One of the interesting things about Schemas Theory is the relation between the System and Meta-system schemas. These are the two central schemas in the nested hierarchy of schemas. Meta-systems are the inverse dual of Systems. "Meta" here means beyond, what is beyond the boundary of the System. It is also called the OpenScape Schema. Buildings can be seen as either Systems or Meta-systems. The difference is that Systems are unified and totalized but Meta-systems are disunified and detotalized. The reference point for describing this difference is Bataille's Accursed Share who distinguishes between Restricted and General Economies. Understanding that the Meta-system like the System Schema has its own structure which is the inverse dual of the System allows one to understand things about the meta-system as ecosystem, environment, medium, context, situation that we could not understand otherwise.

In our culture the Meta-system is obscured, that is why there is no one term for it in English unless we go back to the word Scape. But once we get a view of the inverse duality between System and OpenScape then we can discover the Special Systems.

See http://kp0.me/specialsystems

I am sure that the difference between System and Openscape is important for architecture from a theoretical point of view. It is something that Architects must understand intrinsically even if they do not have a good theory for the structure of the meta-system. However, I am not sure whether there would be a use for the concepts of the Special Systems in Architecture. So this is something I would like to get feedback on.

Special Systems are both partial Systems and partial Meta-systems at the same time. In other words they have to do with the interface between the system and the meta-system more or less like doors and windows are the interface between the building and the environment. But exactly how they would be embodied in Architecture is unknown. I have found analogies in Mathematics and Physics and other fields but do not know of analogies for them in Architecture. Maybe some of you could help me find those analogies in Architectural Theory. Like with the Schemas I am wondering if anyone has already discovered the Special Systems in the Architectural realm.

Any help in that regard would be appreciated.

http://kp0.me/GSTpicture

http://kdp.me

#Philosophy #SystemsTheory #ArchitecturalTheory

The intersection of jargons between architecture and philosophy is small - nothing you've posted falls into that realm. I can't understand your question enough to provide an answer, and imagine few others can either.

Kent I see you went to Kansas, did you have Professor Cole (I think) at any time? Pretty sure he was around when you attended.  Had him for Modern Philosophy and Philosophy of Mathematics (1998+/-)

To midlander's point, I recognize much of your referenced authors both sides of the line you made from Thales to now, but where you go with it is very outside the world of Architecture's use of the jargon.  I did a quick browse of your link in the Phenomenology (living spaces) section on my phone and seemed pretty accurate and useful insight on the re-cap mainly into Heidegger...

What I do NOT immediately understand is what is this "Schema"?  Feel that should be more immediate given it's importance, but I also see you went off into Aerospace via engineering which in my world of reviewing articles in the world really get into fine points of logic and arithmetic...

where the Jargon is in architecture more or less, my brief internet shooting from the hip history-

Basing this on my experience at UPenn ('07) lectures by Manuel DeLanda and then readings via Sanford Kwinter. and now Patrik Schumacher

start with Edmund Husserl (who Martin Heidegger dedicated his "Being and Time" work to) and diverge off into Merleau-Ponty or Jacques Derrida and eventually Gilles Delueze.  (not bothering linking any of them, since you mention them yourself and are surely very familiar)

architects like Peter Eisenman not only imported a lot of Derrida but even had design sessions, etc...then people like Greg Lynn worked for Eisenman and did things with computers to make the more complex stuff happen....other architect like Gehry and Zaha Hadid (Patrik Schumacher is director there)...

somewhere around '06 +/- David Rutten, a young architect student I think developed what is now known as Grasshopper (parametric tool)

at the same time anything Sante Fe institute was interesting or related somehow, Genetic Algorithms, etc...even Stuart Kauffman  and various historical references to the likes of Alan Turing, etc....

Cybernetics - Norbert Wiener

Stephen Wolfram....John Conway game of life, Jon von Neuman...etc...

somehow all now culminating with Parametricism via Patrik Schumacher who appears to be employing terms like Autopoiesis, which if you go back into that you will see that Stuart Kaffman's name will come up...complexity comes up, and back to Sante Fe institute.

not sure that helps, but that's the jargon that's caught on for now.

Thanks for the feedback.

Seems like folks are trapped in their disciplines. Nothing new about that. I am willing to learn new disciplines but really don't know where to start. Thanks for the hints.

A schema is an a priori synthesis of timespace. Except for the meta-system they pretty much mean whatever someone means by the catch words used for them, like form, pattern, etc. I reviewed quite a few Architecture Theory books and did not find anyone who had actually created a theory like the one I have suggested. But I still have high hopes of finding a precursor in Architecture or Art Criticism or some other Aesthetic discipline. Hoping someone here might know.

I will follow up with some of the names you have mentioned that I have not heard of before who are probably specific to the discipline of Architecture.

Schemas are described by Umberto Eco in Kant and the Platypus. What I am talking about he calls Mathematical and Geometrical Schema. There are lots of other wider meanings of Schema that he recounts from within the tradition.

Only thing I did was come up with the S-prime hypothesis and then start studying the mathematical relations between the Schemas. Turns out that when you treat them systematically a lot of interesting relations appear which is what I have been studying. 

