the reason, i believe, why white fang pointed you that way, is that most of the literature regarding consciousness, sentience and artificial intelligence strongly positions humans and machines in the same continuum. most of the arguments against parametrics that center around human uniqueness were tackled by that same field 20 years ago. this thread is full of such arguments (barcelona pavilion example).
Not true. I do not think humans are unique which is why I won't put my faith in a parametric script written by an ape. Not sure why you are making fun of the barcelona pavilion analogy? If you want to debate consciousness thats another discussion. I am pretty sure that I know way more about theoretical physics than most people. I think about this shit all day!
i'm picking on your reasoning behind stating that software could not come up with something as "beautiful" (and whatever other bad poetry you chose to append to your description of the pavilion) as mies' little boxy dollhouse...
what you stated was dumb rhetoric at best, but most likely a very ignorant comment.
if you can't see that, you are really a lost cause.
easy herb. How about you show me an example of a building, designed by software that is as good as the pavilion. Until then I will dismiss everything you say.
this is a rather late reponse given the number of subsequent posts but anyway...
Mimicry, implies to me, a deliberated imitation of gestures that is recognizable as written or drawn and as read. i don't see, personally, relevance of mimicry - in your drawings- in order to sense a 'stepping-out'. i see you drew something suggestive and it could suggest a city grid or it could suggest a Gehry like surface. the possibilities of different "adjustments" (in this case adjustments in reading) lead to questioning your idea of adjustment. it would be interesting to dig deeper in the direction of this 'adjustment'. does it adjust to approximate specific understandings of reality? how does it break away with convention? when is it a syntagmatic imagination and when is it a paradigmatic imagination? i would also ask as to whether there is a time when you "adjust the imagination" and a time when "your imagination adjusts itself"- and whether this division between "you" and your "imagination" is merely the division between how strong a suggestion makes itself felt and how subliminal another's influence is.is the reserve of imagination then perhaps a great lake dictated by the dams and trenches of associative thought, wherever there is a stronger stroke of similitude or physical/termporan transferability, the imagination is bound to flow in its direction?
this might help clarify the below question further:
this is my question "do you think that the reaction against a referential-discursive practice of architecture (and specifically against eisenman) resulted in a pathology founded on the denial of the role of the reference within architecture that we witness within the rhetoric of emergent parametricism, and more widely, within the current strains of materialist architectural thought?"
this is your statement: "I'd feel more comfortable answering if you clarified or referenced it some examples, and maybe even adjusted it to what I just wrote above. If I undestand your question correctly so far, it hinges on the "pathology founded on the denial of the role of the reference" and it looks like I might think of that more in terms of 'the role of imagination' rather than the adherence to one design ideology or another.
as above, and per a different picture, i could also see the imagination as a vast field of contesting reference-derived suggestions with some very dense areas and other sparse areas. referential thought is inherent in the imagination and vice versa. so i don't see an opposition in roles.
re:ideology. it is not my person who is implicated in one ideology or ther other. what i'm saying - indulge me in this piece of mock psychoanalytical rhetoric- is that the materialist group of post-critical architectural (anti-theory) theorists have been driven to a state of pathological denial over the role of figurative/ associative/referential imagination - and by consequence virtual contigency- by virtue (or vice) of the obsessive-compulsive referentiality and hermeneutic overflow of the parental figure of eisenman. one extreme engendering the other.
certainly, for my person, i am influenced by the semioticians but i do not see semiotics as an ideology. it is an aid to thought, thats what i accept it as being.
It is different as it do not just create an emty mesh but a structure where the floors are suddenly just there no one placed the floors.
It is different as it is not just surface attitude but structure it is one material not 20 different, it form square as organic it is different as it is super strong it make a new technology it promise new jobs it is different as it build cheap houses and support new sheet materials, it can only be made with computer that way it is very different as with this computing ,it is not about the fancy sales renderings, but about the enginering structure . It is different for what it support it cover the old forms but don't support the old way's.
This is new ofcaurse it is different you can't blame it for that and realy all you do is blaming it for being different."
Since white fang says that there is in fact a parametric process/design that is able to imagine itself differently than how it is programmed to imagine itself, can someone provide an example or point (us) in the direction of such a thing?
white fang is too busy watching i-robot and smoking crack.
