The Digital Turn in Architecture 1992 - 2012 -- Mario Carpo

Full Citation and Summary Carpo, Mario, editor. The Digital Turn In
Architecture 1992 - 2012. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2012.

This book collects a series of chronologized articles and essays previously
published in Architectural Design Magazine (AD) on topic of digital design in
architecture. The editor of this collection is architectural historian and
theorist Mario Carpo, whose work focuses on the histories-of and
relations-between architectural theory and cultural technologies. Carpo,
introduces "digital design" as a distinct current of architectural theory and
practice, then proceeds to chart its general theoretical development. Note that
this conforms to the usual understanding of architectural history as a
procession of theoretically-driven movements.

Chapter Notes

Introduction: Twenty years of Digital Design
- Arguing that there is such a thing as digital design and that it is distinct
 from other architectural practices/theories
- Definition of a "meaningful building of the digital age" as "[a building]
 that could not be designed or built without [digital tools]" (pp. 8)
- Positioning the source material (from AD exclusively) within a procession of
 architectural movements; post-modernism  deconstruction  digital design
- Stress on changes in electronic technologies in the early 90s, digital space
 for arch. and digital spaces for prod. of physical buildings
- Argues that digital design emerges from theoretical response to technologies
 (pp. 9)
- Digital design's theoretical aspects [technical theoretical both], articles
 will provide examples of these
- Curvilinearity (blobs)  --  this emerges from spline modelling, necessary
 continuity of curves (pp. 9)
- Decentralized authorship  --  variability of curves within constraints,
 parametric mathematical notation (multi-variable calculus), design of systems
for design (pp.9)
- Folds  --  synthesizes continuity of form (post-modern) and formal
 fragmentation (deconstruction) through a technical solution [Carpo argues
 that this is an autonomous, internal architectural debate supported by
 post-modern thought (Deleuze on Leibniz)] (pp. 9-10)
- Variation  --  related to folds as a synthesis of continuity and
 fragmentation; continuity of form but differentiation within the continuity
 (see again post-modern thought on variation, complexity, etc.); supported by
 technology (pp. 10)
- Nonlinearity  --  def: "sometimes, nature `jumps' from one state to another
 in sudden and unpredictable ways, which modern science can neither anticipate
 nor account for."  From cybernetics and systems theory to digital
 mysticism/romanticism, phenomenology. (pp. 10-11)
- Political Ambiguity  --  critique of modernity through mass-produced
 variation, customization, individualization which leans toward expansion of
 capitalism [market, liberal managerialism, disciplinary disengagement] (pp.
 11-12)
- Architectural Management  --  BIM, information and data control necessary for
 full-scale execution of digitally designed buildings (pp. 12)
- Participation  --  Responsive environments but more so participation in
 design process (collaborative design, open-source notation, collective
 decision making); the promise of distributed decision making as emancipatory
 [relates to architectural management, political ambiguity, variation, and
 decentralized authorship] (pp. 13)
- Proposal that decentralized authorship, collaboration, mass customization and
 mass participation will cause the most changes to architectural practice


Architecture After the Age of Printing (1992)
- Two articles by Peter Eisenman which Carpo proposes show continuity btwn
 Deconstructivism and digital design
- Anti-classicism, anti-perspective, breaking of visual habits
- Representational -- formal focus through "expression" (of spaces, of
 concepts)
- Electronic tech. as enabling this break w/ prev. modes thinking arch.,
 folding as one tool electronic tech. allows primarily through "variable
 curvature" (pp. 19)

"Visions Unfolding: Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media"
- Proposal that arch. in the age of electronic media is one that "looks back,"
 breaking primacy of viewer in perspective (pp. 18-19)
- Detaching appearance from knowledge (pp. 18), appearance becomes only the
 expression of (big O) Order (pp.18, 20)
- Folding (from Deleuze) as the means of achieving the break since it resists
 knowledge/representation of the whole from any given position (pp. 19)
- Drawing disengaged from physical space (pp.19); space as affective (see
 below), only representing order writ large as external logic (pp.20)

"The Affects of Singularity"
- "Affect is the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart
 from bodily changes." (pp. 23)
- E. stresses that affective response is a natural human need (pp.25)
- "Effect is something produced by an agent or cause." (pp. 23)
- Inherently collective, programmatic (pp. 23)
- Mediated environments [contemporary world of electronic tech.] as effective,
 unmediated [ie. a mythical Gothic (pp. 25)] as affective
- Mediation produces its own affect in itself which replaces individual affect
 (pp. 23, 25), mediation as collective behaviour, mediation produces effective
 affect [noise reduction] (pp. 26)
- Mechanical reproduction: static original  static copy, human labour produces
 more affect ["value added"] (as surplus value) (pp. 24)
- Electronic reproduction: dynamic original  static copy, less human
 intervention produces less affect (MOP takes the lead) (pp. 24)
- Major change in place of architecture in the move from mechanical to
 electronic
- architecture loses its affective component, becomes "weak media" being
 effective, the user no longer knows how to react to architecture (pp. 25)
- To regain the affectivity ("affective discourse") architecture should eschew
 individuality (expressionism) and collectivity (standardisation) for
 singularity
- Singularity (from Kojin Karatani) = not-individuality, not-particularity,
 "taking the ego, the individual persona... out of the `me'..."; "The
 `this-ness of a `this I' or a `this dog'..." (pp. 26)


Folding in Architecture (1993)
- Two articles from Gregg Lynn, Carpo proposes that these show curvilinearity
 as emerging from an "internal and autonomous discourse" within architecture
 theory (pp. 28)

"Architectural Curvilinearity: The Folded, the Pliant and the Supple"
- Argues that smoothness is the best means of architecturally responding to
 heterogeneous contexts (pp. 29)
- Presents two competing approaches (a "dialectic"): imposing unity
 (Post-Modern, reactionary) & fragmentation (Deconstructivism, avant garde)
 (pp. 29)
- Argues that smoothness is synthetic of both positions
- allows for architecture's "active involvement with external events in the
 folding, bending and curving form." (p. 33)
- Smoothness is:
- "intensive integration of differences within a continuous yet heterogeneous
 system" (pp. 30)
- Incorporates difference into the system rather than eradicating it (pp. 30)
- Non-homogenous, non-reducible (pp. 30)
- Comes from extra-architectural sources (many are part of the US state
 apparatus) (pp. 30)
- Smoothness allows complexity through pliancy which allows Folding [Deleuze]
 (pp. 30)
- Pliancy = flexibility, local connectivity, alliances over conflicts,
 dependence on external forces, vicissitudinous
- Vicissitude = weakness, waffling in service of tactical cunning, mutability
 in response to changing conditions (forces meeting in an illegible,
unidentifiable whole) (pp. 31)
- Stresses that the forces are "beyond control" and beyond knowledge (pp. 34)
- Stresses compliance (as subterfuge; uses such words as "weaving,"
 "entangling") with forces (pp. 36)
- Folding produces smooth mixtures (Lynn uses a culinary definition of folding)
 (pp. 30-31)
- "The two characteristics of smooth mixtures are that they are composed of
 disparate unrelated elements and that these free intensities become
 intricated by an external force exerted upon them jointly...[]... The
 heterogeneous elements within a mixture have no proper relation with one
 another. Likewise, the external force that intricates these elements with one
 another is outside the individual elements' control or prediction" (pp. 31)
- Cohesion through viscosity (making strong local connections), affiliating
 contradictions through local connection (pp. 32-33)
- Folding requires curvilinearity
- Later sidebar on folding: that it came out of real estate speculation and has
 been transformed through its internalization by architectural theory while
 preserving its outcome of dissapearence (pp. 41-42)
- Smoothness allows immersion in contexts with the least amount of resistance
- Through intensive forms of organization whose operation is as follows:
 produce a boundary  make connections to the outside  internalize the newly
 connected elements  expand the boundary [see D&G Anti-Oedipus]
- Consequence for architecture:
- necessity for "anexact" geometries where standard, reduction, and
 measurability are brought into question
- Anexact [Husserl] = non-reducible yet rigorous (the shape of the geometry is
 knowable w/ precision, but not reducible to avg. dims or points
- "inclusive stability" through subjecting "provisional types" to complexes of
 forces (two examples which are notable: Michael Jackson and the Mercury Man
 from Terminator) (pp. 37-38)
- The ability for specific architects (as individual practitioners (lead
 designers), not organizations (even offices are left out)) to intervene upon
 conditions which are too complex to totally grasp (pp. 40)

