Maps of the Imagination

The NPR piece that I mentioned the other day is about a book called "Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer". You can hear it on Real Audio (unfortunately) here:

http://broadcast.uwex.edu:8080/ramgen/wpr/bok/bok061203b.rm
(The first half is on 'California's Spiritual Landscape')

Here's a link to the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Imagination-Writer-as-Cartographer/dp/1595340416/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8788526-3299266?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193799124&sr=8-1

Also listen for info on the book "The Map that Changed the World"...

halloween, or nick's diagramming strategy?

re: Friday scripting discussion

For those who missed the discussion on Friday, I thought I'd recap a bit. We came to a consensus that in order to understand in what ways scripting will be useful to us, we need to break it up into bite-sized pieces. For Monday, we are reading the rhino scripting tutorial that Christian sent out last week. It's a good introduction to the general idea of scripting and scripting language, and in a few places the reading gets a little 'saucy'. We like it.

The next step is to figure out how we will get to do what we want to do (presuming that after studio on Monday we will have a good picture of what we want to do). We will divide ourselves up into groups that are looking into ways of scripting the input and output through various programs... arcgis, photoshop, rhino, etc. One question most of us have is how to manipulate that intermediate format, whether it be a text document or excel spreadsheet, into something that is legible across multiple programs. For example, someone might look into how arcgis can be scripted to extract data from a query. Someone else might then study how that data can be manipulated by rhino in ways that are useful to our investigation of unaccepted streets. Another team might then look at the export from rhino into laser cutting files, or a series of scripted views or animations. Yet another team might investigate the automation of manipulating renderings from rhino in a scripted photoshop operation to achieve different effects (how many skins can you wrap around an object?)

It might sound like a lot of work, but if we're going to pull this off we've got to do it as team.

Any other thoughts since Friday?

Here is the plotting of the studio's unaccepted streets. I dedicate the coastal edge to Nick.

who needs a banana peel...

found yesterday at 5:12pm on Innes Ave., street FID#1273

The Gentle Review

Are we allowed to post irrelevant material on the blog? It can be erased later, but I really wanted to share.




Also see:
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=66014_0_42_0_C

Intersubjective Response

Still struggling through diagrams, I am looking over the reading again, and reviewing Christians earlier comment. So I wanted to go back and [re]start here:

Transpose:
1. to change the relative position, order, or sequence of; cause to change places; interchange: to transpose the third and fourth letters of a word.
2. to transfer or transport

Translate:
1. to change the form, condition, nature, etc., of; transform; convert: to translate wishes into deeds.
2. to explain in terms that can be more easily understood; interpret.
3. to bear, carry, or move from one place, position, etc., to another; transfer.

Barring the fact that these words can mean exactly the same thing, I can understand the idea of translation can be seen as a manipulation or modification, where as transposition can be translated as another way of looking at something.

I would agree with Christians' assessment of the acceleration of speed and the shallowing of depth that Allen is getting at, but he also goes on to say that the layering of shallow surfaces is important. I think this can be seen another way, as a new depth and speed. I say this because he also bashes you in the head with combinations like "space and event", "force and resistance", if only the entire piece were so clear.

As far as lighter, does this relate to speed and depth? I'm not sure. Can the argument be that simple / clear equates to quickness and superficiality? I suppose it could be read that way, but perhaps it's best to just draw your own conclusions. I guess that would be more translational, but in the end I don't see either work as very intersubjective. At least it was discursive enough to be diablogic.

Go Bears!

diagramming

Last semester in studio, Roddy Creedon was insistent on one aspect of diagrams: that they show a relationship. In order to show a relationship, a diagram must reference at least two (and probably not more) subjects. Allen clearly emphasizes that diagrams are relational, and that they "function through matter/matter relationships, not matter/content relationships." The few sentences that follow that quote (on p23.18) bug me, because they seem to advance a fast and shallow architecture, but don't explicitly give a reason why that's needed, or don't say that the counterargument (mediated/slow and deeper) is wrong/unachievable/outdated. In re-reading the first page, I think that Allen is saying that the "new" reality is fast, digital/virtual, momentary, superficial, etc., and that in order for architecture to be relevant in such a changing world, it too must be the shallow [light], fast [responsive], expository go-between (between virtual and actual) [or transactor]. While this might be the sad truth, I'm not convinced by Allen, because he doesn't actually say it. I'm left thinking that I missed something in his verbal dance. Is architecture not able to deal with the depth of a complex reality? Are diagrams the way to dumb down and distill the world, and to analytically exercise "cautious optimism...[that] diagrams of matter can sometimes be reconfigured"? If diagrams are so simple and reductive, why do they have to be discussed in such obtuse and rhetorical ways?


I've never experienced the architecture of Ito, OMA, Sanaa, or MVDRV. Is the experience of a diagram architecture as obvious as the diagram? Do you know diagram architecture when you're in it? Does it stand the test of time? (Is that the purpose?)


Bos & van Berkel's piece has some mindbenders, like the last sentence of the first paragraph, and the last sentence of the essay. Can anyone translate? (i.e. what is the "internal discourse" and how is it compared to the "methodological process"? what is the "theory of the real"? Isn't "abstract machine" simple enough a concept? Why complexify it by densely packing loose and thickly defined words and phrases, like those in the last sentence?)

maps done by Jungmi and Christian

new geospatial mapping of photos

beta offering from microsoft, via an old colleague in boston

http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

very cool

what would corner and de certeau say about this?

raster to vector

Hey all,

If you are interested in extracting vector data from a raster image, try this piece of shareware out.

http://www.programurl.com/raster-to-vector-standard.htm

progress / edwin and chris

from Nick and Cindy's work

a soundscape (at 5am) from Innes Ave., an unaccepted street in the Produce District.

viewing with 3d glasses (and corona) strongly advised...

one more

some images...

...of work Jungmi and I pinned up.

Diagramming

Is it a coincidence that after reading both articles and typing this response that my brain/fingers keep trying to capitalize the word diagram when I type it??

Diagramming is like going to church: We should all be doing it and preaching its virtues to our friends. For all of our architecture projects, and especially this digital atmospheres studio, diagramming is a key design tool and process. I’m converted!

Allen writes that a diagram architecture has the potential to be much more significant than how the architecture is ever actually realized. Successful diagrammatic architecture gives maximum performative effects with an ability to multiply its effects and scenarios, and doesn’t rely on its embedded content for any sort of justification.
Van Berkel and Bos describe diagramming as crucial in design to prevent a preemptive superimposing or fixing certain typologies. By designing in diagram, concepts such as function, construction, and interpretation occur “naturally” to the design, and thus it becomes unencumbered by any sort of fixed typology.

As architects interesting in the temporal and atmospheric, diagramming will allow any strong foundation and concept in our design to be maintained as we bring temporal atmospheric elements that are in constant change, as well as when we form a design concept and parameter to be used on multiple streets and spaces. Diagramming will also help to prevent these outside factors and elements that we are bringing into our program from over-encumbering the design.

This American Life 110: Mapping

This American Life 110: Mapping the Five Senses

Ira Glass & Co. spend an hour discussing maps of all five senses (!)

listen online for inspiration!

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=110


>>>
Five ways of mapping the world. One story about people who make maps the traditional way—by drawing things we can see. And other stories about people who map the world using smell, sound, touch, and taste. The world redrawn by the five senses.