This thread is just more proof of my point that architecture and architectural theory have become all syntax, no semantics. No wonder nobody takes us seriously any more.
history repeats itself: I'm familiar with Eisenman and his work, but I don't know who the post-critical architectural (anti-theory) theorists are, so I can't answer your question
I mean the likes of Somol, Whiting, Latour...etc. There is an essay somewhere by George Baird somewhere which tackles that front. I'm not saying that there is no relevance or substance in their work, not at all, but i believe it is - or has helped- this reactionary rush towards a figuratively mute projective/productive Yes against what they perceive to be a deafeningly figurative and critical/paralytical No.
it is my opinion that we cannot prohibit ourselves from making virtual associations but we can certainly deny these - and denial can feed back into the system of association to make itself felt as a referential force. now denial of the system to actually become part of the system - and anti-theory to result in a theory and an episteme, muteness within loudness, representing the anti-representational. there is a duplicity in that. hence the topic, ethics.
resistance to water instruction and envelope integrity are platonic constructs. completely inadequate tools for having a conversation or drawing conclusions about parametrics/emergence. it lowers the level of the discourse.
Your comment is just more proof of my point that architecture and architectural theory have become all syntax, no semantics. No wonder nobody takes us seriously any more.
now let me get back to my roofing details, just nuts and bolts after all.
i'm having a hard time really understanding what this argument is about. human agency is still critical in design whether you're using a pencil, autocad, or whatever bim 9.0 software. so the designers values are important no matter if the result is achieved through painstaking drawing or painstaking scripting.
i can't tell why ethical practice would ever be off the table. no one is trying to suggest that the designer's values become irrelevant if a project's design is generated through a series of digital manipulations, are they?! because someone sets the parameters and there are values that come into play in those decisions.
we all choose our tools. in the case of my office, we choose them based on each individual project. sometimes we draw by hand, sometimes with sketchup or autocad, sometimes with revit or other softwares. we choose a project manager and then work out with that person which would be the right tools for the needs of the project. none are better, except as they apply to the specific needs of the project.
can someone say in simple language what this conflict is about, or if there even is one?
The sad thing about this is that parametric systems take a long time to understand & work with; and really won't be applicable to 95% of your career, if that. They make for good renderings, but how much does a parametric program/shape really help you understand how to take a client with a limited budget, and really understand their needs to bring a valuable space plan that serves their needs and brings them a lot of additional value. And you have to do this with a low fee and a CM that tries to cut every piece of creativity out of your design because "it puts you 10% over budget". Parametric expertise won't do you a lot of good there.
history repeats itself: tammuz, it's unfortunate that your OP is not seen for the constructive criticism that it is--essentially drop the metaphors and use the skill sets toward real world applications or at least toward an applicable theory of building/architectural design.
i'm not asking for the metaphor to be dropped, i'm asking for it to be recognized. after its recognition, people won't accept the association as more than an association, equal amongst others. then, yes, would it be probably be possible to open up this closed knot.
in fact, even without dropping the metaphor i,t is very interesting on levels that border on computer modelling and simulation. i'm referring specifically to parametricism that models itself after natural patterns. but, our concern here is architecture and design, not computer modelling.
I thought you might be referring to Somol, Whiting, etc., but what actual designs reflect their 'theory'? (I'm asking because I'd then better understand your point.)
Very quickly (i have to rush), the link here is to the work that has been the focus of academic work and has garnered a lot of attention and has yet to make its presence felt in a substantial manner (sci-arc, the EmTech@ AA, and elsewhere). since the topic here is - at least for me,- a specific approach and understanding of parametricism, i'd pursue the link between the projective materialists and the analogy-led parametricists. there could be more to be said about this, must rush. hope it makes sense. i also have to tie a few snippets of the thread together, but its doable, i think.
and i am very much with you, history repeats itself, in believing that parametricism is a tool that could serve purposes other than analogical simulation. after all, the link between an emergent systems and parametricism is a chosen one- not a necessary one. there is also yet another track that could be pursued through comparing the work of gaudi and that of emergent parametricists. i think the closure of gaudi's method, concept and the resultant design has a powerful resonance whereas the interrelation between the Em.Parametric method, concept and resultant design makes a feeble one- not only due to the external contigency of its assumptions but also because of its assumption of internal incontingency.
Tammuz, but if we repurpose multi-media synergies to iterate critical pedagogy and deploy standards-based manipulatives do we in fact exploit subjective infrastructures by expediting competency-based learning?
I'm not sure, perhaps by unleashing standards-based facilitators we could optimize thematic pedagogy.