"Shoei Yoh, Prefectura Gymnasium"  --  this is an example used to show how the
ideas above manifest in a building


The Architectural Relevance of Cyberspace (1995)
- Two articles by John Frazer on the potential uses and responses of
 architecture to "cyberspace" (one theoretical discussion, one case-study)
- Carpo sees this as a cybernetics revival (communication, despatialisation,
 anti-cannon)

"The Architectural Relevance of Cyberspace"
- Argues that "cyberspace" is/can-be an alter-site for global cooperation by
 "modelling ecologically responsible environments and using the computer as an
 evolutionary accelerator." (pp. 52)
- "from product to process...[]... from forms, to the relationship between
 forms, to forms in their environment, to the relationship between forms and
 their users." (pp. 52)
- Cyberspace = describes "the invisible spatial interconnection of computers on
 the Internet and it is also applied to almost any virtual spatial experience
 created in a computer." ("decentrilised, desynchronised, diverse, simultaneous,
 anarchic, customerised...[]...'self-regulating, anarchic, federated, very
 resilient'..." (pp. 49)
- Stresses its alter affinity-group-like politics (pp. 49)
- Ephemeralisation, communication, cerebral effort (pp. 49)
- Virtual world and therefore "extra dimension" of the physical world and not a
 substitute (pp. 49)
- Shows this through comparison to theatre and books where virtual worlds
 extend into and overlap with the physical world (pp. 50)
- Then takes a sophist-idealist position that the physical world is itself
 virtual (this helps the "extra dimension" argument insofar as cyberspace and
 physical space are of the same virtual type) (pp. 50)
- Important to note that Frazer sees "reality" as arbitrated (he uses two
 examples: the court (state apparatus) and misplacing a book (informal
 collective) (pp. 51)
- Cyberspace as outgrowth of "cybernetic theory of architecture" (architects as
 designers of organizational systems and their spatial manifestations) (pp.
 51-52)
- New "extra dimension" allows a "requestioning [of] fundamental issues about
 space and the contemporary relevance of place." (pp. 52)
- "Architecture as an essential organ of interaction with the environment
 providing antennae for both sensing and transmitting information." (pp. 52)

"Architectural Experiments"
- Documents an exhibition of decentralised design through a responsive geometry
 (pp. 53)
- Decentralised through the ability for their model to take inputs locally (on
 essentially a LAN) and internationally (via the internet) (pp. 53-54)
- "genetic techniques for design model inner logic, rather than external form"
 (pp. 53)
- Use of genetic algorithms (see Genetic Algorithm Essentials for a more
 technical overview); uses a string of symbols to hold transformation
 instructions; the user morphs the geometry through manipulating the string
 indirectly though Frazer is vague on this point (pp. 56)
- "computer can be used not as an aid to design in the usual sense, but as an
 evolutionary accelerator and a generative force." (pp. 53)


The Digital and the Global (1996)
- An article by Foreign Office Architects [FOA] (Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro
 Zaera-Polo) on their Yokohama International Port Terminal project
- Carpo identifies FOA's addition of late-capitalist global processes to
 thinking with curvilinearity, also identifies no mention of computation
 [though there are many early digitally rendered perspectives included in the
 article]

"Yokohama International Port Terminal"
- Set up the present conditions of global late-capitalism (Jameson's term)
- Devaluing of representation as communication due to sheer amount of
 information (pp. 58)
- Replacement of signifying systems with material-spatial organization as "the
 basis of communication, exchange and consensus." (pp. 58)
- "Today, occupying a spatial position might be as important as adopting a
 political position." (pp. 58)
- The consequences for architecture: it need not represent, interpret, or
 signify anything (pp. 58)
- Their approach: "performative," architecture as "artefact within a concrete
 assemblage," action, form, knowledge as a means/desire to modify, create
 their environment rather than explain or represent. (pp. 58)
- Inability of PoMo & Deconstructivism to deal with the scale of global
 capitalism (let alone modernism's homogenisation) [similar to Lynn's
 argument] (pp. 58-59)
- Use of techniques which operate "outside existing codes" [Deleuze but more
 AO] (pp. 59)
- Decoded landscapes (deterritorialization) rather than overcoded spaces
 (territorialization) [similar (again) to D&G's process of capitalist
 reproduction]
- "nomadic operativity" by engaging econ., social, urban processes through
 complexity rather than linearity
- Stresses need for "planning in material practices" arising from need to
 control production of environment, indeterminacy as a failing of the
 architect (pp. 59)
- Yokohama International Port Terminal as case study/demonstration of how their
 method materialises as a building (pp. 61)
- Focus on mediation btwn "social machines," boundary blurring, occupation-type
 differentiation, stage setting (making a "battlefield" in which minority can
 have power), public space on private space
- Short paragraph on structural/building features; folding as structurally
 efficient, removal of boundary between envelope and structure, structure
 responds to stress continuum rather than discrete "singularities"


