UNStudio Tried Riding the Open Source Wave, but Failed

Paul van den Bergh

UNStudio announced their office relaunching as an 'open source architecture studio'. Paul van den Bergh argues UNStudio doesn't understand open source and that the result is disappointing.

What were you doing that glorious April the 9th 2013, the day when UNStudio announced that they were going open source? You don’t remember? Don’t worry, it’s not that big of a deal.

The announcement that UNStudio did a ‘relaunch as open source architecture studio’ got picked up by all the big architecture blogs: Dezeen, Archdaily, Archinect and even Waag, producer of the book Open Design Now, wrote an article about it. While I don’t blame Dezeen, Archdaily and Archinect for not being more critical, Waag should know what real open source is. Yet, they just went with it. Anyway, let’s start with a few catchy phrases Ben van Berkel came up with to plug his new open source network:

“(…) we became fascinated by the new initiatives put in place by online start-up companies — such as social networking firms — who have moved from an old economy to a far more innovative economy which celebrates communication, open exchange and co-creation.”

“I sometimes believe that we all live in the iPhone 5 phase while architecture is still in the Walkman phase.”

“Knowledge sharing – from nodes to knowledge, from network to meshwork.”

“Yes. I think we will be the first, yes.”

Diagram illustrating the potential applications and developments of UNStudio’s knowledge & Twofour54 Media Zone 1, featured in STORY OF THE DOUBLE-SKIN FACADE.

Reading the blog posts and the interview with critically acclaimed Dutch architect Ben van Berkel raises some questions. What exactly are they going to share? Will it be more than just some sketches they have laying around? Could it be a big database of materials and tools? Or maybe a bucketload of failed competition entries? Unfortunately, the platform features none of this. At his very moment there are only 27 articles available (they’ve been online for 6 months now), 26 of which were written by UNStudio, and most of them are as vague and imprecise as their view on open source. At some point articles are even contradicting each other:

“In a typical office, 65% of the total emissions are from the people who are using the building.” – from the ENI – ATTAINABILITY article.

People as the biggest possible sustainability win, that sounds plausible. Other articles suggest other biggest possible sustainability wins:

“Passive design tools are seen as the starting point of sustainability. They have the biggest impact on the environmental benefit and are financially efficient. (…) Natural light impact, orientation of the building, open and closed façade strategies, glazing strategy and related program orientation, natural ventilation and air tightness” – from the ACTIVE AND PASSIVE CIRCLE article.

Screenshot of the platform and its articles

None of the articles actually reveal useful or new data, so yes it is open source, but no, it is not the office revolution they want to make you believe it is. They write about the percentages different measures have yielded in their designs and ideas, but they don’t let us know how they work and why they work as they say they do. The article ENI – ATTAINABILITY features a cool list of possible design scenarios with strategies that have been studied:

“Scenario 1 – LEED GOLD

To achieve this goal, several strategies have been studied:
1. Sustainability of the site
2. Development site
3. Water management
4. Energy and emissions
5. Materials and resources
6. Indoor environmental quality”

So where can we access this research? Turns out you can’t and the actual research is safely tucked away someplace closed source. I was not the only one concerned about the supposedly good-hearted nature of UNStudio to go open source. Some more illustrative quotes on the open-source news five months ago and one from the Terms of Use from the platform show how the public predicted the end result, and how UNStudio defines how open source their platform really is:

Archdaily:
“I wish architects and architectural writers wouldn’t use the term ‘open-source’ so ignorantly.” – Dave
“UNonsense is a more suitable term I think.” – Flytoget

Archinect:
“Almost certain this is nothing more than a publicity stunt.” – Tunderclap

Terms of Use:
“UNStudio is at all times entitled to edit, modify, suspend, remove or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, MyPlatform and/or any (parts of) Content, with or without prior notice, as UNStudio deems appropriate.”

There is however one article worth the read if you ask me, and that the STORY OF THE DOUBLE-SKIN FACADE. It’s a complete article with detail drawings, numbers and explanations on how and why. This is something you can work with, something that is usable as a base for continuing research.

What does speak for UNStudio is that there are very little – real – open source architecture projects, let alone companies. The best recent example is the wooden skyscraper concept by Michael Green Architecture (MGA). MGA released their thorough research on wooden skyscrapers open source in 2012. Their research ís complete (240 pages) with details, sections, cost and reference projects.

“This decision (to release the research as open source, ed.) underscores our belief that these ideas are stepping stone concepts to the types of systemic change necessary to address climate change issues in the building industry with the increased use of sustainably harvested wood in building structures.” – MGArchitecture

Famous WikiHouse by 00:/ is another example that is completely open source. It is a human scale puzzle-piece house that can be downloaded and edited by everyone using free software. But is it architecture? The open source Open Architecture Network contains an enormous amount of data, drawings and concepts, but has been inactive for over 2 years. These few examples do show that it is possible to connect architecture with open source in its true form.

