Theoretical framework  |  Thousand Plateaus -Rhizome   |  Deleuze- Guattari

Architectural Project | Blur Building  |  Diller Scofidio – Renfro

Concept | Evolution towards a rhizomatic society / difuminating the preconceived limits

As a group, we agreed to explore the Rhizome concept and present it in an interactive way, so that people can experience by themselves the effects of being in a rhizomatic scene. By utilizing  a UNITY software created game, with a few clicks the user will discover  its own paths and connections while discovering different keywords behind Deleuze’s and Guattari’s concepts. The user, acting in a free, non-linear and non-hierarchical way, will be always in the middle, not at the beginning or the end. We have related and used the Blur Building as a support to the game scene which in itself represents a non-container building, a multi-senses fog-mass,  open to new encounters and possibilities, which can be interpreted as an attempt of difuminating the limits.

A Thousand Plateaus :Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Deleuze and Guattari, was written in 1980 in a non-linear way which allows the reader to move among plateaus  in any specific order. Plateaus propose self vibrating regions of intensities. A Rhizome is made of  Plateaus. We can say that the Rhizome is inherently multiple, it has no center, its horizontal (avoiding vertical or linear connections) , it just proliferates, it is not genetical, all within a Nomadic non-territorial approach which opens endless possibilities.

Some of the principles behind the rhizome concept are:

- Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be.

- Principle of multiplicity:Multiplicities are rhizomatic

- Principle of asignifying rupture: A rhizome may be broken..against the over-signifying breaks separating structures or cutting across a single structure.

- Principle of cartography and decalcomania: a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.

The rhizome is altogether different, a map and not a tracing…..

The Blur building:

….”Upon entering the fog mass, visual and acoustic references is erased, leaving only an optical white-out and the white-noise of pulsing nozzles. Blur is an anti-spectacle. Contrary to immersive environments that strive for high-definition visual fidelity with ever-greater technical virtuosity, Blur is decidedly low-definition: there is nothing to see but our dependence on vision itself.” Diller Scofidio

It is an architecture of atmosphere, an ephemeral non-built construction that interacts with the users and the context, investigating the concept of evanescence. The building as a sensorial experience. In fact, within its cloud,  the public could feel and “drink” the architecture in a media installation that involved all the human senses.

THE RHIZOME GAME 

Please click on the following link to download and play the game:

https://drive.google.com/a/iaac.net/folderview?id=0B5wfKFZT_YEUanM4VE1lWi1OQ1U&usp=sharing

Game instructions: There are NO instructions (structures), just click on the texts and discover your path connections. Enjoy!

Key  words to be discovered by the player related to the Rhizomatic:

NON-LINEAR

HORIZONTAL

ACENTERED

NETWORK

MULTIPLICITY

NOMADIC

POSSIBILITIES

NON-TERRITORIAL

INTERCONNECTED

UNORTHODOX………………..ENDLESS KEY WORDS COMING FROM ALL DIRECTIONS….

Image credits for Academic Assignment : TV and Internet images in the game, source: internet

The Digital Water Pavilion (DWP) image in the game | Author : Carlo Ratti associati

“When we speak about the weather, it is assumed that we are talking about nothing, but is not the weather, in fact, a potent topic of cultural exchange, a bond that cuts through social distinction and economic class, superseding geopolitical border?” - Elizabeth Diller

Case Study – Blur Building, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio

Reading - “Rhizome”, G. Deleuze and F. Guattari

The blur building by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio is an example of architecture of atmosphere. By manipulating its materials, textures and macro climate the Blur building controls the experience the visitor receives while inside and creates a unique and unusual experience. The building is unique in way because of its primary material, mist. Water is pumped from the lake below and shot as fine mist through 35,000 high pressure nozzles around the metal frame.

The mist defines the form and spaces of the building. However the mist itself does not have a definite form or boundary. Its shape is always changing and there are no enclosures. This means the building does not have a clear distinction between of space. There is no definite interface between the interior and exterior of the building. A visitor cannot tell where the building starts or where it ends. Thus the Blur Building creates within itself a rhizomatic system of atmosphere.

This building was also intended to be a media installation which features smart raincoats or “braincoats”. These braincoats, which had embedded computer technology would respond to each other with LED lights when worn by the visitors while walking inside the building indicating either positive or negative affinity between them. The visitors get opportunity to connect with others who have similar interests. Thus the Blur Building connects people with similar interests, forming an ambiguous network of connections much like a rhizome.

Rhizome is a philosophical way of thinking developed by Delueze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. They attack the traditional thought which is like the growth of a tree which follows a linear, hierarchical pattern, branching off at various points. It is an ‘arborescent’ system of organization and thought process. The Rhizome on the other hand has a more network like structure which has no beginning and end, or on the contrary, may have many beginnings and endings. It is an evolving system that is not constrained by boundaries.

The World Wide Web can be considered an example of Rhizome. It is a network which connects innumerable communication points like a rhizome, in which every point is connected to every other point. This connection is not centralized. There is no hierarchy according to which points are connected to and from another point. There is ‘deterritorialization’.

I think the Blur Building symbolizes the system of rhizome because it opposes the traditional predefines approach to design, much like how the Rhizome breaks away from conventional thought process.

As for topic of research, I am very interested in studying and understanding the concept of rhizome further. On a parallel line I would like to research on the inherent existence of this philosophy in the vast field of architecture and its practice. It would be interesting to study examples of architecture whose structures are considered analogous to the rhizome such as slums and towns and cities which grow in an unplanned and organic pattern.

Image reference - http://urbagram.net/microplexes/

Case Study: VIEW HOUSE, Johnston Marklee Arraigada

Reading: MARK WIGLEY – The  Architecture of Atmosphere

Architects have always controlled the environment in one way or the other, either by trying to avoid it entirely with the intention of preserving it, or by manipulating it. This manipulation is often done by playing with the immediate atmospherical conditions like lighting, ventilation, view to alter the atmosphere to the architect’s design.

The View House in Rosario, Argentina is an example of architecture which primarily tries to redefine the atmosphere by regulating the boundary between the internal and external environments. The four main ‘picture windows’ created by subtraction of four basic geometric shapes from a single main mass tries to thin out this boundary, at the same time preserving the privacy from neighboring plots. The architect tries to bring the atmosphere of the exterior into the interior by strategically placing the glazed faces and integrating them with the rotational circulation pattern of the interior. This provides framed views of the surrounding landscape. However, while ensuring an almost 360 degree view of the surrounding,  the house  eventually falls short on privacy (which was a main design goal) since the pattern of development around it in future cannot be predicted accurately.

In his book Mark Wigley tries to explain the intimate relationship between the architect and atmosphere. Every architect tries to take control of the atmosphere intentionally or unintentionally because it is an inevitable consequence in the process of designing. Architecture is defined by atmosphere. Every building has its own atmosphere. How it differs from its surrounding natural atmosphere depends on the architect. Wigley states that architects imagine themselves to be in control of the atmosphere.  It is however only an illusion. Atmosphere is intangible, it cannot be addressed or controlled. The only real control that the architect exercises on the atmosphere is through the drawings of his buildings, through various ways of representation.

As for my topic of interest I am very interested in designing with nature. Also, the concept of embedding digital fabrication into a specific natural environment to create a potential social space is very fascinating for me.

Image References:

Image 1 - http://kingkongkoh.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/review-atmosphere-as-the-subject-matter-of-architecture/

Image 2 –  http://www.arcspace.com/bookcase/atmosphere-/