Field Conditions (1997)
- Stan Allen's "Field Conditions"
- "Field conditions" as a means of developing "new methodologies to model
 programme and space" through: (pp. 63)
- Reassertion of responsibility to context; context as an obligation to which
 architects must comply
- Focus on architecture's users and their behaviours
- Focus on collectives as fields (digital) [not individuals as objects
 (analogue)]
- "...acceptance of the real in all its messiness and unpredictability."
- "the field" vs. "the lab"
- Improvisation
- Constraint (field conditions) over transgression (modernism)
- Attention to precedent
- Irreducibility
- Specific definition of a field condition: "any formal or spatial matrix
 capable of unifying diverse elements while respecting the identity of each."
 (pp. 63)
- Local connectivity, internal regulations as most important (more important
 than the shape of the whole)
- No claims to systematism; no claims to timelessness or absolutism; proposes
 that the theory will be modified or repudiated by experimentation on site
 ("the real," context and "real" are often interchanged) since theory arises in
 relation ("dialogue") to practice (pp. 63)
- Serial structure of the article ("like a catalogue") [not like a field];
 discusses field conditions at two scales/two contexts through examples (pp.
 63)
- PART 1 -- Field Conditions in Architecture and Urbanism
- "issues of construction" (pp. 63), this section presents examples of
 already-existing field conditions to elucidate how they land in the world
- "Geometric Versus Algebraic Combination" [historical architecture]
- Shows difference between field condition (algebraic) and proportion
 (geometric) in the by analysing the mosque in Cordoba as counterexample to
 classical geometric unity (pp. 65)
- Logic of the field is replicable and therefore expandable through local
 algebraic combination of elements with no overarching structure which morph
 through repetition (the module) (pp. 65-66)
- "Walking Out of Cubism" [art]
- Shows difference between field condition (post-minimalism) and sequence
 (minimalism) (pp. 67)
- Minimalism as producing meaning in the relation (the space) btwn viewer and
 art (clarity, immediacy, unity, concepts, definitiveness, structures) (pp.
 68)
- Post-Minimalism as producing meaning in the record of the process of
 production (messiness, doubt, informality, visibility, phenomena) (pp. 68)
- Local relationships; generation of form through "sequences of events" (simple
 seriality producing complex outcomes) (pp.69)
- Offloading control to rule systems, techniques, and materials with the artist
 (architect) directing their flows (pp. 69)
- "Field Constructions" [contemporary architecture]
- Sums up the section through a discussion of detailing, Renzo Piano's design
 process of form from details (pp. 69)
- Detail as closest to construction, hyper-control of minutiae accumulates into
 a composition (field of responsive details)
- Means of going beyond form-construction opposition
- Field as material condition (the arraying of details into a building) not
 discursive (pp. 69)
- "...by understanding construction as a `sequence of events', it becomes
 possible to imagine an architecture that can respond fluidly and sensitively
 to local difference while maintaining overall stability." (pp. 69)
- PART 2 -- Distributions and Combinations: Towards a Logistics of Context
- "questions of composition and the urban context" (pp. 63)
- "Distributions"
- Introduces the sections to come as "organizational principles" which propose
 new ways of composing parts in relation to each other beyond modernist
 montage and collage (pp. 70)
- "The American City: Open Field" [Field]
- The rectilinear grid as "prototypical field condition" (pp. 71)
- Uses the "American City" to show how rectilinear grids impose measure upon
 territories while morphing to accommodate existing conditions; how grids can
 be attached to larger networks (pp.71)
- "Thick Surfaces: Moirés, Mats" [Figure in field]
- Figure as an emergent effect of the field; figure as moments of intensity
 (peaks, valleys) in the field (pp. 71), authentic differentiation as local
 within the field (pp. 72)
-  Moiré pattern as exemplary through the emergence of figural patterns through
  overlay of two grids (pp. 72)
- Combinations of fields as a general means of producing moments of
 intensification; combining fields means thickening what is usually
 horizontal; thickening makes fuzzy borders at the edge of figures (pp. 72)
- "Digital Fields" [Field-Field]
- Digital atomization of data flattens hierarchies and evens out value (pp. 73)
- Flattening means every piece of a composition is as important and necessary
 as every other piece (pp. 73)
- Produces the possibility of field-field relations when they come in
 contact/locality with each other (an extension of the previous section
 essentially; ie. what happens when surfaces thicken?) (pp. 73)
- Change in scale from single objects to aggregates
- "Flocks, Schools, Swarms, Crowds" [Producing Fields]
- Fields produced through serial application of local rules on parts in a whole
 (pp. 73)
- Fields as emergent and therefore at the edge of control (control of the whole
 is not possible, but control of each part is) (pp. 73, 76)
- Able to negotiate obstruction through local adjustment (pp. 75)
- Uses flocks and crowds as examples
- Conclusion -- A Logistics of Context
- Proposes that field conditions
- allows architecture to deal with complex urban contexts (pp. 77)
- gives a way out of PoMo-Deconstruction debate through eschewing zero-sum
 thinking ("relinquishing control over the uncontrollable") (pp. 77)
- Proposing that there are limits of architectural control over city and that
 they must be recognized and complied-with [a "Logistics of Context"] (pp. 77)
- Architecture as using field conditions to manage the urban condition of
 multiplicity, fragments-without-totalitites (pp. 78)


Nonlinear Architecture (1997)
- Two articles by Charles Jencks which cross-reference systems theory to
 architectural design (nonlinear architecture) and present some examples of it
 (pp. 80)
- Carpo relates the positions in Jencks articles to anti-tech. positions
 (mystical, organicist, naturalistic, etc...) on digital technologies (pp. 81)

"Nonlinear Architecture: New Science = New Architecture?"
- Makes the assertion that when there is a shift in the "basic framework of
 thought" there must be a shift in architecture (as opposed to "building")
 since architecture "is embedded in the reigning mental paradigms" (pp. 83)
- Argues that this has happened with the (incomplete) movement from mechanistic
 to nonlinear sciences (pp. 83)
- Nonlinear sciences posit a "creative, free, self-organizing" universe (pp.
 83)
- Proposes a non-linear architecture which parallels this (see next article for
 examples) produced partially with computer based "nonlinear methods" (pp. 84)
- Nonlinear architecture implies a new design language of continuous variation;
 new language implies new metaphors/meanings in its use (pp. 84)
- The main assertion is summed up as follows "New Science = new language = new
 metaphors" [of note: is the "=" identity or causation?] (pp. 85)
- In this, architecture becomes a knowledge producing discipline, but the
 knowledge isn't just technical (tiling, structures) but aesthetic
 (metaphoric)
- In this, Jencks claims that architecture becomes more "true to life," though
 this assertion is never supported nor fleshed-out
- Land-form building is presented as exemplary of nonlinear building (covered
 further in the next article) (pp. 85)
- Defined here as a "cynic-realism" which intends to rehabilitate the landscape
 tradition in architecture; emerges from real-estate speculation and takes-out
 further layered motives unto itself
- Jencks proposes a compound definition of Complexity and proposes that it
 might only be an interpretation (narrative) of the world rather than an
 objective tendency (pp.87)
- How organization emerges from components pushed beyond equilibrium to the
 point of chaos
- At this point the system may "jump" or "bifurcate" in a nonlinear manner into
 a new organization which may be sustained by feedback or new energy input
- Quality emerges from quantity spontaneously

