Shape

367 Seeing Won’t Do—Design Needs Words
There are plans with central rectangles, crosses, T’s and I’s. But of far more interest
now, plans fall into two separate and distinct groups. There are fourteen where descriptions
are produced in a four-step series, perhaps this one
from step 13 14 15 16 17
N 15 13 11 10 9
of which the plan
and the four in the top row are examples. And there are twenty-nine plans where
descriptions are produced in the familiar three-step series
from step 13 14 15 16
N 15 13 11 9
for the Villa Foscari. The series also works for the four plans in the bottom row. Still, in
practice things may not be as straightforward. Programs like plans can always be
revised, and in fact the real goal may be to optimize both as they influence one another
in various ways. This means changing programs and plans in parallel. Form and function,
etc., interact, so that to some extent each implies and affects the other in a confluence
of mixed interests and goals. This is beginning to feel like real design, and it
continues to look like calculating.
The descriptions I’ve been using are fairly rudimentary, and they aren’t anything
to recommend in practice, although sometimes the descriptions that are used in practice
aren’t any more sophisticated. But it’s not really descriptions that are at stake here,
but rather description rules and how they’re defined and used to describe what happens
as I calculate. The idea is to combine shapes with words and numbers in a recursive
process. Doing multiple things at once with shapes and words seems natural
enough when you’re in the middle of it—there’s a knack to drawing and talking at
the same time. But giving rules for this can be confusing at first, especially when the