ATLAS OF NOVEL TECTONICSreo Arter Pres Contents ‘New York, New York 0008 or afroc catalog of books, cll 800.72. 665 Visitour web ste at wwwspapress.com ‘92006 Princeton Architectural Press Allighss reserved Printed and bound in China 9 Acknowledgments onoSer 543 Fist. Nopattof this book may be used or reproduced ia any manner without written permission from the poblisher, exrepin the context of reviews 12 TheJudo of Cold Combustion by Sanford Kwinter Boy escieateay asennad ode xno tose catarstlS ‘eae in subscquent editions : Pam Spelt ei on, Doty lst bars Jnct Beng, MeptaCacy Penny eee Pik cha, ussell Fernandes. Jan Haus Clr Jacsbaon, ae Fineness eee ee tee katrinc hes Lauren dane eae Difference in Kind|Difference in Degree Ewondet acca eticcne ae! & Lipper pubes | 3. The Unformed Generic: Form Acquiring Content ee | 4. Similarity and Difference Resch and Development 5. Variety (Difference) vs. Variation (Self similarity) ES ea 6. Meee Le a mnships {rary of Congres Cataloging in Publication Data 7. After Collage: Two Conditions ofthe Generic Alsen Jee 8. Coherence vs. incoherence Aare aii tenet 9. ANew Understanding of Difference 10, Selection vs. Classification aa SEs ttn ae eo ae 7ae.a--de2a | ay7. Matter 8. 4 Intensive and Extensive Geometry and Matter Folly ofthe Mean Classical Body/impersonal Individuation Material Organizations Matter|Force Relationships Froma Static toan Oscillatory Model (and Back Again) Operating ina State of Poise Poise in an Allied Discipline - Refrain Exchanges among Systems Intensive and Extensive Il Machinic Phylum The Diagram Diagram Deployment Fineness and the Macroscale Finenessin Allied Fields Interdisciplinary Exchange New Possibilities for Spatial Structures - Matter and Context 1. Essentialized Systems vs. System with Singulari 2. Exact) Anexact-yet-Rigorous 3. Material Computation ‘Systems Becoming Other Systems Post-Fordist Implementations 163 as Operating 36. 7. 38, 39 40. a #2. 3 44: 45: 46. 47: 48. 49. 50. 3 52 Mount Sinai Program: Architecture Lyrics: Music Operating under a Surfeit of Information Asignifying Signs Moving in the Gradient Field Accidental Animism Migration of a Pattern Emergent Structures Invention Style Panglossian Paradigm Devolutionary Architecture Optimization Classicism without Models Projecting Force Architecture vs. War The Nomad is the One Standing Still Common Errors to Avoid 53. 54. 55; 56, 57. 58 ‘The Abuse of the Accident ‘The Abuse of Data The Abuse of History The Abuse of the Diagram ‘The Abuse of Logic ‘The Typologist’s Erroraxe The World 58. AParable for OurTime 60, Foamy Realities 64. Pop Iconography as Myth 6, Migration of Practices 63. Migration of Ethics 54. Desire’ Rainbow: Migration of Products 65. Continuity and Discontinuity 65. AMaterialist Argument of Culture & Neo-regionalismn Acknowledgments Research for this book was supported by grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Princeton University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the New York State Council on the Arts. We also thank Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, and Susan Grant Lewin for their con- tinuing support. ‘The collaboration on projects with engineers Ysracl Seinukk, Guy Nordenson, Nat Oppenheimer of Robert Silman Associates, and Cecil Balmond, Charles Walker, Karsten Theim, and Daniel Bosia of the Advanced Geometry Unit of ARUP provided invaluable material for this book. Bernard Tschumi, who made possible the platform from which arich dialog developed over the course of the 1990s among col- leagues at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, created the scene (a feeling like the near- ness of the sea, of unlimited possibility) to which this book is deeply indebted, Stan Allen, Greg Lynn, Jeffrey Kipnis, Sanford Kwinter, ‘Ben Van Berkel, Manuel DeLanda, Robert Somol, Alejandro Zaera- Polo, and Andrew Benjamin are among those who remain partof an ongoing dialog of which this work should be considered 2 part. Today, discussions that evolved at Columbia have shifted some What and become more involutional. The School of Architecture at Princeton University has offered an opportunity fora deeper, morefocused interrogation of the questions that emerged at Columbia, Mario Gandelsonas, Cares Vallhonrat,and Edward Figen have mad important contributions to these issues. We are particulatly indebt eto friend and colleague Stan Allen, whose gracious guidance sng advice on the raw manuscript is much appreciated; to Jeffrey Kipnis, whose incalculable contributions to the formative material for this book and whose sharp and insightful guidance helped us find a inal form for the Atlas: and to Sanford Kwinter, whose encouragement and provocation initiated this book in the first place and whose fun- damental philosophical inclination was embodied: it started as one thing and became another. ‘This book is dedicated to Aldo Rossi, whose office structure, for better or worse, became the model for the way we structure ours ((nsuring that thinking and working would not occupy separate spheres); to Daniel Libeskind, for so many things, but above all for instilling the ethic of non-linearity in our process; to John Hejduk, for communicating all that is of fundamental importance but which cannot be said in architecture; to Peter Eisenman, into whose orbit we have never been pulled but whose forces influence us indirectly Revertheless; and to Rem Koolhaas, whose fundamental insights on what an architectural project could be opened the way for this work, ‘while staying clear ofits specifics. We owe our thanks to the design expertise of Reto Geiser and Donald eeet tearch nd Delopment who tok onthe arduous tasket ing and rand editorial = ‘mating meaning and matter, and to the editorial sugges rhe significance of the contributions of Jason Payne, Yama Karim, avid Ruy, Nona Yehia, Todd Rouhe, Matthias Blass, Wolfgang. Gollwitzer, Astrid Piber, Rhett Russo, Eva Perez DeVega Steele, jason Scroggin, Keisuke Kitagawa, Hisa Matsunaga, John MacCallum, ‘Akari Takebayashi, Kutan Ayata, Michael Young, Taiji Miyasaka, Marcelyn Gow, John Kelleher, Sean Daly, and the many others who gave countless hours to the design work in our office cannot be overstated, ‘Thanks also goes to our publisher, Kevin Lippert, for his immediate and sustained support of this project and to Nancy Ekiund Later, our editor. Her incisive reading of our manuscript was a constant through the storm and strife of creation. Jonathan Solomon, through sustained and indefatigable work on the manuscript and structure ofthis book over many years, acted asa daily sounding board for the arguments presented in the Atlas: Finally we thank Debora Reiser and Kikue Hirota, into whose spatial universes we were born and whose boundaries we sought to push rather than escape, and Zeke, our son, an ever-present inspiration and refreshingly candid critic of our work.The Judo of Cold Combustion Sanford Kwinter The story of guncotton has for years played the role ofa founding myth for Reiser + Umemote. Central to the history of propulsion that led not only to modern ballistics but to rocketry and aero. nantes, guncotton was the product of a famous accident. After failing in his attempt to dissolve a wad of cotton in a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids, a German chemist named Christian Friedrich Schonbein placed the sodden lump of threads to dry on his hot stove and went home for supper. With no further need of encouragement, the great mysteries of chemistry and matter set about to do their work. Poor Schénbein never saw his laboratory again, but the world had guncotton. ‘We might say that guncotton was the type of invention that moth- cred its own necessity, inaugurating the world of vertical propulsion, Space travel, remote warfare, and so on. But in keeping with the Reiser + Umemoto position, it is best not to bury novelty too deeply ‘nthe murky mysticism of “invention” but to raise it affirmatively asa product of a spontaneous—or. deliberate—migration. The migration lam referring to here is the migration of what current Philosophical parlance calls the diagram, But what exactly, afterall, 4a diagram? The diagram is an invisible matrix, a set of instruc- Hons, that underlies—and most importantly, organizes—the “Pression of features in any material construct. The diagram is the reservoir of potential that lies at once active and stored within an object or an environment (or in every aggregate or section of these) THE JUDO OF COLD COMBUSTION = determines which features (or affects) are expressed and which are pee It is, in short, the motor of matter, the modulus that controls what it does. Reiser # Umemoto operates less like architects and much more ike ‘chemical engineers. Its profound identification with the invention of incotton is also an affirmation of the glory and violence of novel- a thing that can only be prepared for and which scrupulously eet cves the mode and pattern of its appearance for itself In the absence of cotton, the acids form solvents, not detonators or propel- ants, The cotton effectively slows them down, opens them up, and, by forming complex nitrates with its cellulose, structures the pat- tern of their interactions and subjects them to the discipline of space and time. Guncotton, ina word, is geometry in action. Itrepresents the migration ofa diagram from one ensemble the textile mil) to another, and the production (selection) of new properties, potentials, and effects. This is the design ethos of Reiser + Umemoto. When a tree is configured to function asa wood column or beam, it is one et of properties of cellulose that is selected for expression; or ‘mote properly itis the geometty of vascular bundling that selects the properties of cellulose and conveys their felicitous rigidities and flexibilities to the macroscopic scale of the building itself On. the other hand, when a tree is configured into a log for burning, itis the fie itself—that exists already inside of the wood, only dormant or infinitely slowed thats selected for expression or release: These two forms of expression, chemical and tectonic, are of exactly the same order of physical reality. Itis a testimony to the ee action that such diverse properties can be called up and released. And itis no small revolution in design to have apprehended this simple but critical fraternity.SANFORD KWINTER 4 With guncotton came the infinite, and infinitely suggestive, poten of cold combustion. Cold combustion suggests the slowing down’ the unfolding of geometry that previously was either held in exquise or frozen suspense or was subject to the instantaneous and uncon’ trolled unfolding that we know as explosion. Anyone who discover, a middle ground, a rhythm of unfolding that delivers the geometreg of matterto the senses in the form of properties, qualities, or affecte in real time, endows the world with novelty. Reiser + Umemotois, ig this sense, a research project that aims to discover architecture as 4 rhythmic pattern that is embedded everywhere in matter but that can beharvested only by subjecting matter to the action of a structuring diagram. The diagram serves here retroactively, as a ‘reading device oras.a cumbusting engine that extracts information and energy from the environment by making it flow at an intermediate rate. Wood isat once an infinitely arrested but still smoldering fire that can be speeded up and a set of organized strata in whose pattern of contours and lines the atmospheric, meteorological, and geological history of a region can be read. And those who work with wood at this level do nothing but transmit this ‘flow’ of information and time to the sensa- tions by submitting it to diagrammatic modulation and control. ‘The era in which we live can be characterized as one in which knowledge is increasingly derived from the structure of flow (contours and rates of change in data, patterns of material action, etc.). But flow itself hhas, over the past years and especially in design milieus, too often been allowed to serve asa mere aesthetic marker—a simple conno- tator of dynamical knowledge alleged to exist but rarely actually engaged—and not a truly epistemological one. The ethos of combus- tion, with its habit of subjecting matter to a slowed or accelerate Pattern and then deploying or harvesting what is physically an‘ aesthetically released, is critical tothe new materralicm that is emerging everywhere today. THE JUDO OF COLD ComausttON 5 what follows s the first design manual that reflects the foundational if that took place seventy years ago in physics, when life was first sihderstood to represent a pattern in time that could no longer be une table to explanation in purely physical and chemical terms. Here, aeveonics is similarly placed at the heart of matter as the liberator of the knowledge embedded within it, but only as aform of action (gone freever the myth of statics! that it is architecture's duty to deliver to human sensation. ‘The new materialism may well be a new expressionism.Introduction Itmay ge contradiction in a bi > concepts to put forwa for the specific, b nodels presented here, are meai > the architect if the specific reality ‘or unlike planning, the success or failure of or the work as suc Inatime ed with establishing ¢ of works as the products of contexts a dd conditio cchitect may take solace s, the a in the fact that the corrosive relativism that plagues the historian ly traffics in products that ifnot permanently fixed, and however formed around the flux of matter, nevertheless res will not plague the architect wh side of persistence. They are never reducible to the fleeting interpretations—or, for that matter, prac tices—projected onto them. a Projected onto them. Thus, architecture is the substrate for the accident her than its embodim, This persist develop Bives us pleasure precisely because of the other ents that go with itINTRODUCTION The historian, and the critic, bear an imperative to contextualize establish meaning, which stands them in opposition to the praca of architectural design. History, merely as a form of consciousness. isnot sufficient to give rise to the architectural project. This is not deny the importance of histories, texts, and conditions but to point” outa property ofthe architectural artifact. The history, conditions and time of formation of any project are distinct from the effects. of the project itself, which has its own particular way of influene- ing histories as it mobilizes effects. Indeed, as Friedrich Nietasche points out in his 1874 essay “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,” there is always an element of the unhistorical in anyact of creation.