"Landform Architecture: Emergent in the Nineties"
- Jencks presents Landform Architecture (AKA Landform Building, Cosmogenic
 Design, Nonlinear Architecture, Architecture of Emergence [see note 1]) as
 the most exemplary nonlinear architecture, providing a series of case-studies
 in its execution
- Landform Building = a strategy for "handling a large volume of city building
 without becoming too monumental, cliched or oppressive in scale," through
 "architecture as articulated landscape." (pp. 88)
- Proposed to be teleologically inevitable since opposite forces have converged
 on it (forces of Capital (real estate speculation) and "environmental forces"
 (wind, gravity, circulation) (pp. 88)
- Examples tease out important aspects of Landform Building:
- Jencks considers this architecture as research or experiment (Eisenman's
 Cincinatti University addition as "essay") (pp. 88)
- Grace, interest, and elegance of design is more important than other concerns
 (see pp. 88, 91, 98 for example)
- The design process in Landform Building must be legible (as diagrammatic
 representation or upon the surface of the building itself)
- In Eisienman's Cincinatti University and Zvi Hecker's Berlin Jewish School
 there are both diagrams in the project package and colour-coding on the
 building itself [Jencks writes that this legibility is for "aficionados,"
 students of architecture, and construction trades as an aid to assembly (pp.
 91, 98))
- In re FOA's Yokohama Port Terminal, the "cinematic section" provides
 legibility to the continuous surface (pp.95)
- Metaphor of complexity is present
- Eg. "geological metaphor" in Eisenman (pp. 91), landscape "woven" of metaphor
 in Zvi Hecker (Jenck's writing on this is suspicious insofar as the landscape
 is ruined), the layered pop culture metaphors in ARM (pp. 101), the weedy plant
 in Ghery (pp. 102)
- Landform building transforms dead matter into active "mutter" (the German pun
 should not be lost out in this); austerity of material into an artistic
 composition (pp. 92, 93)
- Landform building's operativity is assimilation ("it must fit in yet be
 unmistakably other.") (pp. 98)
- Each of the examples assimilates at various scales and on various terrains
 (aesthetic, scalar, the architects themselves assimilate [or are assimilated]
 to a specific kind of architectural discourse)
- Landform building requires the computer as a generative tool (though Jencks
 is never specific in how the computer is used in this sense), often as a
 construction aid (though only laser surveying is mentioned directly), and as an
 optimization tool (pp. 91, 101, 105)
- Computer programs enable the "approach [to] a condition of complete chaos"


Hypersurfaces (1998)
- Two articles on major pavilions which gained the critical eye in the 90s
- Exemplifying the first wave of digical architecture (curvilinear,
 interactive, immersive, lines of movement)
- Both pavilions act as interfaces to other media (via central computers): the
 former uses the building's infrastructure as interface (sensing environment),
 the latter positions a control panel interface inside the building as one
 system among many (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, more similar to contemporary
 thermostats)

"Motor Geometry"  --  Lars Spuybroek
- Two sections: the first describes the contemporary state of being with
 technology, the second provides an example of architecture that responds to
 this new state of being
- Argues that going beyond the primacy of vision towards the other senses
 (especially the "haptic") reveals that the individual human body is at the
 centre, structuring reality (109-111) Argumentation is as follows:
- The body animates "mechanical extension" (read: technology) as a prosthetic
 extension of our skin, allowing fluency (pp. 109)
- The "skin" [as a sensing field] must extend as far as possible beyond the
 edge of the prosthetic device into space to achieve this (pp. 109)
- All actions, therefore, flow from the body outwards via the extended skin (a
 buffer zone or field)
- All action and sense is haptic (feeling), and unconscious
- The "buffer zone" skin makes reality since there is no outside space for
 action to happen, the body is purely self-referential (pp. 109) [NOTE:
 Leibniz's monads]
- The body forms the space of its own action while also constituting itself
 through motion, through the continual processing of its own internal
 deportment
- All there is outside the body is unstructured and only becomes structured
 information by passing through the body
- [the body as purely processing with no intervening transmission, no sinks for
 data storage; the only possible data processing is denoising]
- Spuybroek relates this to nomadicism in which the world may be assimilated to
 oneself through moving which restructures all outer events through
 relationality (connectivity) which is transformed into "form and action" (pp.
 110)
- Since all is processable through the field, there is no difference between
 senses (all are haptic), between spatial elements since all must be the same
 substance (see homological arguments in topology, also Spinoza)
- Space is topologically mutable leaving the body as its only invariant
 [individual body as epistemological baseline] (pp. 111)
- FresH2O eXPO, Zeeland, Netherlands, 1994-97 pavilion as exemplary of an
 architecture which emerges from this theoretical position
- "Liquid Architecture" = making liquid all things that were solid in
 architecture; "soft and smart technology of desire" for immediate fulfilment
 of desire for accidental; anti-comfort & pro indeterminacy; "contamination with
 media" (pp. 111)
- Achieved through: spline-based form, continuity of all surfaces,
 non-orthogonality, no view to the outside, tracing of movement through
 embedded sensors which control the pavilion's atmosphere of sound, lighting,
 and projection  (pp. 111-116)

"Salt Water Live: Bahaviour of the Salt Water Pavilion"  --  Kas Oosterhuis
- Description of the pavilion with focus on:
- Media deployment as virtual extension (pp. 117-121), multi-modal atmosphere
 (colour-scape, sound-scape), computational control (even of outside
 interface) ["the hydra," 2X UNIX workstations](pp. 117, 120)
- Construction of pavilion through "Parametric Design"
- Method of design which ensures "both absolute control an absolute flexibility
 during the construction period." (pp. 121)
- Use of a "three-dimensional database" attached to a 3D model (no details of
 this interface) with the builder only receiving details and tables of
 parametric values for CNC input and on-site use (pp. 123)
- Building is not fixed representationally but fluid (pp. 123)

Embryologic Houses(C) (2000)
- One article by Greg Lynn which Carpo presents as exemplary of
 mass-customization around 2000
- Of note: none of the images are to a specific scale but take on an indexical
 aesthetic

"Embryologic Houses(C)"
- Embryologic Houses(C) = house design strategy which engages brand identity,
 variation, customization, flexibility of manufacture, investment in beauty
 and aesthetics (pp. 126)
- Compare to Lynn's previous positions; the significance of the IP trademark
 (authorship)
- Achieves this through geometrical systems with rigid limits which allow for
 continuous variation
- Produces genericness but non-identicality, development of a "brand" through
 recognition and novelty (assimilation: fitting in but different enough &
 design as a subset of advertising) (pp. 126)
- Kinship between variations but no originals or ideal models
- Argument for this approach through demonstrating a change in
 production-distribution (pp. 126)
- Modernism (kit-of-parts, assembly-line, limited advertising culture,
 undeveloped ideas of identity)  contemporary (continuous variation, pervasive
 advertising, branding, highly developed ideas of identity)
- [the implication that all identity is (or culminates-in or passes through a
 period of being) brand identity]
- Details of the actual houses (they seem to be private houses rather than
 housing)
- All variations have the same number of parts though each is unique (pp. 129)
- Any change in a single part cascades to every other element through the
 manipulation of "control points" (pp. 129)
- "linked to" CNC processes (water jet cutting, stereolithography, 3-axis
 milling) (pp. 129)
- Two floors each at scale of a detached home (165 m2  -  295 m2 // 1800 sqft
 -  3200 sqft) (pp. 130)
- Whole project follows the "topology of the surfaces" (windows work in the
 smoothness, the ground responds to the shell's geometry) (pp. 130)
- Building site as autonomous from all others (from specificity of 30m diam.
 And the aesthetic of inter-plot borders) (pp. 130)


