“Like the experimental theories that opened up so many potential lines of research from the Macy Conference, which are so pervasive and embedded in our society today, the premise raised here is to connect the aspect of the computational processes of design, in our case, scripting, to the processes of inhabitation, or experience. When experience and method becomes fused into a co-evolving process, what evolves is an architectural machinic relationship embedded in the broader discourse of the discipline. We are encroaching on a social shift that is changing due to rapid development in processual operations. We constantly mediate between the real world and the digital world, through the virtualizations of infrastructure.”"  - page 165/Chapter : Scripting Intelligent Infrastructures and Building Societies.

I have not seen one single example of connection between the processes of scripting and inhabitation anywhere in the book. My believe is that if an author speaks about some major effort to the public ( because quite frankly this is the meager effort here – to overlap the huge gap between 3D and reality) he should give an example of this effort or at least propose a probable solution. Or in the very least talk about a probable solution, witch is not the case.  I did spot a similar problem with the next sentence. The Author just makes a statement  without providing any evidence about this encroaching on a social shift. Its true that society is constantly changing, now more rapidly than ever, because of the rapidly changing technology. Technology that allows us to change our surroundings in every aspect in ways bot known and unknown, imaginable and unimaginable. But if we are speaking about a specific shift in society, than I expect some examples.

During the lectures we had on Thursday and Friday Mr. Leach expressed the opinion that for different reasons (like financial, educational, technological-availability and even conservative narrow minded people) parametric design today mostly remains in the 3D world and for the most part is not implemented in the physical world. There are many and more projects with a morph designs but how many are actually the buildings build according to those designs? The answer is obvious if we just look around. Even the buildings that are made using parametric design (like the example Mr. Leach gave us with F. Ghery`s building in Bilbao) are most of the time just “decorated sheds” – a faced that has nothing to do with the actual structure. In other words we have bones and skin that come from two different worlds.

So now comes the question : Are the parametric tools and the whole computational approach to architecture just a way to achieve aesthetics? This was my opinion before being encountered with Neil Leach and his work. Now i am not so sure. At first it looks to be the case, however when you read something like  ”Logic should be the new form.” page 13 /Chapter :”Parametrics Explained”  you start to question the obvious. If the parameters put in the software are based on logical goals (like obtaining the best shadings, viewpoints, solar exposure etc.) than the result will be more than just aesthetics, it will be even more than just function. The result will be an aesthetic and functional design. A dream come true for any architect in theory. In reality most of the time aesthetics like this increase the costs of the buildings, so the designer is bound to obtain the basic functions ( I am not talking about the star projects with unlimited financial power behind, I am referring to the rest of the architecture, those 99.99% that no one seems to mention) with as little cost as possible and do whatever he can using the available materials to improve the aesthetics.

So even though there was no example like this in the book, I would like to mention one from the lecture. I am referring to the example about the combined use of parametric design applayed with digital fabrication and actually implemented into a real building. This was a project in Japan, and the implementation was a CNC Milling fabricating decorative wooden panels. Even tough we speak again just about an aesthetic function it is still a direct example about the implementation of a parametric design into an actual nonfictional building. I find those examples fascinating. That is probably the reason why I insist to have them in both books and lectures. Because that is what we learn from. Real life examples. Genuine life experience .http://ppd-spr2010.tumblr.com/page/3

It is a well known fact that A. Durer was not the first man to work with perspective and transformation. Long before him the Greeks where familiar with optical illusions, and (as far as I can remember) a century before him Filippo Brunelleschi was the person who defined the perspective. However Durer`s work with transformation was a game-changer in the filed. The same can be applied to Deborah Gordon studies over ant colonies and behavior. Her analysis enabled Steven Johnson to compare the (at first look unexisting) similarities between the ant colony and the human megalopolis. A point of view that to be honest bewildered me personally. I`ve never thought about (the big picture, the big picture) the fact that our conscious decisions combined all together and mixed with the timetable of generations have more to do with the shape of our cities, way more than any number of city developers, urbanists or architects can ever dream to.
All of this applies amplified to Nicholas Negroponte.
His work is fascinating, but pails compared with the accuracy of his predictions about software development. If he had wrote a novel he would probably be our modern Jules Verne. It is true that not all of his predictions are realized…

…yet. There is no parent/child system or rewarding mechanism in our software today. However i still think his work back than was brilliant having in mind that only DOS existed.

If we try to think in perspective the way Negroponte did, his not yet implemented ideas could get very real in an instant. The example that i can visualize is : one important issue today for every architectural design are the restrictions and regulations that every country have. Like safety regulations, health regulations and etc. The law is the law and must be followed. But laws changes as do regulations. Now imagine software that knows all regulations, restrictions and laws for every country and city. Software that tells you while you are drawing on your CAD program that the staircase must be wider than the one what you just made. And show you the line on regulation specifying that topic. Now such software would need a connection with a mother unit ( another software ) that has all the knowledge about regulations and gets updated immediately when laws are changing. This mother software can update later on the child software when the update is needed. This example is not meager science fiction. Technology today could allow us to actually have this. Hopefully it will be reality soon enough.
As far as a topic for a recherche inspired by those texts assigned to us in part 3, well I am still waiting for it to pay me a visit.       http://www.crystalinks.com/delphi.html  23.112013 20:40