Do Robots Dream of Digital Ornamentation?

03.05.2022

The ornament is dead – long live the ornament! Architecture Student Filip Nyborg currently investigates whether robots can help us rediscover an element we have lost.

What happened to ornamentation? Once upon a time, artistic – and craftsman – decoration was a fixed part of the process of constructing a building. Today, the ornamentation has been peeled off, and ‘clean’ surfaces have become dominant.

But it is just possible that ornamentation is making a comeback – but this time with the robot in the role of craftsman.

Memories of the future

Filip Nyborg from Studio 2B is working on his master’s project, Memories of the future. Right now, he is operating a joystick in Aarhus School of Architecture’s Robot Lab, while the drill of the machine works its way into the brown terracotta in front of him, to the accompaniment of squealing sounds.
‘I made the choice of working with only one material in order to obtain a deeper understanding of this material. Despite this choice, the complexity of my project has exploded’, says Filip.

Aesthetically the purest

At the heart of the project, lies Filip’s fascination with the encounter between the digital and the artistic. He uses physical samples and research to explore the role of ornamentation in the modern world.

‘The ornament is the least prominent element of our modern built environment, but it is also aesthetically the purest element. In practical terms, ornaments and decoration are useless. This lack of practical qualities makes addressing the ornament difficult, and it is often left out of discussions. Nevertheless, architects invariably need to deal with the issue of decoration at some point of the design process. This should be more than just an afterthought,’ says Filip Nyborg.

The language barrier between man and machine

One thing Filip did as part of his process was to interview a ceramic worker. Filip also adapts his own tools – e.g. by constructing drills for the robot.

‘I am trying to establish a compromise – or open up a dialogue – between the craft and the digital. This is my way of trying to do away with the language barrier between humans and robots.’

The nature of the project is experimental. This means Filip will not necessarily reach any definite conclusion. Perhaps the clay prototypes and the catalogue of what he created will be all that remains.

Trees without leaves

In view of today’s financial framework and building culture, imagining the return of the original craftsman would merely be wishful thinking, according to Filip.

But this means there is all the more reason to explore the possibilities of reintroducing the qualities of craftsmanship into architecture. And robots potentially offer a cost-effective way of reintegrating ornaments.

‘To modernist architect Louis Sullivan, a building without ornaments was as inconceivable as a tree without leaves’, Filip states.

Yet, this is how much of our built environment looks today: leafless.

Peacocks and lilies

Filip hopes Memories of the future may contribute to reintroducing into the process the least useful elements of construction. For these elements are, in the words of art critic John Ruskin, often also the most beautiful:

Remember that the most beautiful things in life are often the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
(John Ruskin, 1851)