecture.
This act of professional reflection, of importance of theoretical comprehension of design process and the
significance of this goal as compared with other types of architectural research was noted by Aldo Rossi: "Those
who have seriously asserted themselves in architecture and design and who sometimes think about the theory of
design making, must tell us how they created the examples of their architecture." [2, p.14]
Practice is being saturated with theoretical design research works, and theory plays with experimental form-
shaping which has become an integral part of modern design. In that respect, its thoroughness and scientific
background increased.

3. Digital Tools and a New level of Complexity of the Architectural Form

Architects who take their design practice as a scientific research note the importance of finding the right tool for
design research. It is the tool that dictates the laws of structuring a new shape. We speak of various tools for digital
modeling: algorithmic expansion, combinatorial set, mathematic modeling and parametric programming of
computer environment where navigation is possible to obtain a shape that would be best fit for addressing the issue.
Professional perception falling beyond the limits of habitual design-making is the imperative of our time; it is
necessary to cope with planetary problems, which can be solved only expanding the boundaries of architecture.
Information and computer technologies contribute to fast dissemination of results of research works in various
branches of knowledge. When found, algorithms of physical, chemical and biological phenomena and processes
become the basis for dynamic images. Visualization of a material under study as well as the ability to watch the
 Natalia Rochegova and Elena Barchugova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917 1913

progress in its development would affect one’s perception and activate the potential of an architect. Such research
products are not direct project proposals, they merely stimulate the finding of the project idea.
A new image language is available, whether we deal with sculpture, architecture, construction or design.
Architecture and music, stars and science, they all are the same active play of spaces, full of creative manifestations.
Architects have many patterns or habits. Today they use new tools.
The interactive nature of digital tools makes it possible to learn information about scientific achievements in
allied sciences. Digital recording facilitates inter-discipline interactions. An obvious outcome of global
computerization is the fact that the architectural form became complex and is of parametric character, and virtual
modeling claims to be a new language of design thinking. The complexity of contemporary architectural form can
be treated as a consequence of the three phenomena of the post-industrial period.
First of all, it’s the change of the paradigm, complication of the world as we see it, the new world outlook and
establishment of new relations between the man and nature; manifestation of non-linear thinking, inter-disciplines
availability of design works and the increase of its intellectuality. This group of reasons which dictate the character
of contemporary form-making can be conventionally called the group of conceptual parameters.
Besides, the complexity of architectural shape is a consequence of the necessity of taking into account of a
multitude of conditions as fixed by the environment in the course of design-making. These can be referred to as the
external or environmental parameters that dictate shaping from-making. These are natural and climatic, social-
economic and city-planning factors.
Finally, the complexity of contemporary architectural form can be explained by its technological characteristics.
First the shape is modeled with the help of computer technologies that take into account all of the above parameters
(conceptual and environmental ones), next it is implemented with the help of architectural and construction
technologies, and finally it is saturated with energy-saving technologies. Parameters of this group can be called
technological.
Agility of modern world outlook, its mobility and unpredictability are the actual problem of the globalization era
synergy paradigm. Many philosophers, sociologists and architecture theoreticians write about it, all coming to the
fact that the very question of what synergy is remains unanswered. The very perception of synergy as some
immanent non-equilibrium openness is rather complicated, as it requires having the skills of mentality ‘resetting’,
conscious switching over of Gestalt-images, of switching one’s mentality from one perspective to another [3].
The increased complexity of designing and functioning of an architecture object has become a considerable part
of the changed world outlook in the professional context of architecture. A new look at people’s perception of
architecture appeared. Following the changes in relations between the meaning, the sign and the implicated, there
appeared procedurality and ambiguousness of the events. The well-established concepts that the outlines determine
the initial characteristics of the form, that in the process of perception the form can be simplified to some geometric
primitive, that the main impression is to be got from the main points of view, still hold. But to them we can add the
dynamics of people’s fast moving about the city and the new look at oneself, identification and re-definition of one’s
own self as we constantly correlate with the environment.
A Russian philosopher G.L.Tulchinsky in his book “Freedom and Meaning” noted that the main thing on which
all questions under discussion are based is the shift of emphasis from the sense structures to the processes of sense-
formation and their dynamics, to the role of personality and self-awareness in these processes and to the metaphysics
of freedom and responsibility. It is the process of searching for one’s own self and identity, implementation of the
act of creativity and the ability to realize one’s freedom [4].
One of the reasons for versatility and dynamism of modern architecture is the blending, weaving of virtual spaces
and information technologies into actual buildings and constructions. The real and the virtual architectures exist
simultaneously, transfusing each other and forming a new wholeness.
1914 Natalia Rochegova and Elena Barchugova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917

