Professor of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University, Mine Ozkar will present her lecture entitled “Matters of Shape Representation: A Computational Approach to Architectural Heritage” as part of the Computational Design Lecture series on Wednesday 17 April at 5:30pm in Breed Hall/MMCH 103.
The lecture discusses how initial sketches factor into final shape by exploring built heritage dating back to 13th century Anatolia. Professor Ozkar is currently researching heritage studies and its intersection with visual, spatial, and material aspects of design computation.
Matters of Shape Representation: A Computational Approach to Architectural Heritage
Shapes can express not only visual but also functional and material aspects of designs. Recent studies in computational making, as well as earlier research on weights and colors in shape grammars, have done much to explore how shapes may inscribe material attributes. This perspective is essential in order to decipher past design knowledge from architectural heritage. With examples from traditional stone relief carving and tile mosaics of 13th century Anatolia, this talk will emphasize a neglected design knowledge: how the tool tip and its movement on the material surface factor into and determine the final shape, and what constitutes it. The discussion will extend to the techniques of capturing and modeling the physical information from built heritage, and how consequent representations of shapes in these designs may incorporate material attributes, in order to increase our understanding of past architectural and building traditions.
About Mine Ozkar
Mine Ozkar is a Professor of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. Collaborating with design professionals, computer scientists, and art historians, her research focuses on visual, spatial, and material aspects of design computation, and more recently on their integration to heritage studies. In some of her previous work, she has interpreted the history and theory of progressive pedagogy in art and design from a computational perspective. She is the author of Rethinking Basic Design in Architectural Education, and the co-editor of Shaping Design Teaching. Mine guest edited a special issue of Nexus Network Journal in 2015, co-chaired CAADFutures 2017 in Istanbul, and previously served on the elected editorial board for ACADIA International Journal of Architectural Computing.