On Parametric Typology

The following is excerpted from my presentation (1) at the 4th International Alvar Aalto Meeting on Modern Architecture, organized by the Alvar Aalto Academy (2) under the topic 'High-Rise Shuffle' at the University of Jyväskylä. The paper focused on the application of parametric design to a high-rise typology that functions as densifying urban infill but also begins to close the gap between design and planning.

High Rise Shuffle

...
Parametric modeling with a complex set of variables provides architects a conceptual structure which encourages the investigation of design premises under different conditions (3), a requirement of any experimentation. The potential for such multiplicity also makes parametric design a powerful research tool for investigating the profound and widespread effects of even quite minor typological inventions. The research presented here tests the application of high-rise typology as a method of infill. Infill, of course, implies a connectivity in both the design concept and physical space between the tower and its surroundings. Such a model obviously contradicts the typical high-rise development which either stands back from the city as an iconic object or exists within a segregated territory; a gated community or business park. The desired sensitivity to a multitude of situations within the existing city requires a new approach to the planning of very large developments in which the fine-tuning—and even mutation—of the urban design proceeds from the architectural organization outward, rather than prior to and superseding it. In this way urban design can become a mutable process which incorporates integral feedback between the plan and the proposal.
...
Throughout the definition of this typological study I have avoided as much as possible a reliance on geometric forms, using instead geometric procedures whose relational properties are known but whose form is unpredictable. These procedures—proximity, convex hull, intersection—are more sensitive to small perturbations and illustrate the ability of parametric modeling to produce novel variations that go beyond simple transformations such as scaling, rotation, or the selection from a set of a few predefined categories. Within these procedures a number of options are also made available to the user to control directly, especially the resolution at which the analysis operates, the degree of interconnection... or the relative intensity of different values. A conservative user could, for example, restrict the [parameters] to produce quite normative towers. The results produced by these controls is, as everywhere in the process, mediated through the generative processes, however, so some modifications do not always lead to the expected results. Though the actual processes are fairly simple in themselves, their flexibility and the density of their interrelation (and selective discontinuity across thresholds) generates complex proposals. No attempt has been made to avoid the possibility of contradiction among the many input variables, but rather to filter such conflicts through the combination of “black-box” algorithmic methods and the users exploration of projections through intuitive visual feedback (4).

Exploring parameter space (animation)

...
The origin of this research stemmed from an interest in how the city in its generic condition reacts to the occasions of iconic architecture (5). More precisely, how might architects be able to react without themselves creating just another exceptional building.

Experiments with ‘non-iconic’ architecture have been made in the past, most notably through mat-buildings (6) and vernacular types (7). My approach borrows some techniques from these approaches, including deeply-integrated connectivity, multiplicity of parts and functions, and engagement with context. Implementation within a high-rise situation brings unique challenges such as the conflict between horizontal and vertical extension, the already densely built urban surrounds, and the impossibility of primitive construction. Moreover, the computational aspect of the project includes a risk of reducing the realization of the design to a mere figuration of the data inputs or parametric variables: a swing too far from the symbolic or iconic into a linguistic or indexical mode which only pretends to contextuality while withdrawing behind a screen of interpretation.

From either side, then these concerns frame a narrow path of possibility. The project needed to itself be a projection of potentials rather than a unique solution. As a projection, however, it needs a specificity of architectural actuality, neither a spreadsheet nor amorphous cloud are enough. This suggests a combination of preprogramming and indeterminacy which a parametric model, given sufficient complexity, is ideal to enact. Complexity here, certainly does not refer to the amount or the length of code, but a system whose interactions interparticipate in bringing forward nonlinear results which only result from repeated testings. The first source of indeterminacy is, of course, the possibility of unpredicted variation, by the user, of the initial conditions—alterable variables, the idiosyncrasies of sites—wherein the designer gives over some authorship to the user. The complexity of the internal calculations produces a second source of indeterminacy, when contradictory intentions clash—a kind of agonistic noncomposition. The invisible calculations made by the inner workings of the algorithm means that the user’s control may only lead indirectly to the result. The agency of the model resists certain configurations and the user must concede some authorship back to the programmer (8).

