repositioning the either/or with the both/and

In “Skin and Bones”, a chapter in Warped Space, Anthony Vidler is primarily concerned with exploring the space between, the liminal, and the relationship between inside and outside. He discusses the inbetween/liminal/inside/outside in the terms of the “fold” or pli. The fold is understood as both “a material phenomenon” (the actual) and “a metaphysical idea” (the virtual) that “joins the soul to the mind without division.” It is both a connector and separator, infinite and instant, and a threshold of the either/or. He positions this concept in terms of Leibinz’s idea of the fold and Deleuze’s interpretation of the Leibniz fold.

Deleuze’s understands the fold as both abstract and physical. Vidler translates, “folds exist in space and in time, in things and in ideas, and among their unique properties is the ability to join all these levels and categories at the same moment.” The fold puts the inside and outside in relation. Deleuze, in the final chapter of Foucault writes, “The outside is not a fixed limit but moving matter animated by peristaltic movements, folds and foldings that altogether make up an inside: they are not something other than the outside, but precisely the inside of an outside.” It is a moment of transition where all things exist and are mediated, joined both physically and conceptually.

Elizabeth Grosz, in Architecture from the Outside, extends (indirectly) the Deleuzian fold to encompass the real and virtual. Grosz structures the idea of the virtual, as opposed to the actual, as a way of relating and connecting past with present with future, and space with time. The interaction of the virtual with the actual allows overlaps and singularities of duration, memory, past, and present. It allows for simultaneity (a single point) and infinity to occur at the same time. “The past exists, but in a state of latency or virtuality . . . The present can be understood as . . . the point where the past intersects most directly with the body.” Virtuality relates the condition of the present within the scope of the past (and hence future) creating the body as the point of interaction with duration as a component of time.

Vidler takes these relationships of the inside/outside, virtual/actual, and past/present/future and extends them to architecture. He notes that some contemporary architects, such as Greg Lynn, are able to use digital media to realize the fold in both built and conceptual architecture. The results are new “blob,” “viscous,” and topological” forms. The inside is the outside. The new forms result from forces and motion that simultaneously respond to internal and external context. The fold can be the entire building or moments that mediate between separate pieces. It is a singular event existing in the present that disrupts and repositions our perception of architecture within time (past and future) and space.

The Easton + Combs Prehistory Museum

The Easton + Combs Prehistory Museum, Gyeonggi-do Jeongok, South Korea, is a good illustration of Lynn’s animate form. Easton + Combs simultaneously respond to the internal and external forces acting on the design and organization of the Prehistory Museum. The hexagonal nodes are result of the context, the archaeological site, and programmatic connections. The program is distributed in a series of exterior and interior nodes that each have a field of influence/attraction/force that actively relate to each other. The resulting form not only organizes program and conditions but also acts as a structural space frame.

Lynn, go back to math class

In Animate Form Lynn co-opts math terms to define new terms for discussing animation and digital process. He is generally right, but not in precise ways, and sometimes wrong. For instance, he defines a type of animate form as “topologically entities” and discusses the implications of “topological form.” There is no topological form. Topology is field of geometry that is concerned with determining when things are the same. Determining when two things are exactly the same is nearly impossible and not practical to study. In topology two things are considered the same when there exists a homeomorphic map between them. Simply (and not rigorously), this means that two things are the same when you can deform one into the other with out adding or taking away any holes. Lynn takes the term topology from this idea, using it to describe surface manipulation. Not quite right.

Lynn further describes the temporal component of topology as, “the immanent curvatures that result from the combinatorial logic of differential equations.” This makes absolutely no sense. Simply, combinatorics is a type of pure math concerned with counting. A differential equation is an equation or an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the function itself and of its derivatives of various orders. (wikipedia) One is a type of equation in calculus and one is a branch of pure math. While there are relationships between the two, I’m not convinced Lynn knows what he is actually saying. He is taking combinatorial to be synonymous with combination. I think he really means the immanent curvatures that result from the combination of differential equations.

Lynn needs to either describe (correctly) why and how he is using math terms or not use them at all.

“an environment of force and motion”

Greg Lynn’s Animate Form

In Animate Form, Greg Lynn carefully and comprehensively delineates a new(ish) field of design and process. To do he has defined new terms and issues for describing his thesis. He redefines (or clarifies) some terms and co-opts terms from math and science. The most important (re)definition is of animate/animation as not just the movement of objects but rather “impl[ing] the evolution of a form and its shaping forces.” Animate form is an environment of forces and motion as opposed to the more traditional way of thinking of design and form as static points. It is not necessarily literal motion, but is a range of forces acting on continuous surfaces/forms rather than a collection of points. There is no single definable point but rather fields of influence.

He argues that designing by manipulating the forces and areas of influence sponsors multiplicity of event/time/instant in a single form. This facilitates a greater response to a range of shifting and static contextual conditions than traditional design allows. For instance, site, program, and movement of people can all be conceived of as forces and motion simultaneously acting on and responding to form.

Lynn uses his newly minted terms and concepts to launch a fairly comprehensive attack on traditional processes and practices of design and architecture. “Architecture remains as the last refuge for members of the flat-earth society.” He points out that, “buildings are often assumed to have a particular and fixed relationship to their programs.” Buildings are rarely designed for a flexibility of program and never designed to sponsor an often inevitable shifting of use/program over the life span of a building. Lynn’s concept of the performance envelope models a range of programmatic/typological relationships and interaction potentials. Again the focus is on the multiplicity and mutability sponsored by an animate process.

Lynn makes a productive argument for the inclusion of digital media in the design process. Often the role of digital media and technology in architecture is questioned, its value being subjugated as merely a tool for representation, efficiency, and production. Designs generated from digital modeling have typically been little more than shallow, surface based forms that are justified post facto with flimsy pseudo intellectual reasoning. Additionally, “because of the stigma and fear of releasing control of the design process to software, few architects have attempted to use the computer as a schematic, organizing generative medium for design.” The use of new technology in architecture typically has an incubation period while architects figure out its range, capacity and limitations. We have to define digital process in its own terms rather than in terms from traditional design. For example, when steel was first introduced as a building material, architects designed forms that still mimicked traditional masonry construction. The full potential of steel was not realized until it was defined in its own terms.

Lynn gives us a linguistic and conceptual framework in which we can design and work using digital process and animate form.