In September 2022, AA Architecture and Urbanism (DRL) Programme Head Theodore Spyropoulos gave a keynote speech at the Future Design Research Symposium, titled Towards the Certainty of Uncertainty.

Spyropoulos’ closing keynote lecture in Federation Square, Melbourne, explored design innovation and the new possibilities that digital technologies offer for contemporary design practice, the construction industry and education.

In the keynote, Spyropoulos explains, ‘Architectural discourses today shy away from uncertainty and complexity. The current lines of thought champion representational models of historical appropriation, dogmatic styles, or an all-out rejection of architecture having meaningful social or political agency through design.

'These approaches reinforce the normative with new narratives and representations without critically addressing how architecture can actively participate in the world. In contrast to this, we live in a technologically interconnected social and ecological sphere that has made us hyperaware of the magnitude and complexities of the challenges today. By necessity, if the contemporary design is to remain relevant it must shift from the finite representational models of practice toward real-time collaborative ones. The shift conceptually is to move from “models of” towards “models for”. Enter design.

The role of the model today must be operative and prototypical in nature. Rather than illustrating ideas, models should offer us the possibility to engage and respond to the information-rich matrices that influence our everyday. Models here are understood as open frameworks and platforms enabling shared and collective participation. Design must be considered as durational, real-time, and anticipatory exploring human with human, human with machine, and machine with machine communication.’

To watch the whole lecture, click here.

Image: Theodore Spyropoulos lecturing at the AA. Courtesy of AA DRL