Representations of Nature in Middle-earth (2016), edited by Martin Simonson

Book review of Representations of Nature in Middle-earth (2016), edited by Martin Simonso

Plate Tectonics as a Far-From-Equilibrium Self-Organized System

Contained fluids heated from below spontaneously organize into convection cells when sufficiently far from conductive equilibrium. Fluids can also be organized by surface tension and other forces at the top. Plate tectonics was once regarded as passive motion of plates on top of mantle convection cells but it now appears that continents and plate tectonics organize the flow in the mantle. The flow is driven by instability of the cold surface layer and near-surface lateral temperature gradients. Plate tectonics may be a self-driven far-from-equilibrium system that organizes itself by dissipation in and between the plates. In this case the mantle is a passive provider of energy and material. The effect of pressure suppresses the role of the lower thermal boundary layer. I suggest that the state of stress in the lithosphere defines the plates, plate boundaries and locations of midplate volcanism, and that fluctuations in stress are responsible for global plate reorganizations and evolution of volcanic chains. Stress controls the orientations and activity of volcanic chains. The state of stress in the lithosphere is probably more important than the temperature of the mantle in localizing volcanism, although the normal variations of temperature in the mantle influence the topography and stress of the plate. Stress also controls the strength of the lithosphere. Volcanic chains should be regarded as stress-gauges and not as indicators of absolute plate motions. Changes in the orientation and magmatic activity of volcanic chains (e. g. Hawaiian and Emperor chains) cannot be due to abrupt changes in plate motions but can reflect changes in stress

Atlas of sensations - on sensibilities in a computational design practice

The driving force behind the body of work of SPAN is defined by the application of advanced computational design methodologies. This dissertation can be understood as a cartography (in the best tradition of an atlas) of the work of the practice from its founding year 2003 until 2017 - a period profoundly shaped by the progress made in technological advances. These technological means allow SPAN to discuss architectural project through a series of different lenses such as conceptualization, planning, fabrication to the maintenance of the designed objects, through the use of emerging technical opportunities wither this be the interrogation of novel geometries (Blocks, Ore, Barcelona Recursion), computational methods of rationalization (Expo Façade) or advanced methods of fabrication (Robots, as for example in Plato's Columns). In a parallel move between the necessities and desires of the practice and the ambitious studios and seminars in academia, novel toolsets and design concepts are developed to address contemporary architectural problems. These areas can be understood as different territories of interrogation, forming a landscape of opportunities, or as we describe it internally in our office: a design ecology. The interrogation of these distinct territories, and the unique way in which SPAN assembles those various elements to something larger than its parts, is what constitutes part of SPAN's contribution to the discipline. Apart from projects and visual work, SPAN´s contribution to discourse started early with papers to conferences such as IASS (International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures) in 2007, Design Modeling Symposium in 2008, and ACADIA (Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture) in 2008, which included ideas such as the application of tissue engineering in architecture, aspects of artifact and affect, fabrication, and considerations on architectural details in complex curved geometries. Within the Atlas of Sensations, a second ecology is defined by the contribution to the paradigm shift in the discourse from the continuous to the hyper-articulated surface, which contains an additional level of information. A surface, which describes architectural properties through the deep pochés, folds, joints, niches, and arches it generates.  The question is: How does this shift in the conception of architecture affect the qualities of the design, and by extension the context these objects construct? To further investigate this question the work focuses on one part of the practice's design ecology: design sensibilities. In order to interrogate this question, the presented work observes these moments in SPAN's practice through the lens of geometrical properties. Ultimately resulting in thoughts on Postdigital design ecologies that discuss aspects of design agency in our contemporary age

Sun and Lightning: The Visibility of Radiance

A long chapter for The War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance (V2_Publishing, 2016) building on the findings of “Charis and Radiance,” an essay published two years earlier. It discusses the inherent connection between visibility and radiance within the framework of Plato’s sun model as the source of reality. The argument develops a system where transcendent verticality and earthly horizontality together construct an “arena of presence” in which things flood each other with light, absorbing and returning portions of it in a circular economy similar to gift exchange

