Saturday, December 3, 2011

Formative Complexity: Expressed Traits in Architectural Details

“The most important issue facing architects…is how to construct a viable, progressive project capable of incorporating the innovative design research of the past decades into a productive new model of practice. This would be a form of practice committed to public legibility, to the active engagement of new technologies, and to creative means of implementation. It would be an experimental practice that takes as its object not self-referential theories but real problems — the difficult moments when architecture takes its place in the world.” (Stan Allen, with Frampton + Foster, The New Architectural Pragmatism — Stocktaking, 117)

It is the claim of my thesis that the architectural detail contains embedded information about the cohort which produced it, clothed in the material realities inherent to architectural production; that organizational typologies have ramifications in the arenas of physical construction and material joinery; and that the progressive project Allen et. al. discuss might be fostered by uncovering and responding to the points of expressive failure observed in existing modes of practice.

I firmly believe that organizational trends, at their most virulent, threaten architecture’s ability to envision its resultant object, and so undermine the very utility of our profession. Certain formats estrange the architect entirely from the empirical realities of the material world; it is this remove which can render the design process destructively autonomous and ultimately unnecessary as other professions take on large parts of the architect’s work.

At the other extreme, I believe that the design firm could act as a highly reflexive reifying organism which reliably dampens and re-distributes what De Landa would refer to as friction --- that is, anything which “interferes with the implementation of a tactical or strategic plan” --- in such a way that the final object re-presents its genesis. A designed representation of the modern world’s structural complexity would render the networked reality of our lives in material tectonics.


In trying to understand how process has been inscribed in product, I’ve analyzed a series of 20 precedents from the last 70 years using a roster of what I discuss as expressed traits (summarized, above) which delve into the material realities of the project and the social and cultural schemas which promulgated them. The traits are grouped into physical and organizational instigators and resultants, yielding four sets of investigative traits which are force (physical instigators), effect (physical resultants), event (organizational insitators) and performance (organizational resultants). Within each of these quadrants I’ve identified three genes to look for in the context of each analyzed project; these genes have two or three possible traits each.

In the following pages, I’ll define each of the traits in terms of social characteristics and architectural processes, providing the theoretical background for my thesis position.

Force

The first gene in the physical instigator category is excess, with a possible identification as excessive or efficient. This trait has to do with the response of the designer to the basic necessities of force flow through the structure. Given the need for grounding of all vertical loads in order for the design to successfully become structure, does the designer respond with the bare minimum necessary for function, or does she embellish? Many theorists posit that this is a culturally conditioned response: Zygmunt Bauman writes that when contemporary capitalism is confronted with a basic problem, it responds with “the production of superfluous bodies, which are no longer required for work”. He claims that the maxim “form follows function” has been largely discarded in our, and many other, service industries, replaced with “form follows funding.” Excess is the knee-jerk response to friction in the post-modern era.

Contextual relationship is the next gene, with differentiation and standardization being the two possible trait expressions. This gene is related to yet separate from the last: given either an efficient or an excessive solution to force flow, the relation of each element to the next can be one typified by similarity or by difference. A solution striving for similitude uses “first a single organization regulating all parts to the whole and second...the presence of a common module.” This modularity calls throws into focus the discretized, interchangeable nature of so much of our built environment at the level of the detail; that the rarified art museum and the public housing project both utilize 16-gauge steel framing with 1/4” - 20 fasteners hidden behind sheetrock means something. In contrast, “differentiat[ion,] while remaining continuous [is conversely] a method of disappearing into a specific context”, dematerializing the object and instead allowing the design process to be foregrounded in its intentional juxtaposition of context and content.

