CREATIVITY IN THE EDGE OF DIGITAL REPRODUCTION — From Coop Himmelb(l)au to Deep Himmelb(l)au

Architecture technologies have been developed, and new types and functions were
established in times very different from the past as well as the present. Through looking into the Austrian-based architecture atelier Coop Himmelb(l)au’s complex set of the avant-garde design process, the paper takes reflect on the implications of the recent and continuing advances in technologies within the field of digital design, robotic fabrication, and artificial intelligence (AI), discusses in the Age of Digital Reproduction, how shall the creativity stay on the Edge of Digital Reproduction.

Looking backward, the pivotal node Coop Himmelb(l)au projects such as Rooftop
Remodelling Falkestrasse, Groninger Museum – the East Pavilion, BMW Welt, and Pavilion 21 Mini Opera Space, among other projects, the tremendous growth of techniques have attained adaptability and precision of digital design; looking forward, for instance, robotic fabrication processes applied in Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art & Urban Planning Exhibition and Musée des Confluences, and the virtual and augmented reality applications, machine learning (ML) tools for the ongoing Deep Himmelb(l)au research, we expect significant technological innovations are to transform the entire technique of the architecture industry, thereby affecting aesthetic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an extraordinary change in our very notion of architecture into the rich realm of (re)defining it.