Versioning (2002)
- Two articles collectively authored by SHoP for a special issue of AD which
 marks a shift from form to process due to technical issues of constructing
 the forms proposed by earlier architects (pp. 131) "Introduction to Versioning:
 Evolutionary Techniques in Architecture"
- "Versioning" [operative term or gestural concept] = describes shift from
 technology for image-making to technology for "open modes of practice,"
 attitude rather than ideology [though it will be called an ideology elsewhere]
 (pp. 132)
- Trans/inter-disciplinarity that moves in two directions though both centre
 the architect (architecture borrows tactics from other fields but also
 intervenes in other fields using architectural theory) (pp. 132)
- An attempt to disengage architecture from "a stylistically driven cycle of
 consumption" (early-2000s anti-consumerism a la Ad Busters, compare to other
 architectural projects of autonomization) (pp. 132)
- Shift from horizontal integration ("generators of form," the architect as one
 employee among many) to vertical integration ("driving how space is
 conceived," the architect as manager) (pp. 132)
- Vertical integration as a "return" to an earlier idealized Renaissance master
 builder (pp. 134)
- "set of conditions organized into a menu or nomenclature capable of being
 reconfigured to address particular design criteria" (pp. 133)
- The computer as main tool that allows thinking design in terms of "procedure
 and outcome" that go beyond conventional design/construction (pp. 132)
-  Cascade of changes to law, liability, design partnerships which restructure
  power relations, accountability, responsibility (pp. 132)
-  Versioning relies on combinatorial geometry, allowing external influence
  which preserving precision (pp. 132)
- Vector information (modelling, real-time feedback) over raster information
 (simulation, representation)
- real-time evolution to produce specific effects or behaviours (pp. 133)
- "Representation : modelling :: modelling : versioning"
- All this allows for acceleration and adaptability of design process
- Original/copy binary is irrelevant as architecture becomes more about finding
 means of production to address a changing condition than form (pp. 133)
- Ability to address different kinds of time and their relation to cultural
 processes (pp. 133)
- Intervening in the "city/machine" to produce  a "self-regulating mechanism
 for cultural control."
- Scales of practice relate to scales of design (small offices taking large
 projects, large offices acting small) (pp. 134)
- Integration of design and construction to "keep all aspects of construction
 under control" (pp. 134)
- Through doing away with trades and building it yourself (SYSTEMarchitects)
- Through producing new kinds of instruction systems for assembly (David Levy)
- `process product' & practice theory/theory practice to empower the architect
 [though keep in mind what architects do when there's no work] (pp. 135)

"Eroding the Barriers"
- Argues that technology is allowing for the blurring of boundaries between
 architect and builder through a series of case studies from SHoP's own oeuvre
 (pp. 136)
- Dunescape MOMA PS.1(pp. 136)
- Collapsing of surface, structure, and program into an articulated frame
- Only two sizes of wooden members for ease of fabrication
- Use of full-scale templates instead of scaled drawings for "fast tracked"
 construction [question of who built it and how]
- Rector Street Pedestrian Bridge (pp. 138)
- Stressing communication w/ city authorities and local community [a very
 high-income area]
- Prefab box truss pre-approved by city for speed of assembly; ability to begin
 construction before the rest of the project was approved
- Use of sequencing diagrams for assembly to speed up construction
- Mitchell Park Carousel and Camera Obscura (pp. 140)
- Focus on architects control of design process when working under public
 authority (as though public oversight prevents the full freedom of design)
- Modelling of noise as driver for carousel design
- Full-custom detail system spec'ed (hyper-control over details see Stan Allen)
- For camera obscura, the drawing set is a set of assembly instructions (like a
 model kit)
- NTS exploded axos are paired with scaled details
- Information is etched directly onto all prefab parts (trace of process)
- A-Wall (pp. 143)
- Fully CAM and laser cut pieces prefabbed
- Heterogeneous assembly approaches combine digital fab and hand assembly
- School of the Arts, Columbia University (pp. 143)
- Expansion of architects' role to feasibility study, municipal legal analysis,
 engineering analysis [question of how this changes the shape of the office]
- Residential Condo (pp. 145)
- Architect as developer (having skin in the game of profits on the building
 they design)
- Relation with contractor and trades from the start of the design process


Topological Architecture (1998 - 2003)
- Two articles on Bernard Cache's office, Objectile, which give a general view
 of end-of-millennium design theory

"Bernard Cache/Objectile: Topological Architecture and the Ambiguous Sign"  --
Stephen Perrella (1998)
- Perrella illustrates the state of critical architectural practices through
 Objectile's work (pp. 149)
- Bernard Cache is presented as theoretical driver of office and "renaissance
 man" (pp. 149)
- Argues that contemporary modes of production have affected a "topologizing of
 architecture" (pp. 149)
- Due to computation, complexification of life
- Puts architectural authorship in question
- Involves reworking architectural theory through a kind of translexical
 translation
- Cache's theory: "all form consists of either convex or concave curvature"
 (pp. 149)
- Emerges from positing frame, vector, and inflection as fundamental geometry
 of architecture
- Inflection = "ambiguous sign" (Leibniz), "geometric undecidable" [asymptote?]
 "which works outwardly from its centre"
- Objectile's practice achieves the above through CAD/CAM (Cache was involved
 directly in the development of TopSolid [see CCA archive]) (pp. 149)
- Specifically invested in the use of middle-range industrial modelling
 programs for architecture (as opposed to animation programs) (pp. 150)
- Cache is interested in how form emerges from profit motive & how the
 "mainstream corporation" may be displaced (pp. 150)
- Working within the boundaries of "dominant powers" to "challenge them" [does
 this filter into the organization of the practice?]
- Attempt to place the means of production in the hands of consumers through
 accessible digital design and fab (hence the focus on highly optimized
 programs); the corporation would not have monopoly on production
- "liberation from consumer culture" [read in relation to 1) Mitterand's Grande
 Projets, 2) 90's-00's anti-consumerism (DIY, difference as radical)] (pp.
 150)
- Through differentiation (rather than corporate sameness), which complexifies
 & richens identity
- Cache's theory of "Subjectiles and Objectiles" [never directly defined, but
 alluded-to] (pp. 150)
- Expands hypersurface theory (= the theoretical position of curvilinearity
 which deals with complex conditions through pliancy)
- Uses a project for a textile museum to demonstrate the design of "objectiles"
 through investigating knots (pp. 151)

