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Architecture and Existentialism

the_perpetual_dreamer

Does the architectural language only speak of human-centric material commodities like buildings, products etc. or can the philosophy of architecture actually dictate patterns in the universe?

I would like to think that architecture and building design are separate processes. Where as building designers are what we are; Architecture is more of an omnipresent mechanism, which explains the process of creation or destruction of any material in the universe.

What do you think? Please give your viewpoints and criticisms and contemplate the topic.

 
Jun 6, 17 12:09 am
ReddishEgret

Landscape architecture is the design of flows and processes of socio-ecological systems. Rather than designing discrete objects, we design places based on deep reading of the site's identity, from its geology to its culture. 

Resilience theory is about how these systems cope with change. The adaptive cycle shows how through negentropy, material and energy accumulates. Then through entropy, it's released and reorganized.

These systems are nested. A system's composition is a product of its components and its context. Larger systems like the climate are composed of smaller systems like ecosystems. Inversely, smaller systems like ecosystems are nested in the context of the larger systems like climate. The same is true for buildings and cities. This cascading nesting of systems is logarithmic similar to Eames' Powers of Ten film. It's a fractal geometry. 

I think this framework can begin to unpack and reconcile a lot of binary constructions like object vs subject, science vs art, order vs chaos, control vs wildness, the line vs the field, etc. 

Jun 6, 17 10:21 am  · 
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apricot

Sounds like landscape urbanism

Jun 10, 17 4:42 am  · 
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I would like to think that architecture and building design are separate processes.

Ask Ricki.

Jun 6, 17 10:46 am  · 
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Non Sequitur
What is the omnipresent mechanism behind a good set of washroom elevation drawings?
Jun 6, 17 10:57 am  · 
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SneakyPete

OP, you're getting awfully semantic about a word.

Jun 6, 17 11:43 am  · 
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x-jla

Non, since the wash room, or shitter as us non-Canadians call it, is intrinsically linked to our biological, ecological, and metabolic processes, It is central to our place in the cosmos.  It can be argued that the "axis mundi" is omnipresent and located at the center of each flush swirl.

Jun 6, 17 12:27 pm  · 
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Not only that, I would posit that the vast majority of "Eureka" ideas have either come on the toilet or in the shower. Therefore bathrooms are the most important space in any building.

Jun 6, 17 12:36 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

Brilliant.

Jun 6, 17 2:37 pm  · 
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Volunteer

"located at the center of each flush swirl."

But in Australia the swirl goes backwards. Which is all you need to know about Australians. Or why Greg Norman cratered at the Masters a few years ago...

Jun 6, 17 2:08 pm  · 
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SneakyPete

I hope you're cracking wise and know that toilet swirl isn't in any way connected to the Coriolis Effect...

Jun 6, 17 7:56 pm  · 
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ReddishEgret

While we're on the topic: Forre Intestinum

Jun 6, 17 10:59 pm  · 
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Yes architecture can be an omnipresent mechanism of creation and destruction, but only of physical processes that are already happening anyway, at scales ranging from microscopic to catastrophic, all around us, at every moment (to paraphrase Carolyn Porco, the planetary scientist who ran the Saturn Cassini mission).

Really great architecture can intentionally try to make people aware of these processes, but I for one can see every life desire and physical process, for all eternity, in the entire universe, in a simple brick wall:



 

Jun 8, 17 12:27 am  · 
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x-jla

conservation of mass....matter cannot be "created and destroyed."  We just temporarily reposition matter.  On a cosmic timescale, even giza is just a small burp in time.  We are one of probably trillions of other lifeforms that make stuff.   

Jun 8, 17 11:09 am  · 
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Every life form makes shit. I mean stuff. Is there a difference?

Jun 9, 17 9:54 am  · 
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Non Sequitur
Donna, that example would make a pretty sexy border wall.
Jun 8, 17 11:13 am  · 
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"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."  JFK

Jun 8, 17 12:23 pm  · 
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the_perpetual_dreamer

Thank you for giving your valuable opinions. 

The question i posted was a very general broad question and there is no 'this way' or 'that way' of perceiving it. Essentially every definition is just another illusion or a man made absolution. There are no absolutions in the universe and neither should our beliefs have them. Then again, no can be just completely baseless and random either.So in a bigger shell i feel that the philosophy we preach as architects have actually nothing to do with us being architects, Instead it is our personal perception.The world is very stereotypical in understanding people and they almost always merge people's perception with their work. In that context, you may say my statement about architecture and building design being separate makes sense.

Jun 9, 17 2:19 am  · 
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