Digital Corbusier

Le Corbusier, in his polemical book Vers une Architecture (1925) argued for a new way of architectural thinking where housing developed a standard along the lines of industrial mass production. Corbusier's writing was in the context of great need for housing caused by the First World War, and the availability of new and innovative technologies of construction, notably the use of glass, steel and reinforced concrete. In this, Corbusier argued that "a house is a machine for living in", similar to "a steamship is a machine for transport, an airplan a machine for flying in, a motor car a machine for moving in, and a chair a machine for sitting in". These analogies, conceived in the spirit of the machine age, contain an argument for function and comfort - a synthesis of functional and artistic expressions as well as lessons from mathematics and geometry. Now, a century later, the demand for mass-production houses is still with us, and on a global scale: homelessness is estimated at 1bn people. So what has changed? Well, digital design and fabrication technologies, and computational geometries are evolving fast and, given the right market or socio-political conditions, the digital tools are set to improve the capacity to supply not only mass housing but mass customised housing. For example, a 1 bedroom house can be built in 24 hours using 3D concrete printing technology. Interestingly, advancements in computational design was already envisoned by Corbusier when he wrote that modernism was bringing about a new era when a geometric or mathematical order controls all architectural forms, from the smallest pot of cream to the largest structures. Indeed, digital Corbusier, or Vers une Architecture Numerique.