"Philibert De L'Orme Pavilion: Towards an Associative Architecture"  --
Bernard Cache (2003)
- Cache presents Objectile's main aim as an office: to make digital
 architecture accessible to small architectural practices and the general
 public at an affordable cost [the end is important] (pp. 153)
- Trying to approach a "fully digital architecture" with full interoperability
 between design and construction [zero latency]
- Development of a single integrated software for all design/fab.
- "associative design and manufacture" = all design procedures utilise a
 limited number of parent geometries which can be manipulated with all changes
 cascading through the design and manufacture controls
- Cross-referencing of parts (naming conventions, indexing) and control
 programs
- Presents the Philibert De L'Orme pavilion as the current culmination of their
 research (pp. 153)
- Based on stereotomy (descriptive geometry) which Cache proposes as important
 for future CAD applications (pp. 153) [the implications of this]
- Which will automate precision drawing of certain curve types (freehand takes
 too long) (pp. 154)
- Detailed discussion of tools in use and the procedures for production (eg:
 panel routing and digital process) with no mention of program users (pp. 155)
- Specific discussion of G-Code generation and CNC machining (pp. 156)
- Assertion that all complexity should be located where it can be best
 accommodated to reduce labour time and difficulty (complexity goes in the
 software and digital machining) (pp. 155)
- Mention of knot generation as a design tool in which mathematics can be used
 to parametrically control a design feature; stresses the need for invariants
 in a dynamic system (topology) (pp. 156)
- Design of software tools as part of the design process (the software was
 written to cope with the specific issues of the project) (pp. 156)
- Sums up by stressing that digital architecture is not the stylistic
 curvilinearity of modelling programs but the process of "architecture with
 digits" that has a stake in production (pp. 156)


-Morphogenesis and Emergence (2004 - 2006)
- Two articles that demonstrate the application of self-organization to design

"Introduction to Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies"  --  Michael
Hensel, Achim Menges, and Michael Weinstock
- Emergence = intertwining of abstraction and means of production, [circular
 def. incoming] "the `emergence' of forms of behaviour from the complex
 systems of the natural world"; mathematical in basis which describes emerges as
 "Morphogenesis" [which allows design appropriation] (pp. 160)
- Morphogenesis can be used as a design strategy (pp. 160)
- Requires iterative approach with each iteration materialised as a physical
 model
- Must include fabrication material's own self-organizing properties and the
 "industrial logic of production"
- Means rethinking of buildings as complex systems embedded in an environment
 which have a finite life space and make up a teleological-iterative series
 which leads towards an "intelligent ecosystem"
- Requires new form-finding methods that are capable of the intensity of
 adaptation for emergence
- Examples that follow demonstrate various approaches to Morphogenesis in
 design; some elements which stand out:
- Formal research "de-programs" building types (eg: pp. 160-61 "high-rise
 building" study has no program in it and focuses on the structural skin)
- Main technique is through genetic algorithms as exemplary of iterative
 emergence (pp. 161-62)
- Much of the research hinges on a division of labour in which students design
 and execute formal experiments in the studio (unpaid), and academics present
 these outcomes in articles and books (paid) (pp. 161)
- Collaboration between architects and engineers [here, Ove Arup and Buro
 Happold] to work on elements that are formally articulated, aesthetic and
 structural (pp. 161-62)
- Morphogenetic design as a means of dealing with "urban conglomerates" (pp.
 162)
- Urban conglomerates characterised by: complex, intensified social
 interaction; high population concentration
- This must be "ameliorated" by design that "maximizes qualitative and
 quantitative factors"
- Emergence allows for designing the interaction between multiple life cycles
 through integrating topology, structure, and program
- Global control through local action
- Integration of design and production in a feedback system (CAD-CAM
 integration) (pp. 162-63)
- Source material presented on pp. 164 contain books and articles from
 psychology, engineering, "popular science," and cybernetics

"Polymorphism"  --  Achim Menges
- Describes natural morphogenesis, then demonstrates its use as a design
 approach
- Natural morphogenesis = process of evolutionary development which generates
 "polymorphic systems" through the internal capacities of the systems combined
 with external influences (pp. 165)
- Produces hierarchies of simple components from which "performative abilities"
 emerge
- Formation and materialization processes are intertwined and related
- Normative architectural processes leave the inherent performative capacities
 of materials unconsidered, splitting design (formal exercise) and
 materialization (construction) apart in an artificial hierarchy [ie. the
 hierarchy is in the wrong place] (pp. 165)
- The alternative is a morphogenic approach to architecture = unfolds
 "morphological complexity and performative capacity of material constituents
 without differentiating between formation and materialization"
- Material systems as generative drivers of design process
- Design through the inherent, innate performative capacities of materials
- Form-material-structure closely interrelated
- The rest of the article presents a series of relevant tools and methods all
 of which require computer support (though only abstractly alluded to)
- Form generation through "soft control" techniques (pp. 166-68)
- Soft control = local exertion of force at strategic points while allowing the
 system to self-organize in relation to those points (pp. 166)
- Form finding = design technique which utilises self-organization of material
 under the influence of external forces (pp. 166)
- Global form-finding process where soft control means setting up the
 boundaries of the system; few, small local changes/constrains
- Differential actuation (pp. 169-171)
- Global changes to a system through incremental local transformation (like
 infinitesimal calculus) (pp. 169)
- Many local changes produce global stability and effects (pp. 169)
- Component differentiation and proliferation (pp. 172-176)
- Parametric components are defined by geometric relationships (base component
 is posited and then modulated) (pp. 172)
- Base component is developed from the capacities of a material through
 physical model studies (since structural experiments don't scale) (pp. 172)
- Creates a system with local, regional, and global manipulation potential
 which can respond to external influence (pp. 172, 176)
- Generative algorithms (pp. 177-178)
- Algorithmic fitting of a pattern to a surface which must take into account
 fabrication within the "fitting" rules (pp. 177-78)
- Allows response to external influence/optimization through the ability to
 make every cell different while preserving the systems deportment
- Digital growth (pp. 179-181)
- Digital "growth" of geometry by subjecting it to a "digitally simulated
 environment of forces" (pp. 179)
- Use of L-systems to specify how geometries change (see D. Hofstader's MU
 language as an example) (pp. 179)
- Bottom-up process by which specific elements of a surface respond locally to
 the environment and produce an emergent whole; open ended process (pp. 179)
- Proposal that this method will encourage a rethinking of sustainability and
 efficiency (pp. 181)


Scripting (2006)
- One Article by Malcom McCullough, the first Autodesk product manager for
 architecture in the 80s; view of architectural computing from the side of
 software devs.