‘This is not only vital precondition to creating anything new but also adheres to the object of architecture itself, which, aftr all, will always exceed the words that order architectural programs. Just as Jorge Luis Borges suggests that an author creates his own precursors, new architecture fundamentally reorganizes thecanon. Architecture makes a new history; history doesn't makea new architecture. ‘The primary and necessary conceit of this work is that beneficial novelty is the preferred condition to stability and the driving agenda behind architectural practice. This in no way requires us to reject traditional practices or the pragmatics of architecture. In fact, we cooler iol nce upon those pursuing the novel to ‘Thenaturalist polymath D'Arcy Thompson modestly states in his ‘Bi7OnGrewth and Form, “This book of mine has Titleneed of preface it is indeed all preface from beginning to end.” Like Thompson's Bree eter Our treatment deals in a qualitative fashion issues that ultimately require quantitative treatment: the ‘Province of our collaborators, engineers, Like Anthelme Brilla-Savarin’s 825 Physiology of Taste, this is nota book of recipes, but in its specificity, it suggests a way of operating within the discipline. Each argument develops around a specific cos: dition or case, but its value lies in its wider application, We see archie tectural design asa series of specific problem situations that, contrary to the discursive disciplines, cannot be argued away. The architec tural design process allows openings and advances to occur before the problem's sheer recalcitrance shuts down development. Thusly, design practice becomes agile enough to avoid getting stuck. POTENTIAL In his 1981 book A Scientific Autobiography, Aldo Rossi makes therrela- tionship of matter and energy a fundamental precondition of archi- tecture. He describes the physicist Max Planck's account of a school- master’s story about a mason who with great effort heaved a block of stone up on the roof of a house: ‘The mason was struck by the fact that expended energy doesnot. get lost; it remains stored for many years, never diminished, latent in the block of stone, until one day it happens thatthe block slides off the roof and falls on the head of a passerby, killing hm..,n arch tecture this Search i also undoubtedly bound up withthe materi and with energy; and if one fail to take note of this, its not posi to comprehend any building, either from a technical point of ie or from a compositional one, In the use of every ‘material there m bbe an anticipation of the construction ofa place and its trans: Jormation.4 INTRODUCTION Rossi’s observations are more pertinent today than ever While: Matt and energy constitute the vital components of Rossi’s formulation . they exist within an essentialist universe of fixed typologies, the” potential of which is understood as the anima that surrounds objects of perfect stillness. And yet, the same actors are in play: energy, mat- ter, and potential, but their roles have been reversed. Rossi delights in “the double meaning of the Italian word tempo, which signifies both atmosphere and chronology.” The mist that daily glides into the galleria animates its vast silent form with the life that has animated architecture since the advent of classicism. But we have other ambi- tions for this vitality, which now must enter and find expression in the fabric of matter itself Let’s be clear: i is not the vulgar misconception that architecture must be literally animate, nor that processes illus- trated by animation software guarantee dynamic architecture. It need not move, but its substance, its scale, its transitions and measurement will be marked by the dilations and contractions of the energy field. Galleria of Fog INTRODUCTION 3 A universe defined by a fixed field and unchanging essences ha been superceded by a matter field that is defined locally alg tae and through its own interactions, This architectures about speeds rather than movements. Speed is understood as an absolute, there fore this architecture's fabric may register speeds from very fast to very slow while remaining essentially in place. Architecture thus is no longer the brooding and silent witness to the flux of tempo butis as much matter and structure as itis atmosphere and effects. We've gone from seeing temporal work in contrast to permanent architec ture to seeing the temporal entering into the very fabric of the archi- tecture itself, rendering it ambient. In contrast to Rem Koolhaas's notion that freedom is an absence of architecture—as, for example, when he describes the open space of a town square as embodying the greatest possible freedom—we side with Rossi’s belief that freedom in Koolhaas's sense is vacuous; that, in fact, it is the constraints of architecture, its formal particu- larity and persistence beyond any functionalist determination, that truly embodies freedom. For in being neither uniformly open nor uniformly closed, it lies open to the unforeseen as it works on our changing activities over time. We assert the primacy of material and formal specificity overmyth and interpretation, In fact, while all myth and interpretation derives from the immediacy of material phenomena this equation snot reversible, When you try to make fact out of mythlanguage omy begets more language, with architecture assuming there" 1 tration or allegory. This i true not only ofthe intial ond architecture but actually plays out during the design mi similar way, Material practice is the shift from asking "™ this mean?” to “what does this do?”FROM In response to architecture, figures of the last generation as varied as Robert Venturi INTRODUCTION EXTENSIVE FIELD/INTENSIVE OBJECT TO INTENSIVE FIELD-OBJECT the perceived sterility and homoge: city of modern and John Hejduk selected and developed highly specific elements of the movement. This extraction of (generally figurative) motifs from the more systematic, Cartesian field they had occupied in high modernism was s seen.as a promulgation of uniqueness and variety inarchitecture. With equal ease, it could be defined through the development of a singular volume or figure or, in more discontinuous fashion, the collage technique. But this selective approach carried lia bilities as well, for it dispensed with the grand systematic ambitions of modernism in favor of an idiosyncratic approach and concentrated ona revision of modernism that foregrounded the object divested of its field. Forarchitects, notions of space, until recently, remained trenchantly Cartesian, whet The big shift, in which our w. fixed background, of ordinat of space and matter as bein, concept or beli fundamental level, it ch: and designed, and the: ther the field was recognized or the object premiated. ‘ork participates is the removal of the ites and coordinates, in favor of a notion ig one. This shift is not simply one in uld leave the architecture unchanged; at a langes the way architecture is thought about way it emerges asa material fact. ief that wor Apelogists for modernism—or those who simply want to extend the ernist proj chitecture unchan, ject by updating their arguments while leaving the \ged—are in grave error, In their minds, the alfectthe objet is simply yet another shift in discourse, it doest"t implying thatthe and the object has no effect on it. Discourse alon€ ‘amore fashionable view of the ‘same universe, thus early model is but a failure of interpretation. A = 1) ‘or John Hajduk; Bye House (Wall Hensel Muppxx Peter Bisenman, House! eae26 INTRODUCTION ‘The Cartesian paradigm, long discredited in the sciences, } hold on architectural thinking. Infact, it was always a specny t's a larger universe, the potential of which lay untapped ae Case of able before the advent of new paradigms. You need the new nt iG pone riwork iAndlse wearenot denying the existe? versal space, we are suggesting that the universal is not connie without qualities but rather a material field of ubiquitous diferes ¢. Any serious project today must nevertheless contend wi a with the Boome sndlta cutgicniths We sce our proce not asa completion of universal models such as those devised themodemnists, nor asa counter-model to them, but rather as an excursion into new territory. Some baggage must be dropped a copped alon theway, orlke the Argo, becomea vehicle transfigured by the © journey. This irRopucTion z ok is part of the critical project, but it aspires toan MTremative criticality. We seek to dispel the essentialist assumptions “pout universality, solidified notions about historical models, and yen the irreducibility of the authors themselves, For it becomes surprisingly evident that the canonical works display a profound jimpersonality; they are, in fact, the most comprehensive confron- tations with a problematic that only later acquire an authorial stamp. ‘This tension among classical models, structural honesty, and com- positional formalism constitutes a “both-and” argument in the Venturian sense.® But in contrast to Venturi’s formulation, our project understands this dynamic not as a play of signifiers to be “read” (and thus, fixed in issues of meaning) but as a properly material contest in material logics. We would postulate an “and and and” argument— neither pure classical models, nor pure structural honesty nor pure compositional formalism, implying a more open-ended process. Venturi’s “both-and” is a mannerist hierarchy that attempts to regu- late complexity and contradiction as a comprehensive whole asa legible dimension of the building, “And and and” pushes multi- plicity to a level of depth that isn’t present in the purely semiotic arguments of Venturi, For while all architecture can be read itis only the postmodernists who reduce both process and reception fo 8 semiotic game. This architecture of multiplicities operates as much with the visible conditions of architecture as the invisible processes of, for example, structure and program. This is, ina sense mo closely connected to a modernist depth than a mere play of surfaces and signifiers.For example, the Miesian project in its most impersonal ang ar; versal” sense may thus be resituated. Asa special case within gn” Tatger and more varied universe. We see a systematicity to ender such as Mies's which can be exponentially expanded through neve thatallow for emergence rather than merely extension, es This therefore is not yet another plea for eclecticism but a shift for ‘modernism into new and unforeseen territories. This is a critical stance that can only be worked out architecturally. Taking the specific problematic as a starting point, how does one produce multiplicities in formal arrangements? How does one produce multiplicity in structure? How does one produce multiplicity in function? This is the content of this book. EL ‘Mies van der Rohe's clearspan project®. with a large scale inclusion—a theater, within INTRODUCTION A. Se Classical Order (Peristyle) pen ee Miesian Clearspan Nooplastic Field a > Seale \ / vo Cs Oe fod Nor Truss Facade Matter Field -Miesian Poise and Contemporary Poise3° INTRODUCTION Tams: rend Tus ReductontoSiuctwe —_sanreor ay ond orm mNTRODUCTION eo CONSTRAINTS tt will be remembered thatthe principle of exclusion is avery simple, not to say primitive, principle that denies the values it opposes. The principle of sacrifice admits and indeed implies the existence of a multiplicity of values What is sacrificed is acknowledged to bea value eventhough thas toield toanother value which commands priority iE. H. Gombrick, "Norm and Form’ Sir E. H. Gomrich’s 1966 essay “Norm and Form” serves as an instruc- tive way to navigate both our attraction to Mies's classical solutions and the desire for the resolution, or adjudication, of competing and conflicting demands. Gombrich first makes the claim that there are indeed classical solutions. For example, the resolution of the conflict in painting between balance and symmetry—once symmetry is chal lenged—is arrived at through “an ideal compromise between two conflicting demands.” This compromise is thought to be classical in the sense of presenting an unsurpassed solution that could only berepeated, not improved upon, Deviation on the one side would threaten the correctness of design; on the other, the feeling of order. Seen from this point of view, the “classical” solution is indeed a tech- nical rather than a psychological achievement, The classical is what Sir Gombrich calls “norm,” which embodies an “essence” that “permits us to plot other works of art ata variable distance from this central point.” The art historian distinguishes such genealogies as classicism and its descendents from mere series ‘of morphological distinctions. It is only when distinction is defined by its correspondence with and deviation from certain norms—that is, its response to human aims and human instruments—that, to ‘use polymath Gregory Bateson’s term, they embody a “difference that makes a difference.”INTRODUCTION Architectures like the sea, or money: i falls into an intermediate category between matter and events. It is a modulator. B there isa kind of paradox in that, one could argue, thereis a greater stability t something like painting, where aside fom the develop ments of interpretation and practice, the form and program of any particular painting remain fixed forever in their time, whereas in architecture, ever-changing demands and uses are either accom. modated or resisted by the building. But the very instability of the temporal inhabitation of buildings, per se, is a part of the force that drives the discipline as a whole to novelty, in that itis constantly being asked to address new and changing problems. And while such demands can never be finally addressed, they serve as a heuristic device to invention. What is of interest to us is distinguishing between the place of the norm in the perpetuation model of the classical and the novelty that ‘emerges when architecture addresses evolving demands. This issue of the norm, in some sense, is related to the issue of difference, as for example when a normative model is so elaborated upon and it departs so much from the model from which it was derived that itshifts from being a difference in degree to a difference in kind. Such extreme elaboration, in the minds of conservative critics and architects, has the unfortunate effect of shutting down highly profitable areas of invention in a call for a return to order. They, in effect, operate under what Gombrich characterizes asan_ exclusionary principle—a reductive operation, as common in criti- cism as itis in manifestoes. Under exclusionism, the specificity of What is being excluded is not engaged but rather dismissed out of hand. in functionalism, for instance, any element that would be deemed ornamental is systematically excluded.”4 INTRODUCTION We see that the norms themselves, in so much as they are stood as demands and necessities, ate instable. They coment out of being and change over time, Extreme elaboration cay not demands that never existed before, Thus, inventions may ly hee” fora time, until they ae pulled in to the social field whenaescn context for them comes about. In this way, invention actually fam? anorm (see “Invention,” page 188). Architectural solutions are never free of the categories they dismiss ‘There is a decorative element to functionalism that exists even when all ornament has been stripped away. Within what Gombrich calls the sacrificial mode, by contrast, conflicting demands are mote gradually worked out through emphasis and exchange, leaving open such possibilities as decorative function. The principle of sacrifice “admits and indeed implies the existence of a multiplicity of values. What is sacrificed is acknowledged to be a value even though it has to yield to another value which commands priority.”"” Since what is built and inhabited often persists beyond the social practices that define its use, there nevertheless exists a hierarchy of forms and arrangements of the gross form of architecture, which indirectly work on the more temporal arrangements that go 0D with init. This relationship is at best probabilistic, like the continuously changing arrangements of office furniture governed by the matket forces at work in high-rise buildings. We hold to the idea that ah tecture is not simply reducible to the container and the contain ‘but that there exists a dynamic exchange between the life of matte! and the matter of our lives. REISER + UMEMOTO ‘House in Sagaponae Sagaponac, New York, 2002 %Fineness Fineness confronts the reality that most architecture is not resold within the logic ofa single model, a single surface, ora single mag rial only. Rather, architecture deals with assemblies involving mal, tiple models, surfaces, and materials. Architecture is generaly not one continuous, monolithic thing but is made of multiple parts ang organizational models operating at different scales. Modern arch tecture in its various forms has dealt with these issues, but the ratio nalized system of construction it employs typically resolved itselfas a whole that is no greater than the sum of its parts. The question then is how one manages or works with these diverse organizations and elements, not merely as an accumulation of the different but as multiplicities within an emergent organization such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A proper manipt lation and understanding of fineness is crucial to this pursuit. Fineness is a label that defines the culmination of techniques described in this book. It encompasses an examination of architec ttre at all levels of scale. Fineness