Just a reminder, the deadline from Bracket 2 on Soft Systems is December 10th!




Just a reminder, the deadline from Bracket 2 on Soft Systems is December
10th! To Submit, please visit http://www.brkt.org/



Bracket 2 invites the submission of critical articles and unpublished
design projects that investigate physical and virtual soft systems, as they
pertain to infrastructure, ecologies, landscapes, environments, and
networks. In an era of declared crises—economic, ecological and climatic
amongst others– the notion of soft systems has gained increasing traction
as a counterpoint to permanent, static and hard systems.
The notion of ‘soft’ systems had considerable impact on the design
disciplines in the 1960s and 70s. In management, ‘Soft Systems
Methodology’ was developed to address complex situations with divergent
readings and stakeholders. The ability to deal with imprecision and
uncertainty, with the aim of achieving more malleable, robust solutions is
at the core of ‘Soft Computing’. Bridging disciplines, Nicholas
Negroponte, in Soft Architecture Machines (1970), proposed a responsive
built environment, wherein the computer acts as a tool for creativity and
design, repositioning the role of the architect. While designers such as
Cedric Price, Yona Friedman, Archigram, and Buckminster Fuller embraced the
early soft project, envisioning alternate models of urbanization, mobility,
and infrastructural networks, this project has remained dormant for the
past decades, only to reemerge with increased urgency today. Acknowledging
fluid and indeterminate situations with complex feedback loops that allow
for reaction and adaption, the possibility of soft systems has re-entered
the domain of design, necessitating a repositioned role of the designer.
The present era, characterized by crisis, provides a new platform to
revisit the soft project in the 21st century.



Bracket 2 seeks to critically position and define soft systems, in order to
expand the scope and potential for new spatial networks, and new formats of
architecture, urbanization and nature. From soft politics, soft power and
soft spaces to fluid territories, software and soft programming, Bracket 2
questions the use and role of responsive, indeterminate, flexible, and
immaterial systems in design. Bracket 2 invites designers, architects,
theorists, ecologists, scientists, and landscape architects to position and
leverage the role of soft systems and recuperate the development of the soft
project.



The editorial board and jury for Bracket 2 includes Benjamin Bratton, Julia
Czerniak, Jeffrey Inaba, Geoff Manaugh, Philippe Rahm, Charles Renfro, as
well as co-editors Lola Sheppard and Neeraj Bhatia.



For more information and to submit, please visit: http://www.brkt.org/



Bracket [goes soft]

Editors: Lola Sheppard and Neeraj Bhatia / InfraNet Lab & Archinect

Publisher: Actar

Graphic Design: Thumb

Funding: Graham Foundation

Submission Deadline: December 10, 2010