"20 Years of Scripted Space"
- Provides an argument in favour of digital design tools, arguing that they
 bring design to a higher level through abstraction of complexity (pp. 183)
- Proposal that digital tools are labour saving ("You have to get free of the
 Grind"); and change the division of design labour (pp. 183)
- "Coders" program the means of processing forms, the "design professional"
 (this terminology is important) uses the programs to choose the right forms
 (designers as evaluators) (pp. 183)
- Play as the main act of using digital tools (manipulation of rules in a
 freeform manner) (pp. 183)
- Requires changes in outlook: 1) constraint is not bad; 2) computing is
 playful; 3) not all knowledge is computable; 4) computation does not always
 mean automation (pp. 183-84)
- McCullough provides an abbreviated, insider history of computational
 development in architecture
- 80's beginnings with AutoCAD's use of command line sequences for drawing
 (this is still a thing, typing in a sequence of commands, scripting) (pp.
 184)
- Relationship to "shape grammars" as a form of design knowledge representation
 (pp. 184)
- Design software as "expert assistant" to the user rather than purely
 generative (pp. 184)
- Movement from shape grammars to "parametrics" = expressing design problems
 computationally as a series of design variables (dimensions) (pp. 185)
- Parameterisation defines the "essence" of the type (it's capacities) with
 each instance produced by filling in the variables (pp. 185)
- Works best when there are fewer variables (taking many complex variables and
 making them as dependent on eachother as possible (pp. 185)
- Development (with shape grammars) through architectural education (as opposed
 to practice) with little instruction in practical coding [see next note] (pp.
 185)
- Of note: McCullough does not like how architecture internalized spline
 modelling and sees it as a fad of practice and not research/education ("as an
 invasive species") (pp.185-86)
- 90s GUI development mixed with spline modelling allowed architects to
 directly manipulate geometry, the software did all the backend coding and
 math (pp. 186)
- Design states produced through "discovery" rather than formulaic derivation;
 improvisation over composition (pp. 186)
- Parameterization as breaking down due to architecture as "wicked problem"
 (pp. 186)
- McCullough proposes that programming (as coding) knowledge in arch. was
 preserved by educational institutions (and not practice); bemoans operating
 system trade-off [ease of use is traded for programming power] (pp. 186-87)
- Announces a return of programming due to: 1) advances in digital fab to meet
 economic changes (supply chain capitalism); 2) theoretical basis of form
 expression from biology; 3) Information tech. changes organizational
 structures; 4) cultural focus on customization of work environments (scripting
 your tools) (pp. 187)


Collective Intelligence (2006)
- Two articles which respond to the internet as a participatory tool and the
 expansion of decentralized collaboration

"Introduction to Collective Intelligence in Design"  --  Christopher Hight and
Chris Perry
- Proposes that design practice and knowledge is profoundly impacted by the
 transition from the "second machine age" to "the information age" (pp. 189)
- Computation, telecommunications, new political-economic formations suggest
 transition from distinct design professions to "international,
 transdisciplinary, decentralized practices": "collective intelligence" (pp.
 189)
- These practices allow for engagement with contemporary "problems, site
 briefs, clients, and manufacturing processes" (pp. 189)
- Collective intelligence = dematierialisation of disciplinary boundaries
 forming a patchwork in which one field may be "enfolded" with another (pp.
 189) [full def. from Pierre Levy]
- roots in McLuhan's decentralized, collective social org ("global village")
- Englebart's proposal for augmenting human intellect w/ non-human modes of
 production through communicate tech
- both dystopian and utopian possibility
- technical, social, political  "professional"; becomes infrastructural rather
 than just a single tool
- Manifests in relation to a change in how power operates [Hight and Perry
 provide a summary of Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies of Control"];
 from disciplining to controlling = Fordism  post-fordism (pp. 191)
- Cross-references these to Hardt and Negri's concept of "Empire" where
 biopolitical tech. produces centralized international networks of corporate
 power (pp. 191)
- Proposes collective intelligence as a mode of Hardt and Negri's "Multitude" =
 forming The Commons through the same process of integrating and intensifying
 networks towards a democratic biopolitics (pp. 191)
- Participants in these kind of communities are geographically dispersed and
 connected by intensified communicative/exchange feedback loops (pp. 192)
- Produce information, platforms for exchange, and communicability as
 by-products [surplus value of the activity] (pp. 192)
- Politically inclusive since they produce their own sites of organization (pp.
 192)
- In architecture: the integration of practical and academic knowledge
- In the case of design products: the ability to embed "intelligence" or
 responsiveness in a tech/material system (pp. 194)
- Integration of human predictive capacity w/ computational abilities of tech.
 into "hybrid assemblages" (non-humanist agency through connectivity and
 "molecular biotechnical power")
- Two scales of collective intelligence: 1) design practice; 2) technology and
 product (pp. 198)
- Intertwined scale; synthetic condition
- Latour's social as a "topology of connectivity between a multitude of
 agencies"
- Innovative design as novel forms of practice and knowledge production not
 novel forms (pp. 199)
- "All design is the production of techniques of connectivity."

"Computational Intelligence: The Grid as a Post-Human Network"  --  Philippe
Morel
- Proposes a new idea of collective intelligence in design through the
 technique of grid computing (pp. 201)
- Grid computing = distributed computing by linking discrete, geographically
 distributed computers into a parallel processing network
- Produces a new kind of people in a post-urban "Ambient Factory" [similar to
 Tronti's "social factory" though there's no gesture towards this] (pp. 201)
- Ambient Factory = organizations outsourcing their computation to home PCs
 which process data while they are not in use (or in the background) as a
 continuous surface of data farms (pp. 201)
- Grid computing as connecting "multitudes" to each other but also connects
 computers to each other w/o human intervention (as pure infrastructure) (pp.
 204)
- Reveals that human labour was always simply a form of preproduction (and not
 production)
- The only possible human labour after the turn to automation is conceptual
 labour (since it alone cannot be automated)
- Legitimates the analysis of "multitudes" and human networks through
 technological lens by arguing that science (quantity) has displaced social
 forces (presumably quality) as the driver of all contemporary production (pp.
 204)
- Thinking collective intelligence then means looking at how it solves problems
 (presumably, how it deals with quantity) and that is a technological mode of
 problem solving (since the problems themselves are technological)
- Morel proposes that this science-based production be called "Integral
 Capitalism" (merging of infocapitalism, technocapitalism, and biocapitalism)
 (pp. 205)
- In architecture this all means applying tech and science in practice "in a
 flat model, beyond any representation" (pp. 206)
- Uses a grid-computed chair as an example; stresses open-source tools (though
 makes sure to stress how open-source is a lucrative business in the footnotes
 [note 8])
- Expansion of collaborative practice beyond human collaboration


Elegance (2007)
- Two articles which cover the second wave of blob-itechture (digital
 smoothness) which conflate post-critical thinking with digital design

"The Economies of Elegance, Migrating Coastlines: Residential Tower, Dubai"  --
Ali Rahim and Hina Jamelle
- Covers a residential tower proposal for Dubai, outlining that digital design
 is perfectly suited to maximize profit in a real estate market (pp. 213)
- Through interactive fine-tuning and adjustment, their proposal: (pp. 213)
- Creates variable unit types, allowing for expanded real estate opportunities
 based on quality of space rather than size
- Units with different geometries for different prices to attract a wider range
 of buyers and to make the undesirable units sellable (pp. 214)
- Reduces construction cost through economies of scale and new approaches
- Cost-effective elegance
- Operates to facilitate a series of migrations:
- "foreign nationals seeking to invest" to Dubai (pp. 213)
- Real estate speculation as local economic driver
- Use of architecture effects as advertising for the building (pp. 214)
- economic activity from city centre to desert periphery (near the building)
 (pp. 217)
- to increase property value of building and provide buying opportunities for
 residents
- migration of building components from international suppliers (pp. 214)
- cheap components imported which enables cost effectiveness
- Building as an economic tool above and beyond it being a place to occupy (pp.
 217)