breaks down the gross fabric of building into finer and finer parts such that it can register small dt ferences while maintaining an overall coherence, The fineness "8" ment is encapsulated in the densities of a sponge: too fine and it like a homogenous solid; too course and it becomes constrained © its members. Architecture must perform similarly, at just the 18" balance between material geometry and force. “Too Fine 10? Densities of a Sponge norrom Glass Sponge: Fuplectellaaspergilliumts also known as the Venus Flower Basket 39Gromeray 2 Difference in Kind/Difference in Degree Difference in Kind Difference in Degree 2 °e We could say that classical architecture is like a game of Chess, i j f Following Gilles Deleuze’s analogy of the games of Chess and Go, a é = architectural orders are like chess pieces: they have a clear, fixed identity and arange of moves within that identity. Chess, finaly semiotic. Any transformation beyond the prescribed moves rermaing ‘nthe realm of deviation, because in this system change can only be | | ‘teferenced in kind, by its relation to a fixed model. The manner of such deviation is limited to elaboration or deformation—in effect, ‘mannerist or baroque versions of the original. ‘our work operates at times like a game of Go, wherein ath element kas no intrinsic and stable meaning outside ite : fonships. One strand in a meshwork, or one Go piece, ‘isno different from another. Meaning is acquired in relation to the ‘Specific behavior and effects we are seeking in a given zone of a3 The Unformed Generic: Form Acquiring Cony. nt For youmust understand that if only you have hit off such an untidy om postion in accordance with the subject, it will give al the more saisfag uwhen ts later clothed in the perfection appropriate to all its parts ha seen shapes in clouds and on patchy walls that have roused me to eau inventions of various things, and even though such shapes totally lac ait inany single part, they were yet not devoid of perfection in their gestursg other movements. Leonardo da Vin, rece Leonardo da Vinci's use of the stain relies upon projecting known content and scale into an unformed field as a means of rendering visible program and composition. There is no specific content inh: ent in the stain; in fact, many programs and compositions can be projected into and emerge from the same stain using this method. As such, the stain represents a specific form of the generic that isa once both general and specific. That is, while able to accept a wide range of projections, the stain is nevertheless highly differentiated by features that guide the emergence of content specifically. This isa precise diagram of the vague, itis a foretaste not only of the general composition but of precise details as well. In contrast? diagrams that plot one quantity against another, these diagrams Pa ammultiplicity of axes, both qualitative and quantitative, ogsintte other. Such diagrams allow for the emergence of all levels of a W0" at once, from the most general to the most particular. They occu) the space between the abstract and the concrete, Like Leonardo, vid ‘tart from the middle, projecting material into a diagrammatic fi ‘The Potential of the Unformed Stain Soldiers aYou can’t have simi without similarity There are two gen: 4 Similarity and Difference larity without difference, and you can’t have differen eral developments within the issue ofsimiariy and difference which are not mutually exclusive. Beyond simple accumulations of the different, similarity can emerge out of differ- ence and difference can emerge out of similarity. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari give the analogy ofa racehorse being closer toa gry hound, and a draft horse being closer to an ox, than each is to he other. Even though they look different they are similar atthe level of performance. Atthe formal and understanding of organizational levels, we are moving away froman the discrete, which in recent history has meant the unique, toward the continuous—that is, toward an maces of discrete elements as part ofa self-similar structure, Even thou they look similar, they behave differently. “PRR. Greyhound Racohorse Oxen Dratthorse 45Variety (Difference) vs. Variation (Self tofine Difference, or the poss di answer to prog Mere quantity allows only for ‘si ilarity) is necessary to reg tiation, ifference, is produced as an the quality of mere quantity. But intensive quantity generates a whole irreducible to the sum of its parts: in other words, whole-whole relationships. The logic of repetition, like the logic of statistics or the logic of information, can be applied regardless of content. This is the ‘crux of Edgar Allan Poe's theory of composition.’ (See “Refrain, pageso0.) What becomes deeply interest ing out of this method is pattern. When tied to information (and not semantics), pattern becomes the fundamental quantity of the diagram, A system of differential epetition becomes a means of the same organization, handling a variety of material withio Just as a single hair is not sufficient to make a hair-do, $0 004 single clement in architecture Honal possibilities inherent when greater quant rich organi2a” come to play: will never reveal "Quantity has a quality all its own." —doseph Stalin 47i aigGromerny 6 Part-to-Whole Relationships From the general scheme to the particular detail, the modernist Project deals methodologically and architecturally almost excusing with top-down hierarchy. We donot reject the concept of hierarchy butratheruse tin a new way. We work within a hierarchy that ismat ‘simply nested in sale and distinct from the orders that lie above and below it. Rather, we are using organizational principles that promote communication across scales, in which the particular is able to affeet the general and vice versa. ‘This requires a methodology that involves both top-down and Patom:-uplopcs operating ina feedback oop. (Thus hierarchy, in this case, has nothing to do with power structures and everything ‘todo with material organization). This methodology, in contrast to _the reductive models of modernism, enables the emergence of new ions and new architectural effects out of wholes that areGROMETRY 8 e After Collage: Two Conditions of the Gener, ic [REPETITION OF HETEROGENEITY/HOMOGENEITY Inpursuit ofthis new conception ofthe universal, we work wth ‘conditions beyond the modernist model of simple repetition ot unchanging unit. After first rejecting the justapositional techni Accumulation ofthe Merely Diternt of collage as accumulations of the merely different, we Posit either an unchanging unit deployed along a variable trajectory or the ‘Simple Unit Repeated along Variable Trajectory ‘simple repetition of a variable unit. In both cases transformation Pf A ‘8 a quality perceived through deployment in quantity. In this wiy Variable Unit Repeated along Simple Trajectory ‘we understand the universal as the space of ubiquitous difference ‘rather than ofa fixed and unchanging background. In this universe difference is not fundamentally a property of particular units but ofa transformation, or set of transformations, to the group—whit_° _ Manuel DeLanda calls “progressive differentiation.”*. 37 8 Coherence vs. Incoherence Internally consistent systems are inherently different from systems of collage. To illustrate this, one could take a radio and either condense its form until it is very small or distribute it, spreadingit out over a wide area. As long as no wires are cut the radio would si) function, it would still be a radio. This is because a radio operates within an internal logic that doesn’t change with scale but rather relies on ratios. It maintains its systemic coherence. A collage does not behave that way. The collage as a technique relies on elements being recognizably out of context, or recontextualized, It is inherent juxtapositional. Simply collaging the elements of a Fadio would not produce a functioning device. This is not to say that collage lacks systematicity; in fact, collage, in order to be converted into anything constructible at all, must be represented in the form of an assembly of building components such as studs, drywall, etc. The tectonics of collage architecture is not @ collage but comprises the same subsystems one would find inany ee A other construction, | ‘ ‘err Constituent Parts of a Radio Arranged as Fragments RIGHT Constituent Parts ofa Radio Arranged in a Coherent System i6 COMBRENCE Vs. 1NCON e NCONERENG Behind even the most incoherent architecture building systems. The relationship between th these systems may range from radical incoherence sty level rendered in a flexible system such as platform intermediate level, a, for example, in the Gehry Her lage at the overall level of organization is modid of construction. lies the coh, '¢ formal my, erence olumet Faming tay Se, Where gy) lated by the syten, Still another process unfolds when two apparently indifferent ye coherent systems come together and imprint on one another, forma third, coherent system. This is the case in the Bordeaux hou where indifferent and frankly structural and building systems ax enlisted in domestic service. The example given by Gilles Deleu and Félix Guattari is the wasp and the orchid. The wasp's bodys formed on the shape of the orchid as the orchid is formed on the shape of the wasp. While both are engaged in completely inde pendent activities, the one actually augments the other. The wasp pollinates the orchid, but its interests lie somewhere else entirely; pollination is merely a consequence of unrelated actions. Itisan ‘example of the effects of profound indifference. Architectural sys tems are not human relationships; like nature, they are impersoM yet habitation is augmnted by the pressures of their indifference 59 ‘TO? Michael Rotondi/RoTo, Dorland Mountain Dwelling MiDDLE Frank Gehry/FOGA, Gehry House SOTTOM Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Bordeaux HouseREISER + UMEMOTO West Side Convergence Competition Entry New York, New York, 19999 ANew Understanding of Difference Looking at many trees we find that some have structural features incon, anand forma gens ose. Thisspecies mane ise gene ‘vidual tree as far as resistant matter allows, and though individual pas may therefore differ, their differences are merely “accidental” compared ‘the essence they share, —Sir E.H. Gombrich, ‘Norm and ‘If idealist difference is understood as deviation from a trans _ talmodel, then essentialist difference is understood as serial __ dent, like the variations in blush in a crate of peaches. If you ‘thousand tiles, or one thousand mass-produced custom teapots, yo: “will see this kind of variation in the form or patina of each, Gnromerry 1500 Su tat pedo 6. Expansion //—— ‘Sesion constees oY OLEPERENGE In the latter case their differences only bear an abstract rel to the whole. Whereas when you start to lookat variation oS difference isno longer isolated but forms emergent whole 6 Not reducible to the sum of their parts. That is their abstract stay, itis their deployment that is the crucial issue. Granted, such: ation can be deployed at any scale, but there isa range outside which the system becomes invisible. At micro scales they merey actas decorative texture; conversely, at an extreme macro scale sh difference becomes imperceptible and in that sense meaningless, Itwould, for example, be absurd to suggest continuous variation in the joints of superhighways. It is at the middle to large scale—the space of mass reception—that there seems to be both an economy and a need for variation. but This notion of difference applies across a range of scales, from the very small to the very large. The proper use of continuous variation consists in taking a molecular population and deploying it as a molar or large-scale aggregate, thus making the statistical variation compre hensible and visible for a certain quantity, In this way it becomesa living datascape ioe ATeenager's Mouth10 Selection vs, Classificatio, n Besides the avoidance of essentialist think . e alist inking, Dele ' virtuality i guided by the closely related constraint fein ’ thinking, that style of thought in which individualism isechin ved th the creation of classifications and of formal criteria f al crit 4 a of formal criteria for members —Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Science and Virtual Pils Typology plays a significant role within material practice. Ital for a clear selection of archi izatil oa fora clear selection of architectural rganiation rom among ost limitless possibilities available today. By selecting apace lar typological model we are able to make a correlation, as amoikn ist would, between a crude typology and functional or structul criteria. We see typology as extending beyond Manuel DeLantis Parsing of Gilles Deleuze. Typology is not only useful asa formal classifying something at the end of a process but also as a cru device for use in the design process. s Stratus cures Cloud Types pe within a range of flexibility din this model rather than ’ transcend themselves. In contrast to 's conception that type is a limited com- nents chosen with respect to their civic ir f type allows for the selection of a range, ee del Without precluding mutability and nuance, we me tr odel working within by selecting certain parameters. imi evaluation of each ty gare his requires rive possibilities. Indee transformative a c, type rendent tYP& ‘YP transojas-Louis Durand jean-Nicol z ‘ bi inatorial set of classical el : deployment 0 athe selection ofa typology now leads to a process within a limited range of constraints roughly set by type. DeLanda calls these “pro- ‘erptive constraints.” Based on assumptions of what a type cannot— rill not-—do, they leave open limits on what it necessarily can do or ill do: “not what to do, but what to avoid doing.”