Elastic Platonic Shells

On microscopic scales, the crystallinity of flexible tethered or cross-linked membranes determines their mechanical response. We show that by controlling the type, number, and distribution of defects on a spherical elastic shell, it is possible to direct the morphology of these structures. Our numerical simulations show that by deflating a crystalline shell with defects, we can create elastic shell analogs of the classical platonic solids. These morphologies arise via a sharp buckling transition from the sphere which is strongly hysteretic in loading or unloading. We construct a minimal Landau theory for the transition using quadratic and cubic invariants of the spherical harmonic modes. Our approach suggests methods to engineer shape into soft spherical shells using a frozen defect topology.Engineering and Applied SciencesMolecular and Cellular BiologyOrganismic and Evolutionary BiologyPhysic

The blob and the block. When the rhetoric of the smooth and the striated went all wrong

This paper conforms to a view of architecture and the distribution of urban space as bio-political parameters of dominance and resistance. Using G. Deleuze & F. Guattari’s seminal essay on 1444. The Smooth and the Striated, I intend to show how Global Capitalism, by replicating the discourse of the smooth and the ungraspable, has voided Dialectics of its subversive potential.El presente artículo contempla la arquitectura y la distribución del espacio urbano como parámetros biopolíticos de dominación y resistencia. Valiéndose del ensayo 1444. Lo liso y lo estriado, de Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, se pretende demostrar cómo el capitalismo global, gracias a su capacidad para emular el discurso de lo fluido y lo intangible, habrá conseguido despojar a lo dialéctico de su potencial subversivo

Matter, material, architecture. The tectonic conception between spontaneous consciousness and critical consciousness

[EN] Talking about of place and matter as indissoluble terms of architectural practice could at first appear tautological, because of the essential link that makes them participating in the construction of anthropic structures. But nowadays it has become of utmost importance to emphasize it, in the light of the profound changes that concern the architecture in the last decades, during which the importance of technology as a value in itself that summarizes all the meanings of the project has questioned the link always existed among materials, building and language, as expression of a type-morphological world in which to recognize themselves collectively. In this sense it may be useful to analyze some nodal points characterizing developments and discontinuities of this relationship, to investigate the role of memory as a "working theme" of architecture, performed above all through materials, and to highlight the importance to seek a critical link between place and type read in the ontological dimension of the building, that has no nostalgic or historiographical purpose, but on the contrary it is necessary to root the project into a cultural palimpsest that allows the present of construction to be dense of social meanings.Rociola, GF. (2017). Matter, material, architecture. The tectonic conception between spontaneous consciousness and critical consciousness. VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. 2(2):35-53. doi:10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2017.8745SWORD355322Borsi F., Leon Battista Alberti : Opera completa, Electa, Milano, pp. 221-224. 1973.Brandi C., Teoria del restauro, Einaudi, Torino, p. 45. 1977.Carpenter R., Gli architetti del Partenone, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, pp. 84-85. 1979.Di Stefano E., L'altro sapere : Bello, Arte, Immagine in Leon Battista Alberti, Centro Internazionale Studi di Estetica, Palermo, p. 18. 2000.Frampton K., Storia dell'architettura moderna, Zanichelli Editore, Bologna, pp. 124-125. 1982.Frampton K., Tettonica e architettura : Poetica della forma architettonica nel XIX e XX secolo, Skira, Milano, pp. 21-22. 1999.Gregotti V., Dentro l'architettura, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, p. 56. 1991.Martin R., Architettura Greca, Electa, Milano, pp. 36-38. 1977.Middleton R., La tradizione razionalista in Francia. In: Middleton R. e Watkin D., Architettura : Ottocento, Electa, Milano, p. 8. 1977.Mies van der Rohe L., