Arnold Walz is a founding partner of designtoproduction (www.designtoproduction.com) and leads the company’s office in Stuttgart. He studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and was one of the first to develop parametric CAD‐models for construction planning. He helped to improve workmanship and precision of some of the most discussed buildings of the past years such as the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, P&C Weltstadthaus in Cologne, the Porsche Museum, Lufthansa Headquarters Frankfurt and many others.
The work developed by designtoproduction – defined by its directors as organizing, optimizing, simplifying and materializing - has emerged as a new type of architectural skill that is fundamental for the realization of state of the art, contemporary architecture. In fact, some of the leading architectural and engineering firms in Europe and North America have adopted in-house special design groups or special modeling groups, which are formed by programmers, mathematicians, architects and engineers working specifically to find solutions for the design and construction of complex geometries. The firms in which this type of group is not available have the option of hiring specialized consultants, such as designtoproduction.
Arnold Walz came to Brazil in May 2014 to give lectures and participate in discussions about digital fabrication at the Laboratory of Automation and Prototyping for Architecture and Construction (LAPAC, lapac.fec.unicamp.br), at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), funded by Sao Paulo state’s Research Foundation (FAPESP).
During one of the discussions with researchers from different universities, an interesting issue came out: if the firm has often to completely recreate the geometry of certain projects, or interfere in the selection of materials, how do they deal with the issue of authorship? According to Walz, most architects will never recognize their contribution to the projects. However, this brought up an interesting discussion about the end of the modern concept of the architecture as a lonely creator, as opposed to a member of an ever growing team of specialists.
The interview that follows is subdivided in two blocks. In the first part Walz explains the type of work that designtoproduction does and its technical aspects, such as the type of software they use and the level of interference in the architects’ designs. In the second block, the discussion becomes more theoretical, and a relationship between technical aspects and architectural intentions is established. Walz ends wondering about what will come next.