© Olli-Pekka Orpo / Alvar Aalto Academy

Alain Badiou defines the generic as “an untotalizable subset, a subset that can be neither constructed nor named” (9) but which is also the source of all novelty or invention, a definition which allows us to relink the generic with the genetic and the generative. Thinking the generic city in terms of this definition poses an urgent challenge to all architects: how to work with something at once so familiar and so elusive? It seems to me that this can only be approached through a combination of representation and authorship, both compromised and held at some distance, such that complete control of the system is never entirely graspable, no matter how many controls one has available to manipulate,

...the simultaneous presentation of the tower and planning models is capable of making the argument that architecture, rather than having the role of simply completing a predetermined urban image as one would fill in the pieces of a puzzle, has instead the ability to participate in and define an urbanism that evolves along with its pieces. Put another way, urban design has the potential to evolve beyond static, imagistic models into participatory systems without predefined results.


1. The paper was titled, 'Taipei 2.0.2: Computation and the Urban Generic' after my Master's thesis (under the advisement of Preston Scott Cohen) which initiated he research
2. The organizers of the conference were incredibly generous and thoughtful hosts. I'd like to thank them for the experience again here.
3. Robert Woodbury, Elements of Parametric Design.
4. See below, paragraph 4.
5. I think that Koolhaas’ characterization of the ‘Generic City’ as the erasing of character, a convergence on homogenization is too reductive, (though I would agree that discarding identity does open up new freedoms), but that the Generic as a category has a quality and character which exceeds identity and which attempts to rigorously define can only explain as homogeneous without meeting frustration (see note 9 below)
Rem Koolhaas, "The Generic City." in S,M,L,XL.
6. Alison Smithson, " How to Recognize and Read Mat-Building." and Timothy Hyde, "How to Construct an Architectural Genealogy." in CASE: Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital.
7. Bernard Rudolfsky, Architecture without Architect: a Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture.
8. Mario Carpo’s notion of ‘split agency’ is currently the most developed model for acknowledging the emerging complexities of authorship in the architectural field, though the rapidly multiplying ways which architects are interfacing with software and software designers requires that this model be both broadened and interrogated at specific moments.
Mario Carpo, "Epilogue: Split Agency." in The Alphabet and the Algorithm.
9. Alain Badiou, Infinite Thought, p48.

On the Edge

I'm excited to announce after long anticipation, Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else is now available.

AEEE, Esther Choi, Marrikka Trotter eds.

"Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else is the first in a series of planned Work Books being produced in alignment with a new generation of spatial thinkers and practitioners working to assimilate interdisciplinary methodologies into architectural action and discourse [...] Seeking to bridge the gap between what students, practitioners, and academics are willing to risk in private conversation vs. public forums, each contribution in AEEE contains a speculative and creative proposal for thinking and acting architecture differently. Interwoven with these proposals are conversations between emerging thinkers and established authors and practitioners including Sanford Kwinter, Sylvia Lavin, K. Michael Hays, Philippe Rahm, Liam Gillick, Teddy Cruz, and Michael Meredith." (1)

The Collective Image: Form, Figure, and the Future. Trevor Patt.

This is not by any means a neutral review, I have an essay in the book (2) and know almost all of the contributors. Nor do I want to summarize my argument or provide some kind of post facto commentary track for the essay itself. I'm only going to say that the essay I began with so long ago has changed so many times, each time a little bit for the better and that rereading now I'm very happy with the state it ended in as an accumulation and expansion of the many threads I was trying to fold together. For this I owe a debt of gratitude to my amazing and patient editors, Esther Choi and Marrikka Trotter, and their tireless work launching the project.

Having had a chance to read the book in its entirety now, they also deserve a huge amount of credit for the job they've done organizing and structuring the book. In the light of the anxiety and supposed incohesive state of the discipline (as well as the number and diversity of participants) it is both encouraging and surprising to track a note of cohesion throughout the texts. There is a recurring insistence that architecture is always attended by action (3), and that far from relegating the politics of resistance (4), we are interested in how this action can be used to create new political forms (5). All of this is accompanied by a tone which felt—to me—more authentically optimistic (6) than many recent attempts to play at glib, too-cool-for-school rabblerousers (7), which is truly an accomplishment.


