Crystal Stone (Architectural Expression IV)

Author:. Editorial Department of World Architecture Magazine
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: What is the Futurism of Crystalk Stone?
1. Chinese Separation
In 1995—17 years after China's opening up, 15 years after the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, 5 years after the development of Pudong, 3 years after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour, 2 years before Hong Kong's return, 4 years before Macau's return, and 5 years before Beijing's successful bid for the Olympics—Crystalk Stone was born in the world's fastest-changing place. A fantastical era demanded a fantastical industry. High-frequency context and compressed cycles required an expressive rush. Renderings, once a source of love and hate for architects, became Crystalk Stone's magical product for starting from scratch. By reducing spatial logic to visual effects and compressing architecture into architectural paintings, renderings, with their intuitive and low-cost presentation, freed people from abstract sketches, mechanical construction drawings, and pale design descriptions, providing a quick and easy meal for non-professional (if not overly ambitious) clients. Architectural visualization, a process previously within the architectural design process, separated from it due to market gravity, becoming an independent department between architects and clients. It no longer designed or had decision-making power over the outcome; it merely presented the architect's design in a satisfactory way—not just satisfying the client (architect) but also the owner (investor). Yet, this post-processing function, similar to packaging boxes and vases, became a must-have skill for contemporary Chinese architects, almost surpassing the persuasive power of preliminary design on client decisions. In other words: preliminary design is no longer a prerequisite for post-processing; even preliminary design depends on post-processing for its existence. The separation of architectural design into preliminary and post-processing phases led Crystalk Stone to become 50% of an architect—post-architects. This rare occupational specialization, even in highly specialized developed countries, was uniquely Chinese at the birth of Crystalk Stone.
2. Software Suite
In 1995—the same year Crystalk Stone was founded—Autodesk entered China. The world's largest digital design software supplier, facing the world's largest architectural market, was like a plug finding its matching socket. Along with Adobe's series of software products that followed, they rapidly and almost hypnotically transformed the entire design industry's workflow. Within a few years, hand-drawn drawings and manual models were replaced by faster, more precise, and cheaper CG (computer graphics), with AutoCAD and 3ds Max becoming household names in the industry. A standard Crystalk Stone software suite was also a brand-new program chain: AutoCAD-3ds Max-Brazil-Lightscape-Photoshop-Premiere-After Effects. His workers no longer toiled like Charlie Chaplin beside a large machine, repeating the same motion, but instead slumped lazily in computer chairs, playing online CS games while building a 38-story skyscraper with a mouse. In the end, when these results were stored on compact discs as small universes, the prophecy of the future could be smoothly read from the optical drive.
3. Learning from Hollywood
When Hollywood set the standard for the global fantastical economy, China's rivaling achievements did not occur in the film industry but in architecture. While the architectural world was still learning from Las Vegas, Crystalk Stone was already learning from Hollywood. In Hollywood, buildings could be built for a movie; in Crystalk Stone, movies were made for a building. This is the reversed causal relationship of Chinese architecture returning to Western cinema: not architecture providing scenes for movies, but movies providing visuals for architecture. Just as Hollywood was extensively using 3ds Max for self-digitization, Crystalk Stone synchronized its pace and used the same software for self-dynamization and filmmaking. However, this did not change Crystalk Stone's rendering-centric focus. What was once a painting framed and hung became multiple paintings recorded on DVDs: architectural paintings upgraded to architectural films, further fabricating the future of buildings that did not yet exist. Drawing on Hollywood's motion effects expertise and combining it with the practices of the rendering industry, Crystalk Stone developed several unspoken, yet name-worthy patents: Dreamlike Flight, Centripetal Rotation, Super Zoom, Time Switching, Speed Variation, Axial Growth, Anti-Collapse, and Big Explosion.
4. Welcome to Virtual Reality
When people sat in front of the large curved screen of the Beijing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall's 4D imaging, they became the first users of Crystalk Stone's virtual reality technology. Windows no longer had boundaries, images no longer had distances, and the content was their own city, Beijing—its past and future. 3D movie glasses and high-fidelity audio immersed them in this familiar yet strange virtual world, like birds in a dreamlike wandering. And this was just the beginning. Meanwhile, Boeing had fully used virtual reality technology to successfully design the Boeing 777; the Canadian government had adopted virtual reality technology for planning and managing Toronto; Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo appeared in the globally popular game Midnight Club as virtual models, and a skilled player could become a familiar guest in all three cities—even if they had never experienced a real visit. Crystalk Stone's next step might no longer be learning from Hollywood but from games; no longer passively observing but wearing goggles to actively enter the future: this virtual future would extend reality in a malleable way. Governments would assess and make decisions here, architects would experiment and build, developers would plan and sell, and the public would visit and play.
5. The Impossible Task
After completing a large number of local copies based on Western modernization models, Crystalk Stone returned to the other half of its past—its grand and melancholic ancient Chinese civilization, moving from embracing foreign influences to cherishing tradition. Using the same spectacular technology as building a White House-style municipal building or a Las Vegas-style shopping mall, Crystalk Stone backed up a series of ancient capital cities into the same format: from the Beijing to the Yuan Dynasty's Dadu, all the way to a dream of the Tang Dynasty, summoning the spirits of prosperous past capitals and cultural relics in the digital space. While Beijing was becoming the world's largest construction site for the 2008 Olympics, Crystalk Stone restored the unrealized city gates of Beijing in a series of realistic images. Unlike Crystalk Stone's usual optimistic rendering, the center of this series was a transparent void—a dried-out digital husk composed of line drawings, an external yet empty interior, an impossible task: we live in it, yet can never enter, because it is no longer something yet to be built but something that has already disappeared. > is play, >> is fast-forward, >>> is ultra-fast-forward. It is also a preview key, activating a crystal ball of foresight. It contains the future outlined by countless wishes, plans, ambitions, and ideals—the future that seems worth vigorously pursuing. If someone comes to China and asks what this place will look like in 2010, you don't need to take them on a long journey. Press >>>, and Crystalk Stone's futurism will dazzlingly unfold before them, not far away on the screen, in places that possess the future.