During the reading of Alison Smithson article I went deeper in understanding what does it mean “knowledge in nature”.
In fact Saint Jerome during his live was addicted (if it possible to say like this) to knowledge,
but because of time when he lived in some moments it was difficult. Then through time different painters started to depict him in theirs paintings.
They were always depict  him in a different spaces with different details and this spaces were individual understanding of them.

I understand that details in painting were symbolize how Saint Jerome was feeling a life.
I want to transform it to how should Architect feel live in my opinion.
Architect should be as a conductor from environment around to people.
Juan Nuvel always says that  sacred duty of architect is to send positive emotions  through architecture you build to people.
If we will go deeper, we can understand from where architect can find positive emotions.
They are around. In food, drinks, music, movies, paintings, etc. But emotions, are not only  positive feelings. It is also inspiration and knowledge.
When you can study from nature around, you can find absolutely new horizons in what you design.
Thats what green architecture means. You explore enviroment around and then you use that knowledge to optimize, to integrate your ideas in live.
And to send your feelings.

Source: http://www.stephenwolfram.com

“If one looks at different species, one sees all sorts of different patterns; but there are definite classes. And here´s the remarkable thing: those classes are the same classes of behavior that one sees if one looks at all possible simplest relevant cellular automata”.

The work of Stephen Wolfram tries to rephrase the theoretical and methodological laws of the universe from a mathematical point of view; Wolfram makes many studies that lead to provocative results and conjectures, some of the most important from my personal opinion are:

1. Simples rules can generate complex behavior.

2. All modern mathematical methods can deal with complex systems like the ones in biology and social sciences.

3. All of the systems can be viewed as computations; even the most complex ones have an equivalence with simple rules.

He use this conclusions to try to understand and mold any kind of the natural phenomenal; the main thesis that he explain is called “The Principle of Computational Equivalence” or PCE, and he bases almost all his book in hundreds of computer experiments that use Cellular Automata, or CA, which consists in a lattice of sites with an associated state, usually defined by 0 or 1; each one of this sites is related to a rule that usually depends on some small neighborhood from nearby sites; this latter is the essential part of the PCE.

One of the most important formulations of the PCE is: almost all processes which are not obviously simple, can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication; this implies that it does not matters how different are the underlying structures, all complex systems are computationally equivalent; because of this, the traditional continuous mathematical models for natural systems cannot perform any more sophisticated computations. Almost all the book is written in a colloquial way, to be more easy for understand, but there are approximately 300 extensive pages of code notes that are almost impossible to read for the majority of the people, and even though Wolfram introduces hundreds of simple rules based system and provides the source code for these in Mathematica format, unless you are an expert in this software, fragments of code will not be particularly helpful.

From a perspective, Wolfram´s point of view is pessimistic, because he suggest that classical continuous methods can never model the behavior of systems with the kind of complexity that you can find in the nature, and instead of it, is better to use the simplest Cellular Automata model. Because of the behavior of these systems can be only understood by simulations of them, his ideas mention that the equation is irrelevant to understand the natural phenomena for any kind of complexity; consequently, the Cellular Automata models cannot provide comparable insights into the understanding of the natural world that continuous systems do. But this is an argument that can be either true or false, depend from the person and the lector; and this is only a personal opinion.

David Castro taking a shot at an awesome courtship swarm of Bigeye fish at Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Caption provided by Octavio Aburto (via National Geographic Photo Contest 2012)

A critical analysis of the book Swarm Intellignece – Neil Leach, Roland Snooks

What to underline

The bee builds the next cell starting on the corner of other cells, wich are already have two walls built. This simplicity protects the natural growth of the hive,  the contuniuty is necessary for success. Mıcroscale generates simple inputs, wich collectively form the whole. As the organism gets bigger, the possibility to bring the whole information at any given moment to every individual becomes impossible. The set of simple rules and tracable information patterns allow the individual to make decisions. Ant body collectors are not able to sit on a desk and decide how many dead bodies should be carried in wich direction, they just follow little patterns and the job is done.

Relationship between a human and the city, a bee and an orchid, an ant and the colony, differ on many levels on scale and purpose. One thing that remains obvious is these relationships are consisting of feedback loops. The city gives inputs to the individuals and the individuals shape the city by their inputs. This mutual interaction is the key to growth and stabilitiy of the whole. A city grows on its small scale economic and behavioral rules of the neighbours.