4. Architectural Diagrams

If previously geometry would depict the accuracy of positioning expressional and sense-appealing forms having
the status of an ideal object, now we speak of a new arrangement of architectural object which can dynamically
change together with the context, and of a new principle of dynamic form shaping. In response to complementarity
of geometrical and non-geometrical characteristics of an architectural form there appeared the field theory.
Architecture has long been utilizing the language of geometry. Geometry has always been its yardstick, a tool for
implementation of an image, and it represented this or that principle of ordering [7. p. 230]. Since late 20th century
architecture interacted with geometrical parameters of an object in a new way.
Architecture has always been using some abstract data on an object. Abstraction was a special, information-filled
professional language of a designer. In late 20th - early 21st century this language started changing, acquiring
various individual forms of data presentation and new dynamic multimedia procedures.
Traditionally, some conventional sketch images that accompanied the birth of an architectural idea were the inner
dialogue language of a designer. Since the ‘80s of the 20th century Western periodicals published a number of
theoretical articles and several books of studies of characteristics and potential of architectural diagrams. These
visual objects mean some special abstract images that display some sides of an architecture building. This issue was
dwelt upon in research works by Marc Garcia, Anthony Vidler and architects Peter Eisenman, Lars Spuybroek and
others.
Architects do not work directly with the subject of their idea, the architecture project. They work with it via some
intermediate media which encompasses blueprints, sketches, schemes and digital data. This is what makes their
work different from activities of an artist or a sculpture who spend some time making preliminary maquettes and
sketches and in the end work on their artistic object. The architect utilizes some special code that other people of his
profession understand.
In the time when architecture was tied to classical traditions or (later) to historical styles an amateur could easily
define the period or the genre, identify cultural layer and understand implicated messages. Architectural codes of the
modern world are getting complicated. Modern architecture blueprints demonstrate lesser number of easily
recognizable architecture elements, such as columns or decorative elements. And diagrams are here only for
professionals.
In fact, we are speaking about examples of pure architectural infographics. An architecture blueprint when
presented as a basis for further contemplations on architecture (unlike construction documents that present
extremely clear and unequivocal view of the object) and accompanied by additional data in the way of notes, digits,
highlighted lines or having been graphically processed, can easily be taken for a diagram in its historical meaning.
Marc Garcia deals with this notion in his book of the same name, stressing that a diagram is a complicated filed
where various paradigms of knowledge and research intersect. That is to say, any architectural produce (a blueprint,
a sketch, a research work, etc.) can be a paradigm, when it combines philosophical, practical or aesthetic phenomena
and when it comprises multi-discipline data.
Particularity of using architecture diagrams is today related by majority of researchers with philosophical works
by Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Pierre-Félix Guattari. In our opinion, with all appreciation of the works of
the above-mentioned authors, the theoretical basis for dissemination of various procedures of utilizing diagrams in
architecture is much more fundamental. The groundwork for this phenomenon was done by almost a century of
development of abstract art and by scientific theories that were shaped up in the second half of the previous century.
And here we return to the synergy paradigm again.
The 20th century witnessed a general cognitive turn in science. Scientists concentrated on the science of
perception. From the point of view of synergy, when existence is considered to be a process in development, the
macrocosm has no original senses, and there is only the never-ending process of sense-making. The sense as a result
of communications with the object is to be found above the process of perception in which it is conceived. It
generates some subtle and not articulated knowledge which is manifested in flashes of intuition and in unpredictable
shifts of research attitudes. The senses lose their characteristics of stable ‘ideal objects’ and obtain properties of the
process. Diagrams as a component of modern design language are a characteristic part of this process.
Sharing this point of view, we can say that there appears a field of intermediate concepts between the task and the
artistic person, with each of such concept having some traits of the common sense which is concentrated at the
 Natalia Rochegova and Elena Barchugova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917 1915