There is something called Dagger Theory that I concocted. See http://kp0.me/DaggerTheory

It relates the Peirce/Fuller Philosophical Principles to the Foundational Mathematical Categories to the Schemas and finally to the View Order hierarchies. My target is mostly Systems Architecture and more precisely Software Design.

See http://EmergentDesign.net 

But it seemed to me some of the insights might apply to normal building Architecture as well. When I ran into the Archinect site I thought this might be the place to ask.

Kent

http://kdp.me

long day of work in action already, so the following is based on your post above Only.....Parametrics is probably the closest catch all term for what in architecture could be more specific studies of schema......but on the other hand maybe Christopher Alexander and the nature of order may be closer?

quick thoughts before head into site meeting....def. go route of science and phoiopshy into architecture via Sanford Kwinter among many points he has nade in the past I know he references Herman Wyel a bunch, and starts with the ether or field as per Italian Futurism and quickly ties things like relativity in.......also Peter Eisenman on the 'diagram' seems usefull here based on above........last but not least most architects frown on mathematically defined beauty and aesthetics and probably wouldnt get past your graphics....its all bull shit - Building Information Modeling and Parametrics via Grasshopper and Generituve Components and what not are really the same thing. think of current trending architectural theory people as people who often cloak ignorance and naivity with 'style'......hire and architect student to make your concepts 'graphically appraling' to eye candy lovin architects

I am aware of Christoper Alexander and have written a paper on his work from a philosophical perspective called Living Spaces See http://kp0.me/PhenomenologyOfLivingSpaces

Not aware of Parametrics. 

My work based on the extension of General Systems Theory. So it is general over every possible discipline. Architecture is just an example discipline. Most disciplines have not discovered Bataille's General Economy yet, mainly because they are Restricted Economies themselves and they cannot imagine what is outside the box, of their discipline.

However, since Schemas are so ubiquitous, you would think they would be discovered in every discipline, but for some reason no one thinks about systematizing them at the meta-level. Good example of schemas is Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar which is full of references to Schemas. I am merely making what I think is an exhaustive list and then looking at their mathematical relations to each other. This tells us something about the landscape of possible designs. Something you would think Architects would be interested in.

I appreciate your pointers toward the right literature within Architecture. 

Kent Palmer

http://kdp.me

maybe on weekend will catch-up, have plenty of Wittgenstein at home and have to get B&T out for a good rehash..........so far all my responses are based on a brief intro to your thought and your posts, so again making many assumptions here.............but this statement from above "This tells us something about the landscape of possible designs."...........reminds me of something Sanford Kwinter stated in a lecture which i may have blogged about on Archintect, not sure will look, will search...... But Genetic Algorithms were the rage at grad school and the image for his lecture was some genetic writing biological like organism - balls on sticks that moved to write the code if I remember correctly. somewhere in the lecture he mentioned this in relation to Kant.................but your qoute also exhibits the inherent purposes of Parametric design in software like Grasshopper. Its pretty straight forward, make a source "diagram" per say with inherent properties akin to a biological cell and then run various "formulas" or "operations" on the cell based on either exterior or design intent Data. Adjust "parameters" accordingly to see the "landscape of possible designsc........of course you are stating Meta, which I would argue is the position the Architect takes when beginning to design....

a little Archinect searching and found what i was thinking of. the idea and the image and the name got a little mixed up although the memory is crystal clear he said Kant under some other qualification. anyway it was " Chreods" and it was Goethe. sounds very Shema like......... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chreod

and where the hell is Richard Balkins on all this?

epigenic landscapes, image 19 of linked PDF was the image I was thinking of. ....sorry can not figure out how to link text via phone from a PDF etc.......google "Landscapes of Change: Boccioni's "Stati d'animo" as a General Theory of Models Author(s): Sanford Kwinter and Umberto Boccioni Source: Assemblage, No. 19 (Dec., 1992), pp. 50-65"

Chris--

Thank you very much for this pointer. Sounds exactly like what I am looking for. 

Kent

Thanks for your comments.

The way you are using the term schema, to talk about the sketches of preliminary design is related more to what I talk about in my dissertation on Emergent Design (See http://emergentdesign.net) which is an offshoot of Schemas Theory. I turns out that because Schemas Theory connects the schemas to dimensions two at a time, that there are two processes of representation and repetition by which we go down and then back up the nested hierarchy of the schemas. And that gives us the positions of the Whole Form which is represented in a sketch, then the drafting plan and finally the model as we try to use repetition to go back up to a higher dimension. All this is trapped in the Second and Third dimension because that is the dimension of Form. But every pair of dimensions has the same structure. And the Intriguing finding that I talk about in my tutorial is how it is not possible to get back to the Whole Form through this cycle. I call this the Architects Dilemma. Something else is necessary in  order to close this cycle. And I posit but have not yet proven that what is necessary is to go up another schematic level and then come back down to the Whole Form from a higher schematic level in this case the System level.

