What is PARAMETRICISM? What does PARAMETRICISM mean? PARAMETRICISM meaning - PARAMETRICISM pronunciation - PARAMETRICISM definition - PARAMETRICISM explanation - How to pronounce PARAMETRICISM? Source: Wikipedia.org article, adapted under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ license. Parametricism is a style within contemporary avant-garde architecture, promoted as a successor to post-modern architecture and modern architecture. The term was coined in 2008 by Patrik Schumacher, an architectural partner of Zaha Hadid (1950-2016). Parametricism has its origin in parametric design, which is based on the constraints in a parametric equation. Parametricism relies on programs, algorithms, and computers to manipulate equations for design purposes. Aspects of parametricism have been used in urban design, architectural design, interior design and furniture design. Proponents of parametricism have declared that one of the defining features is that "Parametricism implies that all elements of the design become parametrically variable and mutually adaptive." According to Schumacher, parametricism is an autopoiesis, or a self-referential system, in which all the elements are interlinked and an outside influence that changes one alters all the others." Parametricism rejects both homogenization (serial repetition) and pure difference (agglomeration of unrelated elements) in favor of differentiation and correlation as key compositional values. The aim is to build up more spatial complexity while maintaining legibility, i.e. to intensify relations between spaces (or elements of a composition) and to adapt to contexts in ways that establish legible connections. This allows architecture to translate the complexity of contemporary life processes in the global Post-Fordist network society. Parametricism emerged as a theory-driven avant-garde design movement in the early 1990s, with its earliest practitioners - Greg Lynn, Jesse Reiser, Lars Spuybroek, Kas Oosterhuis among many others – harnessing and adapting the then new digital animation software and other advanced computational processes that had been introduced within architecture much earlier by pioneers like John Frazer and Paul Coates, but that only spread to make an impact within avant-garde architecture in the last 10–15 years. Schumaker has said that he believes the work of Frei Otto (1925 - 2015) is a precursor of Parametricism, as Frei "used physical processes as simulations and design engines to 'find' form rather than to draw conventional or invented forms. The inherent lawfulness of the engaged physical processes produced a combination of complexity, rigor and elegance that was otherwise unattainable. The power and beauty of this approach was striking." Early instances of proto-Parametricism, as manifest through the prolific generation of innovative designs and radical experiments within the transitional styles of Deconstructivism and Folding - including the work of the discipline’s discourse leaders such as Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Wolf D. Prix, Bernard Tschumi, and Daniel Libeskind - were later radicalized by younger practitioners who matured in the context of these early practices, and stabilized the discipline around prolonged research programmes thriving on emerging digital technologies, and culminating in the emergence of Parametricism. Parametricism co-evolved with the global shift from the Modernist era of Fordism (mass production) to the Post-Fordist era (mass customization) of contemporary global society, and continues to evolve in an increasingly complex and fluid network of global societal communication systems. Parametricism offers advantages over styles that cannot (because they were never intended to) resonate and respond to the complexity and rapid fluidity of today’s society. Despite the persistence of styles such as modernism, minimalism, postmodernism, historicism and deconstructivism, a hard core of continuous innovation in research and building has stabilized around the new heuristics of Parametricism, and is continuing to proliferate the new style in academic and practice domains worldwide. Parametricism is a global architectural style that has converged rather than being invented. Parametricism is architecture's answer to our computationally powered network society, representing a paradigmatic shift in architecture after the collapse of the hegemonic style of Modernism, in response to the global shift from the Modernist era of Fordism (mass production) to the Post-Fordist era (mass customization).

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