confluence of these concepts. The researcher has to create the situation of sense making, of instability, which is able
to initiate the effect of sense self-organization.
In case of diagrams, ‘anything’s possible’ is the key word when you are after something new. Maximum effect
can be reached through deliberate ‘switching-off’ of standard settings and getting submerged into the world of
obscure but wider knowledge. Architects make use of diagrams in their unique ways. Charts, graphical
representations of statistical data, hand-made and figurative sketches are used. There is no one single approach here,
each author would generate his own semantic field for himself, setting the values range, using his own associations
and working with his subconscious mind . Amounts of data processed during such work have increased
dramatically. In individual cases the arrays of information would directly affect the forms of the architectural object
through interpreted quantitative characteristics, becoming one such form.
Similar processes take place when the architect uses computer software, which models separate sense data lines
of the object in its dynamics. “Modern animation software is interesting in that it really is a new mediator, a new
means of project translation… Thanks to modern methods, intellectual and economic abilities of architects increase;
project designing that uses a more complex concept of movement and stability becomes available. The idea of
movement is getting more complicated as time goes by” [6, p. 237].

5. Field Theory

In our opinion, this is why the field theory is interesting in architecture. Apart from multifold inner links and
combination of lines of dynamic analysis of the situation, it shows the architectural object not as one static version,
but as a space of states, interchanging depending on changing environment or utilization purposes. That is to say,
discontinuity of architectural constructions diminishes; the object attains allowances and developments, its
functioning modes keep changing.
It must be noted that radical changes affect not only the process of designing based on summing up of dynamic
lines of research and of calculations prior to adopting the final architectural decision, and not only the process of
functioning that enables the object to be ‘sensitive’ to changes in inner and outer situation. The process of the
viewer’s perception of the construction is changed. It is now a combination of evaluation of the object’s dynamic
image and of abilities to interact with the outer shell of the building at a distance. In fact these are the alternative
forms of visualization and space arrangement of an architectural object. The user can ‘communicate’ with a building
through his mobile phone, aiming it at in-built microprocessors and getting information on exact functionality of the
building and of services it provides.
A number of architecture theoreticians have studied the field theory and the filed phenomenon starting from
approximately mid-1990s (articles by P.Florensky date back to 1924). Works by Jeffrey Kipnis, Stan Allen and
Stanford Kwinter are known. In 1995 S. Kwinter wrote, “The notion of the field expresses completeness and
permanent presence of immanent forces and events, it arises to substitute the older concept of the space… The
notion of the field describes the space of distribution, the space of effects. It contains no fixed values, it does not
make stress on material structure, it reflects mostly functions, vectors and velocities. This notion describes local,
within-the-field, combinations of differences: speed, coherence of movement and the highest speed points” [8, С.
88-89]. The accent is shifted from form-making to the form-related states. Objections regarding formlessness and
compositional incompleteness of new objects are waived due to the architectural task getting more complicated
when trying to harmonize each of possible form modifications.
Within the field theory the architectural object is undergoing considerable modifications of its essence. Apart
from dramatic increase of digital information presentations of the construction, the very notion of the architectural
object is expanding through adding to it of virtual spaces and functions. While attaching additional actions and
additional data obtained from the virtual sector of the object, the dubious nature of the whole artificial environment
organization starts changing its special organization and the mode of operation of the whole system. The architect
receives yet another task of organizing special patterns for metamorphosis, switching-over of situations and
directions for possible alternative actions.
Acceptance of the field theory as the theoretical basis for designing and functioning of architectural objects
changes the global order, the principle of organization of the artificial environment of man. D.O.Shvidkovsky wrote
1916 Natalia Rochegova and Elena Barchugova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917