1. work-books.org
2.Trevor Patt. "The Collective Image: Form Figure and the Future." p138-151
3. See Esther Choi's conversation with Philippe Rahm, "Airtight" p153-159. which unpacks so many areas I had wished to read more about in his previous monographs.
4. In this insistence, Bret Albert's interview with Sylvia Lavin "Neither Sweet nor Sour" was cathartic to read.
5. Matthew Allen. "Control Yourself! Lifestyle Curation in the Work of Sejima and Nishizawa" p22-33
6. In particular, the excitement of enchantment that arises in Marrikka Trotter's discussion with Michael Hays. "Re-enchanted Architecture", p130-137.
"Singing into being" ecstatically calls to mind Badiou's recollection of his primary disagreement with Deleuze, ("Deleuze spoke highly of what he characterized as my poetic and impassioned song in praise of sets but remained steadfast on the issue on which our exchange had come to an impasse: for me, multiplicities 'were' sets, for him, the 'were not.'
The Deleuzian song of the virtual is no less impassioned and certainly more poetic—it should be listened to attentively." Alain Badiou. Deleuze: The Clamor of Being. p48) but speaks to an ontology which is not so dependent on the void as a creative necessity.
7. R.E. Somol and Sarah Whiting. "Ok, Here's the Plan..." in Log 5. Cynthia Davidson ed.

On Rhetoric

Part 1
Peter Eisenman's somewhat recent essay There Are No Corners after Derrida (pdf) in Log 15(1) of last winter encouraged a rethinking of representation in architecture which prioritizes "undecidable" relationships and decouples the architectural object from the architectural sign. On this point I agree with him entirely and the point seems important to reiterate in light of current trends toward iconicity and hyperindexicality. However the actual engagement with Derrida in this essay is disappointingly unincisive (he is neither quoted nor cited directly). One is left thinking Eisenman would have been better off pursuing the triadic structure of Peirce's pure rhetoric (briefly mentioned) than assuming that "any rhetoric can be said to have evolved out of this stable dyadic relationship [signifier-signified] and thus is secondary to it."(1) Without this implicit need to overturn the illusion object-sign coexistence, Eisenman might have avoided what seems to me the biggest weakness of the essay: the reliance on the corner as a singular, even exceptional architectural "integer".

Corner, Palazzo dei Conservatori. Trevor Patt.

Peirce insists on a triadic basis of all signification precisely in order to avoid the impression of a static correspondence between signified and signifier.

The meaning of a representation can be nothing but a representation. In fact, it is nothing but the representation itself conceived as stripped of irrelevant clothing. But this clothing never can be completely stripped off; it is only changed for something more diaphanous. So there is an infinite regression here. Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series. (2)

When one reconsiders each and every sign as a participation in a potentially infinite series of interpretant signs, the supposedly stable relationship slips away (moreso when one considers that the path and depth of the series of interpretants varies for Peirce with every observation) into diaphanous tissue. This is what DeMan meant in writing of "only [then] would there be no need to distinguish between grammar and rhetoric"(4). Within Peirce's pure rhetoric, nowhere not even in architecture do "object, sign, and meaning converge"(1).

If all signification then participates in the rhetorical, what then can we make of the rest of Eisenman's essay. We cannot simply say, "well, There Haven't Been Corners Since Peirce," nor is it enough to remove the corner from its privileged position and consider our work finished. What is necessary is to put forward models, whether integer or multiple, with more complexity than the corner can provide(4). Why, in fact shouldn't walls be just capable of expressing undecidable signification?
Here Scott Cohen's analyses of the "contested symmetries" of Villa Gambano and Villa Tauro(5) would serve well to illustrate the dense and overlapping relationships of inclusion, interference and interdependence suggestive of the infinite representation engendered by representation. However, to hew more closely to the examples offered in the essay (the position of triglyphs in Greek and Roman freizes, and the reentrant corner of Bramante's courtyard at S. Maria della Pace) I'm going to offer examples of my own.

Resolution of the corner triglyph in Greek and Roman design.

source: Log 15(1) p114.

To quickly recap the question of the triglyphs: the Doric frieze as constructed in stone introduced a disjunction between the position of the triglyphs, the width of the entablature, and the location of the columns. The typical solutions in classical Greek architecture were either to widen the outboard triglyph such that it matched the column dimension and the two appeared centered (3rd drawing above), or to decrease outer column bays, moving the last column inward to line up with the outer edge of the triglyph (4th drawing above). Roman architects, meanwhile maintained the column/triglyph position, accepting the extension of the frieze beyond the outer triglyph. This reinforces the characterization of Greek and Roman space as defined by, respectively, a diagonal approach which emphasizes the continuity of the corner, and a frontal approach to a central entrance.