The intelligible objects in space and time are by their very nature contradictory. It becomes evident that experiences, naturally, exist for us thanks to, by reconciling with noematic descriptions, noetic acts. The architectonic of natural reason, then, occupies part of the sphere of necessity concerning the existence of our ideas in general. Our understanding (and let us suppose that this is true) proves the validity of our judgements. As is evident upon close examination, the manifold, in particular, exists in our concepts, but reason has lying before it the employment of the Antinomies. Cogitationes, mediately, become adjusted to, by virtue of a synthesis in which what is meant coincides and agrees with the Objective world, noetic acts. The phenomena, in reference to ends, can be treated like the paralogisms of human reason; certainly, the transcendental aesthetic stands in need of necessity. The fact is that the task of clarifying noetic acts (as we have said) is "in itself" by a freely actualizable return to noetic acts.
On a more serious note, what I find most interesting about the entire discussion of parametricism, pro or con, is how scrupulously it avoids the most interesting/valuable aspect of algorithmic design methods: beauty. Instead of coming right out and saying that the main reason parametricism is interesting and potentially fruitful is that it seems to generate forms and spaces which appeal to our innate sense of what is aesthetically pleasing in the organic, natural world, we waste millions of words talking about quantifiable metrics, dubious ecological "just-so" stories, whiggish notions of historic progress via the all-powerful eye of infotech, quasi-religious invocations of "science," and other nonsensical and irrelevant things.
Has beauty, the creation of compelling and positively-reinforcing emotional experience in the built environment, really become such a taboo subject that we must continually dance around it, rationalizing everything we do while never daring to mention its elephantine presence in the corner of the room? Have we really become that decadent?
on a serious note, the "science" issue is just a primer. it is an attempt at avoiding a discussion of meaning because that generally leads to the abyss that our dear friend tammuz exemplifies. meaning is a structural construct, it's not something that actually exists anywhere. syntax vs. semantics, etc, etc. semantics as the black hole where linguists and architects go to die when their chops have rusted and they can't generate knowledge anymore.
while i point to cog sci readings, and ai theory, i do so only to point out the fact that any discussion that centers around issues of choice and intentionality is completely irrelevant to a strong practice of parametrics. now, while certain people here (jlarch and his clan of sun worshipers), assume that that leads into a "spiritual" deadend where deterministic architects decide that machines are their equivalents (they are, so what?) and go kill themselves... that, to me, seems like a huge cop-out and a projection of the lax rigor that is so present in our profession. that would be the expected response from any architect not willing to co-op't the machine into his process.
i've worked in offices where people systematically chose to take the long route in order to generate more billing hours (and then complain about the lack of billing hours left) instead of embracing current trends and producing designs that were not just material variations on a static form (flat 3/4" piece of granite, flat 3/4" piece of italian marble, flat 3/4" piece of teak, flat 3/4" piece of stainless steel), but also more detailed, less expensive and inherently quicker to generate. it is not hard to bring in a recent graduate and have him train your team on how to use grasshopper, revit or even catia.
i am posting in a constant near-rage because that is what the initial critique of parametrics was: that it was not rigorous enough. it seems to me like continuing to use our previous methods of generating form exemplifies that same critique. while i'd be more open entertaining the first idea if such criticism was coming from, say, someone who actually understood parametrics in the context of machine automata, learning and current trends in philosophy and cognitive science; all the raging criticism come from people who obviously do not understand what generating form through code entails.
and yes, beauty is the goal. i don't give a fuck about biomimetics. i don't care if your script is uses 4chan rss feeds to determine what your facade looks like. what i do care is how interesting your code is, and how beautiful the resulting form is. parametrics isn't about hvac ducts, and chase walls, or making buildings with butterfly wing patterns in every window. it's about augmenting the architect's potential. it's transhumanism at a smaller scale.
you're talking about construction and form generation - I have no problem with this application - I think it's promising - my issue is how dehumanising and disfunctional these buildings and spaces are programmatically - mostly because of the scale and ownership. Some of the earlier attempts at replicating pre-car settlement patterns seemed promising - but all the built examples are the same developer and repressive zoning driven garbage that you can make out of any other form of pastiche. You're locked into existing codes - no matter how cheap or efficient you make the buildings, you're not questioning anything else. we're just making form out of policy.
All I can say about the retreat from semantics into pure syntax is that it's an admission of defeat: surrender before the battle is even begun. If you can't deal with meaning, then all you've got is solipsism, or possibly nihilism. Neither is a credible stance, in philosophy nor in architectural theory.
As for understanding parametricism, I am thoroughly conversant in both the software and the science. I actually read Wolfram's book cover-to-cover when it came out. I've been following Hensel, Weinstock, et al with interest for a long time. I've been using parametric modeling software for twenty years, and I may actually be the only person on this forum who has used Mathematica to do design work on a real, built, permanently-inhabited project that had a fully-integrated computer-assisted design and production stream incorporating generative automata. And that was 15 years ago. And no, it doesn't leak, either.
