Consumption and Creation of Knowledge
Current influences: Log 44, Learning From Las Vegas, Greg Lynn’s digital explorations, office angst over simulation and the scientific method in design
In Alfie Koetter’s short essay “Architecture Will Make You Blind”, published on PROJECT Journal’s website, the author compares architecture and sex. Koetter states that while sex can be projected onto everything, architecture cannot be. The flip side of this comparison is that architecture can receive almost any projection onto it, while sex cannot. This ability to receive new research and provocations, work as a profession to digest them and then move onto new ideas is a powerful tool in the way that architects produce work. The architect is able to process new information across a broad spectrum of science, philosophy, aesthetics and more. As a profession architecture bites off more than it can technically chew. Architecture is constantly reaching at the edges of knowledge to find practical information. Unlike other fields architecture has an assumed result to its work: the building. The building demands the research architects do is applied. In production of a building, architecture is driven away from a pure research model and is immediately forced to consider how new information relates to a larger project. Architectural work mediates new or rediscovered work in order to push itself forward, the work avoids directly copying the inspiration instead only taking the small bits that are applicable to the current problem. Because architecture is not a hard science bound by the constraints of the scientific method variables can change freely, a single right answer is not the goal. A plethora of great options instead of a single perfect option demonstrate the power of architectural exploration and research today. This approach of knowledge allows architecture to remain relevant across a wide range of fields as specialization becomes more and more prominent. As architectural research continues it must remain open to a wide range of inspiration for questions while also producing a wide range of answers.
Original article link: http://projectjournal.org/architecture-will-make-you-go-blind/