Eisenman, with most scholars, treats this as a definitive example of the problem of corner design. This is a reasonable assessment, as the adjustments to the facade rarely extends beyond the last bay. A very close analysis of Michelangelo's Palazzo dei Conservatori, however reveals the latent potential of this operation to engage the grammar of the entire facade.

Elevation of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Trevor Patt.

Most discussion of the Piazza del Campidoglio focuses on the design of the plan (6) and the problem posed to Michelangelo by the existing buildings and their historical significance, while the design of the palazzi and their elevations are given less attention. However, within the framework established here, these buildings become very interesting.

the Capitoline Hill. Trevor Patt.

The Piazza del Campidoglio, approached from the Piazza d'Aracoeli and the Cordonata presents the Palazzo dei Conservatori first from the corner, an impact exaggerated by the trapezoidal plan of the piazza. However as befitting a building of the palazzo typology, the Conservatori is primarily a frontal building and addresses itself to the piazza a such. Moreover in it's urban habitat, the 'Roman' solution is certainly expected and resonant with both its context and lineage. And yet, that oblique approach precludes the possibility of the conventional Roman solution, as on the Palazzo Senatorio. Michelangelo's solution is to maintain the even spacing of column bays (similar to examples 3 and 5 in the diagram above, and unlike 4) as well as the constant dimension of the mutules (similar to 4 and 5, and unlike 3), while preserving the corner position of the outboard mutule by subltly varying the spacing across the entire facade.

As an aside: a quick glance at the facade of the Palazzo dei Conservatori reveals that the frieze is certainly not a pure Doric frieze and lacks triglyphs altogether. For the purpose of this analysis I will be discussiong the position of the mutules and the ornamental downspouts located on the geison which are paired with them. The diminished visual importance of these elements should underscore the care with which Michelangelo composed this facade.

Analysis of the elevation of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Trevor Patt.
Underlying drawing from Bruno Zevi and Paolo Portoghesi's Michelangiolo Architetto(7) p486-87.

At the center bay, we can see that the mutules are perfectly centered above the columns. Were this pattern carried to the edges, the corner of the entablature would occur in the middle of the space between mutules. Therefore at all of the columns to the right of the central bay we find them shifted slightly toward the front of the piazza. One additional mutule is then added outboard of the the column and the downspouts to make the corner. This is a departure, if minor, from the traditional solution(8). What Michelangelo does on the left side is even more unusual. Rather than simply mirroring the right side across, he makes every column/mutule arrangement unique; proceeding from the center, each subsequent bay is shifted one step more than the previous. Thus the first column left of the central bay sees it's attendant mutules moved to the left one third space, the next twice the shift, and at the final column the mutules have moved an entire unit—unlike the right side nothing is added at the corner, the drainspouts are, however, realigned one mutule to the right(9).

Analysis detail of left side. Trevor Patt.

Analysis of spatial compression in the elevation of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Trevor Patt.
Underlying photograph from Vincenzo Fasolo's

Michelagniolo Architettor Poeta(10) p27.

The elevation of the Conservatori, then, registers an index of spatial compression in the piazza, expanding out over Rome on one side and gathering close against the Senatorio on the other. Significantly the composition cannot be isolated in a single moment but produces a network of relatinships entangled in a nonhierarchical series of competing and often contradictory representations(11).

Analysis of spatial compression in the elevation of the

Palazzo dei Conservatori. Trevor Patt.
Underlying drawing from James Ackerman's

L'Architecture de Michel-Ange(12) p130-31.

The effect is quite subtle and I have yet to find an elevation drawing which reproduces the condition accurately(9). To emphasize the specificity of measure and construction which was necessary, we can observe the relative disorder and lack of cohesion on the Palazzo Nuovo, opposite, built from the same drawings, but begun almost 40 years after Michelangelo's death(13) Here the columnns and mutules have no distinct relationship, the downspouts themselves moving independent of the mutules at times.

Palazzo Nuovo. Trevor Patt.

Part 2 will parallel Eisenman's treatment of Bramante's famous reentrant corner at S.Maria della Pace and contrast it to Borromini's treatment of the same theme in the cloister of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, continuing the theme of expanding architectural rhetoric beyond the simple interaction of two elements, easily isolated as a discrete sign, and unfolding the potential encompassing systems of rhetoric and representation.


