Previous readings (1-4, in order)
Apparently, this writing is included in a book about pragmatism and, therefore, is of philosophical content. One might ask which the relation is between philosophy and architecture, two disciplines that, at first sight, might look distant from each other. The truth is that, in fact, many currents in architecture have some basis on philosophical ideas and ways of thinking. Taking the closest example we have right now, pragmatism could be considered as the original idea which, translated to architectural thinking, led to brutalism.
Another relation between the text and our course lies behind the idea of intercommunicating patches. A building can act as a joining item between people, places and people and places (which can be similar to patches in the sense that without the building acting as a link, they might remain independent from each other forever). This makes me think of what is probably the most important landmark in my hometown: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Spain), a building that was thought for recovering an industrial area in decay in the center of the city and has not only been the most important key in the regeneration of the area, but also a joining item between both riverbanks (the tidal river that crosses the area, along with the industrial area, used to divide the city in two), despite not being an actual bridge.
This book could be considered as the origin of geometry, since it is the first time the main geometric postulates were united. In fact, Euclidās work includes all the basics of geometry and has been thoroughly used for centuries of teaching. I think this book has been included here because of the way architecture is based on geometry (to the general observer, a buildingās easiest-to-see element is its geometry). Furthermore, an architect is many times working in trying to figure out new shapes or reconceptions of already used forms. Even though this book only includes basic knowledge that is most of the times pure logic to us in its definitions, postulates, common notes and propositions, these ideas, which we have assumed due to our previous experience, are here explained and reasoned in a coherent way (despite the old language forms used). For me, this makes me rethink if we should get back to further explore the simplest shapes instead of finding complexity.
While Euclidās work somehow set up the origins of geometry in a written form, it wasnāt until French philosopher and scientist RenĆ© Descartes that geometry got easier to be visualized by more people through his simple and graphic explanations. In fact, one of the main steps given by Descartes is to relate arithmetic operations to geometry. He uses numbers to explain drawings, and drawings to explain numbers.
In the same way that Euclid tried to explain his knowledge in a schematic way, here we can see that Descartes opted for writing an actual text, showing the relations between the ideas he states in a way that is more familiar to us.
Among the most interesting ideas put forward by Descartes in this book we can find that of the possibility of getting everything reduced to straight lines. In fact, if we zoom in close enough to a curve, we will end up seeing a straight line. Derivatives also come from this idea (since the derivative of a curve in a point is its tangent straight line). We shall also think about the hyperbolic paraboloid we made three weeks ago, which was, in the end, formed by nothing but an infinite amount of straight lines. We could also say that a straight line could be considered as a curve because, in the end, a straight line is, in fact, also a curve, but with a curvature equal to zero, a circle with an infinite radius, etc.
His sentence stating that āall the unknown quantities can be expressed in terms of a single quantityāĀ also introduces us to the area of scaling, as scaling is nothing but changing the value for a distance and then changing every other value that we are working with in a correlative way.
In this text, architect Jane Burry discusses the way Descartesā insight into geometry has altered the way to model in architecture. Since geometry is the tool an architect uses to create its product, new insights into it and advances are of special relevance to the work of an architect, whose work gets altered in three different spheres according to Burry: Conceptual (the model), Operational (the process of modelling) and Constructional (the process of making).
The writing comes from a journal dedicated to investigating space-related phenomena. Since one of the ways to explain the job of an architect is to say that they make use of a physical space for a specific purpose through the use of their geometrical knowledge, this article seems to be very appropriate for the purpose of the course. The definition of the job of an architect I just proposed should be completed by many more sentences further specifying what an architect does; I only took the part which is, in my opinion, the closer one to what this text proposes.
Among the ideas proposed by Burry in this text, I would like to highlight the ones that have made a bigger impact on me or have come to my mind while reading this text, which are not necessarily the most important ones:
Having a proper analytic approach to the shapes lets us use them not only with esthetic purposes, but also experiment in the search of some actual utility behind that shape, as it happens with the Ć¢ā¬ÅResponsive Acoustic SurfacesĆ¢ā¬Ā research.
The use of algorithms (as John Conwayās game of life mentioned in page 19) in defining architectural shapes and textures in an unpredictable but not random way would have been impossible with an analytic approach to geometry and mathematics. This clearly shows how the changes in mathematical and geometrical perceptions started (or catalyzed) by Descartes have opened the doors to a much wider amount of possibilities in architecture. From this, we can arrive to the idea that architectural design, when flexible enough, can be based on an infinity of ideas either in a more conceptual or analytical way.
Randomness can be considered also as a concept that can be applied in architecture.
Modelling the space to propose an effective solution to a problem is, in my opinion, the most exciting and challenging part of architecture, which I would call āarchitectural engineeringā (or more properly, spatial engineering through architecture). Behind reaching an effective solution to a problem underlies a whole process of thinking, experimenting and using all the resources available to the designer. Engineering, in Latin languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) originates from the Latin word for ingenuity, which basically describes which is the main tool of any engineer and architect when facing and solving this kind of problems.
The fact that we are able to design and imagine buildings that cannot be constructed should not be considered as a hateful constrain, but as a useful limitation that would make us more imaginative: In creative terms, it is not the same thing having no limits than having something that cannot be done and that will make you reach a more imaginative solution and train you to be more resourceful for future cases. Therefore, the advances in analytical geometry have both meant a wider availability of resources to be used, but have also brought such a huge amount of knowledge that will make us not try to rely in simpler shapes and ideas for difficult problems.
