tomtaylor91 asked: What is your opinion on 'parametricism' ?

well, I posted a brief rant on the subject here: http://thetic.tumblr.com/post/7400163392/urbanrelations-info-patrik-schumacher-on-parametricism

Since writing that post, I have read Schumacher’s new book cover to cover, and it’s softened my opinion of him as a theorist some (I actually think he’s a rather astute observer of the discipline and makes a lot of important points - maybe not quite the “buffoon” I made him out to be in the earlier post). However, I still ultimately reject his conclusions about how we as architects should practice. I support the idea that a limited stylistic vocabulary can constitute a productive “design research program,” but I believe that the discipline is better served by a multitude of such programs rather than a single hegemonic style. His justifications for the particular style that he promotes — one requiring fluidity, curves, gradation, self-organizing systems, and “fields” rather than spaces, and rejecting right angles, straight lines, and repetition — all rest on the fallacious assertion that complex social conditions demand correspondingly complex spatial articulations. While he rejects post modernism as a “mere transitional style,” he misses its most productive insights: complexity and contradiction, the richness of “both/and,” the populist potentials of “learning from” popular culture, and most importantly the rejection of a singular grand narrative in favor of a more pluralistic approach. It is this pluralism that I embrace — one with room for modern, postmodern, and even “parametricist” expressions, with each designer delimiting his or her own “design research program” locally rather than globally. Parametric tools and methods are here to stay; they absolutely represent the future of design methodology. However, the definition of Parametricism as style is dead in the water; at best it is a codification of already-existing formal trends, which will continue with or without Schumacher’s guidance, and at worst is it actively detrimental to the pursuit of architecture which is realistic, relatable, and relevant to contemporary society.

I’ll end by saying that probably 90% or more of the work I have posted on this tumblr has utilized Grasshopper or scripting in some way; needless to say, I believe there is a wealth of potential in these approaches that lies outside of the narrow definition of “parametricism.”

What’s your opinion?