matrix_1

here are a series of images of the car object in a matrix. by examining the model in different views, spatial patterns emerge. the next part of my investigation will involve manipulating the geometries of this compound curve that will provide clues as to the digital construction of this object. this will add visual interest and complexity to the matrix.

ali rahim_potential performative effects

this article confused me at first. the vocabulary was not familiar, the language was abstract and ambiguous, there just seemed to be no clarity. after a second read, it started to come together and is beginning to give me an understanding of the algorithmic design culture of architects such as zaha hadid, particularly how site is conceptualized.

rahim conceptualizes technology as being immersed in its cultural context and having qualitative effects that proliferate culture. “contemporary techniques” are new effects of previous techniques that result in further cultural transformation through a complex system of feedback and evolution. they are temporal, process-driven methods that provide new transformative effects in culture, social and political production. rahim’s work seeks to harness the potential of contemporary techniques to produce new architectural effects.

“lineages” produce effects. “memes” disseminate ideas that cross lineages. these memes are copied behaviors transmitted either by coping everything, erroneously copying, and/or copying some behaviors. memes are “perfomative”, meaning they react to stimuli, and produce or transform a situation through influence and effect. contemporary techniques are organized and guided by “probabilities”. these probabilities are unlimited and allow for the production of perfomative effects in architecture. the idea is that these contemporary processes allow for infinite possibilities; therefore they cannot be static, because this would define something specific. actualizing this process, temporal organizations conditioned by our ideas and concepts can be produced, and concepts are shaped.

rahim’s intention in architecture is to actualize “virtualities” contained within the matrices of the software that fully exploit its potential to produce new effects. [what software does he mean? did he make his own software?] here’s my understanding of this process as illustrated by the author's design for a residence in islamabad, pakistan:
_form emerges from spatial considerations. spatial considerations were developed through the study of the site and schedule of "events" (field/ site conditions).
_animation techniques were used to study the relationship of the scale and intensity of these events and their correspondences with the temporal cycles of the site.
_elements of the site were coded with specific forces that acted on the field condition and reacted to forces. through iteration, the “system” grew to form associations between site and event. tendencies emerged.
[now, for the actualization process]
_tendencies were applied to multiplicities in event intensity and duration. for example: water flow.
_habitation was implemented as being continuous with the landscape. there are no bounded limits of figure/ ground, building/ landscape, inside/ outside, public/ private, rather a blurring of specificities creates ambiguities in spatial differentiation and functional uses.
_spaces are then arranged by behavioral characteristics, how people use space (gathering, accumulating, entertaining, etc).
_structure and materials are organized simultaneously. the two are affiliated with varying levels of porosity. densities are gathered at load bearing pressures. at the same time, interior light conditions emerge.

mapping the question: the perspective hinge by alberto perez-gomez and louise pelletier

in this book the authors examine the history of architectural theory and perspective through exploring the complexity and contradiction inherent in a linear history of representation. they tell the story of perspective, and use it as a "hinge" for architectural representation, examining a transforming relationship between practice and theory, between the making of images and the making of buildings. perez-gomez and pelletier are interested in virtual space (experimental video, computer graphics, and virtual images) and hope to show architects today the similarities with this contemporary means of representation through a linear history.

the relationships between the intentions of architectural drawings and the built objects they describe is ever changing. the meaning of an architectural work is never simply the result of its author’s will. it is subject to a place in the public realm, context, use, cultural associations, etc, that have an impact on how it is perceived. at the same time, the architect has an undeniable personal responsibility to the project.

in classical greece, vision was privileged over the other senses as the vehicle of knowledge. in western art, the artists of greek tragedies were separated from the audience; therefore vision was the means by which the audience participated (and hearing, both dominate). various thoughts of this time include: kepler, the idea of the retinal image; euclid, the appearance of objects as a function of their relationship to the observer, what a person experiences is not always what they saw; plato, light flows from our eyes and allows us to perceive colors of visible objects, humans commune with heavenly luminaries through vision; al-hazen, the act of perception occurs in the human head, not in the space in between that object and the eye; grosseteste, the material world first appears as light, light radiates in straight lines giving the world a geometrical shape so thus beauty appears through form.

renaissance theories include: the visual cone, a single point of view (although da vinci questioned this); there is a difference between human and divine sight where human sight is imperfect and divine sight is infinite and all-encompassing. renaissance architects and artist (as with classical) tried to avoid distorted perception caused by the position of the observer. they used mirrors to demonstrate the “truth” of perspective (brunelleschi). brunelleschi is credited with the earliest example of a systematically “constructed” linear perspective, although he thought he needed a mirror to view the image already constructed in perspective. others: alberti, the painter and the architect both reveal depth in their drawings, but in a different way; filarete, draws his ideal site as a plan superimposed on a landscape view of the site, combining the ideal and the specific forms of representation; filarete also likens the evolutionary process of architectural drawings to the changes observed in nature and not mathematical transformations.

this section ended abruptly, i’m not sure if this was intentional, but overall it was a useful overview of perception through history.

