ARK-E2014 - Advanced Building Design Studio, Lecture, 11.1.2022-5.4.2022
This course space end date is set to 05.04.2022 Search Courses: ARK-E2014
Task 1: Metaxography analysis 11.1.-18.1. at 8 a.m. (one week) - groupwork
The students will divide into six groups. Each group gets one text to be studied from the list of six works below.
Objectives
The first task is a metaxographic (the study of relationships) description and analysis of one of the below mentioned classic texts (its descriptions of the study of relationships in architecture). The objective in this project is to try to create new type of architecture based on an understanding of relationships in architecture – to combine our knowledge and design hypotheses related to anthropology, ontography, metaxography and related architectural literature in order to create new kinds of experimental architecture. Metaxography hopefully opens up promising approaches in architectural design.
The research on metaxography in architecture originates on one hand from a review to some of the canonical metabolist and post-modernist writings from the 1960’s to 90’s. On the other hand, it stems from the interplay between architecture and anthropology during the ongoing ontographic turnaround. This research takes a step from anthropological ontography (the descriptive and speculative study of people and their world of objects) into metaxography (the descriptive study of relationships between them) as inherent in the writings of Alexander et al., Kurokawa, Maki, Rossi, Rowe – Koetter and Venturi.
In metaxography, the word Metaxis refers to in-betweenness (relationships) and graphe to descriptive analysis. Objects can have relationships with other objects and interact, influence and shape them. Relationships between objects can be analysed and developed with the use of analogies, types and by recognised mechanisms. Relationships can be considered as objects as well. Object-like relationships in a way have their own “motivations” and “thinking”. Sometimes they escape the expressed intentions of their authors. Sometimes the intentions should receive more attention. We would like to emphasise that metaxography is something completely else than the genre of relational architecture, which studies collaborative design methods.
It is possible to represent general relationships as diagrams, which can be implemented as strategies on different disciplinary fields. The relationship perspective urges us to be open to multiple logics in design and its evaluation by putting focus not only on the diverse perspectives opened by the study of relationships in other fields, but also by the plurality of principles.
Relationships occur, for example,
- between a component and a whole (context)
- between different components: e.g. their relative locations, distance, directions, sizes, numbers of, forms, textures, patterns, attitudes, affects and feelings
- between similar components
- between scales
- within a whole as a homogenic or a heterogeneous mixture
- in temporal relationships with changes in time
Relationships in Architecture
A typical relationship in architecture is between a building and its context. Within a building or a site, there are relationships between its components, within their assemblage and compositions. Compositions of heterogenous matter are called collages.
A hierarchy or its absence in building is one type of relationship principle. The individualism of architecture from the viewpoint of relations include also:
- the hierarchy of its components, such as figure and ground
- relations created by material, texture and colour
- relations of use
- both component-substances (motifs) and patterns (mixtures in themselves; such as texture or ornament)
Spatiality and plasticity -relationships in architecture
- relationships created by different sizes, dimensions and forms of objects and spaces
- systems of location in 2D and 3D, such as stripe, grid and mesh
- depth – front and back
- succession of elements and spaces inside and around: spatial series e.g.
- assemblage of matter and components
- structure can be one substance: other substances can exist within, outside or without a relationship to it
- multisensory relationships – not only sight and space
- changes in the physical environment: replacement, expansion, dismantlement, incorporation etc.
Metaxographic building design is thus a deviation from ontographic paradigm. It is not that much interested just in creating obscure objects and forms, but creative relationship conditions – new types of collage, fitting to different situations. Which kinds of object–relationships and systems of them there are? Are they intentional or accidental? This method frees architecture from its programme and techno-econo-rationalistic context.
The metaxographic perspective can be used as a loop to review related architectural history. In hindsight, metaxographic questions and attitude have actually had an important role in many canonical writings of historic architectural theory from 1960’s to 1990’s, even if it has never been formulated as a central concept:
- Fumihiko Maki's Investigation in Collective Form (1964) research relationships and links between a whole and its parts and linking acts in architecture.
- Aldo Rossi’s The Architecture of the City (1966) described the city as a collage (a specific type of relationship) of individual and collective memories.
- Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) analyses that ambiguity and tension are the key relationships in architecture
- Christopher Alexander et al.’s A Pattern Language (1977) was about how specific physical design choices (recognizable patterns in space) can help us build better human relationships.
- Colin Rowe’s and Fred Koetter’s Collage City (1979) described the city as a set for colliding intentions in space.
- Kisho Kurokawa's The Philosophy of Symbiosis (1994) also concentrates in the relationship between a part and a whole.
Metaxography is more than people-centered design, it is relationship-centered design. The metaxographic process requires designers (such as architects) to commit constructively and productively to new spatial thinking and advance the typological and conceptual diversity of relationships to architecture. The metaxographic process brings joy to the design process and can produce buildings which trigger unique and dynamic relationships between objects and people. The results can be experientially deeper as well as creatively more satisfying and sustainable buildings and places. Ontographic building design projects can present more diverse and revealing (of myths, preoccupations, cliches and biases) architecture than conventional methods. Metaxography destabilises reductionism and dichotomies and creates a liminal space for relational and collective development.
In a similar manner as Christopher Alexander’s work supported the creation of computer programming based on generative grammar and object-oriented programming, metaxography could possibly contribute to the theoretical and experimental basis of computational architecture, leading to new kinds of algorithms for architecture. The present computational architecture is very much performance-based, while as it could also be relationship-based.
Presentation technique:
PDF / Powerpoint, max. 20 slides: mostly visuals; moodboards, etc. Emphasis on findings or guidelines for the use of the design task.