* Typology is, thus, less a classification or codification than it is the basis for a process ofconstrained material expressions. Selection is an element of the generative, of the field of forces that contribute to the instantiation of architecture, Once the artifact is complete, there is another selective process based on the performative—the constellation of programs and activities that play out in the architecture. This classification of ve | eeping figures “by their Tesponse to events that ee aoe lection has more to do with the establish- cy than of a category. Planar LinearRUNNING ALL THE AGASE STUDY IN DESIGN! HORSES ar Once, ING FROM a, CRUDE Ty Pe GEOMETRY sry that are necossary 10 final materaization. Deleuze refers to 1 modulator" is therefore not enough to stop atthe geometry ipulation ofa single type: rather, moving beyond the general- ith embedded, finer patterns of organiza- ind make visible the connection atin a vai thn the overall primitive that both enabl eee ee are eoear ca ser ane ot ad fare te pooiby of ferent mate instantiations. ‘pe plane ype, nti nse, rendored materials near network deployed along Mrtace,osulingin a geodetic mesh, However, once the geodetic are determined, tretnal instantiation could be cariod out ina range of materials, each feeding back {nto the geometry according to their specific properties,n Intensive and Extensive If we divide a volu volumes, each half other hand are prope so divided. ¢ of matter into two equal halves we en; : dup wi 1 extent of the original o sheets me. Intensive properties ong uch as temperature or pressure, which camo Manuel DeLanda, tensive Science and Virtual Pia | ‘The most important distinction in our changed notions of arcites tural design is the shift from geometry as an abstract regulator oft materials of construction to a notion that matter and material hay iors must be implicated in geometry itself. In the older models, the sovereign role of geometry was to regulate or impress itself upon the irrational and accidental condition of matter, thus measurement, Proportion, and all of the elements of pure extension maintaina priority over that which they regulate. The new model must be unde stood not as a supercession of measuring but as the interplay between intensive and extensive differences. Intensive differences, also known as gradients, are properties of multe with indivisible difference, such as weight, elasticity, pressure, heat, density, color, and duration. Any intensive property that is baled maintains an equal property in each half, In other words, a pot o! boiling water, when split in half, is just as hot a it was when its whole. In contrast, extensive properties are properties of matter ¥! ‘ divisible differences, such as measurement, constraints, nia rules, modulation, mass, total volume, and time. If a pot of boiling water is split in half, each half has half the mass of the whole.We must not fall into the trap of saying that the extens tative and the intensive, qualitative. In fact, the one ig gies titative, and the othe! is inherently embedded in, Ply atin field, exists always as quantitative and qualitative, Cte i poets will say that there absolutely isan intensive dimensieot pm, just as the artist will say that certain extensive measurent such as human proportions or the golden section, resonate yy soul, Butin both cases, one might argue that the effectivess the number arise asa result of their context and for mateo Inthe first case the number is not merely clock time buta tinea, day, with material dimensions, and in the second there is anima diacy to that thing which acquires a proportion as material, wthos recourse to a transcendent system. The relationship between the intensive and the extensive hasalvay underlayed the minor arts and craft practices and a dimensionaf certain specialized forms of architectural design, such as medical stone masonry. But it wasn’t possible to fit it into the economy ofall but the most specialized building production. Nineteenth-centuy — technology and the mechanization process marginalized that dimer sion of practice at the scale of architecture because it couldn'tbe easily systematized, nor was it susceptible to standardization—™ prevailing processes of modernization. Above all, philosophicall it didn’t seem to fit into essentialist notions of rationality that 7 governed not only the fabric of building but its organizations The legacy of the essentialist approach to architecture, which | rationality (mainly in the lineaments of geometry) above "1, precludes the productive and rich capacity of matter to °° influence geometry. Allowing this dynamic to operate i8°P. important not so much in the realm of new materials for ‘ture but as a way of reconceiving tectonics and organization: Potted Plant: Intensive Proliferation, Extensive |Be> Pleasure/Pain Duration pi Intensive (Gradients): SPEED] ir Ge urement Constraints Codes & Rules Be . - Modulation Mass Weight “el a ~I Total Volume Time Movement EOE = = wer Extensive: ‘System of Measurement, Divisible Difference12 Geometry and Matter His journeyman, the monk-mason Garin de Troyes, speaks ofan opng logic of movement enabling the “initiate” to draw, then hew thera “inppenetration in space,” to make itso that “the cutting line nee equation” (le trait pousse le chiffre). One does not represent, one and traverses. Ths science is characterized less by the absence ofeng tions than by the very different role they play: instead of being godems absolutely that organize matter, they are “generated” as “forcesoftis (poussees) by the material, in a qualitative calculus of the optimum Royal, or State, science only tolerates and appropriates stone cutting hy means of templates (the opposite of squaring), under conditions tha restore the primacy of the fixed model of form, mathematical figures, measurement. Royal science only tolerates and appropriates p it is static, subjected to a central black hole divesting it of its hew ambulatory capacities. —Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattar, A Thousand MATTER ‘Squaring employs the code as limit ‘and system of transfer.The logic of nomad science reco} Bhizes the cre matter f eld and harnesses intensive vari: been the e ative cap, ability. This hag nerge in the d ating, or even the use of tions like plan, section, and elevation techniques. Nomad and State Cities of, histor design ine for the unforeseen to em toric Process conte, limiting with the tw architectural practices Codified syste ns of templ drawir - wing are, in contrast, self geometries correlate complementary roles for geometry in intensive and extensive, One sees geometry as a gener other sees geometry as a way of domesticating m, cal space. In working di the ative too: the atter within met awings, for example, forms are translaed to coordinate space for the purpose of invariant communication even if the coordinate system was not used as a generative tool, This isa process that goes back as far as the conventions of architectual drafting and projection. Plan, section, and elevation were originally formulated as a system for measuring archeological ruins; onlylta did they get turned into projective instruments. Geometry derived from fields of intensive difference in matter can beused generatively. These gradient fields are understood as trans scalar and flexible but in order to operate architecturally must be scaled precisely by being brought into relationship with extensive models. The creative tendency of intensive fields and the codifying tendency of extensive fields do not merely work in succession Like working drawings following creative sketches, there must be 1 Procity between the two. Extensive units form limits, tympani against which the creative forces in the intensive space Tes00N) While such limits are not creative in and of themselves, they m* novelty possible through the function of their constraints. AncHrrecTTz sont Mes space freed The most radical surtace/space implications of Mi architecture ae realized in his metalsinithing, a rococo spac sical imperative to domesticate rocaille as decoration. from the cl ror The Thyssen Meissonier Tureen NOTTOM Signature on the Tureen, Reading “Made by 1. A. Meissonier, Architect”B Folly of the Mean First then we must consider this fact: that itis in Sp S the natu qualities that they are destroyed by deficiency andexcess. ae ~ Aristotle, Ncomachin ig Indeed, it scems that the extremes have a way of working together Produce new possibilities. Indeed, architecture considered materi acquires a dynamic balance not through the mean but through pois. | There is a kind of degree zero essentialism, not unlike the essentik- ism of the modernist project, in Aristotle's argument regarding the concept of the mean: first, that things can have the quality of being too small or too large, and second, that there is a certain virtueto inhabiting the mean. The mean is justified initially in terms of human conduct and then gets transferred to the world of matter ‘matter in turn is anthropomorphized. This is a kind of magic. 452° _ extension of the er ; MATTER [AnISTOTLE'S CONCEPT OF THE MEAN Astate of poise is erating in asta ‘not an average or a mean in the Aristotelian sense. He of poise may incorporate extremes, it does not oe 414 Classical Body/Impersonal Individuagy ion Instead of relying on analogy and proportion, sublimating the definition of the body ikewi ‘experiential field. in fact, that kind of abstraction ins abstract enough. Ours is therefore not an arguneat cae enology but an organizational principle of architecture that under stands architecture as a great body, or an assemblage of bodies, that Cut across a wide range of scalar and material regimes, While the phenomenological could be understood as a special case ofthis wt itis impossible to simply use embodied experience, or phenomen, as a generative model. There is no organizational principle inarcit ture directly linked to phenomenology. In fact, all architecture can beunderstood phenomenologically. Asa result, see architecture typically lapses into some form of moderismfa [Purpose of organizing space. Such a phenomenological practise" never propose a new architecture, only a projection upon exisi"8_| 85 | MATTER mwas never terribly humane | all econo ieee to be an abstraction of | i bee eee more to engage the body's effective and \ celine ogame et rakes it human. Just ait sa faulty assumption that i aoe is the pattern of the universe. act jocentric in order to deal with movement i ne fe “or proportions ofa body when the architect is working trugiasublimated representation of a body rather than the body inself. Such practice is analogous to creating an architecture ar aFordist model, in which analyses of movement create an envelope that in turn becomes building or infrastructure. The logic of this practice fails as soon as you make the envelope of the building the same as that of the body. tehavior at tobegin wi the Hineamen! Anthropocentrism is representational and is the most limiting when itis applied at the scale of the body. We prefer architecture to engage whata body can actually do. A skateboarding ramp, for instance, is ot patterned on a human, Rather, itis an intervening technology ‘hat belongs to a totally different pattern of order upon which the human works. The ramp augments the body; it is an extension of the body via the vehicle ofthe skateboard, but it does not represent it. a tenon of performance belongs to a larger class of singu- atities known as i individuations. Lil al tineofday, an impersonal individuations. Like the sunset or a they : a Wechiotivaiek eee as thors aaah15 Material Organizations Mies's constraint of matter by ideal Beometry is based | tialistnotion: that matter is formless and geome on ne that geometry is transcendental and in some sense indiffens the material that substantiates it, Tent When freed from such essentializing conceptions, matter Proves | have its own capacity for self-organization. As an analog compute, it can perform optimizing computations that have been shown to betrans-scalar; as for example, when stretched stockings reuse to calculate the geometry and form of full-scale tensile structures, This logic, however, can be expanded to more complex situations, for example, when a magnetized ferrofluid calculates ina Aynanie balance the forces of magnetism, gravity, and surface ‘ease In this state, matter is much more dynamic and pregnant with Possibility of its own constraints and lee ss ae geometry or simple optimizing principle could render. ie a model not only for dealing woh structure but for desing feedback that occurs between multiple forces at work on. encompassing program, use, organization, and form. Miesian Essentialism Matter as an Accident to Geometry Direct index of Matter Fe Material Behavior in Multidimensional Force: ‘Simple Optimization: | Material as an Analog Computer aim Water Garden of Micro-gradients: Incarnated Material Diagram16 Matter/Force Relationsh; Nps MATTER Post-and-eam: Forces Hidden in the Assembly ing matter/force relat complex. In t] Entasis Forces Represented in a Discrete Member In theribbed concrete slab of Pier Luigi Nervi’. ¢,,.< Romo, of 95, the matterfrce easing Waffle Stab Following Isostatic Lines: Forces Expressed in Discrete Zones Voronoi Wattle: Forces Expressed across Systems from Structure to Space to ProgramWaffle Slab Following Isostatic Lines: Forces Expressed in Discrete Zones Voronoi Waffle: Forces Expressed across Systems ig from Structure to Space to3 MATTER a Froma Static toan Oscillato; a (and Back again) inordet for this kind of process to be effective, an element of fineness isnecessary: a delicate attentiveness to precision and scale. A gross figure-ground distinction, showing structure and infill, for instance, isinsufficient. The transmission of effects across a field is impos- sible when a dialectical relationship occurs from the start. The differ- ent zones of structure and infill have first to be described as a field ofsimilarity in order for them to register difference. This establishes them as densities in a common field gradient. : relations (see dia 94-95). The modernist pair establishes a clear dine eee ‘ P : listinction betwee Tegions. Structure and infill are discrete entities, with structures Perturbations in the structure act to inflect the zones of infill. In the emergent pair intense oscillation results in emergent singu- tities or features that are not reducible to constituent element. in the neo-modernist pair, a threshold of scale and intensty d ‘becomes overabundant and prods3| MATTER 7 | j 18 | Operating in a State of Poise ‘The most pregnant tectonics may be found i i . between two forms of optimization, For canslele might encounter a classical modernist infill recon when isa clear articulation of structure-infiljstructans eet structure, guided by standardization and efficiency, dined constrains what is in between. At the other exten thse materially and semantically synthesized Over optimized in solving the problem by erasing it, advances the earlymolant ambition for architecture to become “almost nothing "In too smooth, in reducing difference to total homogeny,themedd actually loses qualities. rare nits Way to. smogenized Hierarchy i. fon tts Way Homogenized ¥ Nested Hi Coherent, Linear Coherent, Non-linear Coherent, Linear Orthodox System Heterodox System Orthodox System The middle condition occupies a moment of dynamic poise, whet systems on their way toward optimization display singular amt that are, by varying degrees, structural and ornamental Thee ing structure/ornament gradient is less autonomous than in hee two models, The virtue of the middle condition lies in ther its ambient effects, its reciprocity to program, and its chan oftovement within the spaces it encloses Inco19 Poise in an Allied Discipling } an optimal hie dition fo, displays greater capacity for structural Variation and adaptability Fon due shell skin, in contrast, optimizes town single function—structural economy, or103 MATTER 20 A salient architecture requires, fir <= cea Sy is, a ee St the consideration ofa 5 Ithink, in the usual mode thesis—or one is. sugertiae ea Prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. ae always in view —for he is false to himself who and second, the establishment of complex repetition. mnly used the refrain, or burden, not only limited to lyric verse, Iedpend fr its oe upon the force of ‘monotone—both in sound and thought, The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity—of repetition. resolved to diversify, and so vastly heighten, the effect, by adhering, in general, to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied that of thought: that is to say, I determined to produce continuously novel ‘fet by the variation of the application of the refrain—the refrain itself remaining, for the most ‘part, unvaried. —Edgar Allan Poe, On Composition.70a REFRAtN, Edgar Allan Poe's discussion of com thythm, or refrain that only later refrain from “The Raven,” “nevermore’ w, the raven did, in order 4 Benerate a ¢terial systems, i ty play a part but ; effect, neither a the placement of the chimney in r example, shifting of the rod truss as it accomodates the change in the sess el of this shift are i sity of the “skin” and ive load (. poplean 105 MATTER [ARRANGEMENTS “wee r8an9 apy bavennevucnae ei haat density in 90 a Tu Foon shiting oeaton of eralIntensive and Extensive Ti ine mix ji, Pee competing limits both intensive ang part make teorticaly, given unlimited space. e engine, nbustion Engine Diagram of an internal Com Proce: The same relationships ate Present atthe scale of architectural Tete eXensive model, compression would pf the organizational System, a shrinking a dinates, In an intensive model, ee and proportion enter new telationships as “The Matorial Artifact108 INTENSIVE AND EXTENSty; Ir Looking at the process in reverse, when intensive limits are loosened extensive controls increase, For example, as information technologies become dematerialized (paradoxically, by becoming More intense), the typical office Program ceases to have a One-to-one Telationship with the technologies that function within it. Paraphernalia and function, in taking up space, simultaneously force the workplace to polation of the modernist model, would ordain a featureless white- box container for dematerialized technology. The second recognizes the Opportunity for an entirely different ambient Tipe may very well have functions that, by having nothing to do with the business at hand, actually augment it. Intensive £PLooking at the Process in Tevers extensive controls j re may very well have functions that, by having nothing adorn business at hand, actually augment it. OwOffee Space! errata and Function Tako Up cae id Represent What They Do Spoce and Rap Extensive Shrinkage New Mode! Space of Qualities eae New Office Space: Dematerialization of Function Shrinks Hardware and Expands Soft Spaces, an. Extrapolation without Qualities7 Account for. n shor, Manuel DeLanda, Non The “machinic phylum” of Deleuze and Guattari describes non-nested hierarchy Robert Le Ricolai structional systems. structural configurations, space, anc comprise a continuous spectrum rather than isolated dot Such an unde; their effects that is communicative, reverberating across standing provides a model for organizing f regimes.’ of a fic instance Le Ricolais's studies of column failure are a specific A ic generat 7 eometric model in operation. Transcending the purely ties tht ee a e new geome of a structure, Le Ricolais is interested in a ration on! arise as a consequence of the column's deform: essures re cha critical eye, there ving and noting nga the sane as the continuum theorized by the engines Le Ricolais suggests that matter, material, con pace mains forest scalesin | hi he way ‘eRicolais's Automorphic Tube StructureMacn, NIC pay Lum failure. Thy i ee lus, roe behavior takes an actin ew str uh ie Moreover, the forces tay ith ofan entire tower cally, in that they ae ee TeScaled tg eae th Like the relationship relationship bety intensive and exten: achitectsareineviatre force logics and ea Bort erative and limiting ne Plicated inthe tense ee® : ting Poles of both. The pote, cake ee teen the per, find thei tials that low ofe i, v3, MATTER ( a \ Ye iu es deo Faure ‘Second Order of Failure Third Ordor of Fllure The Beauty of Failure24 The Diagram rules supreme; in the mysterious region ofthe nebulae 7, may haply bet Sravitation grows negligible again...[T]heefetofseale depends not on athing in itself, but in relation to its whole environment or milicutisin Conformity with the thing’s “place in Nature,” its field of action nd nai in the Universe. —D/Arcy Thompson, On Magi Material organizations at the macro scale must of necessity be modelled in order to predict or track changes to their behav a Bir an analog comnection must be made ro micro ale Naan organizations of material behavior can be approximated at smi igen ct aiastanents are neccesary asthe system beeomes BT ina more intensive or more extensive model. For insta chRalilaa Pet itt LS A 19605-era model of a Water table @PProximat, ers; is an example ofan st aby eg PAP tests at squan ott ing city and low far Miki setts Tepresented by resistors ney es ; istors inant ‘or of material at one Scale allows chee Predict its behavior at another. te The implications of this scalability of material behaviors reaching implications for architecture, has. rrabuatitm ofthese implications is the diagram which yg an abstract model of materiality, Such a diagram can be derived from any dynamic system at any scale. A close tracingefsrei dynamic (temperature, Pressure, wind speed, etc.) can be mapped asa gradient field that can be abstracted from its origins ori, ‘material source. A diagram of relationships, notof sale, ener Drecisely, the diagram is a field of relationships awaiting Aras riality. This clasti rrecise diagram this cn a scale and a materiality. This elastic yet p ci ea ire other material systems such as architecture and oo) is specific only to architesut ‘capacity to affect those systems in ways spe ji ses i ing to an origin, whileina tanescalar igre pir arent iow jas ney ill GRADIENT FIELD WORKING ACROSS REGIMES, 7 MATTER ALES JAADIENT FIELD WORKING ACROSS SC/ iDiagram Deployment Using the same diagram at different Scales can Produce dra different effects. Diagrams considered conventional tela of the spectrum—the neighborhee’ ale of the city or the the small end—the scale of clothing—are middle scales of architecture. They resist traditional archit arrangement and tectonics at these scales, These territorial ini ments on scale are among the most difficult to Operate well within, but they can be most rewarding when Successfully negotiated, natural i he form appears natu OMENS A the scale of clothing and furniture, the INAL/ INTE UNCONVENTIO! LEss' CONVENTIONAL, Seomeatild LESS INTERESTING ee ‘im oa = eo ‘The Human ScaleCONVENTIONAL. UNCONVENTIONAL/ LESS INTERESTING INTERESTING LESS remem —_—‘At this intermediate sc S intermediate scale (that of the interior), the fon ‘this scale the form, while ali is indeterminately furniture and partition coertensive with urban networks, the n building type, begins to become | ural/artificial geography of the city. Larger than a House and Smaller than a Building Atthe Scale of the Landscape, the Form Appears Natural Again Ahi i a scale both the f tn 'e form and thy entional ae al olationshipe: folds appoos ta 'ave slipped back into sloth and rock alike,MATTER 26 Fineness and the Macro, Dew Drop In his paper “On Being the Right Size,” n i the i biometrist J. B. S. Haldane, famous for s a small to the large. Likewise in architecture, the inherent scalh of the material diagram does not directly correlate ote of material behavior. Rather, there is a particular ‘material andsede for instance, to the behavior of the dew drop that is lost when the da Dew Drop House drop's morphology is formalized in a different material atadife- ent scale, Haldane identifies the same problems in biology when gravity overcomes forces of surface tension: a fly dropped downa would not be harmed in the least, while “a fly once wetted by wate ‘his type of error becomes even more egregious as a result of software ‘nertia, where the. governing algorithm becomes so insistant that it ierathesame expression ata levels ofthe projec, independent of ‘ichitee’s wil for or against it Neate concerned with s i 9 cale not as a tool for the representation of ae fall ot large at another size but rather as the transposi- int ano a ‘elationships between matter and force aFineness in Allied Fields The collaboration of organizational models wie the extremes of scale promise to yield ne ofthis comes from thealed Feld of aeronautics wits iva metallurgy, in modeling aerodynamic behavon mt fabrication have opened up a new horizon in aeronautical dan Increasingly, engineers have realized that diminishing a2 beexpected from the simple manipulation of gross fem ton” largeis synthesized withthe very smal: the very slow wing ee fast. The ability to fabricate the metal skins of airfoils within) millions oflaser-cut pores have radically extended thelow-gea’ Performance of aircraft to such a degree that their actionsapea completely counterintuitive and unnatural. The capacity toraiay extend maneuverability in that strange, instable region at thee of a stall, like the microgrooves in fabric that reduce water dragon competitive swimwear, suggests an analogous possibility in arch tecture, allowing for the incorporation of extreme yet codependent regimes of scale and organization. Confronting such a model wold among other things, serve to address the apparent paradoxofthe global and the local occupying the same space. hin the same ons Microscopic organization affects performance without necessarily affecting form. Laser cutting microperforations on wing ‘material radically enhances wing performance. Tor Swimwear Fabric with Mik rogrooves ith Mica POPTOM Lier Mi *OTTOM nigiep Macroscopic Pertrmanes an28 Interdisciplinary Excha, Nge Science is not always the sot 5 ‘ Source of transdisciny; Sometimes there isa flip. Henri Bergeon au et xchange, instance, prefigures Bernhard Riemans Working, uel fo lat lematic, atenow serving as the model for cell membrena tn modes of thought in architecture might indong ae understanding the universal.” ” This opens a tremendous Opportunity for growth within: the discipline of architecture. Architecture will always be a defective represenatin of other disciplines, hence the exhaustion of architecture that base, itself, for example, on cinema and literature, But there are modes that exist that are as useful to the film director in the disciplineaf film-making as to the architect in the discipline of architecture. i grate between This suggests that the same conceptual models can migrate disciplines, where they are instantiated within the conditionsand limits inherent in those disciplines.West Side Convergence Competition Entry New York, New York, 1999 REISER + UMEMOTO |With the advent of new models for organization, changed compa) of geometry and geometry’s relation to matter, and new conti of universal space, a thoroughgoing reevaluation of the moleie models for structuring space and the execution and deliveryoiah systems is possible. Non-repetitive tiling, fractal geometric bh ing systems, and unstructured grids are among the new geomet, available for use. eodetics isonet ‘The geometric and structural system known as geodet direction we have explored. Popularized by R. Buckminse and his followers as an architectural and urbanistic pane presently encountered in the occasional fairground eo nillitary installation, usually in the form of adore ‘ics have become detached from their utopian Pro ye history has unfortunately obscured a prior oe inne a "open set of possibilities in the field of descr neta aeronautics. ra deat woof gundosics Ful ety on wo TINS: 3 remisphere, and selfs reusion and homogenel 133 MATTER ‘s special case use of the geodetic) ‘deal global geometry in the form of a snilarity ofall modules, The result: extreme ity--even a door s difficult to accomodate. This geodetic structure modifies in two different ways: the taper causes ‘gular reticulations to compress at the wing tips while remaining strictly {#odetic geometries, and focal branching allows the reticulations at tho leading and trailing edge of the wing to close around the geometry. or Yoram pj *ssentialized Diagram of Geodesics: The Fuller Dome ating Geodetic Structure: Wing ofthe Wellington BomberMATTER nt of non-standard eover, the advel difficulties jyrations. Mor 1 .s obviated the technical ‘ io pa fa yer employment nds many properties and detics one fi detics falls between ent of ge0 tionally, 260% ty and operat le set of fram. . ae Sea eerie systems: the skeletal ‘model (structure and skin) and agrees durability is du structure ther gntneittesetag | metural skin mode] 25 3 ‘monocoque construction. In an i = eee ue, in par, tothe e 5 edreading, howeves geodetics acts as 2 structural tissue or stresses are simply > if some portior i intermediate structure that would assemble heterogeneous Therefore, one ly rerouted mn of the stm i : loan suythet adic toe stTctureis agglomerations of space, program, and path. Moreover, geodetics is spatial-structural pecs , in distinction toning mee, protean in the sense that the structure has the capability of changing nonessential. , geodetics is convent aa alaptng to the space that it develops in anumber of ways: by structurally diffuse or _ thefineness or coarseness ofits reticulations; by growing trmutplying the number of struts OF CrOSSOVETS; by mimicking scfces of, for example, conventional i Sess structures into or onto which ab econ technol anomaly—a short-li logy, geodetics Hattended i picbveary ieee iisprojced; or by changi geodetics incremig omaed aes gee jofan | that itcaries. sing by degrees the type of infill or skinni i “geese -skin eon skinning cies of aircraft tile system that coul. construction. cies conga. uld conform to theintice Acknelancepton pace asa 3 ale bt ht ei aiulyeaets eae co este a aeuncatiliyined field has thus occasioned each. heat nceprited epecial di becameahighy | span sive systems. No k ployment, of theseonce | strut. 2 ‘dies and hand-bending jigs!" pith spt Nola ta mae mn : : dbp Harahan139 MArTER igh a sy 7 g event togivea Sellowed by the elaboration of a local nonlinear detail whi the periodicity, Brian Good: Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Scienceand Vimua The least action principle as described by Manuel DeLandat the geometry of the geodetic, in that, defined by the over a curve, geodetics will allow for the most efficent tan of forces with this maiaiosl nce ott of moving within this ic. The first is by essentializing the SR Buckminster ll din depen This isa way of optimizing the system. Itprecludesan) PRT a from the , any novelty or: jt cutter nder ay nso nh outside. It results in a static conception of geodetO and inextricably linked to pure forms withthe and optimized geometry. ‘The Great Red Spot, jupiterThe other way to move Within this lopic Seometries need not be developed with, ideality but must be conceived’, Devia tions from the geodetic, for example, are Not failures in, ay. peering logic or irrational expression under theme, pact represent emergent patterns of order that are thereon different material ‘traits operating in the system at Once—the resp lution of forces at different scales of ‘matter. Thus, in the dynamic | interplay of geometry, materials, and forces at ultiplscae o, lease action principle governs even the deviation, be minimal is to enable i | enough to index force yet maximal enoug! ian | sBipespent organizations to arise it should boosie i : ‘nor as over-coded marrer Generic Geodesic Dome: iagram of an ideal Geometrysystems like spacetra foreign organization is hi Mf Bresence. like astone ina flow of wane er boundary organization at once field, such that even if the foreign Imes. An associ “included” in the145 E a insist *actlAnexact-yer.p: (hn Ye™Rigoroug i | | | | ji i mu) i Superimposition structure ll uri We Edmund Husserl speaks of a protogeomet try that address other words vagabond or nomadic, morphologic nea ‘essences are distinct from sensible things as wellasfom a royal, or imperial essences. Protogeometry, the scence deig with them, is itself vague, in the etymological sense of vib it is neither inexact like sensitive things nor exac teed essences, but anexact yet rigorous (“essentially bu not ac: dentally inexact”). The circle is an organic, idea fined eer but roundness isa vague and fluent sence, isin thfon thecircle and thing that are round (avase, wheel th 384 theorematic figure is afxed essence, bits transformations tortions, ablations, and augmentation, al ofits arsion problematic figures that are vague yet rigorous, “lens Mt form” or “indented.” It could be said that vague! “umbelliform” or ‘ is more than thing Lea devon : mn that is more pe ineolation appear extract from things a determination th (corporéit) am ‘Whe eroneous or accidents, 3 "A Donoment New Museum of Contemporary ArtThe anexact is and the inexac model. In the ane: establishes its merely a less pre, 0.4 materia direct index of force: alters intensity. Rather than s, fore Correct (exact) or incorrect calculus of forces and exact, the the anexact field Institutionalizing this behavior then becomes 4 problem in sig organization, since it does not lend itself to fixed lawsanegny state of flux runs up against all of the systems society has in pheey See construction through. The anexact thus emerges asacilgays @ consequence of the shift away from both idealist and essenait conceptions of matter and geometry toward a geometry thit sina tricably linked to a spatial field that is material, It is interesting that the classical form/matter duality persists in the architected modernism both as a fundamental philosophical conc , and in the way design arrives in the social field, For the igo fox abl hard division between sovere ; vision of labor betwee rising, therefore tit ermists WOH ra, nei per passive matter enforces a corresponding di t sup) conception and construction. It is no} beyond form/matter the mode lacking any paradigm bey ace be view as, at best, a temporary if necessal be se practices that navigate the singularities a i ronal craft. Such work would be viewed as excess an rnament), and eck nomically, graditlon on qualita {om ‘and veneralization both quantitatively = Sl | iy U WN i A on a Nt Waa MTT HT ; HINESS NSS ico Neon, While the new models of Production can, thr thelr socially liberating et thence Unde the degrees of freedom avsilae 1 the designe Shae inna to their productions. Virtual} of thet PI Y every facet of 1 PY enna cluding the spectrum of material properties an 3! an this Parametric field. Moreover nr Pater See tot Only atthe scaleofthe mane Pa fro derived but can migrate into radically different scale hing the macroscopic, and will operate not as epresentations inant ture but as organizing principles for architecrane 149 ren mar AEUECTS croRY eS FA Limost ‘ees such as those in a Limoges cup, which are not catastrophic facta fom perfection, impart a certain animus to the object that "aug Sites simply do nat contain. Three-star restauranee on Paris "ould end these strat tothe trash bin, if they ever made it that f We seek them out, ‘The tnexacti 4 Mod 5 as the solution to physical problems, eaten es he mum energy is extended to perform agiven maiscap csp cna maxima are brought together in states of economy, as forecny the engineering problem solved by a maximum spanithage ‘materials. The calculus of variations is the branch: cao that deals with these kinds of | relationships, the method devised) Joseph-Louis Lagrange to find the change caused in an expression containing any number of variables when one ltsallorany ix variables change. While such solutions are resolved thought definition and interaction of variables fed into an equation cu cedures often follow an inverse logic that employs physial set in advance of any definitive quantitative deter ing with calculus in the tradition of the bootstrap mei includes Joseph Plateau's mid-nineteenth-centr 0 a film structures in physical models that predated 0 77 ple : ions involved in calculating the st yh area with a given boundary that were 38) it 1931. Within this way of thinking, the Phy® cy, ical experimen! 