Telematik 2/02 - Institut für Grundlagen der Informationsverarbeitung ...

Thema
Architecture as Information Editor
Manfred Wolff-Plottegg
Institut für Gebäudelehre und Entwerfen,
Technische Universität Wien
When I claim I have done something with my
„little finger“ (with no effort at all), this is, as
usual, a slight exaggeration; however, there are
people („The Belly of an Architect“) who say
they act on a gut level – because for them that is
where a whole lot of nerves converge – while
others again claim that it comes from the brain;
and today many things are ascribed to the
computer. Where the processing actually takes
place was perhaps once an issue of location
(traditionally the genius loci), but with growing
experience of dislocation, we might now, in
retrospect, have to admit that topographical
differences cannot really be evidenced by way
of autochthonous results. But the questions
remain: how do lines get drawn on paper and
how do houses appear in the field?
Architecture information
processing I
A client approached me, stating that she wanted
a house for her retirement, with a roof and a
balcony (something between Salzburg and
Tyrolean style), a dream house, illustrated by a
stack of (holiday and souvenir) photos, and a
few „Homes & Gardens“ books: so there was
the English fireplace, the French window, the
terrace like the one on holiday in Greece, of
course Italian terracotta and heavy Spanish
wood, a touch of Biedermeier, but also with
windows for flowers and a bit of „bio“ and „eco“
too – an architectural picture puzzle. There is no
point in collecting information if the rules of
processing are unknown. 1
All „own home-builder“ houses follow a selfsimilar
basic pattern. Although a person’s own
individual desire is asserted – all you need is
1 This contract was short-lived, the client
employed another architect to process her
input.
love... – the self-similarity manifests a
microcensus, a favourite collective train of
thought: the precedented, the liking, ...... If the
result is a copy of the desire, i.e. if it is already
known: what is „information processing“ if nothing
is processed? analogue or digital? > merge,
morph, copy/paste; > as in the SIRD 2 mode of
seeing the familiar pattern catches the eye.
Architecture information
processing II
Classical architectural theory is based upon
information processing. And yet in competitions
(with, for example, 100 projects) quite different
solutions may be found and, if we supply even
more information, the results do not become
distinctively different. One might say that this
is not serious information processing. 3 In the
case of the own home-builder, we see an example
of how conventional sources and manipulations
are obsolete: only beginners analyse a site or a
set of parameters for designing, only romantics
and information scientists confide themselves to
their architect in this way and believe that
architecture is an information apparatus. 4
If we are no longer useful in a world without a
subject / object, if we are aimless, desireless and
placeless, information floats without obligation.
The Binary House 5 is architecture production in
that it produces information for interpretations,
manipulation of information as a generator of
architecture.
Architecture information
processing III
In view of the fact that it was only possible to
achieve little deviation and only insufficient
results with the anthropocentric goal- and
content-focused approach the question is whether
external, collective procedure could perhaps help
create any kind of new results. Not the input
(individual desire), but the process determines
the output. The information flow does not go
from the brain (vision, desire....) to expression
(extremity, medium). External processes generate
and offer new information to the brain.
W. A. Mozart (KV 516f „Musical Dice Game“),
A. Cozens (A new method of assisting the
invention in drawing original compositions of
landscape, 1785): „To sketch ... is to transfer
Fig.1: Infotube (Matsumoto/Matsukawa/Wakita) .................................... Information Spaces
2
3
single image random dot
And from the sum of similarities or differences
we cannot draw any reliable conclusions as to
ideas from the mind to the paper ... to blot is to
make varied spots ... producing accidental forms
... from which ideas are presented to the mind ...;
the common defaults. Architecture bluffs with
the reliability and stringency of information
processing.
To sketch is to delineate ideas; blotting suggests
them.“ Without historical, evaluative admixture
4 Managers generally believe that architecture is
the result of decisions. 5 Project and theory: Plottegg already in 1988
52 Telematik 1/2002