GAM 06
Nonstandard Structures
GAM 06
Guest Editor:
Harald Kloft
Can nonstandard structures become the norm? For those architectural icons that in the name of city branding keep popping up like mushrooms after rain it seems to be the case: nonstandard everywhere. If it’s not nonstandard, it must be substandard. Even in the financial and real estate crisis, nonstandard construction remains a virulent topic. It does not contradict the demand for efficiency, heightened by the economic crisis. On the contrary, efficiency was quickly incorporated in the specifications of nonstandard technologies, and there is more and more reason to believe that they will revolutionize the production of architecture. GAM.06 “Non-Standard Structures” looks at these connections from many perspectives. The bemusing potential of the nonstandard as norm is examined in three sections: Theory and Debate, Process and Performance, and Digital Crafting. The contributions make clear that what is at stake is not the construction of arbitrary shapes but a new way of dealing with complexity.