Keynote 3: Towards the Certainty of Uncertainty

Architectural discourses today shy away from uncertainty and complexity. The current lines of thought champion representational models of historical appropriation, dogmatic styles or an all-out rejection of architecture having meaningful social or political agency through design. These approaches reinforce the normative with new narratives and representations without critically addressing how architecture can actively participate in the world. In contrast to this, we live in a technologically interconnected social and ecological sphere that has made us hyperaware of the magnitude and complexities of the challenges today. By necessity, if contemporary design is to remain relevant it must shift from the finite representational models of practice towards real-time collaborative ones. The shift conceptually is to move from ‘models of’ towards ‘models for’. Enter design. The role of the model today must be operative and prototypical in nature. Rather than illustrating ideas, models should offer us the possibility to engage and respond to the information-rich matrices that influence our everyday. Models here are understood as open frameworks and platforms enabling shared and collective participation. ‘Design must be considered as durational, real-time and anticipatory exploring human with human, human with machine, and machine with machine communication.