Last in the force category is Uniformity, expressed as material isotropy or anisotropy. To use De Landa’s terminology, we could call anisotropic responses “ ‘materiality, natural or artificial, and both simultaneously; it is matter in movement, in flux, in variation.’ …[it is the] explicit use of genuine non equilibrium techniques, nonlinear dynamics and instability theory.” Anisotropic solutions require competency of the designer in mapping loads to varied sectional areas of the solution so that each area acts in its best capacity. On the other end of this trait stands physical isotropism: extensively self-similar forms of “steel…might euphemistically be described as a material that facilitates the dilution of skills [relying on] manufacturing processes [that] can be broken down into many separate stages, each requiring a minimum of skill or intelligence.” By virtue of their regularity they denecessitate the process of conscious design so vital in maintaining our profession’s veracity.

Now the traits skip from instigators to resultants --- a large jump, to be sure, crossing over a large swath of possible formative impetus.

Effect

Let’s look first at the Sign/Symbol gene, expressed as derived symbolism or asignifying sign. An “asignifying sign is essentially an outward symptom of an underlying process or condition…rather than having meaning, its symptoms suggest becomings.” These becomings alone are enough to give the object phenomenal weight and validity to observers and users. A symbolic derivation of these factors, on the other hand, asserts that “architecture depends in its perception and creation on past experience and emotional association [as] symbolic and representational elements” central to the identity of the object. Many claim that the day of meaning-based architecture is past; Reiser + Umemoto state that “A meaning-based practice actually stops process because it…relies on outside semantic criteria that are generally separate from material processes. An architecture that has to explain itself, or be explained, has failed.”7

The next effect in my analysis is Informational Location, with three possible expressions: exteriority, interiority or the obscuring of information. According to Cecil Balmond, when moving toward understanding “the first step...is [legible] pattern.” Much of Balmond’s work identifies external representations of organismic order and applies them to the project of building design. Given that this is an important part of architectural design, where does the designer place the legible pattern?

Last in my list of physical effects is Stability type, expressed as exact, inexact or anexact in nature. Exact stability is a result of the application of statics, the prevention of movement completely using scientific analyses. The anexact is a class Greg Lynn embraces particularly, describing it as “characteristics of bodies that are not fixed statically [but show] dynamic, incorporative stabilities.” These stabilities within the realm of the detail show up as potential movements at the smallest scale, which can aggregate to create the dynamism Lynn discusses.

Event

Moving into the social hemisphere of traits, the denotative association moves from the physical embodiment of organizational decision into the social structure of the design practice itself.

First on the organizational rubric is Social Synthesis, manifested as collectivity or autonomy of the design organization in relation to the other professions and the trades it interacts with. Collectivity describes groups in which “shared perspectives...form the basis for collective action...while individual and collective identity is constituted through commitments to and participation in [the whole].” This sort of shared identity expands the reach of the design process beyond its own boundaries, drawing other discourses into that of the architectural world — so called “archineered” projects, truly integrated design-build firms, and exactingly reflexive local-global paired teams are good examples. On the other hand is architectural autonomy, “the notion that architecture...is bound to an internal exploration and transformation of its own specific language;” a reductive definition in which the process is limited in scope to only include those aspects which are considered lucid to design apart from other, related processes.

Next we have Technological Deployment, codified as cyborg assemblage, strategic deployment or tactical deployment. Most mystifying of these is the cyborg assemblage, a term put forth by Donna Haraway and defined as “a polymorphous information system [manifesting] a profusion of spaces and identities and the permeability of boundaries in the personal body and in the body politic.” A cyborg architecture is one in which the technology mediating the design process is so completely entrenched that the lines between different players have been blurred to the point of dissolution; in a cyborg construct, the architecture is wholly dependent on technological tools so that the project would have been impossible without technological parsing. Both of the other options are less dependent on technology in creation of space; they involve technology in one of two scales, but not in the entire derivation of the project. The difference between strategy and tactics is best described in military terms, that tactics operate at a local scale such as the use of “men and weapons to win battles” where strategy is deployment of technology at a more organizational level, intended “to win campaigns or whole wars” ; tactical technology use is visible at the level of the detail where strategic technological deployment focuses it at a larger, communicative level.

