Digital Patterns: Textures and Geometries of Contemporary Façades

The continuous period of information technology growth, in synergy with new Digital fabrication techniques of building components, has reopened the debate on the architectural façade’s role as a site of cultural production. The free forms of ornament are no longer antithetical to the building’s constructive structure, but thanks to the study of complex patterns, they are designed and produced according to the same logic and with the same tools. The old opposition between structure and ornament is thus overcome, opening a range of new possibilities for integration between function and decoration, volume and surface, supporting structure and building skin. Beginning with a historical analysis, this paper provides a systematically structured account of the evolution of the façade’s role in contemporary international architecture’s modern design.