15% pune ARCHITECTURE qarennfy ASPRINCIPLE | cone as te seomery oe vatenary falls inside the at brite ig sound, The itor te arte gt physical prin eric nepucTIVE | intrinsic PRODUCTIVE EXTRINSIC cue AS MATERIAL Teerhiseniaont GAUO/'S GRAVITY FIELD ARCH AS SIGNAGE The catenary principle is used sulting. Tonsprniple an todotermine ston ‘seiangloge, overly ‘This kind of calculation ‘ebuctve force of gravity, which is scalable, but does not take Into account lateral forcos in materials, which are not,a ae hereas Plate ral : Principle, lateau' a inciple, we Sex ag In thi, nse the phy Ursuea ren Be lea eral sic oluti Parameters of the moe Model ac ee ama are gi tative) the elemen: ts produc Produces something new any itera. Wik n Tact th nd unforeseen ety diagram, could be used i or of weight and mass orale reesei or of weight and mass, or of potential energy ctc Teguise ofthis lity of the diagram are most fruital venom inversions, combinations and alterationsare intial ingle ieve specific effects within the general range of optimization sought in the properties the diagram defines. Our interest in flexible systems led us to an experiment with analog model for structure: the mitigated catenary model. Aste catenary will only display gravity loads. It is necessary tocros? threshold of quantity and interconnection in mulipe dimes in order to register more complex forces. The three dimenso catenary model is effected not only by gravity butby =e ‘of forces, linked to one another. ae ‘nour design for a music theater n Graz, weutliteh ST ie that culated the effets of amltidiensi gat ae _ Itwas hoped that that emulation W2 153, MATTER i to ver, when we presented this mode es sl ys mpdel would be more Precise, wit he Sus . “el similar tothe catenary models devel- i gell, where catensaries and funic- a enterlines for vaulting. We Pet ‘could be adapted not only to ‘nded to a multi dimensional ther than the pure direction chains to establish wild a m0% ae tai for Colon establish the emefinding techniqu field but could be exte in directions o ‘dosely spaced groups of cha the vaulting and systematically began to aa + and to pull them in directions that ia he sight gravity field What was fascinating was se an threshold of quantity and force the linked eatenary tas pel int a form tat closely resembled the earlier com- renolel Therewas, however a decided difference between the Pron and the indexical model: Not only was it a rigorous index sfanuurl logics in play but the actual force field on the model diglayeda coordinated elegance, a beauty, that the emulation lacked. 2yconparison the emulation model appeared lax and lifeless, not slciptat bodies we se today designed with the same ory, Serer is = example of material computation, Sd each essving through feedback multidmen- ae field of strands and weights. It forces asa calculus of multiple i lus of multiple influences. sigs were Bu uli js avi forces move afgavid ‘We then hung epghapproximation O shose catenaries togethe! Inked theres ip structural analysis software that wi i agit n aia this process. However, Soe vita s of material systems will, a ‘han the M98 Benerate ri oe an ae thro fate richer and more si eo Sroshea pene etved from them will or the analog in ce i — ae experimentatiiREISER + UMEMOTO BMW Event and Delivery Ce Munich, Germany, 200% ater competition EMHining systemic coherence throughout. is through ‘Practice that this work operates as a form of critical history, becaue itopens up once solidified models to broader ‘interpretation and, even more importantly, application. : : The insight in our BMW Munich project was that structural 9s = are in fact not discrete models but can be grouped along count The initial condition of the design postulated the randoms cea system tha could be manips ah BeeSystem in regions of shor ure co ute Could be transformed into one-way i 70h, Pr roadways) as boundaries and a a stems nt ans n thar er span. Lik, Moment of purity within fin at 4 continuum, f change ra ‘ough Possessing unique stru, as aha tural character sshavariable space historically have hoe ee with other lees Sethe ces of working with sre ver) pe ee wren 288cited with the more mong asg ose xy eerent inthe eee and different, from traditional role of the structers} oe ton ae oe orb ei ating such an assembly m he J the span ithin which Pe tomer ant Ee aut and node. Build seta, span (or the clearing) within which Space would bere es em encetin of pe ee systems rf ion. Na : ist models of mass-production. parametric designs st ot the variability ofa thick set of paran ae ae sfériliogf thenodes, the diameter of & tid thelengh ofthe strut. The task of constructing these = eaisfitated by mass customizing the fabrication process an ssizinga sophisticated parcel tracking system, which allows unique 1erstbe delivered to the right place at the right time. within a new paradigm of continuous vaan structure, while large in scale, has the patos ae ‘ mulgate local and global organizations within its mae Although the space frame is technically precise snd arg tee Promotes structural homogeneity nor ‘imposes universaliing spat Qualities. More than a proposal for extending an uninlatesces throughout the world, it is the comprehension ofthe floes world as a field of ubiquitous difference, At the level of a literal fabric—a piece of Issey Miyake cng instance—new qualities flow out of the interaction betweens#o™ ric model and the behavior of materials on the geomet. To woven ona grid with uniform tension on the warp an A ‘ then removed from the geometrical frame to produce ‘i inthe field.160 POST-FORDIST IMPLEMENTATION The technology of mass customization is already a wet establish process. Inas much as most architecture is not buile ™onolithicay buts comprised of repetitive elements, we take the pos” that” tscesonization only relevant when the custom cen massed together than deployed as discrete clement they release an unprecedented richness in assemblies thar ayes BS ditionally have required thousands of pieces. The shee, quantitating Variation of such assemblies releases vast qualitative west This distinguishes mass-customization of architectural elements fom the mass-customization of consumer elements, which ae deployed and spread individually as discrete products. Mase, assemblies, rather, are not geared toward a single user or group of users but gan their meaning through universality, 161 MATTER ut <= ect cacncomporat oth ht ces he i pore! tracking systom @oce (ode Syste: nies ote Bal Node Sater eng faa and bares su Fabrication. prarne System: An Example of Mass Custom ‘The Mero Space |_ Zaa Oe isis arguably hat which i chievable : that the history he same building me, that accident examples of t Jevenat the same th are garrulo Straight dow contra: i ili oe such Perceived stabilities as program—in additiontobeny ly out of the architect's sphere of ontrl-areatr at More transient. G ‘The ambient, like any material effect, influences meaning adit pretation but does not determine it and is not affected by it Anti ‘once gave the example of the Israelites coming to Mt. Sinalin of receiving the Ten Commandments. Seeing the mountain ttt with signs and wonders, they knew that something was but were not clear as to what. All that was for certain was! thing elemental and intense was happening. Some oP confusion, and still others waited in}ways, Notably, lyrics do correlate to music in certai rhythm, rhyme, etc., but not atthe le of meaning. Programs correlate to architecture yi a38 Operating undera Surfeit of Ing nfo) ation Architects work with matter like a chef who mana e BES the com Plex emistry very preci knowing the science of ae ane doce need to know how an ovalbumen protei, coagulates nonin asuperior omelet. Architects, too,areinlargepae fe myeeenl Processes they do not, and cannot, fully comprehend, Ignorance of science does not necessarily mean ignorance of materi, process centuries of sophisticated material practices thatprelanenn science bear this out A material practice like cooking requires operating inanenvior ment with a surfeit of information. Coordination of this information takes place at a speed and quantity beyond that cae yet it can be managed with exquisite precision. Mucl nf ee perform in our own bodies and (thankfully) have sone ae regulate their physiology, knowledge of exact one arguably, uncertain. The management of material p an entirely different level. Raw Ege Ovalbumin Cooking Egeao one RATING SNPURA Sung 1 i MO The history of archit the result of novel outmoded science, Historian Rudolf Wittkower,j n Architect Humanism, gives as an ample Andrea pain os ena attributing aieet™Posed pediments tg the Panth a istorical legitimacy to hig abstpassed Venctisny hes realm of painting, Georges Seurat's use sequen dy theory ofthe physiology of cola established Pena s rae 8, Giorgio Maggiore aii MRedentore an silty History, Great Arch aWith an unde: =rstanding of asignit new roleandsetofpesibiites ies ‘oder architecture foregrounde ae rchitecture was unders is both historical nit ‘material Signifiers, a materials typically Sree ‘ern is “material alse ee the dominant itaveryli @ very limited deployment of mater to signif ign s = modern post ism,’ nec i Signification is the, ee distinguish, inderlying oP sign. Essentially fying ee ri) y than being linguists ne Sian in ay Or condition, itis the changing ox tnanarchites inprocess anc arealready evi color may be openatiNe i ceiar forexample, the tolmaker understands that the ce Psclrs from light straw to deep purpleis an indexof ‘aw indicates hard and brittle, good for cutting indicates flexible and resilient, good for springs. idation color is an indicator of hardness and of Tho sls changing crystalline structure display of properties thencies The possibility of becoming aknife ora springis tent but requites the action ofthe tookmaker to come about. utes pet spe erties: Light st re deep purple i -ctural context, asignifying signs operate in two ways: «din product or effect. In some sense these modalities dent in the above example of the steel. The bloom of cused as an end in itself, in which case itis operating effectively, or may be used as a guide for further material unfoldings, inwhich case itis taken up in process. This is in itself a type of reading, but rather than passing judgment and asking whata thing is, which has been the dominant mode of questioning in contemporary practice from approaches as divergent deconstructionism and critical practice, sign doesn’t immediately fix the process in terms of rather leaves itopen. Thei ashistoricist postmodernism, the use of theasignifying fa definition but jr tracking guides an unfolding. The use kes possible axicher product, a vastly rmes and effects, as it promotes the ther than representing the known. of asignifying signs also mal expanded set of material outeo production of the unforeseen ral ice actually stops process because itis judg ‘th stability rather than unfolding, and relies on snide semonte criteria thatare generally separate fom material processes. Anarchitecture that has to explain itself oF beexplained, pioeradap present its ow qualities Iesetsupaconventonal telatignohip between material organization and reference, Ther aaa similarity in the gap between essentialist geometries matter “and matter's relationship to signification. Ameaning-based pi mental, concerned wil4 Intense archi itectural effe tectural effects, rathe may be freely interpreted, ew cee of historical ormaterial signifier lal signification coy ying Basi adictory wa ecoming by aoe Out of how ne tit Be. We e: ing away from, Be. We espouse ah; from, +8 poignant architecture th highly specifi nating lean any one thing at displays certain gd 7 in quali lt process of architectural b into transcendent langua organization, t but does not PLAY 'Y OF SIGNIFIERS: Post ogy RN Semantics Syntactics PLAY OF, MATERIAL SIGMIFIERS: MODERN post move RN, 40 Moving in the Gradient Field ctureis applicable to sev mes da not. The log in agreement notion oflogic in archite we ahich sometimes coincide and somet metry, isnot necessarily Oe . function ofthe ‘nye with its need for balance and sy atthe logicof structure, which in turns not thelogic of Pure rocllon, The Life of Forms in Art intellect Fe Gradient fields, such as the oxidation bloom on steel mentioned previously, or, even more pertinent to the architect the force fields ae cuctural analysis programs, have conventionally een used by engineers to track stresses with the goal of optimizing Structural economy and efficiency. This has been characterized as the drive to get the forces out of the building a5 quickly as possible. the eo ee intercated in force delay, Geto and PEE) gation—in short, an architectural elabora of the force field. ‘This elaboration foregoes the ‘optimal path predicted’ in classical staties in favor of the burgeoning, searching line of variation offorces in the matter field Seeking the maximum span with minimum material, the optimizing ogic that engineering | upon is teleological, oriented toward solving only one problem. ‘Apure engineering logic corresponds perhaps 100 closely 10 the ing of an argument. TiS indifferent synthesis ignores the whole range of transformations ‘of which matter is capable and towhich pure logic is oblivious. 