For that reason, I'd like to see work in parametrics gain a bit of intellectual rigor: i.e. find a place for meaning in the constellation of its techniques. It has enormous potential, but so far it's only managed to rise to the level of fun toy and experimental curiosity: a bunch of people with a shiny new toy telling everyone else how transformational and pathbreaking they are. But so far, it's all about the "how" and not about the "why." That needs to change if it's ever going to go anywhere beyond playtime.
Beauty is a good place to start with that. The semantic layer can't be so easily dismissed, so it must be able to accommodate meaning. And toasteroven is right about one thing: it also needs to be intentionally humane.
actually it isn't a cop-out, gwharton. it's simply stating the obvious. things are defined by their parts and how they come together. perception structures perception. semantics is soft-syntax for those who can't handle computation or biology (at least in the field of linguistics).
as to sollipism and nihilism: huge leap of logic. i don't even know how to begin to answer that one.
it's just... not correct? those may have been the dead ends we contended with 100 years ago, but right now, there is so much data to be grasped at, so much information to be processed, analyzed, dissected.. things are very different. it takes a huge set of balls to predict where discarding semantics and focusing on syntax is taking us, but it is fairly obvious that the big practical technological breakthroughs were carried out by people who didn't care about much semantics and whose work focused almost exclusively on syntax/data structures.
also, "intentionally" doesn't factor into the equation. humans are biological machines. intentions are always post-rationalizations. we are not made of fairy dust. you are a machine governed by the laws of physics. you say you'd like it to be humane, but the thing is... it couldn't be any other way. we are who are. we could have never been anything other than this.
toaster, i can see your point for a change. the end nigh.
aside from the huge arrogance behind calling any piece of architecture dehumanising, i see what you're saying.
if we have any base emotion its an optimism towards the future Something which the critics don't have.
I'd just like to point out that "optimism towards the future" is what all those Modernists with their plain boxes and free plans had, too. And they were equally passionate and excited about the new direction their work was leading toward.
But it isn't either/or. Not preferring parametric(ism)s, or Modernism, doesn't mean one isn't optimistic.
If you are all optimistic about crossing the singularity you are really narrow thinkers. Kinda reminds me of the blind optimism about the automobile- didn't see the perils of suburbia but rather a life like the jetsons. All it will do is help to polarise wealth. So while the idea of AI is cool and probably inevitable, you all need to be more cynical when it come to things like this before those crappy mcdonalds jobs are gone too.
the last 100 years have been so horrible. our living standards have declined so much... When we are 100% convinced that the city in the park is the ultimate truth we end up with pruitt igoe. Parametrics is a tool just like you.
what???!!!
sentiment and ethics here we ago again, your tools of choice.
People come full circle when they realize that time is not a balanced totality, time is a series of unimaginable accidents and we profit from them.
Regressive behavior is harmful because it takes no risk and its caution has no foresight.
...getting into my electric car and driving off...
i'm not even going to respond to jluddite this time around.
it's always the same. pessimistic and misinformed comment with a side of dumb. this is why most people who do understand parametricism, respond with "read more" so often. it's like talking to a pet rock.
guess i should stop being so optimistic about my pet rock's chances of learning how to read and educating itself.
Regressive behavior is harmful because it takes no risk and its caution has no foresight.
So let me get this right. If you do not buy into parametrics then you are a luddite or a conservative? parametrics is not the only way foward. You are all in the box.
the ethics of parametricism/emergent architectural thought and reification
the reason, i believe, why white fang pointed you that way, is that most of the literature regarding consciousness, sentience and artificial intelligence strongly positions humans and machines in the same continuum. most of the arguments against parametrics that center around human uniqueness were tackled by that same field 20 years ago. this thread is full of such arguments (barcelona pavilion example).
Not true. I do not think humans are unique which is why I won't put my faith in a parametric script written by an ape. Not sure why you are making fun of the barcelona pavilion analogy? If you want to debate consciousness thats another discussion. I am pretty sure that I know way more about theoretical physics than most people. I think about this shit all day!
i'm picking on your reasoning behind stating that software could not come up with something as "beautiful" (and whatever other bad poetry you chose to append to your description of the pavilion) as mies' little boxy dollhouse...
what you stated was dumb rhetoric at best, but most likely a very ignorant comment.
if you can't see that, you are really a lost cause.
easy herb. How about you show me an example of a building, designed by software that is as good as the pavilion. Until then I will dismiss everything you say.
pay me.