“The whole is greater than the sum” , the mathematical addition of all entries create a statistic, but if the input of “interaction” is added creating the “whole” as a system including the intelligence. It is like the soul of the whole. Individuals are “stupid” and the whole has a intelligence. It is not possible to say, one neuron is intelligent, but the whole organism can generate intelligence on extremely complex levels. To generate an understandable model and usable in architecture, our tools are visualisation and computational techniques.

Data collection in microscale inputs is the key, that is what we can extract from the book. Instead of designing a whole, architects need to design  a system, wich can interact, evolve and update himself. The idea of having huge monumental buildings “perfect” as they are is going to be romantic and historic. Now the building, the city, the neighbourhood should be respectfull to the user, interact and collect data from the user, at any time. Generate solutions at the system to those issues wich can be solved by design. Respect and democracy found in nature should be coming back to the output of architecture. The City.

The swarm intelligence exeggerated:

LOCAL INTERACTION + INPUTS OF GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE (THE PLAYER)

The video game Lemmings has the basic idea, lemmings have no brains, they have no decision-making mechanisms and for that reason the player has to assing the lemmings some tasks, as they walk constantly around. If there is a stair, they climb, if there is an obstacle they turn around, if there is a gap, they fall and die. The user input is to give them specific tasks to make them survive with no brains at all. Assign some task to some of them, sacrifice some of them for the good of the whole family.

LEMMINGS (VIDEO GAME) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_%28video_game%29

HAVE SOME FUN HERE http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

LOCAL INTERACTION CREATING GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE

No brain single cell organism makes you find the best way may be?

the intelligent slime

The emergence of intelligence from little rules and local interactions, as happening on the street level in bigger organism like the “city” where people are living together occasionally or on purpose. The text from the book EMERGE from STEVEN JOHNSON makes the question appear: Where does the organism start and what is the motivation of the smallest element.

Is a forest an organism as a whole? Can we call a city or a human being an organism? Is every cell an individual organism or every person in a city? Single ant is an organism or every cell of an ant, may be the colony is the organism? The cell cannot survive without other cells around in a human body as a city can not survive without different groups of people accomplishing different tasks. So we have individual cells of individual human beings and individual people of the organism “city”.  The incredible network makes the sens of scale disappear and the uncountable interactions make the whole system work in a specific way which is not specified anywhere.

Ant colonies are not just a lot of tunnels underground, they are the ants behaviour. Ants, who cannot see the whole picture and make simple decisions about what they should do. They cannot count and calculate how many tunnels the colony needs or how many workers are in total required. They can never see a section or plan of the colony but the complex system of an ant colony succeeds with simple individuals making decisions according to their local vision and neighbour inputs.

Interaction with the closest ant. That is all it takes, without seeing the whole picture, ants track patterns of chemicals to do what they do even they do not understand the local cluster. You sense too much carrier ants? Go do something else. Too many ants digging the tunnels, you should try to protect them. No ant has a decision of “liking” the task. They just do it. This level of stupidity is necessary to make the whole system intelligent. Little reactions to little interactions make the whole system alive.

Changing the scale and looking at living organisms, as we call human bodies, as they grow up from one cell to two and four, the cells make decisions (wich are not decisions) according to the local part where they are, as they have the whole dna in them, cells choose what to read from the dna according to their position in the body. A cell on the fingernail cannot locate himself on the map of the body, but according to his neighbours, he can know what to do. Even every cell dies in your body and gets replaced by a new identical one, you are you whatever cells you are consisting of.

The scale changes, to the city, even the globe, little interactions change the whole.Even there are some inputs like laws and city planning, the little interactions shape the behaviour. There is no definition for “poor areas” or “ethnical neighbourhoods” in the plans, or a map of security problems, none of these are planned. Street level interactions on the sidewalk define all of these interactions.

The Example of the video game  Simcity shows the simplicity and mimicable nature of the whole. You put simple rules; people cannot live near big piles of garbage, business should be connected to the transportation then you leave the simulation work, the system goes on if every simple rule is working. The whole does not have an intelligence but just set of rules create the logic.

Another example can be thought as some web sites, yahoo answers, wikipedia, various forums and user content filled web sites. They have simple set of rules, and that defines their overall character, the users change but the character of the whole does not.

Final question comes to mind: designing the whole or designing the simple local rules and interactions? Which can create the whole? Applied to architecture, taking user input on the smallest scale as the possibility to have a whole design, with no end user knowing the final product while shaping it.

http://www.mrwong.de/myhouse/

“Branching Morphogenesis” is at Ars Electronica, a museum of digital and media arts, in Linz, Austria

‘… the form of an object is a ‘diagram of forces’… D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson

Thompson described growth and form in relation to the study of organisms. He emphasized the evolution as the fundamental determinant of the form and structure of living organisms. He asserts structuralism as an alternative to survival of the fittest in governing the form of species.

