Text Assignment: Deleuze and The Genesis of Form, Manuel DeLanda

Photo: https://pathtothepossible.wordpress.com/tag/deleuze-guattari/

Advanced Architecture has developed the capabilities to mathematically and scientifically, transform topological forms, address corresponding structural compositions, introduce complex variation, manipulate data, and even apply algorithmic patterns. These developments in tools and processes are affecting the way in which we think about architecture and how architects define their role in the rapidly-changing field.

Through these digital logics, works such as SANAA’s Rolex Learnig Center have emerged. This emblematic work is programmed with libraries, student work spaces, and cultural activity space; It features several patios and welcomes the public to the EPFL Institute of Technology. The patios serve as entrances and allow natural ventilation and illumination. Separation of the user zones in this 1-story building,  is defined by the hills and valleys rather than by walls and floor slabs. The hills and valleys protrude to the exterior of its shell. This topological transformation is apparent in contrast to the flat land on which it is seated but remains well blended in its long horizontal profile. It’s structural correspondence is composed of a 9×9 column grid, steel roof, 1-story glazing, and tensile members over arches and then buried underground to create the curvature geometries of the shell, the most complex components of the project. There seems to be a deliberate attempt to avoid rigidly defined circulation through space. However, there appears to be a homogeneity and control in the layers of the final design. Which brings into question it’s genesis as a result of an outside to inside or inside to outside process; The latter favored in studies of Deleuze.

According to “Deleuze and the Genesis of Form”, written by Manuel DeLanda, there are two ways of making form: from outside and from inside. He emphasizes that matter has its own form and the entity of a molecule can be the form itself. Deleuze is interested in the process of formation, from the inside because matter finds its own form through its own instinct. And this form is classified into two categories: strata and self-consistent aggregates. “Strata”, as described in DeLanda’s piece on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, is a homogeneous composition most closely compared to sedimentary rock. On the contrary, “self-consistent aggregates” addresses the interconnection between heterogeneous parts. For example, pebbles shaped by a river, are not self-composed; Their forms are abetted by the affects of the river. This is most closely related to rhizome structures because of the embedded multiplicity and heterogeneity of complex connections.

The stance that dictatorship of the design belongs to the study of material scientifically, parallel with the study of it’s emergent process mathematically, is certainly intriguing. I’d be interesting in further exploring the idea of the Architect’s role as a facilitator to a process. I’ve always had reservations about the fabricated rationale used in conceptual design development as the driving reason for say, why the square had to become round and resemble a fringed Victorian plate; It often seems rather random. However, I’m not quite sold on the Architect’s proposed role, void of design; Regardless of the time and state of environmental awareness that we are in, we still design for people. People may not be so enthusiastic to invest loads of cash for Architects to bill them hourly while we study site specific material properties that aggregate without a beginning or end, entrance or exit.

Text Assignment: The Shape of Energy – Sean Lally (photo)

Architecture, in all of its many abstract definitions, is being pushed to a fusion with nature. From some perspectives, such as that of Sou Fujimoto and Sean Lally, architecture ought to be defined by natural elements.

The case study of Foujimoto’s House N uses a shell strategy to illustrate a concept of incremental spatial mediation without the use of distinct boundaries; this way, the outdoors feels like the indoors and vice versa. By the inclusion of trees in it’s outermost shell, House N speaks to topics of atmospheric, disturbed, and intangible relations.

Similarly, Lally’s interpretation of Architecture’s current status and its future, is highly reliant on atmospheric and intangible relational logics in Advanced Architecture. Material energies, the sensational environment that surrounds us, are proposed as a new typology to follow the static mediation used in Architecture today. The shapes of these ever-changing habitats become a job for the architect to define and design custom to the particular properties of the environment. The idea is that society becomes inexplicably aware of material energies’ ability to activate a feeling of space, as well as transform to adapt to change.

Critically thinking, both of these methods seem conceptually competent. With Architecture’s acceptance of rapidly advancing digital technologies, as well as environmental impact, new boundary defining mechanisms appear inevitable. However, both Foujimoto’s and Lally’s concepts distance themselves from issues of security and stability. The role of an architect is certainly changing, but does that exclude the duties of providing such comforts to habitable spaces, especially residential?

In the future, I may be interested in mimicking the inherent successes of natural systems in Architecture. I question strategies of inclusion, forcing nature into the bounds that are today still necessary in Architecture, or wrapping architecture around the freedom that is synonymous with Nature. In this race to design the true “future” of architecture, I hope to develop research that helps to narrow down the contenders to those that are sensible in respect to economical, social, and environmental impact.