Winy Maas' research and education institution The Why Factory has released its tenth book as part of the Why Factory’s Future Cities Series. The book - called Copy Paste - discusses the multiple ways of copying how can creativity and skill actually be managed by being learned from the past

Published by nai010, the 424-page book explores new tools and strategies over 350 colourful projects, diagrams and illustrations, examining past's vast archive on which architects can and must build. 

"Instead of mocking the culture of copycats, design could learn better how to make good fakes: fakes good enough to beat their references," stated The Why Factory.

Video by The Why Factory

Written by Winy Maas alongside with researchers and lecturers Felix Madrazo, Adrien Ravon and Diana Ibáñez López, the book is presented as "a tactical evolution of architecture", which produces new "ethical and legal constraints, genealogy, reference, geometry and psychology with art historical evidence" as a new data-driven approach in creating "a new kind of originality". 

"Copying might be older –more original even- than originality," added the architects. The book examines the evolution of many classic typological forms and their new transformative spaces in an anatomised layout by using the tools of Photoshop, Rhino and Grasshopper as facilitators of this process and in order to find new originality.

Subtitled as "The Badass Architectural Copy Guide", the intriguing book acts as a new generator and 'transcendent philosophy' on which how architects can create originality in an unfavorable agglomeration of buildings.

"Architects and designers are obsessed by the new. Our culture demands newness, leading to a generation that suffers, untethered from history. If architects worked in scientific labs, we would constantly refer to previous research of both our peers and ourselves. In order to give effective solutions to larger problems, we need longer trajectories. Research must be followed up by improved research, and so on," said Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV and founder of The Why Factory.

"Why not deepen our architectural analyses? Why not be open and honest about the references we make? Why not improve on the explorations, innovations, and suggestions of our predecessors?," added Maas, in a press statement of the book. 

"The book makes observations on the worlds of influencing and copying, on the speed at which it happens, on the patent culture and the culture of disclaiming. It explores the tools of Photoshop, Rhino and Grasshopper as facilitators of this process. It looks to our gaming tools to understand the battle of the species. And it introduces Generator, the tool with which the DNA of our products can be analysed," he added.

Winy Maas, one of ambassadors of this year's Dutch Design Week, will launch the book and give a lecture at the ABN AMRO Auditorium, Klokgebouw on October 24. 

In his lecture, Maas Winy Maas will present several videos that review the crucial aspects of the art of copying. Contents include a tutorial on how to copy with Photoshop, covering first the basic techniques of referencing. 

A review of Generator will trace forms backwards to their origin and forwards through endless iterations and unexpected outcomes. The resulting forms are far removed from the control of their authors, free from egotrips and copyrights.

The Why Factory also stages four different interventions during Dutch Design Week, including a giant (W)ego city installation by The Why Factory displayed in the Markt Square in Eindhoven, a film shown at the entrance of the Klokgebouw, showing The Why Factory's illustrations and models for future cities, the presentation in the Stadhuisplein Square of Eindhoven of the masterclass about the intensification of uses in Eindhoven’s city centre alongside with the presentation and launch of the new book "Copy Paste".

"I offer a publication machinery where somehow the things become more public," said Winy Maas in an exclusive interview with World Architecture Community. 

Winy Maas' full interview can be read from here, with his discussions on other inputs of 'community design', the impacts of The Why Factory, MVRDV's design approach, and the problems of current architectural education. 

Dutch Design Week 2017 kicked off this weekend and will take place between 21 - 29 October in Eindhoven, Netherlands. 

All images © The Why Factory/Delft University of Technology TU Delft

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