So what about the catchphrases that defined the new start of UNStudio? Yes, I believe they are fascinated by the new world of open source, sharing and collaborations. They saw the beauty that is open source, but they don’t fully understand what is involved in taking this huge step. I also believe that they wanted a piece of the pie. They built their own platform and generated some buzz, but unfortunately that’s about it. The articles featured are boring, imprecise and hold no inspirational value at all. Yes, we live in an iPhone 5 world, but as Dave puts it very well in the ArchDaily commentssection: “The give-away here is that Van Berkel seems to think an iPhone is a good analogy of where he’d like to be, whereas Apple products are probably the least appropriate illustrations of the value of open source ecologies“. As for the “from nodes to knowledge, from network to meshwork“: only one article featured in the platform by someone outside of UNStudio. And the last: are they the first? First to do what? Writing articles with no real added value and publish them on their own website?

It takes a completely new corporate philosophy and business model to go open source, something UNStudio just didn’t understand. They’ve tried to ride the open source wave, but failed. Maybe grandpa UNStudio should just stick with what he knows, and let the new generation use open source as it is intended.

Friday 4 October 2013 /

Paul van den Bergh

Paul van den Bergh is a designer and building engineer, researching the connection between the Built Environment, Crowdsourcing, Disruptive Media and Open Source.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

add comment

margret ping

Fantastic writing , In case , if someone is wanting to merge two PDF files , my business stumbled across article here http://goo.gl/X3H3Rr.

Jorge

Agree with Andrew that the non-commercial license doesn't make sense in this case. The "openness" is here a failed promise, and I think it's simply the result of not having put enough thought on the question. The perfect example that applying "the open source way" to architecture is not trivial.

Andrew Paul

As a brief follow-up to my last comment, I notice that their information sharing platform uses a non-commercial Creative Commons license. In effect this means that nothing shared through the portal can go on to be used in the real world. It legally prevents any further commercial development of the work published, either by UNStudio or their potential contributors. Surely a case of shooting themselves in the foot.

Andrew Paul

Genuine open sourcing of architecture will involve some major changes in the sort of contracts used in the construction industry. Rights to proprietary parts and systems will remain with their manufacturers and the copyright on the final form would usually rest with the architect's employer. Retro-fitting an open source license to completed material already in UNStudio's possession might therefore turn into a legal minefield.

Paul van den Bergh

Thank you Jorge, UNStudio and Alexandre for replying. I think this discussion is very useful and hopefully will add significant value to UNStudio and other architects/planners moving to use the open source ideology. \n\nI agree with the four basic levels you sum up Alexandre and the more constructive vision ;]. The complexity and specificity that comes with location, site, designer, contractor, client, licenses, etc. make it difficult for architecture to move towards open source. The different levels challenge a quick 180, and the lack of successful examples show just that. Sharing PDF & CAD files is a small and incomplete step. It's great to see so many people actively working towards open source, but lets not think we're there already.

Alexandre Pereira

What a great critique! Congratulations Paul, I think you got an excellent issue here. I would like, just to make a different point, to stress the role of the "source" word in this matter. It seems that when we distribute plans for a specific design, such as with the Air Tree, we are not opening the "source" of architecture itself since that, from a design perspective, is the end result. You might want to tinker with this part or that, but it is still limited to a design process that shaped it as such and might ransom little more than some inspirational value with an added bonus of having the CAD/CAM files. That being said, I think the design method of UNStudio is close to what might be able to be opened, even if their practice structure prevents them from committing to it. What I mean is that with the help of CAD/CAM files and a design-build method which is appropriate for sharing - eg relies on common frameworks and design-process structures which can be connected, altered by many and so on - we might just make some headway into open sourcing. One of the difficulties is that our profession has relied on an haute-couture kind of approach which makes the artiste the center of creation. In the Latin-American context (I write from Brasil) we have relied on a Iberian tradition which is even worse, since it "hides away" design techniques deep inside some mysterious creation process. It seems to me that UNStudio’s attempt might be a publicity-stunt, since it is really shallow to this day (nothing more than another information portal, which has the handicap of being firm-based). From the design perspective, though, their method of working through "models" seems to be a precious contribution, even though they still like to present it in an over-conscious manner. And this might just be The Issue: a matter of basic method which would put us way behind other professions, such as music, software programming and so on. Having being studying system theory and urban modeling for some time now, I could argue that we need to work on several fronts for us to open our sources: 1. design methods oriented for plural development, based on structured, shareable frameworks – from initial creation to final document development; 2. design tools which support systemic decision-making processes, the ability to track design decision process and parametrically structure form; 3. legal backing in the shape of CCs or other forms of licensing – in which I refrain from giving any opinion, since it’d be far less interesting that what has been written already; 4. knowledge, design and construction information sharing technology/and or platforms which allows us to surpass this PDF-give-away paradigm (involving CAD/CAM files of designs, methods and techniques as design frameworks, theoretical papers and so on). I beg your pardon if this is not a better structured contribution, it all comes from the top of my head without a better reasoning. Hopes this is somewhat interesting for you as it seems to me.

