2010-03-31

iterations (suite)


"abstract machines are precisely what they claim to be : they are abstract because conceptually and ontologically distinct from material reality yet they are fully functionning machines nonetheless, that is, they are agencies of assemblage, organisation and deployment... The argument, stated simply, is as follows: to every organised entity there corresponds a microregime of forces that endows it with its general shape and programme. Every object is a composition of forces, and the compositional event is the work or expression of an abstract machine."

Nice recap (and simplification) of Deleuze by Sanford KWINTER, The Hammer and the Song, in The Diagrams of Architecture, edited by Mark Garcia, AD Reader, John Wiley & Sons, London, 2010, p. 124

2010-03-28

affettati e diagrammi - (notes for an automatic model slicer)


how about an automatic model slicer for analysis, compare... ? working on a clean gh definition... should release 0.1 version soon...

It makes me wonder... what if we would generate a live-version of classic diagram book "Precedents in architecture, Analytical diagrams, formative ideas and parts" by Roger H. Clark and Michael Pause ? (That book can be previewed here)

As the on-going reflexion on diagrams continues to extend some sort of hegemony over the architectural field in the recent years, I would also like to share a recent, and somehow more critical resource : Mark Garcia's collective book "Diagrams of architecture" + the very stimulating AA school conference (03/05/10) which can be watched here).

I would finish this inexpectedly long post by quoting Reiser+Umemoto (Atlas of novel tectonics, Princeton Architectural Press, New-York, 2006, p.114 :

"The Diagram [...]

Material organizations at the macro scale must of necessity be modelled in order to predict or track changes to their behavior. Thus an analog connection must be made to microscale. Macro-organizations of material behavior can be approximated at smaller scales, but adjustments are necessary as the system becomes rendered in a more intensive or extensive model. For instance, a model airplane cannot be exactly scaled down and expected to operate in flight, because the behavior of airflow and lift is not consistent at the smaller scale. For this reason, operable model airplanes must undergo deformation in the wing according to a coefficient of scale dictated by a dimensionless parameter known as the Reynold's Number."