An interview with Professor Larry Sass.

MIT, Cambridge, Fall 2003
Author: Federico Casalegno, Ph.D
casalegno@mit.edu
http://www.mit.edu/~fca

This interview has been done within the research project on
“creativity and learning”, fall 2003, Design and Fabrication Group @ MIT.

Group web site: http://architecture.mit.edu/projects/dfg
Prof. Larry Sass: http://architecture.mit.edu/~lsass/

Prof. Larry Sass research is in the area of rapid prototyping and its relationship to design and building construction. His current research projects are focused on computational reconstruction and design fabrication using computer modeling and prototyping as a representational tool in the design process versus paper drawings. First is the reconstruction of Palladio's un-built works using rapid prototyping tools and second is Fabricating Surfaces, a study focused on designing and fabricating complex surfaces for buildings using parametric modeling and prototyping. His current teaching is in the area of Design Fabrication; that is building design using prototyping and fabrication tools as the design process. He received his BArch from Pratt Institute and his masters and PhD at MIT.

Federico Casalegno: Before exploring the relationship between creativity and learning, could you give us a short description of the class?

Larry Sass: The goal of the class is to teach students how design works first, and then teach them how to generate new models and new ideas using generative software. In design, you always generate numerous iterations of an idea, and the goal is to teach them how to use the software; to help them to generate the ideas physically, generate them, represent them in CAD, and then how to use the rapid prototyping tools to generate output. So, it’s a generative class. It’s teaching how to use computing in a generative way.

FC: The collaborative workshop you teach explores a computationally-based, explorative approach to design. How does computational tools and scripting encourage creativity?

LS: When you write the scripts and when you write programs, there’s no direct correlation between <this and> creativity. It’s not until you actually run the scripts and you output the material and you look at the material and you reflect upon it, that you... It fosters creativity for the next round of pieces of output like a 3-D print or laser cut. But, it’s getting the information out of the machine that makes all of the difference. And seeing the material, and reflecting upon the material is when the creativity is fostered. I’m not sure if the method of scripting will actually directly foster creativity. It’s really more the output. But by scripting you get faster output, so you get more opportunities to develop creativity.

FC: The class you’re teaching on generative and parametric tools for design fabrication is very innovative both for the contents of the class and for the pedagogy you use. Can you describe the pioneering aspects of the class?

LS: Like the best parts of the class, or what really works well with the class? I think the best parts of the class have been a combination using scripting and parametric modeling together, and that each one has its own qualities that allow you to make really complex geometrical output files. What’s even more interesting about that is seeing... is <that> once the students start to go up in scale and they make larger models, larger physical models, they have to start thinking more about how the building goes together, and less about the shape or the design of the building. At some point they get a sweet spot where they start thinking of the two together, construction and the shape and design of the building, so they start developing the two at one time.

FC: Scripting and parametric modeling is not so new, but what is really new is the possibility to give rapidly physical evidence of <the> scripting and digital information.

LS: Yeah, because scripting and parametric modeling have been around since the 1980s, and actually they’ve been around since the 1970s, people have figured out how to write little programs to make drawings or to make computer models for the past twenty years. And now the difference is being able to generate those files rapidly and being able to physically make those files rapidly. That’s the new part. So with design it’s always you make something, you reflect upon it, you make something, you reflect upon it and it develops quickly based upon how quickly you make your file. But if it takes a long time, like in the use of hand devices, it goes slower.

FC: Which is the hard part of the class?

LS: The hard part is getting students to focus in on parts of what they’re doing and learning how to develop parts of what they’re doing. That’s a hard question.

FC: How do you encourage students in being more creative during their design project?

LS: Creativity for the most part comes from clarity of the program; what they’re building, why they’re building it, and what the output of these things are going to say about the thing that they’re trying to design. So the first thing is you want to get students to <do is to> clarify what they’re trying to do because with complex geometrical shapes it becomes really random and students don’t always make things that are directly valuable to the project. So the first thing is clarity.

The second thing is trying to get them to think about variations of a theme. So if the theme in this case is light, trying to get them to think about mini-variations of light, like five or six variations of how they can use light on a piece of sculpture or in a space that’s interesting and says something and enhances that space. So creativity actually really has a direct out, you know direct function. The function is really about trying to enhance the space and make a better space around that object or around how someone uses that space.