Is there in fact a parametric process/design that is able to imagine itself differently than how it is programmed to imagine itself?
Yes.
This thread has overdosed on topics.
To expand upon the above question, parametrics does not imply a static ontology.
That's it for me guys.
history repeats itself,
this is a rather late reponse given the number of subsequent posts but anyway...
Mimicry, implies to me, a deliberated imitation of gestures that is recognizable as written or drawn and as read. i don't see, personally, relevance of mimicry - in your drawings- in order to sense a 'stepping-out'. i see you drew something suggestive and it could suggest a city grid or it could suggest a Gehry like surface. the possibilities of different "adjustments" (in this case adjustments in reading) lead to questioning your idea of adjustment. it would be interesting to dig deeper in the direction of this 'adjustment'. does it adjust to approximate specific understandings of reality? how does it break away with convention? when is it a syntagmatic imagination and when is it a paradigmatic imagination? i would also ask as to whether there is a time when you "adjust the imagination" and a time when "your imagination adjusts itself"- and whether this division between "you" and your "imagination" is merely the division between how strong a suggestion makes itself felt and how subliminal another's influence is.is the reserve of imagination then perhaps a great lake dictated by the dams and trenches of associative thought, wherever there is a stronger stroke of similitude or physical/termporan transferability, the imagination is bound to flow in its direction?
this might help clarify the below question further:
this is my question "do you think that the reaction against a referential-discursive practice of architecture (and specifically against eisenman) resulted in a pathology founded on the denial of the role of the reference within architecture that we witness within the rhetoric of emergent parametricism, and more widely, within the current strains of materialist architectural thought?"
this is your statement: "I'd feel more comfortable answering if you clarified or referenced it some examples, and maybe even adjusted it to what I just wrote above. If I undestand your question correctly so far, it hinges on the "pathology founded on the denial of the role of the reference" and it looks like I might think of that more in terms of 'the role of imagination' rather than the adherence to one design ideology or another.
as above, and per a different picture, i could also see the imagination as a vast field of contesting reference-derived suggestions with some very dense areas and other sparse areas. referential thought is inherent in the imagination and vice versa. so i don't see an opposition in roles.
re:ideology. it is not my person who is implicated in one ideology or ther other. what i'm saying - indulge me in this piece of mock psychoanalytical rhetoric- is that the materialist group of post-critical architectural (anti-theory) theorists have been driven to a state of pathological denial over the role of figurative/ associative/referential imagination - and by consequence virtual contigency- by virtue (or vice) of the obsessive-compulsive referentiality and hermeneutic overflow of the parental figure of eisenman. one extreme engendering the other.
certainly, for my person, i am influenced by the semioticians but i do not see semiotics as an ideology. it is an aid to thought, thats what i accept it as being.
god what a chore to read, pompous posturing over the meaning of metaphors.
i dont even bother with tammuz.
tldr all the way.
Per Corell
Sep 29, 04 3:39 am
"Hi
Forgot to say
It is different as it do not just create an emty mesh but a structure where the floors are suddenly just there no one placed the floors.
It is different as it is not just surface attitude but structure it is one material not 20 different, it form square as organic it is different as it is super strong it make a new technology it promise new jobs it is different as it build cheap houses and support new sheet materials, it can only be made with computer that way it is very different as with this computing ,it is not about the fancy sales renderings, but about the enginering structure . It is different for what it support it cover the old forms but don't support the old way's.
This is new ofcaurse it is different you can't blame it for that and realy all you do is blaming it for being different."
3DH FTW, yo!
Handsum wins Archinect today. Well-played, yo.
Since white fang says that there is in fact a parametric process/design that is able to imagine itself differently than how it is programmed to imagine itself, can someone provide an example or point (us) in the direction of such a thing?
white fang is too busy watching i-robot and smoking crack.
http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258-5316/advop/107-118.pdf
This thread is just more proof of my point that architecture and architectural theory have become all syntax, no semantics. No wonder nobody takes us seriously any more.
history repeats itself: I'm familiar with Eisenman and his work, but I don't know who the post-critical architectural (anti-theory) theorists are, so I can't answer your question
I mean the likes of Somol, Whiting, Latour...etc. There is an essay somewhere by George Baird somewhere which tackles that front. I'm not saying that there is no relevance or substance in their work, not at all, but i believe it is - or has helped- this reactionary rush towards a figuratively mute projective/productive Yes against what they perceive to be a deafeningly figurative and critical/paralytical No.
it is my opinion that we cannot prohibit ourselves from making virtual associations but we can certainly deny these - and denial can feed back into the system of association to make itself felt as a referential force. now denial of the system to actually become part of the system - and anti-theory to result in a theory and an episteme, muteness within loudness, representing the anti-representational. there is a duplicity in that. hence the topic, ethics.
make sure it doesnt leak, bitches!
