DESIGN II: FALL SEMESTER

Associate Professor Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa, Instructor Katerina Kourkoula, Instructor Matthew Roman, Instructor Will Shapiro

PARAMETRIC TYPOLOGY | TOPOLOGICAL DISPLACEMENT

Many contemporary architecture strategies, reacting to the architecture of previous decades, have abandoned—consciously or not—the engagement with spatial structures that organize space in favor of superfluous formal differentiation. It seems that this movement in contemporary architecture is due to a growing fascination with incorporating the latest technologically driven computer algorithm into the design process, while disregarding any critical ideological position relative to an architectural cultural project.

Postwar post-structuralist theories emerged as a reactionary force against the structuralism of modern ideologies. But since the 1970s, post-structuralism has slowly broken away from the philosophical premise that initiated deconstruction in the first place: to develop a full decomposition of any assumed disciplinary fundamentals. Challenging fundamentals meant first recognizing disciplinary canons. Disciplinary canons, such as the modern free plan, in turn would be displaced by revolutionary attempts that would then institutionalize new canons, affecting the core of the discipline and the evolution of its cultural history. But rather than focusing on syntactical organizational problems while investigating alternative displacements of these fundamentals, post-structuralist tendencies lately have been hiding or attempting to ignore deep conceptual structures in favor of superficial perceptual structures. Thus what is at stake is not to favor underlying relational logics against the perceptual, but to articulate and critique different levels of information. In this regards, the studio critically related structure to bodily affection.

Design II studio searched for strategies to redefine post-structuralism as a continuity of structuralism, studying alternative critiques between typology and topology. These strategies were studied first through typological conceptual classification, a question identified with types and typology; and second through topology considered in terms of relative differentiation. These concepts are introduced by understanding topology as a displacement of categorical signification. Topology as relative displacement was then understood as a critique of the predetermination inscribed in the classification of order. But the relative was also re-qualified, giving a new direction to its role, by understanding it not as a means in itself but as a way to overcome predetermination and as a critique of the point of departure, establishing then the beginning of a new order.

The generic nine square diagram constitutes an axis of reference across architectural history based on a structuralist idea of stability. This spatial organization, according to Wittkower, was identified by Palladio to compose his villas. The nine square organization is also particular in the history of The School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. Colin Rowe, Wittkower’s student, traces a similar diagram between Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta and Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein. Terragni’s underlying spatial organization based on Palladian strategies, as well as John Hejduk’s Texas Houses and Peter Eisenman’s House series, complete an axis of reference for such a structuralist plateau.

Design II students were asked to define vectorially a nine square grid, which worked as an underlying system to activate several house typologies. Students studied centralized versus layered organization, courtyard types, field-object and object-frame relationships and other conditions that qualified generic domestic types. These generic typologies were then critiqued through parametric and topological relative displacements aiming to create novel typologies but also redefining the departing nine square grid, surpassing its pre-determination.

Contemporary architectural tendencies largely base their idea of differentiation on the displacement of the latest computer-based algorithm. In this sense, a new structuralism emerged induced by computation, marking an end to post-structuralism. As a reaction to these tendencies, students studied the constitution of form through the development of the source codes themselves and the systems that striate them. These systems were displaced and their origin structures reconsidered through the implementation of different definitions of topology. This constituted the basis for a structuring of form that considers the relevance of processes and relationships in systems that ultimately constitute the basis of some problems in computation.

Design II studio developed an “un-house” for a split couple with family. This hybrid typology presents cultural and sociological premises to be analyzed, studied and critiqued. A general group-site model and its emerging adjoining conditions challenged preliminary site decisions.