Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari describe the space as a diversity of lines, which each get their identity from the environment. They describe the complete set of connections of particles as the Rhizome.

The rhizome is like a structure of roots, though it is different from the roots of a tree, because it is asymmetric and decentralized. It can be In that way the rhizome can be combined and connected in infinite. In a rhizome any given point can be connected to another (principle of rhizome 1+2; connections and Heterogenety). The rhizome has many entryways. Rhizome is based on multiplicities. The multiplicity should be treated as a substantive (principle of rhizome 3; Multiplicities).

The rhizome might be better understood if you compare it to the root structure of the grass or a potato – an unbounded structure which connects different units together and it grows in between and has no units, only dimensions. All points are always joined in a movement from one identity to another.

The rhizome is not tracing, but it is mapping. “The orchid does not reproduce the tracing of the wasp; it forms a map with the wasp, in a rhizome.”¹ (principle of rhizome 5+6; Decalcomania and Cartography) When you try to replicate the rhizome, it will only from new ramifications and relations (principle of rhizome 4; Asignifyring rupture). This means that nothing is rooted and no truth is given.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari questions the western worlds rational and logical approach to knowledge and make patterns/tracings of the mind (fx Sigmund Freud´s Psychoanalyze) and for example the planned cities. Is the most of the eastern world based on  rhizomes?

Concerning architecture the rhizome has many aspects. One is the multiplicity of interactions which might be made possible through architecture. Using the thoughts of rhizome can help  to erase borders and hierarchy in the structures of masterplans or building design. Architecture without starting and ending – the architecture of gradients (read Sui Fujimoto).  The reference to rhizome could be the internet (decentralized and infinite entryways etc.) and shanty towns or refugee camps (growing, decaying and spreading by the not planned events of necessities). But how can we “control” the rhizome? And where does this put the architect? It is more less the same paradox, that there were with the atmospherically machinery at “new babylon” (Constant Niewenhuys).

The hard task is to design a space that takes into account that all the elements of the spaces is combined and are defining the identity by the rhizome. The rhizome is like the “short term memory” and we plan our cities and understand them by our “long term memory”. It is easy to relate to the known realities in a city, but never the unknown factors of the city.

We should as architects try to understand the “strata” (homogenisis) as the inner process of the rhizome (like Manuel DeLanda). In that way we give our design the best condition to perform best, when learn about the virtual potentiality. But we should be aware of the rhizome, which I do not think we can control. The rhizome is the uncontrolled environment (selfconsistent aggregat), which direct the design in different directions. D´arcy Wentworth Thomsen was also aware that it not was only the evolution (Darwin) that were driving the evolution of the species. The environment (homology) and the rhizome had a deep impact of the growth and forms of for example branches and human faces.

A possible topic for my personal research could be to investegate, how architects over time have been using the digital logics to explore the rhizome in architecture. Like the “Blur” (by Diller Sciofidio Renfro) tries to deal with the rhizome, in a more or less controlled way. 

The next topic could be how we can learn our digital tools to use the “short term” memory and create more “real” rhizomes? But I think we should rise a very crucial question; are we destroying the rhizome by trying to understand it and program it? Maybe the rhizome is best without the definition.

¹ Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari  A Thousand Plateaus, – page 12

Picture: http://emptyencore.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/1219079139.jpg

Summary of T3-Wigley-Arch Atmosphere-Daidalos68-1998

The text by Mark Wigley deals with the atmosphere in the context of the buildings. The atmosphere is outside the buildings and the atmosphere occupies the space between a building and its context. The atmosphere activates your senses. The atmosphere can be physical as fx moisture and sounds, and gets psychosocial in the combination of components. There are infinite possibilities of combinations.

In the explanation of architecture, the architects uses the atmosphere to improve the understanding of their design concepts. For instance, Frank Lloyd Wright is using the nature and atmosphere active in his sketches. The skies is turned into geometrical horizontal lines in the project for the H.C. Price Company Büroturm 1952, Oklahoma, which is adding strength to the height of the building, and the horizontal slices in the building. The atmosphere becomes a part of the design.

In the history the architect has been turned into a “specialist” in special effects. The architects let the building (the architect) control the atmosphere rather than the atmosphere is controlling the atmosphere. But the fact is, that the atmosphere cannot be controlled, though many architects think that the can.

The situationist tried to control and analyze the atmosphere. They defined architecture as pure atmosphere – a redefinition of architecture.  The movement, in this topic led by Debord, was trying the make a new awareness of the atmospheric effect in the context of the city itself, by creating new varieties of emotional feelings and experiences, by using urban décors. The décors create and control the atmosphere.  The ideas is carried out in the project of the “new Babylon” a waste machine for producing atmosphere made by Constant Niewenhuys. The project placed the man before the structures, and the structures should facilitate the man to live a nomadic life. The world should be constructed by users. Constant were working for the project for 20 years, but left him with the paradocs, that the uncontrolled architecture displaces the architect.

Situationists 2013 and “one city”

Maybe Constant Niewenhuys project of New Babylon was carried out to early. Today we have  more tools to map, analyze and execute different décors, which can be used in the city. Maybe today it is the right time to execute the New Babylon with software and hardware tools as the Arduino to control new atmospheres and defining a new era of interactive architecture controlled by the user. But still, where does that put the architect and the depth of the architecture?

Toyo Ito mentioned (in learning from a tree), that the architecture in general is transforming more and more into “skin” architecture in for example Tokyo. The projects are made out of the value of the land rather than the value of the architecture. Toyo Ito says that we should learn from the nature to the nature and ask us self; what is architecture for?

The relation from the nature and the city has been a given parameters for many architects. But most architects focus on few elements of the nature, like the tree. To learn from the nature, I think that we should see the nature as a whole element as we understand and see cities. The nature is the whole world, so why not see the whole world as one city?

To see the whole world as one city can maybe help us to try to understand and control the atmosphere. To blend the city and nature as one element. Like the Sou Fujimotos N-house is like a city and make a metaphorical relation to the city, by having a structure like the city. The house erase the separation of a house and the city.  Sou Fujimoto mentioned in his reading (Primitive Future), that the best architecture arise from the gradiation (city/nature, in/out etc). Our buildings should not have strictly borders and the atmosphere should not stop at the facade. Imaging a city without borders, like the nature, where a space is another space. Where an atmosphere replaces another with a single footstep (like the situationists).

My research

My research could be on this topic; how to see the world as one city. But also with a more sustainable twist. I have noticed that each specific architecture in the different cities I have visited has an enormous impact on people’s lives. This has made me challenge myself to learn more about how buildings are constructed, and how they interact with their surroundings. In my opinion it is not the buildings in themselves that are the solutions to our problems of dealing with the changing climate. I feel more dedicated to issues around how buildings affect people, and I am particularly excited about buildings’ potential to influence people´s habits towards sustainability. Could the atmospherically relation to the nature, help to influence peoples habits? How is the relation between the senses (atmosphere) and peoples actions (habits)? And could the whole “city” be transformed into different zones as Philippe Rahm (Form and function follow climate)? These could be few of the questions to my research.

To visualize the “new city”, I have made a diagram/drawing of it.