Dave

This article is nothing but a temporary Debbie Downer

UNStudio

Since our announcement earlier this year that UNStudio was in the process of moving from a network to a knowledge-based practice, we have been undergoing an intense phase of testing and have been closely examining all that is involved in structuring, organising, archiving and distributing our knowledge. During this time it has become clear that such a step not only involves a continued reevaluation of how our practice operates, but also that extensive research needs to be carried out into how best to create truly valuable and open knowledge exchange. This Summer we took a first step by updating the research section of our website and adding interactive user functionalities. This was only a small stage in the process however and is currently being further developed with a view to developing a large, independent knowledge sharing platform in the future. When we last reorganised on this scale and changed our practice from Van Berkel and Bos to UNStudio, it in fact took some two to three years before we had truly reached our goal. We also see this new development as requiring continued testing, reevaluation, investment and development and as such, as requiring adequate time before it can be fully implemented on every level. For us it is not merely about openly sharing information about our projects or buildings, it is about expanding the role of the architect and the part that co-creation and knowledge sharing can play in this.

Jorge

What Wikihouse did with Sketchup was smart, because architectural design has the problem of not having standard, open, accessible and modular editable formats. I think 3D and CAM/CAE are going to help a lot, and BIM/parametric formats even more, if we manage to create an open standard for them. The Air Tree project is still (and will be) available online (http://ecosistemaurbano.org/airtreecommons/), with all the plans in PDF format. But for the moment we haven't seen anyone using it. It's quite a singular structure so that's no surprise, but anyway... openness still has to prove its point here. Also, I would like to release the original editable files and put them in a more (re)usable format, but it's a lot of work (that's an issue with architecture and design in comparison to code, music and graphics). About the license: I don't think it's possible to use the same licenses everywhere. Licenses are based on legal aspects that are different in each field. For example, while software is subject to copyright (where copyleft is built upon), object design could be more related to industrial property (patents), so a copyright-based license wouldn't protect it effectively. In the case of architecture, when you release the plans as CC, the only thing you are (legally) saying is that those plans are under a CC lincese. The plans, the graphics, not the design they describe. So I'm not sure if someone could come, take the design solution and apply a patent on it, or use it in a way the creator wouldn't approve, like not giving attribution, not re-sharing it under the same license, etc. Also, Creative Commons doesn't imply a design being open source. You can share a .jpg under CC whithout sharing the original vector file,, so you are sharing the result, and not the real, editable source. I think licenses are worth a careful revision so we can come up with a robust, parasite-resistant and sustainable open culture. I like the idea of a single platform, but I think it should be done in a federated (not centralized) way, connecting all the "islands", which I don't see as a problem; I think it's good to specifically address each type of design in the sformats, processes and licenses that fit better. Maybe what we need is a very good open-only search engine!

Paul van den Bergh

Dear Jorge, Wikihouse is indeed one of the most interesting things happening in the open-source architecture scene. They recently released their Sketchup plugin that generates cutting-sheets from a sketchup model, so it's still going strong! It seems that Wikihouse is the up-scaling attempt of the open-interior/furniture projects, so it's only seems a matter of time for the next scale. I think Tall Wood skipped a few steps, which might also be a reason why it seems stuck at this moment. So what happened to the The Air Tree project? And where would an open architecture definition differ from a "normal" CC license? Or could it be something like a general open-design license? I ask this because I am not so fond of having millions of different licenses or platforms for all the different branches. The same thing goes for open-source projects actually. It would be great to get all the world's open design projects (furniture, architecture, hardware etc.) on one platform, all drawn and explained in the same way. Now a lot of people are working on their own "island", not making use of the true power of open-source. All this in a time where we are or should be more connected then ever. Paul

Jorge Toledo

Good article. I'm missing critical voices regarding the growing trend of architecture towards open source. Well, I'm calling it a trend but, as you say, there are still very few projects that really try to consequently go open source. I've been following Wikihouse since the beginning and it's a very good example, maybe the only one that truly gets to the point (while still having a long way to go). In interior design and smaller structures there are more projects to look at, like the Mozilla Open Furnitures (I was having a very close look at that one yesterday) or some of the designs shared at www.inteligenciascolectivas.org At the office I work now, Ecosistema Urbano, they tried to make a project open source a couple of years ago. It was one of the first offices to release a whole project (the Air Tree) under a CC license (there is still a lack of proper licenses for open architecture). It's a bold try but I think that open source must go deeper than just releasing the project as a set of PDFs. How can we architects really go open source and build a different culture, ecology and economy on top of that? That's what I'm trying to figure out now. I'm glad to see that you are in the same search, I'm definitely going to follow your site. I also invite you to joing the OKFN working group around the Open Design Definition, it would be great to keep on working on a definition for 'open architecture' as well.