1. Peter Eisenman. There Are No Corners after Derrida. Log 15. p111, 113, 114
2. Charles Sanders Peirce. The Collected Papers Volume 1 §2.339
the quoted passage is preceded thusly, "A sign stands for something to the idea which it produces, or modifies. Or, it is a vehicle conveying into the mind something from without. That for which it stands is called its object; that which it conveys, its meaning; and the idea to which it gives rise, its interpretant. The object of representation can be nothing but a representation of which the first representation is the interpretant. But an endless series of representations, each representing the one behind it, may be conceived to have an absolute object at its limit."
3. Paul de Man "Semiology and Rhetoric" in Diacritics v3.n3 p29
quoted in Eisenman's essay, p112.
4. Like the b/p phoneme the corner is a bit too easy to reduce to a cute, reciprocally determined pair
5. Preston Scott Cohen. Contested Symmetries and Other Predicaments in Architecture. p16-36.
6. This investigation was originally inspired by comments made by T. Kelly Wilson about the position of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius relative to the centering of the piazza.
7. Paolo Portoghesi and Bruno Zevi. Michelangiolo Architetto. p486-87.
8. It is possible that, in fact that the central bay is wider than the side bays and this solution is similar to the 4th example in Eisenman's triglyph diagram. My analysis centers on alignment rather than measurement due to the obvious difficulty of accurately measuring the roof line of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Regardless, this would remain a unique variation of the 'Parthenon' solution.
9. Portoghesi's drawings, though usually fabulously detailed, are inaccurate here. He depicts 8 mutules in the span between every column, in reality each span contains 9 mutules except the left-most bay which contains 8 due to the shift explained above.
10. Vicenzo Fasolo. Michelagniolo Archittetor Poeta. p27.
11. The continuity of the column line through the shifting entablature to the statuary above, for example.
12. James Ackerman. L'Architecture de Michel-Ange. p130-31.
13. Construction on the Palazzo Nuovo continued from 1603-1654, the Palazzo Conservatori was built between 1563-68, after Michelangelo's death in 1564, it was overseen by Giacomo della Porta.

On Assemblage

This is something of an untimely post, I started writing it months after the PS1 2009 season had already closed but at the time the 2010 competition was heating up and I found myself defending MOS' Afterparty quite a bit. I think it's actually a project with significant lessons beyond its short-lived exhibition status, and it highlights a characteristic of MOS' work I've enjoyed for awhile, which is never being as dumb as it looks (1).

Afterparty. Photo by Trevor Patt

First of all, and with apologies to Jason Payne and Heather Roberge, Afterparty marks the first time hair has been convincingly employed in architecture. Not merely a simple novelty, the hairiness of the pavilion is distinctly unique enough to represent an entirely new category of material possibility. Instantly giving the impression of biomorphic or organic metaphors (despite the project's avoidance of any animal iconography) neither the tectonics nor texture of hair can be reduced to anything in the architectural precedent. Hair has its own formal and aggregative problems and significantly the material used – ijuk, an Indonesian palm thatch - was not divided into strips, shingles, or panels but applied with respect for it's wavy, all-over nondirectionality. The inherent material properties of hair will contribute to the final two points as well.

Afterparty. Photo by Trevor Patt

Second, the project does an amazing job of responding to the brief with a minimum of elements and a fully-rounded architectural solution. That is, the pavilion, in spite of its poverty, provides interiors and exteriors, space and enclosure, thresholds, apertures, material layers and depth, exceeding a simple canopy or furniture solution. Probably the last project to offer such a breadth of architectural solutions was SHoP's Dunescape, the inaugural winner. I've written before about a particular kind of space entirely continuous and continuously heterogeneous. Afterparty also falls into this category, its ground plan is defined by a few point connections and nothing more; without walls, doors or dead ends. It is, if anything, simply a series of interconnected conics careful whenever possible not to disturb the horizontal plane.

Afterparty. Photo by Trevor Patt

Competing with the horizontal continuity, the individuality of each cell delimits room-like enclosures. This is reinforced by the emphatic vertical direction of the forms, an uncommon element which dominates the interior experience. The set of architecture spaces with such a prominent z-axis –the Pantheon, the side aisles of St. Peters, Guarini's SS. Sindone, Sir John Soane's Lincoln Field's Inn, Wright's Guggenheim, James Turrell's Sky Spaces, vertiginous Portman lobbies, come to mind—are dominated by an otherwise small list of projects which feature oculi.