Lastly, we have the source of architectural Identity Derivation, manifesting as transinstance or imposition. The imposing identity relegates its users to perpetual subservience, standing as a monolith understandable only within its original context. The imposing identity enthrones the organizational structure which created the object, disallowing its integration into other social paradigms as the building ages and its surround changes. Some theorists claim that we have moved beyond this type of social construct, however; Bernard Cache claims we have shifted “from the imposing monument to the transinstant monument [where the] space of ‘transinstance’ allows us to pass from one vector to another...[and is] smart enough to allow for the transformation or transit from one identity to another.” This fluid cultural identity is much more open ended, allowing the object to shift its derived identity and cultural significance based on the frame of reference of the user or observer.

Performance

Moving to the social resultant quadrant of my investigation we look at instances of the architectural detail’s social performance. First on this list of traits is Patterning, represented in expressive, impressive or repressive inclusion of the manifestations of social data. De Landa claims that “expressive patterns are what scientists call ‘information’;” this information can be a tool for understanding how the organization which created the object leveraged their expressive potential. If such information is hidden, the social patterning is repressive; if the legibility is purposefully didactic, it is impressive; if the legibility is a bottom-up, emergent informational expression, the patterning is expressive. The legibility of the Madrid airport with its multifarious pathways and discreet separations is expressive while the detailing of the Seattle Public Library’s interior with its architecturally discreet units is impressive.

The Resolution of the design in the realm of the built is shown in the discrete or ambiguous nature of the final object. The latter can be “seductively incomplete and awaiting occupation…often vacuous intentionally...pure pattern, an intricate color-by-numbers…a formula offering a variety of uses and abuses.” The former talks about the a constructing organization which solved all design problems with singularly formal solutions, rather than allowing some to remain purposefully unresolved and therefor open to redefinition and post-rationalization once built.

Last but not least is the Stylistic Adherence of the object, presented as mutant, referential or individual identity in the socially-defined context of the architecture’s surround. The stylistically referential project adheres to aesthetic norms which are well established in the cultural surround from which the design object rises; deconstructionist museums in Europe or the United States or joint-defined tectonics in Japan would be good examples. The individually defined project is a responsive to one of these well established norms, but tries to define itself in contrast to rather than alignment with the paradigmatic identity; those who understand the juxtaposition of the stylistic presentation form a “micro−public, inhabiting simultaneously” the space of the individual and the whole it stands in contrast to. The mutant styled construct is product of “a faster pace of market evolution, [of] increases in the rate of consumption, and the level of the information and competition between locations has started to render stylistic consistency ineffective,” instead trying to present a new and unique whole.

Taken as a whole, these traits describe 29 ways for the organizational backdrop to find manifestation in the detail of a project. In each of the cases studied, they present a different story: in the case of Van Der Rohe’s Crown Hall, the efficient, standardized and isotropic design was meant to be didactic for the legions of students passing through it; at the same time, it was an expressive formulation of the organizational structure which created it, highly collaborative between members of a tightly-knit team with tactical use of the era’s technology subservient to the architect’s strong diagram.

Foster Partner’s Hong Kong Bank Building presents a very different story in its detailing, its excessive differentiation the product of a cyborg process in which technology becomes the defining feature of the process (transnational and telemeterically dispersed as it was) as well as the product; resultantly, this project’s discrete resolution is a good symbolic indicator of its genesis.



The diversity of the projects’ expressed traits (each identified as tics on the genetic glyph shown above) is tabulated on the group phylogenetic tree which follows. This charts the branching of projects within each investigative quadrant in relation to other similar projects.

In the second diagram, which clusters projects by vintage and then tabulates their identification on each trait, other patterns are made explicit in this visualization particularly historical trends in formative complexity (structural expressionism visible as the cluster of early [red and orange] projects identifying as information location {exterior}; also, underexpressed traits are much more visible, such as the dearth of lines with technological deployment {tactical} expression while {strategic} and {cyborg} are both well populated).


No comments:

Post a Comment