Mid-semester images

comments to follow

paper cut model

field model

rib model and analysis

ribbon model analysis

ribbed class

diagonal frame

ribbed

ribbon flat

ribbon frame 01

intensive site flow analysis

comments

I think it is finally possible to discern a sophistication of approach, if not of outcome, amongst most of the projects in the class. So whilst some of the models may not yet work in the manner we expect, all groups have become sensitized to a process of registering information through dynamic models and are now working out the ways to improve the receptiveness of the material to different types of forces. It is gratifying that all groups now see the site as in someway exceeding its physical manifestation and being composed of subtle tendencies and immanent forces. Whilst the analysis of these tendencies and forces has ranged from the methodical to the cursory, there is a common process in operation that seeks to use the data that has been gathered to inform a material process, furthermore the determination of interventions into this virtual field of information/force are conceived as conspiring with this field, it is interesting to note how prevalent a logic of modulation and deformation is becoming in all the models. The notion of modulation and deformation implies a notion of the site as already traversed by different flows of materiality, movement etc which are then intensified or manipulated in other ways.

What also becomes apparent is the importance of maintaining a sense of liveliness or openness in the diagrammatic models. In this way heterogeneous types of information can be folded into the same diagram, with the effect of these new types of information reconfiguring previous ones (note the interrelationship between qualities of movement or materiality with issues of scale and flow in certain models). This mobility of the diagram, as foa note, allows the project to develop its own internal consistency and history.

It might be argued that design is a steady process of closure and that at some point the fluidity of process must gave way to a certain degree of material fixity as the work slowly differentiates itself into an evermore articulated object. The openness of process must therefore be maintained as long as possible, it will be quite a challenge to see how issues of density (which have been avoided to a large extent so far as everybody grapples with techniques), scale and structure will work themselves into the diagrams over the next few weeks without freezing them and closing down the opportunities they might afford.

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program material model a

movement-program model b

movement-program model a

On Process

"Processes are far more interesting than ideas. Ideas are linked to existing codes, operating critically or in alignment with pre-existing systems of ideas. Rather than making a project the implementation of an idea, or the scaffolding of an image, we are interested in constructing engineering processes on different levels. A process is the generation of a micro-history for a project, a kind of specific narrative. The entity of the project is formed in a sequence where additional complexity is constructed to integrate incoming information. If geological, biological or human history, for instance, have something to teach us, it is that these processes of temporal formation produce organizations of far greater complexity and sophistication than instantaneous ideas. This is perhaps the most important development brought by information technology to our practice: we can design, synthesize and proliferate specific histories and scripts for a project; introduce a sequential development rather than deploying a form or an image. It proliferates, and waits for the emergence of the project. We are no longer trapped in the traditional compulsion to reproduce historical models, or to invent them from scratch. We do not have to produce a project as a reproduction, derivation or as the invention of a historical model. We do not need to produce complexity by making collages. We can synthesize the processes of generation as a kind of accelerated motion, integrally adding information to the construction. This sequential, integrative addition produces more ambiguous effects capable of resonating at different levels, rather than straightforward ideological statements, metaphors, allegories or reproductions."

Extract from Foa code remix
2G N.16 2000/IV

movement-program tests

movement-program tests