This paper examines the visualization of error, risk, and accumulation in digital architectural models through the media operation of “clash detection.” Also known as an interference check, clash detection refers to the banal automated routine of checking a digital building model for spatial conflicts before its construction in real life. Bringing a socio-technical approach to a widely used yet little-theorized software process, I explore clashes or model errors not simply as problems of precision and efficiency to be solved, but as a measure of the weight of precisionism, complexity, and liability now shouldered by digital architectural representation. Despite the technical promise of resolution and simplification, I argue that to locate a potential clash is to simultaneously entertain the possibility of accumulation, congestion, and sprawl—what might be called an “optimized accumulation” of the built environment . This allows the construction industry to leverage the narrative of both economical prudence (optimization) and the promise of rapid economic growth (accumulation), seemingly without contradiction. Reflecting on the exponential increase in architectural model complexity and the proliferation of error warnings over the last three decades of BIM’s technical regime, this paper positions the medial act of visualizing technical conflicts—and its unwieldy realities of coordination—within a broader design culture of risk calculation and uncertainty.
Amelyn Ng (Sun,) studied this question.