FC: And what about creativity in relationship to design problems solving?

LS: Well creativity... I always break design into two parts; you set a problem and you solve it. And the creative part is based on how you set the problem. If you set a great problem and you set another great problem on top of it, to me, that’s being creative. The way that Jackson Pollock set a really great problem in the way in which he painted or Frank Gehry, they set great problems and so it takes a lot of manpower, a lot of thinking, to solve those problems. To me that’s great creativity, and that’s the kind of creativity I really enjoy seeing students bring to a class.

FC: Could you give us a definition of creativity in relationship to design?

LS: Yeah, it’s really interesting because the creativity question is a big one <and> because I always wonder what is really meant by the word creativity versus the word invention, or how does creativity fit in a design problem because you’re always bringing up creative moments. But just designing something or inventing something or setting a problem is not being creative. Sometimes you can set a problem that is not really a creative endeavor and that’s really hard if I only have a few opportunities for few students <to> foster creative - really creative - moments. And it doesn’t mean that the students can’t do it, it just means that it’s really hard to develop that.

FC: You explore innovative ways to teach and create new learning environments. Some of your classes make great use of remote collaboration. Can you tell us how remote collaboration functions?

LS: Remote collaboration is great because, first, it forces students to have their work ready, on time, and they have to make it clear to the person on the other side that’s reading the material. Because if the person on the other side can’t read it or understand it, they’re not going to be bothered. So, clarity; they end up making clearer projects as a result of remote collaboration. Remote collaboration is even better is in the sense that they can get an office like Norman Foster or Frank Gehry to get involved in their work four, five, times in a semester without there being a tremendous amount of effort for that office. So the office may have to devote only four hours in a given year, or six hours in a given semester to a class. So it’s less time on the other side. It offers the students really good feedback and the students have to make sure that they have a very good idea and not a fancy presentation.

FC: Does the remote collaboration sessions help students to better understand and define their projects?

LS: Yeah, remote collaboration really helps. It really drives the students to try to understand as part of the problem, what the people on the other side are going to say about their work. So the remote collaboration definitely, definitely helps. It organizes the course. It also organizes the thinking - the students thinking a bit.

FC: One of the important pedagogical and design issues during your class concerns the fact that students work with a physical representation of information. Having a tactile, and not only virtual relationship with their work is very important. Can you mention strong and weak elements?

LS: The weak part is that they’re always small. We don’t have a large 3-dimensional printer that will tell you about how space works - how the spatial construct of what you’re making is going to come out. That’s what renderings and things like that are good for - and drawings are actually good for that - or plan section elevations are good for seeing those types of relationships. It’s really good for seeing construction material, how something goes together, thinking about how someone’s going to build it. And that’s just another side of computation.

FC: Which is the most important aspect of the class in terms of pedagogical methods that you used?

LS: Well the only thing is really <important> is that it’s a new way of thinking when you’re thinking physically, when you’re thinking parametrically. It’s a different way of thinking about a design problem because you set up a file and you’re setting it up with thoughts of how someone’s going to use it, thoughts about how it’s going to change over time, and that’s a different way of thinking than the traditional. You make an output, you make a drawing and that sort of what you’re going to evaluate at the moment. Or you make a model and that’s all you’re going to evaluate is that model.

This is saying that you’re going to evaluate variations of a model, both physically and virtually. The downfall of the class is that this type of thinking and learning takes longer. It takes a long time to learn how to do this and it takes a long time to figure out what the overall purpose is behind the machines are. When you’re investing a lot into machines and really heavy-duty software, you can’t use them the same way you use traditional software. You start rethinking how you’re using them, so in that rethinking students take a while to catch up with the new ways of thinking. That part gets pretty hard.

FC: Some of the students didn’t have any programming skills and in a short period they had amazing results. How much time should you ideally need to teach a class like the one you teach?

LS: The results are amazing for the short amount of time that they’ve spent with it and we realized that they haven’t really.... It takes a full semester just to learn it and it probably takes another semester after that to master it. So you really need two semesters for a class like this. One semester just doesn’t do it.