The Practical as Instrument for Technological Imagination

Architecture resides tenuously between the disciplines of construction and engineering. 1 The traditional adage is that this position provides the proper platform from which to transcend mere building into architecture, the architect providing the leadership and imaginative vision needed to bypass the overpowering pragmatics of construction and engineering. This article explores this position given a future context of rapid technological evolution. Construction and engineering, both vital components of technology, have become so complex that they have pushed beyond the empirical knowledge sphere of the architect. American educational institutions, logistically unable to deal with technology directly, rely on topical survey courses to build an introductory awareness. This results in the tendency for architects to think about construction rather than through construction. When construction and engineering become isolated activities not included as part of the design process, the capacity for technological imagination developed through the empirically inventive act of construction is lost. This article proposes that architects consider themselves "technologists" with the goal of developing a "technological" process of design to take advantage of the future possibilities of technology.