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Next Generation Building 1 (2014) 61–64
DOI: 10.7480/ngb.1.1.1534
Building 11
Maria Voyatzaki
PhD, Architect, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
[email protected]
The Greek word ‘syn’ (expressed in mathematics as 1) means ‘together’. Words like synthesis, syntax, synergy, symbiosis, sympathy, synchrony and others are broadly used nowadays to
define characteristics of the building of tomorrow. A building as a broad assemblage of entities,
establishes multiple and emergent relations with the other entities of a complex and dynamic
environment. A building is an interface depended upon a flux of information, self-organised in
affective relations with its inhabitant and all other agents involved like fabrication, inhabitation,
survival, mutation or even death. Creating architecture aims at the becoming of a building as a
whole, attached to a series of transformable interfaces that form its own ecosystem. The presence
of the building is always in syn1ergy with the flow of information in its body and this broader
ecosystem. It becomes a machinic assemblage, a syn1praxis of agents. In this form of assemblage the agents have to act so that the assemblage can be syn1ergetic. They have to sustain the
results of the actions of the others so that the assemblage becomes compassionate, syn1pathetic,
tied to a value system to which new aesth-ethics is attuned. Beauty is a form of sym1pathy. The
building of tomorrow is Building11.
Keywords: synthesis, syntax, synergy, symbiosis, sympathy, synchrony, machinic assemblance,
ecosystem, digital architecture.
Buildings are distinct captures of worldviews. They are always conceived as wholes,
­assembled by parts in ways that their materialised form and spaces can effect bodies,
­objects and conditions as well as affect minds experiencing them. A building is a ‘synolon’
that brings together (syn) distinctive elements to create a whole (olon). This ‘togetherness’
constitutes an integral part of the way buildings are conceived in time. This ‘syn’ is the real
essence of the idea of the building that not only epitomises the spirit of the assemblage but
also its true purpose, that is the creation of the holon (Óλoν).
In ancient Greek, the word ‘syn’ or ‘sym’ means ‘with’, ‘accompanied by’, ‘with the
contribution of’ and is the same as the Latin ‘cum’ or ‘con’ or ‘com’. Syn has later been
used in mathematics, as the sign for adding numbers, known as 1.1
In contemplation and anticipation of the ‘building of tomorrow’ an effective path
could be the investigation of the directions in which the dynamics of changes shift the
1
Nicole Oresme’s manuscripts from the 14th century show what may be one of the earliest uses of the plus
sign “1”.
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contemporary conception of the building. In other words to consider the contemporary
contents attributed to the way this ‘syn’ as a condition of architectural creation creates
an ‘Óλoν’.
It is interesting to note that the way the act of creating architecture is defined, always
reflects the way the ‘olon’ emerges as a matter of cause of the ‘syn’. Classicism perceived
the act of creation as conception (συν-ληψις), modernism as synthesis (συν-θεσις) and
post-modernism as syntax (συν-ταξις). To put together (conceive) so that the ‘Óλον’ will
become beautiful, to place (syn-thesis) together so that the ‘Óλον’ will become functional
and to arrange (syn-tax) together so that the ‘Óλον’ will become meaningful are not only
expressions of the different ways of assemblage but also of different captures of the becoming of the ‘Óλον’, namely the building.
The building of tomorrow will no longer be considered as something tangible, perceived or presented to the senses (objectum) thrown ahead of us (ob-‘on the way of’ 1
jacere-‘to throw’) that is to say an object. It will no longer be understood as finite ‘Óλον’
exposed to our experience as indisputable material, completed, factual or objective and
present to function and serve regardless of whether it is liked or not. On the contrary,
it will be conceived as a continuous part of a bigger ‘Óλον’, a broader assemblage of
other entities, an alterity.2 In this alterity the building will be open to establishing multiple, unstable, unpredictable and emergent relations with the other entities of this complex and dynamic environment. As part of this assemblage the building will no longer
be constrained by its own materiality. It will become an interface in a dynamic system
of relationships depended upon and defined by a flux of information and data, a point in
a point cloud. Between its proper substance and its alterity there will be a continuum: a
syn1eheia (ɛ́χω-eho: to have).
