Digital Constructive Skin | Offir Menachem

Architecture in the modern times versus architecture in the past times.

Architecture is affected by everything around us and mainly technology in my opinion. Although, it was the human beings who invented technology and developed it in the first place, I see that technology sometimes control us.

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Many architects in the modern times strive for new architecture, original architecture, innovative architecture and one of the main aspects that could be seen to have been changed is the relationship between the buildings’ elements. By saying building elements, I mean the structure and the skin.

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In the past times, practically, there was nothing as structure and skin. The building was one. The relationship between the façade and the structure of the building was intimate and in most of the cases, by looking at the building, you were able to know the function of that building. “Form follows function” as Louis Sullivan explained. On the contrary to the modern times, taking the Bauhaus as an example which developed a concept of separating the structure from the skin theoretically and practically.

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Jerusalem architecture nowadays is walking on the same path of Bauhaus. The principle of making the skin independent of the structure “free façade” . Ofir Menachem developed a creative typology of houses making use of technology to produce a digital innovative façade for the units independent of the structure speaking the “modernist” language. This type of architecture is challengeable and creates new visual relationships. The complexity of the form reminds me of the termite colony. However, I believe that it doesn’t speak of the interior characteristics. It could simply be a curtain to a completely different thing from the inside.. Or it could actually be an expression for the inside. In the end, you have to go inside in order to discover yourself!

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