110321 - atlas of novel tectonics

Here are my notes from Reiser + Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics:

2. Difference in Kind / Difference in Degree – Meaning that is assigned and fixed (chess) vs. meaning that is acquired in context (go).

3. The Unformed Generic: Form Acquiring Content – Projecting content and scale into an unformed field. The field implies no specific scale of content. The stain is at once generic and specific. It contains a wide range of variations.

4. Similarity and Difference – Difference can emerge from similarity and similarity can emerge from difference. Things that look the same may perform differently and things that look different may perform similarly.

5. Variety (Difference) vs. Variation (Self-Similarity) – Intensive quantity generates a whole irreducible to the sum of its parts. Differential repetition is a means of handling program.

7. After Collage: Two Conditions of the Generic – Transformation is a quality perceived through deployment of quantity. Difference is a product of transformation. The universal is understood a “progressive differentiation.”

10. Selection vs. Classification – Typologies are important because they have range within limits. Selection within this range is based on performance of program relative to type.

11. Intensive and Extensive – “The most important distinction in our changed notions of architectural design is the shift from geometry as an abstract regulator of the materials of construction to a notion that matter and material behavior must be implicated in geometry itself.”

Intensive = properties of matter with indivisible differences, gradient. Temperature
Extensive = properties of matter with divisible differences. Mass
Potted plant, intensive proliferation, and extensive limit.

12. Geometry and Matter – Extensive and intensive qualities (quantities) collaborate in the production of architecture. Codes and other constraints can be considered extensive while material systems generate intensive characteristics.

13. Folly of the Mean – The mean is expected, extremes are where there is potential to innovate. The Aristotelian mean is justified in terms of human conduct and gets transferred to proportional systems.

21. Exchanges among Systems – “The architect is, in effect, neither a passive observer of determined systems nor a determined manipulator of passive material, but rather, the manager of an unfolding process.”

24. The Diagram – The diagram is not about the thing itself, but its relation to its context, milieu, or environment. Relationships may change due to scale shifts or behaviors may move from one scale to another. The diagram tracks performance (of relationships) as an abstract model of materiality.

34. Systems Becoming Other Systems – Even received structural systems have the capacity to be transformed along a gradient. New potentials emerge between the standards or norms.

38. Operating under Surfeit of Information – The management of a material process (like cooking) occurs at a different level than scientific research (the minutia are not directly controlled nor are they necessarily understood). This is acceptable because it is the larger scale effects that are important.

39. Asignfying Signs – An asignfying sign is an indication of material quality and performance. It is a locus for becoming, not a linguistic reading. It promotes production of the unforeseen rather than representing the known.