27
Jul
2009
Tools or instruments?
This afternoon I went to the the RIBA to see the London design computing group’s latest get together. After being away on the other side of the world for the last 18 months, I was amazed to see how the tiny, intimate meetings we had running three years ago had exploded in popularity to the point where nobody had an office big enough to host it!
There were great presentations from a few of the usual suspects, and a few unexpected faces. David Hines (Populous) showed the latest work on the Landsdown road stadium, and far from being boring (I hassled Roly so much about him showing Landsdown road so much that he mentioned it in his talk at SG this year) it was like seeing the progression of a friend’s baby into a toddler. Seeing the real scale of it finally was fascinating, as it’d always been on a screen so nothing had a diagonal of more than 19inches, but the real scale things were huge!
There was a presentation from Olivier Ottevaere from the Bartlett who was doing tiling patterns based on projections of n-dimensional solids onto a 2d plane that looked terrific, but really made me feel that I ought to have dome my reading before I had gone to class.
But anyway, onto what I was thinking about, there are two streams here that will combine eventually, so bare with me.
Jonathon showed his work on the new Crossrail station for Canary Wharf, and it reminded me a lot of the Dubai metro stations. He’s been having the same issues with solving the node trimming as I did when I was a lowly part 1 at Aedas Studio (rather than just lowly in general). He was taking a perfectionist approach (as usual) to his “systemic design”, and was tweaking the inputs to his system minutely to get the desired results all over the form, playing variables against each other to gain the perfect expression of the intent.
When I started doing my BTEC in mechanical engineering, the first thing I ever did in the workshop, after being shown how not to get a chuck key stick in my forehead or get my tie caught in anything spinning, was to make a tool makers clamp, the meta tool that everything starts with. It’s not a delicate bit of equipment, but it’s pretty versatile. It allows a tool maker to wedge bits of oddly shaped stuff together so that they can drill holes etc. My one was a bit of an odd case. I drilled in the wrong place a couple of times, so I had those mistakes welded up, but I also surface ground all the faces, even the ones that weren’t important, so that it was incredibly slick looking. I still have it somewhere, and I get it out and show people from time to time to prove that I’m not a total keyboard slave.
When I was making the clamp I measured where I should put holes (often wrongly) with instruments, and I then drilled them with tools. Pilots rely on their instruments when they are flying in dense fog. So it would seem that instruments measure things, but surgeons cut skin with instruments, and musicians play instruments, so that would imply that instruments are more to do with skill and precision.
The “architect as tool maker” question popped up briefly again today, and it seems that people are getting used to the idea of building tools to help them in their every day life. Tools seem to be utilitarian, something that is concerned with getting the job done, and getting the wielder of the tools out of work and to the pub as fast as possible.
Given the two definitions of instruments given above, i.e. something to do with precise measurement, or a device that can be mastered as an art form, ‘tools’ seem to be a class of thing that we make to help us in our life that makes it easier, but it will probably never become a thing that we gain much satisfaction from using. Jonathon’s Crossrail model is probably on the way to becoming an instrument as it requires nurturing, and investment of time to make it yeald the quality of result that is desired.
There is probably an argument that a programming language is an instrument, it requires a significant investment of effort to make it do the things that we want it to, but the counter argument to that is that using that argument a piece of wood is an instrument because with an appropriate investment of effort and the right tools and techniques it will do what we want it to.
So where does that leave us? If tools aren’t the raw material, embodied with all the potential, and they aren’t a utilitarian labour saving device then what are they?
They must be something that is more refined than the raw material, but is also not primarily concerned with making things easier (although this shouldn’t be discounted as a side effect).
Does this mean that they are something that needs us to invest effort into to gain benefit from? I think this is probably somewhere on the road to defining it. There is also the aspect that an instrument can also take us beyond what it possible without it. A micrometer can measure more precisely than we can by eye, and a piano can make sounds that are far beyond what we could do without the skill of the expert piano maker – and the virtuoso pianist.
So as architectural tool makers (or architects that make tools of themselves) what is the step into being an architectural instrument maker? I suppose a good start would be to make things less deterministic, once the output is uncertain, yet controllable by a skilled operator then we might be some of the way along. If I can build something, and then someone else can do amazing things with it, then maybe we have an instrument. We needn’t even have intersecting skill sets, but we could work together to produce something great.
So what have I managed to define? Well probably not much, but it’s helped my thinking, partially by just filling the time between the three pints I had after this afternoon’s meeting,and partially by putting my thoughts down.
I’m going to be provocative and define instruments (without recourse to a dictionary as I’m on the train).
“An instrument is something that allows us to go beyond our normal range of ability”
There are probably a lot of problems with that (the difference between an instrument and an augmentation springs to mind).