"make sure it doesn't leak, bitches!"
another misread of parametricism.
resistance to water instruction and envelope integrity are platonic constructs. completely inadequate tools for having a conversation or drawing conclusions about parametrics/emergence. it lowers the level of the discourse.
Your comment is just more proof of my point that architecture and architectural theory have become all syntax, no semantics. No wonder nobody takes us seriously any more.
now let me get back to my roofing details, just nuts and bolts after all.
75 cents/hour: expect greatness.
gwharton,
how much have you built?
get outta here mdler, you archinect hasbeen/never was
i'm having a hard time really understanding what this argument is about. human agency is still critical in design whether you're using a pencil, autocad, or whatever bim 9.0 software. so the designers values are important no matter if the result is achieved through painstaking drawing or painstaking scripting.
i can't tell why ethical practice would ever be off the table. no one is trying to suggest that the designer's values become irrelevant if a project's design is generated through a series of digital manipulations, are they?! because someone sets the parameters and there are values that come into play in those decisions.
we all choose our tools. in the case of my office, we choose them based on each individual project. sometimes we draw by hand, sometimes with sketchup or autocad, sometimes with revit or other softwares. we choose a project manager and then work out with that person which would be the right tools for the needs of the project. none are better, except as they apply to the specific needs of the project.
can someone say in simple language what this conflict is about, or if there even is one?
The sad thing about this is that parametric systems take a long time to understand & work with; and really won't be applicable to 95% of your career, if that. They make for good renderings, but how much does a parametric program/shape really help you understand how to take a client with a limited budget, and really understand their needs to bring a valuable space plan that serves their needs and brings them a lot of additional value. And you have to do this with a low fee and a CM that tries to cut every piece of creativity out of your design because "it puts you 10% over budget". Parametric expertise won't do you a lot of good there.
history repeats itself: tammuz, it's unfortunate that your OP is not seen for the constructive criticism that it is--essentially drop the metaphors and use the skill sets toward real world applications or at least toward an applicable theory of building/architectural design.
i'm not asking for the metaphor to be dropped, i'm asking for it to be recognized. after its recognition, people won't accept the association as more than an association, equal amongst others. then, yes, would it be probably be possible to open up this closed knot.
in fact, even without dropping the metaphor i,t is very interesting on levels that border on computer modelling and simulation. i'm referring specifically to parametricism that models itself after natural patterns. but, our concern here is architecture and design, not computer modelling.
I thought you might be referring to Somol, Whiting, etc., but what actual designs reflect their 'theory'? (I'm asking because I'd then better understand your point.)
Very quickly (i have to rush), the link here is to the work that has been the focus of academic work and has garnered a lot of attention and has yet to make its presence felt in a substantial manner (sci-arc, the EmTech@ AA, and elsewhere). since the topic here is - at least for me,- a specific approach and understanding of parametricism, i'd pursue the link between the projective materialists and the analogy-led parametricists. there could be more to be said about this, must rush. hope it makes sense. i also have to tie a few snippets of the thread together, but its doable, i think.
and i am very much with you, history repeats itself, in believing that parametricism is a tool that could serve purposes other than analogical simulation. after all, the link between an emergent systems and parametricism is a chosen one- not a necessary one. there is also yet another track that could be pursued through comparing the work of gaudi and that of emergent parametricists. i think the closure of gaudi's method, concept and the resultant design has a powerful resonance whereas the interrelation between the Em.Parametric method, concept and resultant design makes a feeble one- not only due to the external contigency of its assumptions but also because of its assumption of internal incontingency.
At least 1997 got the joke.
Tammuz, but if we repurpose multi-media synergies to iterate critical pedagogy and deploy standards-based manipulatives do we in fact exploit subjective infrastructures by expediting competency-based learning?
I'm not sure, perhaps by unleashing standards-based facilitators we could optimize thematic pedagogy.