1) optimize to one s sue ince, and the structure suc, Ctive deviations fron Plex universe, Lueretian physics. This approach: butisnotreduci any vector, however much i oe ema d, itis lessa question one projects geometry into ey of the in optimizatioy imposition of a preset terplay between the OPERATING tecture deals with assembled materials rather than it must be prepared in such a way to maximize the rev effects. This requires thatthe field operate under ‘ufficient quantity of elements, connectivity, and a ‘These are the constituents of fineness. je most archi matter i ria: ose range of scale. three crite rebtivelylist Expression Forces Constrained Bridge Reduced to Discrete Components Essenti Material Practice: Marovia Sign Correlating Elects Heat Tempered Metal eacertain Symerom42 Migration ofa Pattern Our project fora lattice Pattern of non-represe decoration, which conformed to biblical Worship of graven images. it emerged in descriptio Temple in the book of Ezekiel and entered arch Such treatises as the Exechiclem Ex Villalpando of 1596 and canopy for a tational (vegetal, ra Bogue began, ther than anthy Prohibitions ap, Traits, while they reference. ‘Past models, are not wed to any partic. Ula historical example. Any historical architecture is the Product ofa temporally specific Sonstellation of forces, conditions, and will. tasnftonting anew design, sve Put aside the history and regard the project as Petia case of geometrical and material traits that Seni aner cone of forces defined by evolving ‘Material and social Tealities, Considering lineages as traits eaves IRE expansion Keeps models ative rather than solid: ‘Sing them as histor that are resistant to shyage alts Qn and connect to precedents wi jout being ed by them, z eo juan Bautista Temple, from of ae jem Explanationes 183MicRarr ION OF vary ERN OPERATING 185, CONGREGATION ‘Mouse Committee 4 Historic Preservation [CPI UNusye Friends of “ Te py Comma pa bPt West Se ha Failed Phylogenetic Departure areal Tics ‘Seale/Function/Casaiieation iwstiTuTiON oreaton ro Dom Se ~K Taargtcadeny Arca of Co: ore Frwar Flow Failed Phylogenetic A Departure: Matoral (MATERIAL PLANE dé , wt edney —Panar Tovey _ Func Toons43 Emergent Structures Traits can be seen as working i; codification and the variabilgy of tween the fixity of histori must negoti of materials and for neal egotiate between the project, of mater-force design "itt ee design, which iscalleda variance. Indeed, in era 2 form of variability is structur. i systems of codification, though its tendency is shea siecaetsgr along for novelty. We do not oe ae eee u® We Propose a working model which codes; Variance, in which they become OPERATING 187 ‘the critical dimension of architecture challenges the cadenot through transgression but through effectively operating between definitions tvithin the code itself. Codes are created for stable models of archi- tecture, designed around the idea, for example, that a canopy isa canopy and a marquee is a marquee. Codes are essentially separate from generative design processes of materialist practice. While codes serve as an invisible limit, they are notin themselves generative, merative capacity of architecture has critical effect in that it breaks down the stable definitions prescribed by the codes. This is accomplished when design practice extends the range ofa legal definition, changing the code such that it comes to include new variations. may, Incertain special cases, the geBeographer and physiol assertion that necessity find, is often the catalys PERATING 189 the Dying? ecording the Last Words lecording Books for Blind People to Hear? ‘Announcing Clock Time? Teaching Spell ‘Mass Distribution of Popular Music Edison's Phonograph: Invention Awaiting Applicationthe difficult lookess ny, icult and rn eros based endear which is simply nor dif ifficult, This wa S Way of und, traditional proces ein ct 8 fe = also associated with vario , i Edens they es 50 ‘searching for ae ee ae ‘ough hundreds of pi get ae Bocesss of folding admiring 3 ics. All stone: < is -s are formed by a yee cance ot Process alone in no ie aman Dare ilezones so Bardeen inividuations ike 5, not satisfied by just any ch for gost search will—the style of 8 tt f rales, 549-0 jad somnetss discrimination es jemaniest 191 _in the choosing of alient or intense piece. a individuation is themost § hese impersor: anactol Ps mension central to instance, the structures and hing: there are innumerable ‘pad rocks. Selection and yy material system. sion, interestingly, remain a dit f style. In poetry, for arantee not are innumerable J to working within ar intuit fa sonnet, Bu just as there n are crucial ome rocks have 8 sve. evensOrigin doesn’t mean i Those are entirely different subjects ¥Y Gould, The Pattem OF Lifes Roteleology toward iMprovement; there is simply difference that may ‘Ptation overturns the assumption that the origin ensures an indelible trait.? Conventional design methodologies will typically be based ona top- SoH logics concepts and Beals will be established at the outset, even before act; i wo tual design starts. The emergence of secondary elements ae Project under this Fegime can only be seen either as faults A be SOUSEPE OK stakes to besliminncn from the final product ‘ike the excessive functionality” of Pierre Chareau’s Maison de deste these emergent fear ; yfthe is Pena aay from considerations o OMiDsloward 3 celebration oftheir own mechanisms. 195 the product. ith p successful cerned with pro rather, on eit icon apitaliz idetick Was eure should PT herence. That geo che ks ove acl sed asi evant to its is irrelevant f'a weapon of war fens eerie eh context o ing such syste 7 2 Moped in the c t iia canals hada aed elope fe tt detil effects. rae could be exploited fo ie jrorigins, fy thelr potential197 OPERATING 47 Pevolutionary Architecture Goose Becomes Foie Gras. jaboko. mes Kami shark Beco BE Of vehicy igh the selection ‘snot being completely honest a interestin performance would sic ‘Questions of form and aesthetics Refinement, or elaboration of but these are not. always performance bi the selection, than the performance, are what ae ultimately ‘Most interesting and, in a way, more applicable and more opento ae hit ‘conception of performance, rae ingle optimizing logic. Purposes in architecture are manifo i depend ona wide _ nee of practices of the users, which is completely spent fomthepeson afte Pilot or driver of a satlg whine ‘atguabl and coe tts ss Sight of the inc form: arp coer and desert actor Pute performance, interests, beca 'e-step, or at least is concerned not with that Des naiiealte take : indeath EaLe Corbusier makes the argument that Posin, Fenultsin a successfil solution ot” withing. Fa nuard. Rather than secking a fnct Solution, arch, farasuse is concemed, bears, Probabilistic retanin® intentions, Selection pressures indeed work on the animals that bee androvidea greater or lesser eqn of articulation of & Soashatk, which isgo percent mec Ie Percent fat, represent two very different types of before it is ‘slaughtered, and the shark, afterward. Le Corbusier's evolution jigument assumes the constant refinngof type as the consequence of the selection pressures of design. In fact, oe _cPPosite may be said to be true. To take another example from aviation: The optimal typically arrives fairly early in “evolution ofa type and is gencrally associated with doing or per saw fimction well Selection pressinerns asia 9pically must contend with production ircrafi 'is rarely taken out of production as demands, simply because it is too costly eee 1995PEVOLUTIONARy ARcnty Ina curious way, t the devolution bomber parallels certain conten, While Allied air cr rews Were distriby isolation, Luftwaffe ‘command it of the gh, Aswith glass architecture, however, the Issues attending x de, Panne eney were far from clear atthe outsce Test pilot Capi tamsateount of ight testing acaptonct Heinkel illustrane sue. He notes that the extensive ‘lazing of the nose see didindeed provide “superlative views £ the crew, extreme ‘was only possible under very tion however this ig rainstorms te i the development ink up his seat so thathis WWI tt 2? of the bomber, thus reducing the “Sraaircraft to that of a WW/-era aircraft wit ‘of speed and maneuverability that pilot ly, rain would pour into the cockpit spattom of the airplane and wreaking havos with ni 2 ‘transparency from the political to illy phen, ee ‘of successes,' range between the ‘maximizing of structures ple of such individual election is the Hughes goer Seer known asthe Spruce Goose Teams Were pH othe woods ofthe United States and Canada to find for specific parts ofthe plane.” The Hk was designed li pe invarant codes of aluminum but withthe variant wi oof specifi and unique tats in actual material Sich Peign cannot be looked atin general. ‘Though the Spruce Goose $2 tare avast ater than 26a flerin aviation, twas rmitigated tectonic SUCCESS siteril science promises to bridge the gap between natural Magnan standardization through non-standard materials, the ye and performance of which can be manipulated even within tcnber according to specific requirements. This will liberate modernity’s homogeneity and paradoxically singlem: practices suchas the traits of steel from return them to the heterogeneity of traditional: sword-making‘STEEL VERSION WITH ‘TRANSVERSE ELEMENTS phylogenetic Shit: Our client ind: ‘cates that the Wfespan of wooden ‘ridge under the environmental ‘conditions on site would only be six years, Fritless effort! ‘We suggest a change in materials ‘A formal improvement, but mombers are still oo heavy [STEEL VERSION WITH NO ‘TRANSVERSE ELEMENTS ‘Aformal improvement, but members are still to heavy ‘Asa remedy we suggest turning ‘all membors 90 degrees. Our ‘engineers compliment us on & rational move. Bridge becomes ‘vansparent in elevation, yes, Ut (CRAFTED MODEL: DOUBLE LAYER GRID SHELL ‘Visual lightness is achieved ‘by pairing two lighter members ‘member. Paradoxical return to the spirit af the original competition model s achieved:49 Classicism without Models The historian and the critic look at sets of ex; amples and the todefinea lineage from them, The designer et : Seeks not somuck Freitas to drivea project toward an essent,] solu ry nor the mechanics of. ‘swing. When, ‘with something new, he or she can already Seif something iswrong or right with, comparing it toa prior ‘Model series. The object's values are ‘immediately f ropes ind otcover not merely the idesyrceaionn x ‘Tesponses, oDelta an example ofa designed objet ion and form that charac on 'and snaps into a Michelangelo-esque n becomes, ovens ATINGopERATING 50 ane 3 E tomaintain soccurin order jecti ‘ itchbacks oc safely. In war Projecting Force ¢amountainside, °° 3s of vehicles to travel sey me ofa certain typ systet a serene necessay Groperations are see envelope are at ng, theaters OF OPEL Ot sain ope ining NE gystems with a ravironment with its own limits and resistances. i et in architecture) ‘ t tories and in architect | oer ev mminence i he iro nds of negotiations are | jsan equal shen different produce | e1e sa ea nly met whe! other systems, P! jal that is only rrojected onto other s ion of the | i a Es . jotential stems, Proj jals in the interaction Inhis “On Painting, *hePoct and critic Paul Valery writes, eatere into Mee se of new potentials in t - 4 7d. Itis in ‘Man lives and moves in what he sees, ae but he only sees what he Eun to see. Try diferent types of people in the mide ofany landscape. philosopher will only vaguely see ‘phenomena:a seologist, ergtalized, confused, ruined and pulveriont epochs; q soldier, opportunities, and obstacles; and for a Peasant it will only eth gts and perspiration and profits but all of them il ‘havethisin common, that they will see nothing as simply a view Bp clita landscpesare auch hep Of projections they are of interpretation, The individuals mentioned ‘Project: only their own particular techniques of seing ic their professions onto the landscape, Each techniques and technologies instrumentally on ‘the ‘in turn reveals the precise limits Indeed, it can be argued that there is nothing .dge of performance th at novelty emerges: two atthe e51 Architecture ys, War The theater of war, like that of Politics or physics, comprises a tension between forces that erode coherence (entropy) and forces thatare seeking to maintain it. The forces that prevail in Wartime are those that stayin order the longest. tis with, the unfolding Telationship between order and disorder that the battle itself takes place. parsk lelto this unfolding balance between order and disorder exists in architecture, a theater that does not consider battle to be a means to anend but considers the battle, and Specifically the field of battle, a¢ amend in itsele Modernism, in resisting difference, pushes forward the military mode of coherence toa homogenous regimen. In challenging modernism, Wedo not advocate disorder, Rather, we recognize that ordet can cana Et Ott of different elements acting with a similar purpose, or Out of similar elements acting differentlythe same place (summer) atic progression. Locally, the surfer isenga, Pursuit of stasis ina dynamic field, riding the wave omad on the steppes stays still relative the green Scape, by moving at the speed of annual climatic fly areriding a wave of green. The endless summeris a 8 in sequencg '8ed in anothe, Similarly, the ing of the lang ictuation they global pursuit TANZANIA we nomad remains, jomad doesn't moves Th eee to the gradient of gt yt tationary with rose sngeti Nomad Migratory Patterns Sere!——- eraphic: * architectur : phic representation of data ro4 i link be not indexical a excl butare bases aS tor Such eye aa ‘such not as spec ; Scan vention should not bea am. The accident 54 The Abuse of Data: Map/Territory Confusion Je: “what isitin the tert: territory andas! getontothe pack to the map and the: hemap?” Weknow the territory doesnot ict ihe central point dbour which We here are all agreed. Now, eter wereunifO7 nothing would get ontothe map except ts oa pichare te points at which iceases £9 Pe uniform against berger matrix. What gets onto the map, in fact, i difference, beita rence ofa adference of vegetation difference in population are difference of surface, or whatever: Differences 0° the things that gout the map... dfernce ther isan abstract matter. — Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind ase that gts ont Under pressure to justify themselves, the datascapists apse into the arroroffalse concreteness and thus confuse process with product. Se uggest that the data that informs, for instance diagram of estoy dynamics is televant tothe structural diagram ofthe roof of weather station, simply by virtue of their mutual but conventional usoriation to weather, is an unfortunate consequence of design in the semantic mode. [Atypical misuse of the datascape is as aform generating device. Essel the content that isbeing graphed justifies the use ofthe form asa means of producing architectural form. In fact, the graph bears only relationship to the content that itisTHE ABUSE OF Dar, Braphing and could take any number of formg haveany necessary formal relationship with the. lapses in logic derive from anxiety to previa form. defining ; ‘a range of difference. Like the ‘of content onto the same map, thereis difference.” This di » Mone of whig the architects le thematic ju a potential in ‘that makes a is difference is not automatically Fidgmeane sn nbefetareofthemap bust He: Such tification result of value 29 vorD Won ERRORS TO . com ‘Annual Rainfall at Project Site ‘Average Ann ~~ Annual Rainfall in Succ ‘nverageTdo not think that there i absolutely liberating. Liberty Perhaps there are some, where liberty | Find that itis not owing to the order Practice of liberty, ind apace ang ctively practiced, one would of objects, but once again, ong oy interview withP Rabin, | Misittesponsible to assume that architecture can affect such things tices and are only achievablest from convention this must hold true. The agreement we share asa Society that when we walk into the office we will work is convention; thereis certainly no power within the realm of architecture to compa such allegiance. When we create institutions for positive effects, they are certainly augmented and amplified by architecture, but arch- tecture will never ensure their success or failure. Michel Foucault asks whether architecture can generate gee | Pentenat gt finds the ansverto eno liberty isan se Practice of human conduct, then matter is indifferent to Ht am Ponca monastery can be tured into. prso™ school ayant We ele it would be impossible to props {ihoolthat was so specific to the program of schoo!” thatit fees bei ‘to use asa prison. eeeTHE ABUSE OF 31), UstoRy The politics related thea to the the actors that are Bre i of build flow Yetitisa eee critical historians, the way colors or condemns the space ar. military when the tecin. re applied to benign uses, Conversely ly, and contrary to the stance of {ssiolgyasesently ori of navigatii r irreve «Biles of