Neil Spiller: Towards an Animated Architecture - Against Architectural Animation

In his article "Against Architectural Animation," Neil Spiller discusses the consequence of using animation in the field of architecture. As a person who has looked through many student portfolios in his time, he becomes worried when a student presents him with digital material, as opposed to drawings. Though Spiller himself is a technology enthusiast, stating the many benefits technology has for architecture, he is worried about the use of animation in architecture. He fears that architects are becoming more concerned with making a good animation, rather than creating good spaces.

Architects in today's world are limited by how new applications of animation are in architecture. The typical animation software was meant for film and graphics industries, not architecture. In a sense, by using this software, and architect is asking an apple to be an orange. This leads to a tendency for those using the software to play around more with the features of the software, as opposed to the architectural forms they are attempting to represent. These users "push all the buttons at once" to see what happens, and labels it as a final product. Such representations do nothing to give another insight into architectural form. They may be pretty to look at, but they say nothing; they are mindless eye candy, rotting away the mind as sweets do one's teeth.

The graphics in these animations also lead towards a representation of ideals, made possible by the less restrictive rules of cyberspace. Clients presented with these pristine models are seduced by the graphic aesthetics, and assume the built version will be the same. In the end, built form can only approximate these animated forms, often ending up as deformations of a digital ideal, as real world influences, such as gravity and context disturb these idealistic bodies.

Another shortcoming of architectural in the virtual world relates to the approach on must take in order to represent architecture virtually. A high level of detail must be known; dimensions must be known down to small features, such as bathroom stall width. Such a level of detail is not necessary for the creative proportions brought about through relatively simply mathematics to create an aesthetic that architecture has held since the time of the ancients. Such picky details detract one from such grand simplicity to the point where one loses sight of the big picture in favor of the small. This over-attention to detail removes the ability for others to speculate and reinterpret; there is no room for the imagination when all the details are given.

For animation in architecture to work, one must "dumb it down." Architects employing this technology must focus more on the whole. Attention to overall form, not the width of an armrest, should take priority. Animations should not seek to answer all questions about architectural form, but, rather, should answer some questions, while raising others, allowing for speculation, allowing the minds of others to attempt to reach their own conclusions. Architectural animation should be nothing more than a trailer, as opposed to the whole film. The architecture and films industries are two separate, inherently different entities; their representations and re-presentations should be different on the basis of the fundamentals these industries hold.