INFORMATION AND SPECULATION The science fiction in architecture

Architecture occupies a position between science and fiction. While science allows us to understand the world through information, measurements, and evidence, fiction allows us to imagine possible realities that do not yet exist. It is within this intermediate territory that the architectural project unfolds: a process that analyses present conditions while simultaneously projecting future scenarios of inhabitation. In this sense, the artistic dimension of architecture emerges precisely within the realm of speculation, where imagination, narrative, and interpretation of the world transform information into space.

As the philosopher of science Anna Estany states, “the relationship between architecture and science is beyond doubt”: although architecture is not an exact science, its development is deeply linked to knowledge from disciplines such as physics, engineering, climatology, or social sciences. Contemporary architectural projects increasingly rely on verifiable information (climatic, structural, energetic, or demographic) which allows a better understanding of the real conditions of habitation.

The use of information transforms architecture into a practice informed by evidence. Researcher and architect Gerhard Schmitt points out that “all architects need data,” as much of the design decision-making depends on quantifiable information: from the temperature of a space to the structural behavior of a material or the occupancy density of a dwelling. In this way, the architect does not only imagine spaces but also analyses, measures, and models information about reality, turning the project into a form of applied knowledge.

However, information alone does not produce architecture. The project also requires a speculative dimension capable of imagining scenarios that do not yet exist. At this point, fiction emerges, understood (according to the Royal Spanish Academy) as a simulation or invention of possible realities. In architecture, fiction does not imply fantasy detached from the real world, but a device for anticipation, allowing the projection of possible futures based on the information available in the present.

Architect Ole Scheeren summarizes this idea by stating that “every piece of architecture is first a work of fiction.” Before being built, a building exists as an imagined hypothesis, a spatial narrative describing how a place could be inhabited. Similarly, theorist Mark Wigley has argued that speculative narratives, including science fiction, function as intellectual laboratories for architecture, where it is possible to explore technological, social, and environmental transformations that have not yet become part of the built reality.

From the convergence of information and speculation emerges what can be called the science fiction method in architecture. This method combines scientific evidence with projective imagination, using information about the real world as a starting point and fiction as a tool to explore its possible spatial consequences. Rather than opposing science and imagination, this methodology integrates them into a single process: first interpreting the information available about the present, then simulating future scenarios through architectural design.

Architecture thus becomes a form of simulation of reality, where design acts as a spatial experiment. Information describes the reality (climate, density, resources, or technology) while fiction allows imagining how those conditions could be transformed into new ways of inhabiting. The project then functions as a prototype of the future, capable of translating information into habitable scenarios. At the core of this process lies information itself. Architecture can be understood as a discipline that interprets information about the world and transforms it into space. In this sense, information not only describes reality but also generates form.

Indeed, within the very word information lies the word form. Architecture can thus be understood as the process through which information becomes form. Without information, there is no form, because architectural form is not arbitrary: it emerges from the understanding of context, the interpretation of available knowledge, and the speculation about possible futures.

Architecture thus reveals itself as a practice capable of transforming knowledge into space, information into form, and speculation into possible scenarios of inhabitation.

Sebastian Contreras Rodriguez

Architect - Research

Master of Architecture