What this means is that the types of representations that Archtects use picture, plan and model, actually appears in different forms in other disciplines not tied to the form level as Architecture is. What I do in my dissertation is to find a mathematical basis for thinking about the relation of the whole form, picture, plan and model to each other which is generalized to the whole schematic sequence thought about in terms of representation and repetition.

What is interesting about this conversation is how difficult interdisciplinary conversation really is. Schemas theory was devised as an answer to the missing foundations of Systems Engineering, as a way to think about Systems Architectural Design which is general. But it turns out to be a general basis for all Design. And so it is fascinating to see when we bring it back to the discipline of Architecture whether it fits or not. In the dissertation I develop what I call the Qadralectics of Design which is a very general process that covers all the schematic levels for understanding the dynamic of design.

But this is different from the phenomenology of the Schemas which is just about identifying the schemas that exist and understanding their relationship to each other mathematically. 

What about shape grammars? http://www.shapegrammar.org/

Has to do with parametric / generative design. MIT architecture seems into this concept.

Eisenman's Hyper Diagram

I have written a short commentary on Eisenman's article on the Diagram.

See on Quora http://kp0.me/EisenmansDiagram

Synopsis is that he gives a good description of Hyper Being (Differance) of Derrida and attempts to defend it against inroads made by Deleuze who describes Wild Being. But this is a fruitless effort on his part because they are two different meta-levels of Being and one is no more correct than the other but two ways of looking at the same thing from the point of view of Fundamental Ontology.

This should give some hint of how my work plugs into the Architectural 'space'.

Kent

http://kdp.me

@beatnikick

Thanks for the link to  http://www.shapegrammar.org/

That is definitely related to the schemas theory way of looking at things from what I can tell skimming through it. Can't wait to read it.

Kent

Kent, I will post your personal message to me here instead of replying through my normal email account.

"One persons jargon is another persons language. The point is . . . does it connect to the tradition. My language connects to the Continental Philosophy Tradition and Systems Science, i.e.very broad parts of the tradition of Western civilization. Which is the next level up from specific disciplines. I did not have to change my language when I switched from talking to Systems Engineers to trying to talk about Architects. And as my recent post shows there are Architects that use this philosophical language. Maybe you don't like those architects, but they are in your field and they use the same language that I do, more of less."

Jargon fargon. It's easy to convince yourself you're edgy and smart if you fill up your vocabulary with empty words like those above. Don't contact me looking for a conversation, my time is important and I'd much rather avoid dealing with kooky self-professed philosophical gurus.

If the diagram given above does not work for you then try http://kp0.me/EisenmanHyperDiagram

oh come on Non, maybe you just are not smart enough to keep up. everyone is busy, 10-15 projects a week, emergencies in the field all he time, 100+/- emails a day, 100 more txts, 20 phone calls etc.......... the paragraph you qoute from Kent quite simply says - trained in classical western philosophy which is in theory above all disciplines and therefore the knowledge between disciplines can be shared. see Patrik Schumachers Facebook that got everyone's panties in a bind. Kent was just reaching out, not sure why you got your panties in a bunch........speaking of time Kent, going to read all this time willing over weekend.

Mr. Balkins, I choose who and how I communicate in these forums. The fact that I do not want to use my personal email to converse with a weirdo on philosophy is my choosing and please don't make assumptions on my education or how I choose to spend whatever down-time I find. What you call "hours per day" is actually more like minutes per week, which is a rather odd comment coming from you given your average lengthy and ridiculous fluffed up responses.

I have real projects under constructions, things of such scale a common building design such as yourself can only dream of. Not sure why you're jumping into this just to toss some bullshit at me, but that's for another time I guess.

Chris, I am aware of most of what Dr^2. Kent Wacko Palmer refers to. I've read some of the literature in the past (I liked Kwinter for example) but I find it too easy to build your own philosophical world if you create the rules. I only responded here to let Kent know that his attempts to continue this discussion were not welcomed. I do however spend time discussion real architectural issues since that is what I do and know as I suspect most here (Balkins excluded) do as well.

Richard--

The best text to look at to understand Schemas is Umberto Eco's Kant and the Platypus which defines Mathematical and Geometrical Schemas which are the kind I am talking about. Schemas are a very wide concepts but I mean specifically this Mathematical kind of schema when I say Schemas Theory.

Basically what I want to find out is if:

• Anyone in Architecture has come up with anything like Schemas Theory already
• Whether some Architects might think Schemas Theory has any relevance for Architecture

Already I have found out that some Architects are interested in Continental Philosophy and have started reading some references I have been given about that for which I am grateful.

I like your proposal for discussing this question about the relevance of Schemas Theory that you given in points ABC.

Kent

as you note Kent, lots of architects have read a lot of the same stuff....I think that is my problem deciphering some of what you are writing, as I read a lot of the same stuff very differently.

Chris--

Which stuff?

Differently how?

 http://kp0.me/EisenmanHyperDiagram

I was very surprised that Eisenman read Derrida as I do, with trace structure being the key. It will be interesting to see if the proponents of Deleuze are true to his thought as well. From the little I read, the various supporters of different Philosophers from the Continent seem to want us to choose between them. But in fact they are talking about different related things.

Kent