According to him Darwinism is not adequate explanation for the origin of new species. He regarded natural selection as a secondary to the origin of biological form.

The text is basically lays on the associated repercussions of environmental pressures and geometrical formations. He established mathematics and physics to map these repercussions. It is described as a means for deciphering an individual course of development or growth. The interpolation between multiple morphometric mappings was outlaid as a means to project potentials in form. This sets two fundamental branches of a conceptual framework for computational geometry. These are parametrics and homologies. A parametric equation is defined as a constant equation in which relational parameters vary. It results in producing families of products where each instance will always carry a particular commonness with others. Thompson defines these embedded relationships as homologies . The framework that emerges encapsulates, within formal rules for geometric organisation, the capacities of form, in physical stature and robustness, and their transformation through external influences.

Similarly, computer-aided design is capturing the geometric relationships that form the foundation of architecture, building upon now-established practices of form-finding and finite element analysis (which breaks down a continuous structure into many simple, linked elements in order to find optimal thicknesses and arrangements of supporting elements). New developments in parametric modeling permit control of design through models that can coordinate and update themselves. These systems can automatically update the entire model or drawing set based on changes as small as a joint or as large as the entire floor plan, offering flexible design of deeply nested relationships. In much the same way that mutations in nature generate biodiversity, individual variation in architectural components can be achieved economically. Parametric design practice employs ‘dependency’ networks similar to the complex process diagrams used to express relationships in natural systems, offering increasingly fine-tuned approaches to building component design. Using these tools, architectural disciplines are poised to work with increasing effectiveness in responsive, interactive systems.

I find this possibility really interesting. In particular I have always been interested in evolution, and the history of the Earth millions of years ago. Perhaps mathematical form is an element of the missing map, or perhaps this idea could be applied to filling in some of the gaps. It has exponential possibilities in the world of parametric design, and the possibility of the built form. We are increasingly interested in achieving organic form, and perhaps this better understanding of nature and mathematics will help us.

My possible personal research topic: How does the architectural discourse engage in a recovery of ecology in its original framing in the context of morphology? The Morphological Context of Environmental Architecture

 

author’s image

D’Arcy Wenthworth Thompson, On Growth And Form, 1917

“The finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue” as described by the novelist Peter Medawar, is really just all preface from beginning to the end- a preface to allometry. The “On Growth and Form” shook the scientific explanation of  morphogenesis despite the fact that it does not really include a single unifying thesis. Nor does the visual thinker- Sir D’arcy Thompson- attempt to establish a resulting relationship between the forms seen in biology and forms based on physics.

Thompson tries to break the processes by which patterns are formed in plants and animals into its simplest components using descriptive and analytical methods. The study of form starts with describing it by words and ends in a definition in the precise language of mathematics. The common misconception is that mathematical definitions, being very concise, are too strict for common use. We apt to think their rigor is limitative, while in fact it offers endless freedom. The functions of mathematics within its laws are bound to underlie all parts of physical science and all composite physical phenomena. The curves of higher order, conic section and other akin curves are interpretations of forces in the static and dynamic relations- being  the merging point of mathematics and physics (simple example- catenary curve- a hanging chain with two points of arrest – 0-growth points). A raindrop should in theory be a regular perfect sphere because water always forms in the minimal surface, but because physical forces are applied the shape deforms obliquely. Although it is not regular anymore, it can still be mathematically defined. Amorphological forms are nothing but identical functions of different coordinate systems and simple graphic expressions with the occurrence of localized variations, extensions not uniform at all distances etc. Thompson strives to look for mathematical explanations in defining plants’ and animals’ patterns using the method of coordinates, interchange and substitution of x and y coordinates etc. In the schemes only mathematics and physics are considered, therefore he only depicts the ideal sample state and is not symptomatic of what the shapes really undergo in the nature.

Thompson points out – in example after example – correlations between biological forms and mechanical phenomena, like the observation of  numerical relationship between spiral structures in plants and the Fibonacci sequence. In the following threads he explores the extent to which differences in the forms of related animals could be described by means of relatively simple mathematical transformations.

