LO-1

Work: Guangzhou Opera House

Architect/Author: Zaha Hadid Architects

The Guangzhou Opera House was built by Zaha Hadid Architects, officially open to the public in May 2010. However, the project idea was originally conceived in 2002, when a few architects and their firms, including Hadid, applied for a competition. While I was unable to find the exact computer program that Hadid and her colleagues used to formulate their design for the building, most architects use Grasshopper, a plug in into a 3D design interface named Rhino. This plug in enables the use of computational based design through commercially created ‘components’ that can be linked together. Components can also be created, however, and there are even open components in which one is able to insert Python-based code into them to reach a specified desired output. Many view Hadid as a trailblazer for the use of these technologies to create large scale buildings, as computer based design was just being realized into action when the idea for the building was being conceived. This has paved the way for many architects in the field of computational design, and while coding is not yet viewed as a ‘requirement’ to enter the field, projects like this one are definitely pointing towards that direction.