navigating smooth Deahly betwe een process and product inthe dt Bees bier or political conditions ; ee an is conventional, or language 56 The Abuse of the Diagram: Exhaustion anyone organizational model has limits. The ambition to car‘y & diagam through ll evels of @ single architectural project is etiaus- allaspects of lagi reductive. To have one model determine designs to simplify what isin reality a richer, more heterogeneous, complet. A trae multiplicity requires that many different models qarmedinated A single model relentlessly deployed atall scales emergesas merely formal. inconventional practice, for example, the overall spatial diagram doesnt dictate the layout ofthe toilets. The application ofess conven- tional models doubly requires that the appropriate Limits of function- ality be observed. It is in the interest jof neither the overall diagram nor the organization of specific functions that a single model would be Fe rte au of aera adel within andere a rriee nuanced and productive mode of operation» fosters necessi- Transitions and the novelty that they Promote. tating and incorporating | A hie f t 4 4 cae aaa nar os _petentoss use ofthe same form at all scales without a vlue judgement oad 1 exhaustion,57 The Abuse of Logic: Confusing Time and Effect The generating processes of architecture are commonly co with its eventual Product and effects. This isin facta logical fa What Bateson calls an error in logical typing. iss, Time of formation must Mountains work on the rees that generate a mountain tange do indeed influence the ‘of weather that move over them indirectly, the one does not justification for or meaning to the other. The form of the 'its formation, is what is relevant to the atmosphere. Material flows ave continuous, but D 25 OMMON ERRORS TO AVOID ‘Atmospheric Process ‘Atmospheric Effects their speeds can be radically different,58 The Typologist’s 5 ror [For the typologist, there] ar “ideas” underlying the o (idea) being the only thing th variability has no more realit re a limite: numberof fixed, unchangaty lity [in nature), with theeidg nd real, while the observed than the shadows of « object ona cave wall... [In contrast] the populationist stresses th 3 everything in the organic world... A] or mena are composed of unique features and can be described collectively Only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entice Jorm populations of which we can determine the arithmetic mean ad the statistics of variation. Averages are merely statistical abstractions, Only the individuals of which the populations are composed have reality Theultimate conclusions of the population thinker and the typologist are ‘Precisely the opposite. For the typologist the type (eidos) is real and the vanation anillusion, while for the populationist, the type (the average) isan abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking atnature could be more different. lesophy ~Bmst Mayer, in Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosop e uniqueness of sms and organic pheno. sop The View ofthe Typologist ‘The View of the Populationist norrom59 A Parable for Our Time Ina society within which everything has been reduced tp media driven representation, the only thing left to believe in ig physical Pain. The protagonists of Fight Club have to meet in smal groups and bebesten to pulp in order tofec alive. Pain isthe only thing thats teal, and the only medium through which to exercise free wil Theretun to material effects in architecture parallels this thief thereal Effectiveness sidesteps the interpretive space of history, context, and representation in an effort to sce and feel things for What they do rather than what they mean Thelye sequence: In order to endure pain the narr byhis alter ego to go out of his body in order to One could parallel the desires in Fight Club with phenomenology—the desireto have everything grounded within the body and within @2Perience: Such an understanding holds that architecture is rooted initreducible notions of the body and identity. The end of the movie, in fact, splits this notion pen again to reveal that identity is ambiguous. ‘Theres finally no clear boundary between the narrator and his alter 80, yet their acts, and the consequences of those, are decidedly unambiguous, ator is being urged get closer intoitThese acts culmir ‘ (here dubbed “pe 84 Missi esd rays ng Piseof corporates he «at Boes by Fight ciy accomplished by taki and turning it into. taking artwork out o and inertia, leading at PO ™ing bal, a S representat issofcourse, sheaf etTution of 8 with i Operation is shot and lah chised eq ind "Jen One. Coffe Es aed by buryin, pies 28 ie ingulasi ening identi ‘accomplishes the. at pase of effectiveness by severing the eee Be First by exhausting ett E Been thythmic structure igrammatic armature that can and music, or program Narrative and structure is 'thelanguage. i ie language, its musicality, its capacity © the structure of rhythm, 60 Foamy Realities uilt world isa direct expression of late capi- Gm-_of junk bonds, etc.,a celebration of all that is insubstantial. vnaterials, ike a return to the “authentic” gold standard, iabeyond us. We advocate neither a material realism, nor a return tophenomenology, nora Pop representational use of materials that hysterically celebrates—like after-dinner chit-chat the simulacrum, (ie, dryvit masquerading as stone), Rather, we are looking paradox- ically at greater levels of artifice like puts and calls for matter, This does not simply mean material innovation thats, if left by itself, simply an extension of the modernism we already know. ‘The foaminess of our bi ali Areturn to vat you drow wat yu gar: To uehartoris nt the gap in representation (et) ur the inexorable dit of our world toward it (right).61 Pop Iconography as Myth The enjoyment of Pop art and its categorical enjoyment. No one ta Campbell's Soup can over ar Persistance in architectureig, kes any particular intetest in one nother Campbell’s Soup can ftom its status as a Secondary representation (2 problem that Painting doesn't have to confront), architecture is built up of things tha havea constructed logic indifferent to their representational status, The interchangeability of any Pop object with any other Pop object, motion asa categorical Me Wellhave been repeated endlessly and it would nor make any difference. Itis this arbitrary relationship to content (and to form, for that matter) that is its undoing. For it is arbitrariness—the same kind of arbitrariness that connects the grassy knoll oe E Kennedy's assassination—that finally reveals Pop for what iti anart of sentiment. It is not the work, ee se, but the eee [astalgiathat is associated with the Pop object that provokes this less-than. ing interest, Indeed : i — | valorizing Pop production as a naive or natural sign 0 Stet by the fact that when one looks carefill of Pop one findsit is the work of very deliberate nett the farthest thing from a popular creation" Corporate soul, jgner of the: llis, Designer oft Betty Willis, “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada’ Sign237 rHE WORLD 62 Migration of Practices Only the organic can adapt tothe organic —Sigfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Commang Themechanization of various practices across the fall spectrum of Production, processing, and eventually dissemination aot consump. 1s Open to migration rather than fixed in ‘Supercession. We note automated system. But a larger argument can be made that rather _than falling into obsolescence, the practices of the nineteenth century as luxuries. Hobbies become indisti = much as they comprise the same practices o the complex handwork of model making, or the careful filing of collecting). ®¢S comprise a natural response to material omentsin mechanized process, he63 Mi : a8ration of Ethics 64 pDesire’s Rainbow: Migration of Products you like eating Special K Cereal we know youl tke ‘Braun Electric Shavers.. and you enjoy watching Seinfeld Reruns. be SY vontid and spending $250 on. without child labor 00 tifeclious disass an Armani sport coat. ‘or maybe just splurging for that. Land Rover SUV.6s Continuit vo Discontinuity Only nature is truly conti contend with construction yon, The builders of build ‘sin, the will to continuity a 2n Parts. Operating thus) lings must and pain, virtue andi. 2 SeeMtity isthe source ng oe! * Manis finite and soare his pray StU tucts, 66 A Materialist Argument of Culture soft is susceptible to the same forces of change that work on matter ‘in general. Thus, metamorphoses in culture are tvorked on by the same objective structures and phenomend,...In exactly, sorte wey for instance as ancient medicine explained al biological phenomena by the: action of a vital “principle.” But if weno longer try to and instead try simply to classify separate what is, fundamentally united, and conjoin phenomena, we see that technique isin truth the result, of growth and destruction, and that, inasmuch as it is equally remote from funtax and from metaphysics, it may without exaggeration be linked to physiology. —Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art asculture is itself material, it Instead of seeing regionalism emerge out of distinct cultures as was. oc the als: aa eae eee nee ‘ around. In fact, territoric ical, 0 reo isthat.AMATERIALIS; LIST AR UMENT of pee designed with nati Rom renewing interests in Uubsn population toenca lishing a culture of by ional and ii internat the ational raging tural landscay 80a thay ing i . since atePnational inves Pinay 5 As sanmenity, to fostering thy uch, tourism no | aa TeORnition er C1 I rage ‘Superficial or invasive overlay of uses mn the site nora es on the site nc P ation of an it ibilii Finite a peste poke of the inh s work emerge froma ar ‘ecological structure for a series 67 Neo-regionalism tional re fundamentalism, is the true inter~ Beale ‘all regionalisms are structurally the same: only the satpantics of their local narrative differs. More homogenous, struc- tually, than globalism, regionalism isa reactionary formation that only becomes recognizable as an ideology when its opposite emerges. sgionalism, like any: Where the global market relies on imposing transnational products vnto often hostile markets, introducing sameness and repetition as aang of establishing hegemony, a materialist notion of cultureand technique establishes an ultra-regionalism that manifests regional difference as an inherent structure. It is a new kind of universality that rests on ubiquitous difference constituting a larger whole. As buch, it neither proposes imposition of a homogenous universalizing system nor does it seek to fix or: circumscribe traditional regional differences, It is an erroneous assumption that global capital is always ina one-to-one ¢ -with global trends. Rather, ultra-regionalism proposes working within existing ional systems where they Skane practices but understands the two-fold: first, that changed conceptions of iversalizing second, that fixed 1NEO-REGIONALISM, rie WORLD 247 at all categorical difference can be ceable with everything else. In fact, this logic at the level of h simplifi- no longermeans thy pe universal t exchang: at everything is eis true. Capitalism assumes svar material and cultural systems resist su¢ terial or cultural framework, everything has rangeand a capacitys therefore, their limits are in some sense zrandl The difference is, categorical assumptions f¢ regarded thoaron. oS i hort Works of gn ne mp0 Saas : De Poems, Tales, Cig on : Form, fing Dover, Thompson (New Yorks see 3 Aldo Rossi, a Scientific Row, 1970), s28y, tS HePetand ography, trans. La a rence 3 Deleuze and c Secs Fela Cust A Thad 4 Sanford Kwinter, cit a Series ay Project, Emerging Completes ‘Symposium (New Yor elas rn ark: Columbia University Press, 986), 5 Manuel DeLanda, int i Intensive Science 4nd Virtual Philosophy (New York: Continuum, 2002), 7. 6 Ibid. 28. 7 Ibid., 18, Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand 352-53, wadori and Robert Heli ing of Buildings: 2™ °C Fagen clits NI Prentice Hall, 1975) 27" ‘adestructible dea,” Lotus ‘ternational 99 (1998) 02°38 ‘ee, for example, the proposal by Forign Office Architects for the ew World Trade Center towers in ‘New York. The towers are a direct rescaling of Le Ricolais’s column experiments. ‘J.B.S. Haldane, “On Being the Right Size,* in The World of ‘Mathematics. ed. James R. Newman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956}, 953- Lee Smolin, The Life ofthe Cosmos (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 7. Donald £. Ingber, “The Architecture of Life,” Scientific ‘American 278, no. 1 (Jan. 1998): 8-57. Martin Bowman, Wellington: The Geodetic Giant (Washington, D.« Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989). Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand flan 37 Ou reatiogof thi is a specific departure how it has been previously used by Greg Lynn to emphasize the geo" ‘metrical dimension of the inexact materialist see c See James R. Newman, “Commentary on Queen Dido, Soap Bubbles, and a Blind Mathematician,” in The World of Mathematics, ed. Newman, 882-85. OPERATING stephen J. Gould, “The Pattern of Life's History” in The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, ‘ed. John Brockman (New York: ‘Touichstone, 1996), 51-73- Capt. Eric Brown, cited in Wings of the Luftwaffe, ed. G. William Green (London: MacDonald, 1977). Bill Yenne, The World’s Worst ‘Aircraft, ed. John Kirk (Greenwich, Conn: Brompton Books, 1990), 109. Paul Valery, “On Painting,” in Selected Writings of Paul Valéry, trans. Anthony Bower (New York: New Direction, 1964), 222. OMMON ERRORS TO AVOID Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology ‘of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 459. ‘This argument is made by Stan Allen in his Points and Lines (New ‘York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 102.Bibliography Allen, Stan. Points and i St ‘and Lines. New York: Pri inceton Architectural ral Pr Aristotle. The Ni¢ ‘ ficomachean Ethics, trans. J. A. K. Thomson, New York: mn, Gregory. Steps to Ecol: a r cology of Mind. Chicago: University of ———— Labyrinths. New York: New Directions, |W. Wellington: The Geodetic Gi ae aaa Washington, Dc: 1964. ‘The Physiology of Taste, or Medians j, trans. M. F. K, Fisher. 1826. Reprint, BIBLIOGRAPHY 258 nic Life.” In Zone 6: Incorporations, ed. uel. “Non-Orgal dd Kwinter, New York: Zone Books, 1992. |, Ma han Crary and Sanfort petanda, sonat! jousand Plateaus, trans. Brian and Félix Guattari. A Th e, Gilles, oe tis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. ‘Massumi. Minneapol piamond, Jared. 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Fight Club, © 1990 Tw es “Cb © 999 Wench cay ‘Corporation, Monarchy Enter ae prises Sarl. and Regency Entertainment (USA), tne all rights reserved: 230 oo Partners, LLP: 59 middle tepy|i2style.net/f_glleryfoiegras ip: 197 bottom right Ihttp://www.acusa.ch/anig98-s)images) foiegras-2.jpg: 197 top right http: {jwwy.carltonformen.com/spor ‘s20coat%s20jv.jpg: 239 second from bottom ‘hetp:jwwwrw.focusmag gr[linksiiew- fileclink.nx20id-105061: 197 top et Lust egskecouk 8- a oer ayia bottom eit esproetiesco™l i oma William Green, Famous “onbers ofthe Second World War, ‘Valume Two. Garden Cit Hannover House, 1960: 199 right ‘Richard L. Howey: 39 bottom ‘oWemer Huthmacher courtesy of ‘parkow Leibinger Architects with Douglas Gauthier: 174 bottom left @ Aaron igler:129 Toyolto Architect: 109 middle (Ken Kay: 15 top Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna: 21 Rollin. La France, courtesy of Venturi, courtesy 255 ATION CREDITS NASAIJPL-Caltech: 139 office for Metropolitan Architecture F.H.Ludlam, Behavior and Effect of Water in the Atmosphere, University Parle Pennsylvania State University Press, 3980: 225 bottom Terrible! copyright © 1974! Used by permission of Random House, Inc.:237top and bottom left o Christian Richters:25 107 RoTo Architects: 59 0p ‘lim Films: 127 bottom ‘Redrawn from Cyril Stanley Smith. [ASearch for Structure: Essays on Science Art and History. 1983597 ‘Bowman, Martin. Wellington: The