Afterparty. Photo by Trevor Patt

In this sense Afterparty can be compared to the Soane House in that it sets out a nonlinear sequence of verticals without hierarchical order (2). The cones twist and lean and even when staring directly up through the oculus (the character of light call to mind Turrell's Sky Spaces – the optical trick of the circle of sky appearing in front of the oculus) and imply dynamism more than stasis, a neat trick for such a centralizing element.

Afterparty. Photo by Trevor Patt

The exterior appearance of a heavy, dark (some have said itchy-looking) construction belies the lightness and freedom of the interior. The material contrast of the shiny, metallic mesh is not the only cause, from the interior one can see that the thatch is not so thick afterall, but is thin enough to allow light to pass right through. More significantly, the seamlessly amorphous exterior is contrasted to the literal delineation of the form on the interior.

The real contribution of Afterparty is that it forces the discourse to acknowledge the false opposition of 'Parametric' and 'Projective' as they've maybe been called, or as Robert Somol terms them (3) digital intricacy and graphic expediency. Over and against the assumed tenents of parametric design (4), the project does not shy away from simple Platonic primitives, nor is it interested in hyper-articulation of systems, discretization, or accentuation the variety of constructions, but buries them all under a blanket of ijuk. Effectively, it takes the strategies of making “the disparate indifferent” (3) that is germane to the graphic logo. In fact one could check off all of the points mentioned in Somol's Green Dots 101: proliferate one thing, eliminate scalar coding, develop a precise but vague silhouette, saturate with a monotone, cut holes.Yet underneath it all and at the heart of the formal language is indisputably a parametric model.


Image copyright mos-office.net

Video copyright mos-office.net and velluminous

Returning to the hairiness, the use of ijuk was an inspired choice that created the possibility of entirely erasing the joints between the conic sections and eliminating the reliance on discretization techniques, but without the expense of reducing the entire design to a logo. Similarly the parametric model was constructed in such a way that it was not reliant on notational articulation but was able to maintain its specificities even as the pavilion seems to forget where they came from.

Afterparty. Photo by Trevor Patt

Perhaps these seem like minor points, but I think they go to the heart of the current debates of representation by providing concrete counterexamples that parametric design is not beholden to any particular style, nor is post-critical design compelled to reject parametric strategies on account of their indexical inclination. On the whole, I find that I agree with the basic aims of the 'projective' model of architecture but feel like the methods have been selected prematurely (more on this to come). Afterparty then involves the deployment of technological solutions in the service of their own indifference. Far from a negative quality, this prevents the overliteral translation that is the unproductive legacy of indexicality, and provides a spacing for new collective actions (or actors) to occur.

This resistance to literalization is also apparent in MOS' Intermission Videos for the Venice Biennale. As the title suggests these are not the usual glossy fly-through renderings; they are not the 'feature' presentation, but neither are they addenda. They are not epilogues or footnotes, but located right at the middle of the feature, even interrupting it. Watching the videos, one cannot help but notice the extent to which designs that would typically be read as systems, unitary in their execution and orientation (the Ordos House, Ballroom Marfa Drive-In, Transformation of a Necklace Dome), are composed of components, actions, and narratives that are irreducible to the final architectural product.

Transformation of a Necklace Dome. Photo by Ryan Culligan

Transformation of a Necklace Dome (5) makes this shockingly explicit; the narration leads from a Richard-Serra-like 'verb list' of instructions--"place, hold, bend, rotate, bend..."--into the statement: "You will be working closely with others. You are no longer alienated." These are Somol's speech acts (3), suddenly constituting the formation of a collective of people, computer, and aluminum, yet without destroying or devaluing the singular 'you' to which the instructions are directed. Neither are the aluminum rods subsumed by the systems, subassemblies, and repetitions that are enacted on them.

Deleuze wrote about the self, "We are habits, nothing but habits--the habit of saying 'I.'" (6) In a similar way the expectation of the primacy of form or structure one brings as a critic is revealed to be little more than a habit, and a silly, reductive one at that. How else to respond when Ordos 100 Lot 6 tells us "this is X watching TV. Feeling guilty, X decides to take a swim. X imagines having to take an important phone call during his swim. How out of breath he will be" (7). The house is quickly implicated in media, recreation, business, economic, social, and cardiopulmonary networks while we look furtively for the evidence.

What is noteworthy in the films is not only that architecture does not actively respond to its poetic occupants, but the extent to which this indifference succeeds in focusing our close attention on the architecture itself.