car model_progress images

anthony vidler_the house of folds/ animistic architecture

in this section, “the house of folds”, vidler described the fold as both a material phenomenon and as a metaphysical idea. “the fold is at once abstract, disseminated as a trait of all matter, and specific, embodied in objects and spaces; immaterial and elusive in its capacities to join and divide at the same time and physical and formal in its ability to produce shapes and especially curved and involuted shapes.” the fold makes space that is thick and full, container and contained, and it has no distinctions between solid and void and thence no real division between inside and outside.

the fold it, it’s perfect! [ah, the joy someone must have had at this discovery.] for the fold is the tangible attribute of an abstract thought. meaning it can manifest in meaningful architectural form.

for the house part of this section, vidler uses deleuze’s “baroque house” to show how folds exist in space and time, things and ideas. the baroque house starts with a small enclosed box that sits on a larger box with five openings in it to let in light and air. there are five openings between the two “stories” where five curtains poke through from above. a light scroll attaches itself to one corner, joining the two boxes together. the upper box stands for the “monad” or soul which transmits knowledge given by its senses. the five curtains are the five sense receptors, and the enclosed room in which they hang, the closed mental space. the five openings in the lower box represent the five senses, the bottom box in its entirety, the material, sensing body. deleuze derives from his study that the baroque is an architecture of endless folds.

i like this metaphor because i can see it. and beacuse it is clearly and simply drawn in my head, i think that i can really see it. but i can't.

next part: “animistic architecture”. [animistic, animate, animation, animism...why?] marcel jean was influential to the development of a new alliance between spatial theory and biotechtonics and utilizing the potentials of digital modeling. he wrote how the architecture of tomorrow will be based on the allegorical forms of human anatomy and mathematical topology, he coined this “allegorical surrealism”.

vidler talks about how digital animation and biological animate (life) are deployed in the service of an architecture that takes its authority from the inherent vitalism of the computer generated series.

[when i think of statements such as this i think of architecture as the result of computer-generated digitization in which a person is strapped to a chair, comatose, with wires sticking out of an exposed brain feeds the computer that then creates rooms for more people strapped to a chair feeding computers to occupy. this creates a banal world of brain dead humans; a tetras-esque world of pixal-like structures. it’s the mental image of a human face and dueling computer screen that makes me yearn for pencil and paper.]

in baroque architecture, the inside is independent of the outside, and a façade is independent of the inside. with the fold, the inside and outside are separated and at the same time brought together. the fold, to me, is an architecture of lines. modernism, corbu and others, is an architecture of planes. if corbu designed with planes, placing them opposite, adjacent, and on top of one another to make spaces; then the fold is a linear space generator that melds planes together to create a ribbon of continuous space-generating form.

greg lynn_ probable geometries [1] and blob tectonics [2]

[1] “anti-architecture” “nonconstructive gestures” “against architecture” “anti-form”; a resistance to exact geometries, a rejection of eidetic forms; in support of incompleteness, undecidability, amorphousness, vagueness

lynn argues that ideal proportions in architecture are incapable of describing corporeal matter. anexact yet rigorous geometries can be described with local precision yet cannot be wholly reduced. biomedical image processing uses the “random section model” of probable geometry to measure shapes and shape changes. architectural process is contrasted with the scientific approach which begins with the amorphous. architecture is criticized as beginning with ideal geometries that do not embody or symbolize anything rather occupy a provisional relationship to the matter they describe.

true, architecture does not seem to begin with defining anything, rather it begins with ideas about site, space, program, qualities of a building, etc, all of which are at the whim of the designer. lynn is advocating starting with pure form. a definable something. exploitation of geometric probability as a foundational position in architecture. lynn is clearly stating his preference for architectural theory, design methodology and ultimate form. [a digital aesthetic culture]

probability: scripting?
discrete probability: known anticipation? always symmetrical?

idea: something being “more or less” of a known geometric form; the resistance of biological structures to geometric exactitude. the morphology of a shape due to adjacent pressures, distension, compression of exterior forces. random section analysis. applied to architecture: is it ambiguity for ambiguity sake? the rebuttal of venturi’s “both, and”?

[2] blobs. blobs. they can only offer architecture its antithesis. blobs cannot be reduced to a typological essence, no 2 are identical. their form and organization is contextually intensive and dependent on exigent conditions for internal organization. they are detached from place, but capable of melding with their contexts. [melding as in merging with?] a blob is all surface: the interior and exterior is continuous.

it’s the “sort of, not really” form.

this theory of complexity abandons both the single and the multiple in favor of a series of continuous multiplicities and singularities. complexity as the fusion of various systems into an assemblage that behaves as a singularity while remaining irreducible to any single simple organization.

“halos of relational influence”: zone of fusion, zone of inflection
an organization of simplicity and stability, the result of which is more complex and unstable

at the end of this essay, again, lynn advocates starting with something that is known, a known form. he is explicit in stating that tectonics and construction techniques should be developed simultaneously with form.

or chip foose?

mustang, i think