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Monday, October 5, 2009

planar representation = real presentation

In Michelle Addinton's Smart Materials and New Techonologies

1.2 The contemporary design context, she draws an interesting point which I have also been thinking about.

"orthographic projection in architectural representation inherently privileges the surface. When the 3-dimensional world is sliced to fit into a two-dimensional representation, the physical objects of a building appear as flat planes. Regardless of the third dimension of these planes, we recognize that the eventual occupant will rarely see anything other than the surface planes behind which the structure ands systems are hidden.

While the common mantra is that architects design space the reality is that architects make (draw) surfaces.

First is that the material is identified as the surface: the visual qualities of the material. Second is that because architecture is synonymous with surface - and materials are that surface - we essentially think of materials as planar...


..most current attempts to implement smart materials in architectural design maintain the vocabulary of the two-dimensional surface or continuous entity and simply propose smart materials as replacements or substitutes for more conventional materials. " (Michelle Addington, Chapt 1.2)

-do we need to change the medium of representation?

-do we need to change the medium of withdrawing ideas from our minds/virtual (individual worlds) and projecting these ideas into reality (common world) so that they are not translated to a planar medium.. a planar template for a planar thing?

-is paper no longer suitable for our contempary practice??

-is the interface of the computer sceen (planar) no longer suitable for our contempary practice??

-how can the immaterial remain immaterial through representation? and why must we represent it, and not let it 'be'. cant we trust what it is, without a reinforcement that it exists in a visual model like the material?

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