By shifting the essence from its internal elements and relationships into the complex,
dynamic and fluid assemblages, it (or its parts) can be part of the building, and will be
understood as the temporary result of a continuous praxis emerging from the information
flux, a ‘πράγ μα’ that is to say a thing. As an outcome of this dynamic praxis the building
will be conceived as a thing on the making, a becoming. A building that will be a transformable ‘πράγ μα’ that needs energy and information to interact, self-engage and get
self-organised in an affective relation with its inhabitant inasmuch as with all other agents
involved from its design, to its fabrication, to its inhabitation, to its survival, mutation or
even death. In the context of this conception, the act of creating architecture will aim at
the becoming of a building as an‘Óλον’, as a ‘πράγ μα’, a thing, attached to a series of
transformable interfaces that form its own ecosystem. The building as carrier of information will cease to have any presence unless it is in synergy with the flow of this information
in its body and its broader ecosystem. To exist as a thing, a building will have to be able
to establish dynamic relationships with other agents of this ecosystem, towards forming a
specific assemblage of agents, a machinic assemblage, a syn1praxis.
2
Guattari, F. (1995). On Machines, Benjamin Andrew (editor), Complexity, JVAP, No 6, 8–12.
Maria Voyatzaki et al. / Building 11
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In this new form of assemblage the agents will have to act so that the assemblage
could be syn-ergetic. In the same time they will have to sustain the results of the actions
of the others so that the assemblage will become compassionate, syn-pathetic. In this
permanent dynamics of active and passive relationships the building will no longer be
an artificial and mute object. It will become an intelligent, alive and affective system and
environment. Not in metaphorical terms that all other architectural paradigms followed as
a reference point for their design proposals; neither in animistic terms attributing to the
building a kind of anima, but in biogenetic terms as a proto-subjectivity that carries, uses
and (trans)forms information as it evolves and develops. The building will be created to
resemble nature through the information it will be carrying, blurring this way the boundaries between the natural and the artificial in a sym1biosis.
Beyond its belonging to a broader assemblage, the building of tomorrow will also
constitute an assemblage of things-components. These components are linked among
them with relationships tied to values and articulate the ethics of the building. A new
aesthetics or rather aesth-ethics attune to this value system. The beauty that will shape the
architecture of the future is no longer the beauty defined in romanticism terms. Beauty
will be an affect, a contemplation, a pre-individual sensation, converging and diverging
resonances, beauty as sym-pathy among things. A new aesthetics that comes from a neomaterial philosophical detour that does not see computational design as the new stylistic
idioms of digital architecture but as a way to unleash its futurity.3 Beauty emerges among
the agents/patients of cosmos. Beauty as sym1pathy.4
The building of tomorrow will not be designed from scratch. It will be always consciously considered that at the beginnings of its creation there will always be rejection, approval, doubt, problem, a condition to be redesigned.5 The building of tomorrow will not
only constitute a look forward but also a look backward. It will not only focus on anticipating the future but also on contemplating the past. The building will bind its temporality
and futurity, these two seemingly opposing and polemic binary understandings of human
contemplation that nourished cultural creation for time immemorial. To think before or to
think after the ‘myth’? This way the Building11 will open up its ‘doors’ and will give
‘space’ to both Prometheus 1 Epimetheus6 to anticipate, contemplate and inhabit it as part
of a broader ecosystem. Material1 Immaterial, Natural 1 Artificial, Techne 1 Chronos,7
Past 1 Future will be syn1chronic.
3
Parisi, L. (2013). Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics and Space, MIT Press.
Spuybroek, L. (2011). The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design, Rotterdam: NAi
Publishers.
5
Latour, Bruno, A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk), Keynote lecture for the Network of Design meeting of the Design History Society
Falmouth, 3rd September 2008, Sciences Pro
6
Les Amis, Ramsey Eric Ramsey (series editor), Commemorating Epimetheus, Purdue University Press, West
Lafayette, Indiana, 2009
7
Stiegler, Bernard, Technics and Time; The fault of Epimetheus, Stanford University, 1998
4
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References
Guattari, F. (1995). On machines. A. Benjamin (Ed.), Complexity, JVAP, No. 6, 8–12.
Latour, B. (2009). A cautious Prometheus? A few steps toward a philosophy of design (with special attention
to Les Amis & R. E. Ramsey [Series Ed.], Commemorating Epimetheus). West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue
University Press.
Parisi, L. (2013). Contagious architecture: computation, aesthetics and space, Cambridge: MIT Press.
Spuybroek, L. (2011). The Sympathy of things: Ruskin and the ecology of design. Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
NAi Publishers.
Sloterdijk, P. (2008). Keynote lecture for the Network of Design meeting of the Design History Society
­Falmouth, Cornwall, 3 September 2008, Sciences Pro.
Stiegler, B. (1998). Technics and time: The fault of Epimetheus. Stanford University, CA: Stanford University
Press.