"Deus ex Machina: From Semiology to the Elegance of Aesthetics"  --  Mark
Foster Gage
- Argument that architecture has "been excluded from the discourses of the
 aesthetic" due to its need for signification, economic demands, and
 performance efficiencies (pp. 221)
- Proposal that a return to artistic elegance [elegance as the operative term]
 will remedy the situation (pp. 221)
- emerges from formalism as a means of providing it a greater narrative
- formalism as being produced for "some future critical encounter" (produced
 for discourse and its continuation)
- Proposal that architecture "needs qualifiers" to act as aesthetic aspirations
 rather than descriptors to provide narrative integration (pp. 221)
- Elegance requires aesthetic expertise to execute (pp. 222)
- The upshot of this is that architectural knowledge is aesthetic knowledge,
 architects as experts in aesthetics
- Elegance produced through continuous, fluid systems which architects have
 expertly manipulated to form desirable mutations (pp. 222)
- Mutation = not individuation, evolutionary technique for producing future
 anomalies, different enough to be a new type (species) but not different
 enough to be outside the system (assimilation)
- Elegance requires calibration of the intensity of mutations which requires
 that architects be experts in aesthetics (see above) (pp. 222)
- Consensus on technologies used to produce mutations (surface modelling
 software and the math that underpins them) produces agreed-upon critical
 standards (pp. 223)
- Implication that anything that is not within the above discourse is not
 architecture
- Criticism = aesthetic judgement (does it look elegant?)
- The ability to have expert boards of critics (MFG uses the footnotes to draw
 a comparison between architecture and language by using The American Heritage
 Dictionary which was formatted in the same way: writers as language experts,
 descriptive permissiveness is regulated by "experts")
- Cinematic experience of architecture through the continuous serial reading of
 "figures" (pp. 223)
- Reliance on the visual over other senses; the flash of precognitive visual
 experience
- Leads back to the architectural agency of desire (aesthetic) which drives
 commercial activity and provide architects with the tools to manipulate this
 desire (pp. 224)


Building Information Modelling (2009)
- An article on Building Information Modelling (BIM) which proposes its changes
 to architectural practice through digital integration

"Optimisation Stories: The Impact of Building Information Modelling on
Contemporary Design Practice"  --  Richard Garber
- Computer software has changed architecture in two separate registers (pp.
 227)
- Academic (theory) through visualization and formal novelty
- Professional (practice) through management and generation of conventional
 docs.
- Break between theory and practice through the disconnect between architects
 and construction trades (though Garber only goes as far as "contractors and
 subcontractors") (pp. 227)
- Discontinuous process of manual doc. transfer invites misinterpretation
- Argument that BIM is closing the gap, enabling the execution of more complex
 design proposals (the outcomes of theoretical exploration) (pp. 227)
- BIM as amalgam of digital modelling, CAM, and management analysis tools
- Allows architects to understand the realisation of their ideas better
- Arises from need for better construction management
- BIM = "a single, intelligent, virtual model [that] can be sed to satisfy all
 aspects of the design process." Shared and contributed by all parties
 involved in process, automatic coordination due to the nature of the medium
 (pp. 227)
- Ability to think the construction process as part of the architectural design
 process (simulation and modelling of construction)
- Merging of formal creativity with performance considerations through
 iteration and testing during the design process (rather than later in the
 field)
- BIM capacities in contemporary practice:
- Digital management through BIMs as databases which control, monitor and
 streamline design process (efficiency of time, materials) (pp. 228)
- Means of evaluating design iterations against practical performative criteria
 [the physical world] (to solve the "stopping problem" in digital design,
 enabling a series of optimizations) (pp. 232)
- Bringing design optimization into the design process earlier (BIM as, first
 and foremost a database which can take a diverse series of data inputs from
 the world) (pp. 232)
- "digital assurance," changes in design and construction responsibility (pp.
 232)
- BIM as reconfiguring the role of the architect in the design process (pp.
 232-33)
- Puts the architect back in charge by making construction managers redundant
- Architect goes from being one employee among many, responsible to the CM, to
 being the manager whom all other parties in the process respond-to via the
 BIM
- Labour saving in the process of making design intentions communicable
 (rationalisation of novel forms)
- Illustrates a transition between paradigms of professional practice:
 `possible to real'  `virtual to actual' (pp. 237)
- `possible to real' (pp. 237)
- Formulation of design intention as cerebral activity, which is then
 documented as 2D abstractions of a building, which is then interpreted by
 others to realize the building
- Impossible to guarantee preservation of architect's original design intent
- Digital design software further disengages architect from construction (since
 modelling enviros are so distant from simulating the world)
- `virtual to actual' (pp. 239)
- No interpretation required since "digital information models are already
 inherently real"
- A process of actualizing what was a virtual version of the building in a
 different medium (translation)

A New Global Style (2009)
- One article that covers "parametricism" and proposes its stylistic autonomy

"Parametricism: A New Global Style for Architecture and Urban Design"  --
Patrik Schumacher
- Proposes "parametricism" as a new style rooted in animation techniques,
 parametric design techniques, and scripting (pp. 241)
- Proposal that it succeeds modernism as hegemonic through overcoming a period
 of uncertainty [post-modernity] through having a better capacity for
 articulating programmatic complexity (teleological view of stylistic
 development)
- Parametricism responds directly to post-fordism (= "heterogeneous society of
 the multitude...[]...proliferation of lifestyles"), an increasingly complex
 condition [assumption that now is more complex than then] (pp. 243)
- Parametricism is a style since 1) it is a new collective project; 2) it has
 new ambitions and values; 3) it is worked on globally (note that this work is
 competitive); 4) it has long term consistency of shared ambitions and problems
 (pp. 243)
- Argues that styles can be thought of as research programmes (pp. 244)
- Interpretation of styles as scientific paradigms (as conceptual frameworks)
- As in science, there are periods of development within styles and transition
 between styles
- Stable identity as necessary for a style to hold its own (PS compares this to
 "organic life" but its more similar to markets)
- Programmes consist of methodological rules (pp. 244)
- Negative heuristics = what not to do
- For P: no rigid geometric primitives, no simple repetition, no juxtaposition
 of the unrelated
- Positive heuristics = what to do
- All forms are parametric, gradual differentiation, systematic
 inflection/correlation
- Parametricism only exits upon the back of computational geometry (pp. 244)
- Five agendas of parametricism (pp. 247)
- 1) "Parametric interarticulation of subsystems" = scripting relationships
- 2) "Parametric accentuation" = amplification of deviation
- 3) "Parametric figuration" = producing multiple readings in a single figure
- 4) "Parametric responsiveness" = responsive environments
- 5) "Parametric urbanism  --  deep relationality" = treating urban
 environments as swarms of buildings which may be choreographed as a totality,
 integrating the other four agendas
- A section on how parametricism is better at ordering than Modernity, despite
 its focus on ordering (pp. 248)
- Since parametricism can simulate "material computation" ("natural" ordering
 processes)
- Uses Frei Otto as an example
- Urban space as an interface system which expresses pure ordering (pp. 250-51)
- Demonstrates Parametric urbanism through Zaha Hadid Architects' unbuilt
 Kartal-Pendik Master Plan for Istambul

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