diagrams?
DOES THE CONTEMPORARY RELIANCE ON DIAGRAMS weaken the architect's capacity to solve problems? As I toil here at work, desperately trying to resolve diagrams with reality, I feel more and more like I'm restricted by the methodology I fundamentally rely upon. Diagramming is all I know how to do; that's how I was indoctrinated with at architecture school. Is the diagram a holy concept, not to be questioned? Am I being reactionary?
A random thought, perhaps, but strangely relevant...
I'm still working on my diatribe on New Urbanism... it's coming soon, I promise.
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2 comments:
Diagraming? What kind of building type requires that? In my job I never diagram, just begin with loose sketches and then continue the process of fleshing it out. Still diagrams are useful tools, especially in establishing a strong and useful plan.
I can't wait to read your thoughts on New Urbanism...
PS: Thanks for linking to my site!
Not diagrams for a specific building type -- sorry to be vague. Rather, I was referring to a general mode of architectural production that relies on reductive, diagrammatic systems in generating the formal or programmatic organization of a building. In a sense, the notion is an updated version of the conventional "parti"-- only today, diagrams are often derived from external disciplines, such as models of complex behavior or other such analogs. I realize that my diagram anxiety (and my notion of a diagram) is a product of my particular (myopic?) education -- schools like Columbia, Sci-Arc, the AA, etc. are saturated with studios that often emphasize diagrammatic clarity over architectural resolution.
Some references (off the top of my head -- there are certainly plenty more): Peter Eisenman's Diagram Diaries, and Pier Vittorio Aureli's piece "After Diagrams" in the most recent issue of Log (#6, Fall 2005).
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