The intelligible objects in space and time are by their very nature contradictory. It becomes evident that experiences, naturally, exist for us thanks to, by reconciling with noematic descriptions, noetic acts. The architectonic of natural reason, then, occupies part of the sphere of necessity concerning the existence of our ideas in general. Our understanding (and let us suppose that this is true) proves the validity of our judgements. As is evident upon close examination, the manifold, in particular, exists in our concepts, but reason has lying before it the employment of the Antinomies. Cogitationes, mediately, become adjusted to, by virtue of a synthesis in which what is meant coincides and agrees with the Objective world, noetic acts. The phenomena, in reference to ends, can be treated like the paralogisms of human reason; certainly, the transcendental aesthetic stands in need of necessity. The fact is that the task of clarifying noetic acts (as we have said) is "in itself" by a freely actualizable return to noetic acts.
(http://www.tandj.net/~jpoirier/little_hacks/kant/kant.cgi?type=paragraph << so good)
On a more serious note, what I find most interesting about the entire discussion of parametricism, pro or con, is how scrupulously it avoids the most interesting/valuable aspect of algorithmic design methods: beauty. Instead of coming right out and saying that the main reason parametricism is interesting and potentially fruitful is that it seems to generate forms and spaces which appeal to our innate sense of what is aesthetically pleasing in the organic, natural world, we waste millions of words talking about quantifiable metrics, dubious ecological "just-so" stories, whiggish notions of historic progress via the all-powerful eye of infotech, quasi-religious invocations of "science," and other nonsensical and irrelevant things.
Has beauty, the creation of compelling and positively-reinforcing emotional experience in the built environment, really become such a taboo subject that we must continually dance around it, rationalizing everything we do while never daring to mention its elephantine presence in the corner of the room? Have we really become that decadent?
Beauty might arouse certain base emotions that are simply not allowed in the movement.
if we have any base emotion its an optimism towards the future Something which the critics don't have.
on a serious note, the "science" issue is just a primer. it is an attempt at avoiding a discussion of meaning because that generally leads to the abyss that our dear friend tammuz exemplifies. meaning is a structural construct, it's not something that actually exists anywhere. syntax vs. semantics, etc, etc. semantics as the black hole where linguists and architects go to die when their chops have rusted and they can't generate knowledge anymore.
while i point to cog sci readings, and ai theory, i do so only to point out the fact that any discussion that centers around issues of choice and intentionality is completely irrelevant to a strong practice of parametrics. now, while certain people here (jlarch and his clan of sun worshipers), assume that that leads into a "spiritual" deadend where deterministic architects decide that machines are their equivalents (they are, so what?) and go kill themselves... that, to me, seems like a huge cop-out and a projection of the lax rigor that is so present in our profession. that would be the expected response from any architect not willing to co-op't the machine into his process.
i've worked in offices where people systematically chose to take the long route in order to generate more billing hours (and then complain about the lack of billing hours left) instead of embracing current trends and producing designs that were not just material variations on a static form (flat 3/4" piece of granite, flat 3/4" piece of italian marble, flat 3/4" piece of teak, flat 3/4" piece of stainless steel), but also more detailed, less expensive and inherently quicker to generate. it is not hard to bring in a recent graduate and have him train your team on how to use grasshopper, revit or even catia.
i am posting in a constant near-rage because that is what the initial critique of parametrics was: that it was not rigorous enough. it seems to me like continuing to use our previous methods of generating form exemplifies that same critique. while i'd be more open entertaining the first idea if such criticism was coming from, say, someone who actually understood parametrics in the context of machine automata, learning and current trends in philosophy and cognitive science; all the raging criticism come from people who obviously do not understand what generating form through code entails.
and yes, beauty is the goal. i don't give a fuck about biomimetics. i don't care if your script is uses 4chan rss feeds to determine what your facade looks like. what i do care is how interesting your code is, and how beautiful the resulting form is. parametrics isn't about hvac ducts, and chase walls, or making buildings with butterfly wing patterns in every window. it's about augmenting the architect's potential. it's transhumanism at a smaller scale.
transhumanism,
I was trying to avoid that word. If they don't want to understand parametricism, what could they think of singularity.
Still think though, biomimetics plays a part in all this, but its formalism is often understood as just that.
you're talking about construction and form generation - I have no problem with this application - I think it's promising - my issue is how dehumanising and disfunctional these buildings and spaces are programmatically - mostly because of the scale and ownership. Some of the earlier attempts at replicating pre-car settlement patterns seemed promising - but all the built examples are the same developer and repressive zoning driven garbage that you can make out of any other form of pastiche. You're locked into existing codes - no matter how cheap or efficient you make the buildings, you're not questioning anything else. we're just making form out of policy.
dehumanizing?
pontificating over whether to move forward or stay behind.
its architecture.
its transhumanizing bro.