In his instructive cases of grid deformation and transformation he draws an analysis of a common por-cupine fish, Diodon. After converting the vertical coordinates into a system of concentric circles and making the horizontal lines provisionally resemble a system of hyperbolas, the old outline, transferred in its integrity to the new network, appears as a manifest representation of closely allied but different looking sunfish. And as such it accounts, the system being now non-isogonal can only be visually valid. Using the same principal, Thompson uses non-uniform deformations, elongated shifts and rectilinear coordinates transformed to coaxial circles in the mathematical analysis of mammalian skulls. By curving the lines of intersection on a human skull grid, Thompson arrives to a simian type skull. This exertion however can only be performed within listings of topological similitude. In other words, a beetle and a cuttlefish do not fit in the same framework and although the shape could perhaps be distorted, there are no invariant basis for this generic transformation. For all contractual his work is, his permutations of organic forms find a common base with the work of Albert Durer featuring face profile analysis.

The geometrical analogies weigh heavily against Darwin’s conception of endless small continuous variations, because the assumed mutations creating new types are excluding many physico-mathematical possibilities. The book has never conformed to the mainstream of biological thought. Thompson claimed Darwinism to be an inadequate explanation for the origin of new species. He did not reject natural selectionbut regarded it as a secondary to the origin of biological form.The central conclusion could be that biologists of the author’s day overemphasized evolution as the fundamental determinant of the form and structure of living organisms, and underemphasized the roles of physical laws and mechanics.

A research that could be done would evaluate mathematics’ influence in terms of architectural design nowadays. Mathematics is applied in all 3D programs and digital machines like 3D printers that pioneer the emerging architectural styles. The contemporary design and architecture are driven by the mathematical definitions and formulas translated into the computer language which makes it a lot easier for all kinds of users- even those lacking knowledge in the field of mathematics. If nowadays, everyone is able to ‘produce’ architecture, what should be the next step in our pursuit of form? An important issue to analyze would be the genesis of form now- based on mathematical definitions- and the evolution of the tools and methodological strategies. Mathematics is indeed endless in its possibilities, however new tools could include more incorporation of physics and chemistry in creating the form, or even, conducting simulations inside the programs. If Thompson pioneered in his independent insight into the form genesis in 1915 and somehow predicted the computational methods, how much does it take for us to rise up to our century’s level? It is not enough to use the digital tools in a repetitive manner because a prospective mean for revolutionary thinking lays far beyond applied techniques we have already learned about. My question is: are we there yet?

More is different; ignorance is useful; look for patterns in the signs; pay attention to your neighbors; encourage random encounters. These five critical components of emergence are evidenced by Johnson in the article as they relate to different operating conditions of complex systems. In the ant world, individuals are imprinted with a basic DNA structure, but have no impression of the emergent societal structure, nor are they aware of how to contextualize themselves within it. Without this knowledge, it is crucial for the self-organizing ant to interact with ants whom they have not yet met in order to further optimize their function. Through paying attention to their neighbors and identifying patterns in their environment, ants exhibit the extraordinary ability to change their operating behavior relative to their context. To further this, Johnson identifies the differences in the behaviors of ants from young colonies and those from older colonies, indicating a discrepancy in the wealth of knowledge collected by each, and a reluctance from older colonies towards performing repeat tasks. In the case of cellular biology, the strength of self-organization results from the number of cells present, and how many are performing which function. On a microscopic level inside our bodies, there is at any one given time, thousands of new cells replacing old dead ones. Just as ants use pheromones to communicate with each other and gather local information, cells register salts, sugars, amino acids, and other minerals to determine where to orient themselves, all the while ignorant of the scale the human life cycle. As such, thinking locally and acting locally based on local knowledge produces local results, but creates a global behavior with a far greater longevity.

Diversity of function through numbers is also exhibited in cities, where neighborhoods are developed through local interaction, and the streets and sidewalks are the medium in which this exchange occurs. As the basis for self-identification is a comparison to others, an increase in numbers leads to a difference in the function and performance of each individual element, and random encounters can provide new information and insight into the global state of things. Thus, cities possess an ability to cluster information based on a number of criteria such as the input source, frequency and similarity of information, and can adapt through the processing of this information. Interestingly, Johnson draws further parallels between emergence in these complex systems and the logic of SimCity, which suggests what his intentions are in forming these comparisons. Fundamentally, development in the game is based on the input from a single source, implying a top-down approach to the structure of that organism which would be in contrast to the essentials of swarm logic. However, SimCity is a game which is played, and never won. The product is the result of thousands of local relationships between adjacent cells; an organizational structure which is based on responding to neighbors and remaining useful in an ignorance of the global order. When considered this way, the logic of emergent intelligence still stands, but the removal of scalar differences clarifies it as a definition and a pattern of information processing.