I’d love to see examples of instruments that confirm my theory, and any caveats to the definition would be welcome too.
If you are reading this on facebook and you feel moved to make a comment, spare a thought for my online karma and copy the comment from facebook to www.notionparallax.co.uk/blog so that it shows up in both places. Ta.
I had the pleasure to come onto this topic while chatting to Harry Partridge after the third comp des grp meeting in Sydney. It must have touched a chord as a few days later he sent me this by email, I hope he doesn’t mind me posting it here.
Hi Ben,
Following on from your train
jottings, I’ve had a few of my own that I’d like to
share:
Instruments and/or tools:
I guess one could go to the OED and
play with semantics but I prefer your first-principle approach of
asking “What does this mean – to me?” So
following on (and without rereading your thoughts) I would say that a
tool is basically an extension of the body, used in order to better
perform a function. There probably lots of holes in this definition
and yet for me it captures the essence of ‘tool’; it
captures the description of how an animal will use a stick or rock to
gain a new food source and of how primitive man also used such tools
for similar purposes. Speaking of primitive man, the flint spearhead
and axe were the tool of choice for about 100,000 years! Amazing to
think that this invention was so suitable that further advances were
apparently not needed over that timespan. However, where there’s
Man there is also invention and the tools eventually got better,
sharper and stronger; bronze and then iron were discovered and put to
good, practical use.
So when did ‘instruments’
appear? And did their arrival cause the extinction of tools? What
was the first instrument?
Perhaps one possible definition of
‘instrument’ could be an intricate tool. However,
computers are about the most intricate thing available to all of us
but we never call them ‘instruments’, so the definition
of instrument would seem to need modifying to express some other,
perhaps intrinsic, nature. What might that be? Scientific
instruments enable us to measure things. Musical instruments bring
us joy and happiness (or tears). Instruments of torture bring pain
and suffering. It seems then that rather than being an “extension
of the body”, instruments insert themselves between man and his
operation; and further, the outcomes sought are usually not material
or tangible. Perhaps in the simplest terms a definition might
therefore be: tools help us get or make stuff; instruments act as
devices to help our senses to be more acute (to see, hear and feel
better).
An example: let’s say that
‘design’ is a proposed outcome – a material result. We
begin with instruments that measure, scale and record (intangible
attributes) and then we use slides rules, computers and all the rest
(tools) to create the design which we then draw or print (more tools)
onto paper. Or today we send the design direct to a CNC cutter
(tool) to fabricate.
So if the first instrument was say, a
10,000 year old clay flute and as both tools and instruments are
equally with us today, it is obvious that both are needed and valued
– there is no likelihood of extinction of either. There is
however, another and entirely subjective perspective; and that is my
own personal need to keep computers in their place – so that they
don’t get too uperty, and so that we don’t get too
dependent on them. Hence a definition arises from all of the above
to definitely label computers as “tools”.
But you say tomatoes and I say
tomatos: let’s not be diverted from the essential issues.
Instruments, tools – it doesn’t matter what we call them;
they are simply aides to assist in our endeavours. For example, take
this scenario: I want to climb a high and dangerous mountain. I get
together some mates whom I trust and know that I can rely on; I
assemble the best gear – new, strong rope, pitons, the best
shoes I can afford, warm clothing; we check and recheck supplies,
maps, compass; we train and practice. Having considered all
possibilities and prepared as well as we can, on a fine and sunny day
we set off on our adventure. It’s an effort; a tough, hard
climb. More than once it seems impossible that we can succeed, but
we continue. Finally, exhausted but exhilarated we reach the summit.
What a view! There’s nothing that quite compares to this.
Or I could have used a very different
‘tool’ to reach the summit – I could have hired a
helicopter and arrived at the top quickly, easily, with no sweat or
effort. But would that have evoked the same feeling of achievement,
of success, of exhilaration? Would the experience and its memory
have the same power and force in my life, enabling me to achieve
other, future goals and successes? Of course not. So I realize that
the process itself is an essential part of the experience, of the
journey. And that process includes the mates, the preparation, the
effort, and most importantly, the adventure – the preparedness
to step outside ANY box, to explore the unknown, both externally –
and internally.
Ultimately, Adventures in Engineering
(and Architecture) are adventures within. A strong desire for the
new, the individual, the taking of calculated risks, and the
overcoming of trepidation and fears. In my experience, very few
designers are interested enough (or courageous enough) to take this
approach. However I am hopeful that the new breed of computational
designers, enthusiastic to take a fresh approach and armed with the
sharper and improved aides such as parametrics, Rhino, Grasshopper
etc. can explore fresh territory and open up new grounds within the
building industry.
Regards,
Harry Partridge
I’ll post a response in a bit when I get back tonight