All I can say about the retreat from semantics into pure syntax is that it's an admission of defeat: surrender before the battle is even begun. If you can't deal with meaning, then all you've got is solipsism, or possibly nihilism. Neither is a credible stance, in philosophy nor in architectural theory.
As for understanding parametricism, I am thoroughly conversant in both the software and the science. I actually read Wolfram's book cover-to-cover when it came out. I've been following Hensel, Weinstock, et al with interest for a long time. I've been using parametric modeling software for twenty years, and I may actually be the only person on this forum who has used Mathematica to do design work on a real, built, permanently-inhabited project that had a fully-integrated computer-assisted design and production stream incorporating generative automata. And that was 15 years ago. And no, it doesn't leak, either.
For that reason, I'd like to see work in parametrics gain a bit of intellectual rigor: i.e. find a place for meaning in the constellation of its techniques. It has enormous potential, but so far it's only managed to rise to the level of fun toy and experimental curiosity: a bunch of people with a shiny new toy telling everyone else how transformational and pathbreaking they are. But so far, it's all about the "how" and not about the "why." That needs to change if it's ever going to go anywhere beyond playtime.
Beauty is a good place to start with that. The semantic layer can't be so easily dismissed, so it must be able to accommodate meaning. And toasteroven is right about one thing: it also needs to be intentionally humane.
work in progress gwharton, what would be your why's?
it also needs to be intentionally humane.
Does that mean we should script Renaissance housing?
actually it isn't a cop-out, gwharton. it's simply stating the obvious. things are defined by their parts and how they come together. perception structures perception. semantics is soft-syntax for those who can't handle computation or biology (at least in the field of linguistics).
as to sollipism and nihilism: huge leap of logic. i don't even know how to begin to answer that one.
it's just... not correct? those may have been the dead ends we contended with 100 years ago, but right now, there is so much data to be grasped at, so much information to be processed, analyzed, dissected.. things are very different. it takes a huge set of balls to predict where discarding semantics and focusing on syntax is taking us, but it is fairly obvious that the big practical technological breakthroughs were carried out by people who didn't care about much semantics and whose work focused almost exclusively on syntax/data structures.
also, "intentionally" doesn't factor into the equation. humans are biological machines. intentions are always post-rationalizations. we are not made of fairy dust. you are a machine governed by the laws of physics. you say you'd like it to be humane, but the thing is... it couldn't be any other way. we are who are. we could have never been anything other than this.
toaster, i can see your point for a change. the end nigh.
aside from the huge arrogance behind calling any piece of architecture dehumanising, i see what you're saying.
if we have any base emotion its an optimism towards the future Something which the critics don't have.
I'd just like to point out that "optimism towards the future" is what all those Modernists with their plain boxes and free plans had, too. And they were equally passionate and excited about the new direction their work was leading toward.
But it isn't either/or. Not preferring parametric(ism)s, or Modernism, doesn't mean one isn't optimistic.
history: stick to lolcats.
umadbro?
If you are all optimistic about crossing the singularity you are really narrow thinkers. Kinda reminds me of the blind optimism about the automobile- didn't see the perils of suburbia but rather a life like the jetsons. All it will do is help to polarise wealth. So while the idea of AI is cool and probably inevitable, you all need to be more cynical when it come to things like this before those crappy mcdonalds jobs are gone too.
the last 100 years have been so horrible. our living standards have declined so much...
except not really.
you really are a little luddite.
Depends on who you ask. Living standards improved for some at the expense of the environment and a few 3rd world countries.
When we are 100% convinced that the city in the park is the ultimate truth we end up with pruitt igoe. Parametrics is a tool just like you.
the last 100 years have been so horrible. our living standards have declined so much...
When we are 100% convinced that the city in the park is the ultimate truth we end up with pruitt igoe. Parametrics is a tool just like you.
what???!!!
sentiment and ethics here we ago again, your tools of choice.
People come full circle when they realize that time is not a balanced totality, time is a series of unimaginable accidents and we profit from them.
Regressive behavior is harmful because it takes no risk and its caution has no foresight.
...getting into my electric car and driving off...
i'm not even going to respond to jluddite this time around.
it's always the same. pessimistic and misinformed comment with a side of dumb. this is why most people who do understand parametricism, respond with "read more" so often. it's like talking to a pet rock.
guess i should stop being so optimistic about my pet rock's chances of learning how to read and educating itself.
Regressive behavior is harmful because it takes no risk and its caution has no foresight.
So let me get this right. If you do not buy into parametrics then you are a luddite or a conservative? parametrics is not the only way foward. You are all in the box.
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