Ballroom Marfa Drive-In. Image copyright mos-office.net

I want to stress here that I am not particularly interested in the creation of narratives or the projection of a fictional lifespan, but the use of co-incidental actors and activities, to create a new attention within architecture. This is not a negation of formalism, in fact all of the above examples are heavily dependent on their specific forms. In this I see parallels to the visionary architecture of the 60s and 70, not the technical particularity of Archigram, but the more generic futures envisioned by Archizoom and Superstudio. In these designs, it was the ubiquitous embedding of the diagram (No-Stop City) and technology (Continuous Monument) which enabled the singular formations and the hypothesizing of their habitation.(8)

Archizoom. No-Stop City, 1968
Superstudio. Continuous Monument, 1971-73



1. At first blush this might sound like faint praise, but its immensely better than not being as smart as it looks. See Michael Meredith “Complex / MoMA P.S.1:Young Architects” in PRAXIS no7, 2005.
2. In contrast to the centralizing Pantheon or the linear hierarchy of St. Peter's this is the rarer case. Apart from Afterparty and Lincoln's Inn, I can only call to mind the Puebloan kivas as another possible example.
3. R.E. Somol “Green Dots 101” Hunch 11. p31-32,35
4. Patrik Shumacher “Parametricism: A new global style for architecture and urban design” AD v79 no4 p16-17
5. in the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I worked on a possibility for this installation that was not realized and more successfully, MOS' Desert Island No2 for the Matters of Sensation exhibit.
6. Gilles Deleuze “Empiricism and Subjectivity” x
Levi Bryant's argument for the mutability of the subject as “the microstructures of assemblages, how they are disassembled and reassembled through interactions among agents” is relevant here.
7. It's worth pointing out in a footnote that all of the activities narrated in the Ordos 100 Lot 6 video are habits - eating breakfast, reading the paper, exercising - but the narrative is not treated as the passive, kind of calcified habits that are typically used to discuss program - this is where ... is done. X and Y are not reduced to habits assumed by the architecture.
8. I'm not trying to equate the politics of Archizoom and Superstudio with those of MOS, only for the moment, to note a similar detachment/complicated-involvement of form and its collective audience.
On this point see also Iñaki Abalos and Juan Herreros "Tower and Office"

TPE 2.0.2: Platform

TPE 2.0.2: Computation and the Urban Generic

My thesis project was selected for the GSD's platform exhibit and publication (it has since also been chosen for exhibition in Histories of the Present). With the benefit of last year's example and a little more lead time for the editorial team, I felt this volume was conceptually much stronger than the first, and managed to clean up a number of the graphical problems as well.

p240-241 (from Actar's promotional material)

Within the book we were only give forty words to describe our project and its relation to the chapter theme - in my case Authorship. I find it difficult to say much of anything in forty words, and my copy speaks more to the general basis of the project hinting a bit at the representational issues I dealt with.
Authorship,though, I think is one of the best themes the project could have ended up in, especially given the company (Marrikka Trotter and Quilian Riano being two of the people I discussed my project with at great length).

Certainly the idea of producing these buildings and projections in a black-box way, letting the programs innards make unmediated decisions, is about questioning the need for "the human hand" in design and definitely challenges the practice's current model of authorship. As is the genericity of the production; my goal was never a sort of stylistic "parametricism" that was obviously computer-generated, but stealthily embedded, an auto-generated design that might pass the turing test, something which could potentially be passed off as typical generic tower/cluster development designs. This is one of the reasons I spent so much effort ensuring that the design engine resolved any intersections or inconsistencies. Every design was fully-formed from the moment the code updated.

On the other hand the intense specificity of the internal mechanisms is an argument for reclaiming more operative authorship from powercopy-ish software (generic authorship as Mario Carpo calls it). Because I was dealing much more intimately with the code I was able to embed a number of idiosyncratic moments and interfaces within the genetics of the design and find ways for them to implement differently within different configurations.

Authorship text by Platform editor Felipe Correa (photo by Quilian Riano)

One aspect I wish I had been able to express better, however, was the extent that misrepresentation (of data, of the parametric process, of its own image) played in so many of the design decisions. After a certain number of iterations, the code makes a claim to authority simply through expert design generation, however after very many tests, the impossibility of reading the logic through the artifacts begins to undermine the claim. Rather than smooth variation, very similar inputs typically produce vastly different outputs. This play with resolution, information sampling, and data forgetting I coded into the process were all responses to issues of self-similarity or the literal translations of "data-scapes" into boring indexical maps. The result, a possible cause for doubting the "objectivity" of the software, of course also draws attention to the location of my own "subjectivity" in the process. Yes, it is an authorial composition: not "signature" architecture, but not automatic architecture, either. It is authorial, but in a new kind of way.