in his article “The Ideal Landscape of Stable Environment” [5, p. 14, 15]. For thousands of years man felt his own
only the space enclosed and protected against forces of nature. Its image and structure were based on this man-made
anthropogenic order. As the civilization was developing, this order would spread over the whole space that man
could master. Such were the ancient towns, the Middle Ages ‘new’ towns, monasteries with their regular gardens
and fortresses. Architecture was opposed to nature. The classical embodiment of such geometrical properties of
‘non-natural’ environment…was the environment based on a system of architectural orders. Their proportions,
obtaining the regularity of symbolic mathematics of many centuries, fixed the thousand-year legacy of man-
mastered space.
The Englishmen of the early 18th century created a principally different world outlook. All nature became
beautiful and benevolent to them; it became the home of mankind. Architectural constructions would fit organically
into nature and become a native part of the landscape. The first and probably the brightest manifestation of this
concept was the English garden. It was this invention that was the fullest and the most accomplished embodiment of
the idea of the garden as a new world outlook, as a space where human presence joined naturally with the nature.
The landscape revolution in England at the turn of the 17th century was, first of all, a revolution with regard to
space. This transition from regular space based on direct dependencies and linear series of harmonic proportions,
order rhythms and forms, to natural space with its curvature and complex non-linear dependencies based not on
total-ordered regular harmony but on interrelation of groups of diversified elements, each having its own sound, was
probably the most substantive change in the world outlook in the history of mankind.
In fact, the process has become a reverse one, when the artificial life environment tried to accept the rules of
composition and development of natural environment. The field theory, accepted by architecture from physics,
reflects the inner processes of transformation of the whole professional architecture activity. It allows activities
based on principles that that are akin to natural ones, it aims architects at the target of designing some dynamic and
finely-responding environment. The process of implementing such objects depends on our readiness to think
different, on artistic treatment of opportunities that information and computer technologies can provide in terms of
modeling and visualization of processes of creation and functioning of architectural objects.

6. Conclusions

Synergy has become the philosophical basis for the modern world perception, being an inter-discipline post-
nonclassical direction of studying instances of self-organization in open, non-linear, nonequilibrium systems of most
various types. Synergy is treated as a phenomenon of development of 20th century science, its post-nonclassical
stage of development, as the issue of perception of the perception in the context of synergy approach which is
understood as a co-evolution, inter-discipline, communicative and activity process. It is concentrated on the model
of science development as a developing system of linguistic and perception communication, an interaction of macro-
and microsystems and description of a self-organized system as a whole [8].
In the area of architecture the synergy approach to stating and solving problems has influenced the key issues of
creative sense-making, approaches to organization of design process and functioning of architectural objects.
Categories of static and rest give way to categories of dynamics and development of aggregate states of an
architectural object. The new system of permanent interrelation of architecture with natural and urban environment
and with the man-consumer comprises the older categories as particular case of general rules, like the relativity
theory comprises the Newton theory of movement.
Every process, both production and social, is now modeled in its dynamics. Not only is the single-moment state
of an object taken into account but also the cyclical pattern of its actions. Functioning of an architectural object is
often calculated for its daily, weekly and seasonal cycle.
Accuracy of such calculations allows benefit in each area of research. When summed up, even smaller values
result in figures of considerable changes, i.e. resources saving, setting up a comfortable microclimate and energy
efficiency of architectural constructions. Geometrical parameters of architectural objects have long been
accompanied with figures like volumes, squares and engineering calculations, but today a closer link is seen, namely
interdependence of a form parameters, its geometric characteristics and digital figures that accompany design and
operation of buildings.
To sum it up, here are the main factors which have changed the methodology of design process:
 Natalia Rochegova and Elena Barchugova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1911 – 1917 1917

1. Group study of dynamic lines of the project situation. Discovery of various states of an architectural object and
bringing them all together.
2. Modeling each of possible states of the environment and the object, and finding the ways of transition from
one state to another.
3. Search for solving the problem of the controversy between the dynamic life’s activities and the ‘static’
architecture.
4. A new space order: ranking of the higher order (theories by Stan Allen [10]). Variability while respecting
consistency. Links remain and components change in compliance with the governing chain of events.

References

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[4].Tulchinsky, G.L. Freedom and sense. [electronic version] http://lib.gendocs.ru/docs/138800/index-1109-1.html
[5].Shvidkovsky, D.O. The ideal landscape of steady environment. Proekt Rossiya journal. Vol. 75, pp. 14-15.
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