Johnson has identified emergence as a nature of complex systems, but has merely provided  definition to a process which already occurs rather than imply future action. In fact, the suggestion that an awareness of emergence as a presence in complex systems should imply action is contradictory to the notion of useful ignorance, which he identifies as a fundamental constituent of ‘bottom-up’ emergent intelligence. Once an individual within swarm logic becomes sentient, it has jumped scale and is no longer making contributions to the local. To say that one should ‘learn’ through an understanding of swarm logic is not necessarily correct, but his article introduces a number of questions about the development of our socio-economic structures.

So emergent intelligence is a thing… now what?

Patrik Schumacher

” Each space is in fact a communication. It invites its visitors to participate and gives them clues on how should they behave, what to do. But people are no longer satisfied with simple ordering of space with rigid forms and strict compartmentalization. They need to communicate with each other and move swiftly. This is why rooms should not be separated but rather interconnected. Spaces should be constructed in such a way that everyone can easily see, find and communicate with everyone else.”-Schumacher

Parametricism by Patrik Schumacher is not a style, but a continuous process of research, a movement which tries to solve and bind relational solutions to every spaces of human scale. Schumacher is predicting the future by a continual research of these platforms that have the capability to process large quantities of data for the development of complex topological structures and environments, as well as new understandings of space, both real and virtual.  Being a theorist and as well as an architect he is making a “theoretical foundation” a research line of a completely new style in architecture which will probably dramatically change the way the word looks, and a few steps are being implemented at this point in time but still not evident being far as it came to a point that it has become the bible of architecture. Tackling and defining what the future will be, what is behind of all this attempt and movement? what made Schumacher realize all this diversity, and relation to what humans should live in?

He made modernism a flaw in architecture and open up an idea that every human should move in a fluidic way, in a natural way that lets them communicate with each other as well as create a move that would enhance on the way they feel and sense that there is a need of relation of spaces to humans and one another, rather than a way that people walk in a point, to a point, creating a space that defines them without realizing that there is a need of connection a relationship and a sensible feeling to each one of them, and a space that relates them to each other. Architecture should increase interaction and information exchange, and can no longer insist on physical separation, it should resemble how nature acts to its environment, how nature construct itself to adapt to it. He explains that architecture should not push people to go in a straight line, it should not dictate them on where to go, but allow them to self-organize in complex matrix of differentiated spaces and enables them to create multiple communication scenarios, and ordering social processes in space that is a true natural communication.

The article relates the reality that we are in the continuous process of making more complex matrixes for a more complex social processes that has been waiting to unfold. this is portrayed by parametricism, a continuous free flow of lines, in every different spaces, in a space there should be many options to go, and many things to view in a simultaneous way, there are choices to go sites to view, a choices to be made, and more importantly not to miss everything.

In relation to other article, parametricism speaks about that architecture should not create an environment of grids, an environment that dictates where people should go, an atmosphere created to have one goal, but rather architecture should create a feeling of “choice”, a living space that every human have a choice and an environment that adapts to that choices, parametricism is a feeling and an act of connecting each other by means of parametric computational behavior of humanity. In Conclusion to parametricism, it is belief is to have a more complex way of arranging the hierarchy of architecture, the scale and proportion of it,  trying to break the old laws of architecture which makes sense of today’s challenges that humanity is facing, it is trying to look for choices that humanity would take, rather than instilling that answers to them, parametricism is introducing questions for humanity to have answers and create their own different interaction and communication with each other, having a difference in order, in form, in environment that it creates and an element that people interact with each other, these is what parametricism is trying to change, trying to convince that architecture should adapt to what humanities choices will be, rather than controlling what humanity should be.

Coming up to this point and reasoning, wondering what Architecture should be for the next generation and trying to get out to what we are already are in, Architecture should have a good reminder that matrixes and parametric reasoning should not be controlled by animation and technological advancement computing, rather than it should have a sense of individuality, a character and a behavior which human can interact. Is there a need of creating a second nature built environment? or is there a need to create a natural environment that goes back to its roots? parametricism is having a built environment that is unified, that is interconnected to what humanity have choices, an environment that let them interact and interconnect with each other, but the questions will remain unanswered of how will it suite to that different choices of human, on how would it have an impact to that human choices?  I firmly believe  it will have a big impact on the future, parametricism is  striving to work smarter, more integrated, and more efficient, but questions remain on how would it change the face of the world, and how would it change the laws of architecture that is already proven, it is a great risk, as well as a great opportunity to open up new possibilities of what architecture would really be in the future.