I'd also like to thank publicly at this moment: Scott Cohen, my thesis advisor; my final jury, especially Wes Jones and Robert Levit for their animated discussion; Michael Meredith for his critiques; my thesis production team; and everyone on the 5th tray who was willing to have a discussion with me about the project.

TPE 2.0.2: Thesis Diagrams

Design engine: interrelationship of parameters and geometry

Linearized diagram of parametric engine

TowerMaker: flow chart of tower design isolated from urban and context aspects of the parametric logic

Illustrated outline of TowerMaker flowchart:
1. Base point for individual towers, slant, and friendliness given, height and count derived from site fitness calculation.
2. Axis subdivided gathered together when within set distance, and lean apart to rebalance. Additional shift to provide view of/from closest urban epicenter.
3. Profile curves based on footprint, proportion, and tapering, potentially n-gon (though in later versions like this one, I've stopped including the parameter). Oriented to superblock at base, toward focus point at zenith.
4. Massing through profiles can be either 0:stepped, 1:bent, 2:smooth (shown here, bent)
5. Core transfers establish mediated condition between tendency for continuity and deviation of massing geometry.
6. Cores sized appropriately for floor area. Cores beyond 30 floors are stacked and include additional express elevators.
7. Required elevator calculator, floor area and height determine number of passengers, expected stops, winding cycle, etc...
8. Core location is extracted at each floorplate
9. Pseudo-convex hull operation captures cores which are not directly connected to a floorplate.
10. Tower intersections are resolved to prevent overlap
11. Floorplates converted to slabs, transfer floors are created on a separate layer (limited application of program sorting).
12. Stairs added to emergency stair cores.
13. Glazing added between floors (more complicated than you'd expect since each floorplate has a different number of vertices-as a result of the pseudo-convex hull-and is drawn in a different order-as a result of tower intersections.
14. Structural diagrid at facade
15. Facade cladding, increased transparency with elevation.

TPE 2.0.2: Computation and the Urban Generic

A long overdue post following the completion of my thesis. So much of the documentation produced was in expectation of always being accompanied by a live parametric model that I may be some time yet getting the project into portfolio shape.

Rendering, Section 1 Sinhai Rd. and Wunjhao St.

TAIPEI 2.0.2: Computation and the Urban Generic
Taipei 2.0.2 is a "black-box" interface which projects parametrically computed urban futures at multiple levels of resolution. Tower clusters are produced fully-formed and complete (down to emergency stairs) into an environment itself inflected by their existence and anticipating their expansion.

The thesis is bound within a twofold existence: undertaking a project so large as to be almost unavoidably iconic and, at the same time, embodying precisely the noniconic fabric of the city. Thinking the masterplan in reverse, the design engine reflexively projects new context and urban legislation based on the proposed towers. Architecture then becomes a tool and agent in urban analysis.

Based on analysis of Taipei's paradigmatic urban form and development patterns, the thesis rewires the supertall project, now stripped of its signature, iconic status and repositioned as an anonymous "many".

Generative Components transaction file

The parametric model operates simultaneously in three model spaces-Tower, Block, City-which, while all representing the same project, do so to varying degrees of resolution, each also able to read only certain sets of data.

Dynamic data mapping
Dynamic development intensity diagram
Certain of the data being referenced by the design engine represents persistent urban form and data (the position of the river and major superblocks), while other information is recalculated dynamically alongside the proposal of the tower (such as land value, and various zoning regulations).
Tower cluster and metro connection, section.

Context alignment and generation, animation stills.
Acknowledging the scale of development involved in supertall construction, the design engine reconstructs new context in the adjacent superblocks (typically ~1km in diameter) based on their area, position in the city, preexisting program usage>. MRT stations, and their access points are reconfigured, linked with the tower podia around which new urban fabric is reconstructed.

Urban projection and realignment, animation stills.

Depending on the choice of site (yellow dot) and the details of the towers, the model (reflexively) projects new incentivized zoning for further supertall and highrise development (majenta bars), reconfigures existing typical zoning (white bars) and recalcuates projected land prices (green bars).

Rendering, street level.