T6. Parametricism- A new Global Style for architecture and Urban Design

 T6. Individual Summary

Parametricism as an increasingly dominant new style among architects, it is rooted in digital animation techniques and it succeeds modernism as a new long wave in systematic innovation. This is how Schumaker introduces this “new” style in the former document.

With the new incoming technologies, Parametricism is turning into the most implemented style among emergent advanced architects all around the world. It´s the new area of study in which the architect designs the most efficient connection between the project itself and the society, depending on the scale, location and environment.

Along this text Schumaker emphasize that each style has it´s hard core of principles and a characterized way of tackling design problem tasks. In which we could find negative (avoid rigid geometry primitives, juxtaposition and repetition of single elements) and positive heuristics (all forms are parametrically malleable, gradually differentiated and systematically correlated).

The implementation and differentiation of the sub-systems within the whole system is basic during all the design process of the project, integrating object parameters, ambient parameters and observer parameters into the system.

The comparison with Le Corbusier´s Modernist urbanism is perfectly explained with the metaphor of the human and the donkey, in which he explains that the human as a superior being, walks in a straight line to reduce distance and time, while the donkey walks in a undefined curvy line avoiding the sun and different obstacles. This is exactly the difference between parameticism and modernism, where one style tries to design in a ordered and humanly logical way, and the other works with the path/line of less resistance.

As a way of trying to explain these donkey path connections, the author uses Frei Otto´s experiments and experience while showing the three fundamental types of configurations, which are, direct path networks, minimal path networks and minimizing detour networks, which somehow explain how nature itself creates its own connection in a different way as modernism does, and these is exactly what parametricism tries to achieve, creating more organic designs for the emergent projects and mostly urban territories.

Text relationship with other groups Topics during final debate

All articles involved in the debate had in one way or another, a relationship with the studied digital logics.

-          Theory of transformation.- talks about how all forms and shapes have a relationship with biological/ nature structures and their mathematical explanation, giving the architect the freedom to create biomimetic shapes and understanding how it works.

-          Deluce and genesis of forms.- criticizes the western way of thinking in which form is as it is for no explainable reason and says that the importance of the shape is in the process in which it becomes like that, in where the external factors directly affect the final form.

-          Rhizome.-  uses a philosophical approach to explain the connection between the roots and the log of a tree, and then again the branches to the tree itself. Here we see a connection with the previous text, understanding that the externalities define the final shape or form.

-          Towards a theory of architecture.- explains the idea of a visionary architect who many years ago proposed the creation of machines that can learn, from their errors and experience while being operated by a parent machine and yet so by humans. Being able to create capacities such as heuristic processes, learning from memorizing, maping information, understanding externalities and conditions and having the ability to forget non-useful data.

Personal Research Topic

How can rigid geometric primitives interact and help us architects create more efficient parametric designs?

This question is trying to plunge in the parametricism way of designing without leaving aside modernism as we know it, in which the architect while merging both ideas and styles can find the perfect solution for upcoming developments and territories. Is it possible to find a bonding line between both ways of thinking, or one them is the main character of this tale called “Creating spaces as nature does”.

Reading Toyo Ito’s writing, Tarzan in the media forest, you feel dispatched into his architectural journey, a fortieth years journey where the architect deal with his works and the architectural movements he is related whit , in order to determinate an “architectural code” result of  four top events, four buildings which determinate his “code”.

To read this “journey” is really important to put it into a specific context , Tokyo.

The Modern movement is generously criticized, its principles are even replaced by themes that he considers as tree properties:

1- Environment relationships

2- Increasing design process

3- Complex order

4- Redefinition of inside/outside boundaries

5- Architecture opened to the environment

The modernist architecture extremely changed Tokyo’s spaces, up to create abnormal relationships between high-rise and low-rise buildings, in order to appear as a building fight ring. Personally the movement itself has not to criticized but the architects misunderstand the power of its principles. The modernism created one of the strongest revolutionary process into the architecture world, overused by its second generation followers, the same happened for the Cuba revolution, it should have been the starting point to create a new era, not the era itself !

Modernism message wasn’t only to conceive architectural principles but to introduce the revolutionary spirit into the architects mind, the audacity of breaking rules.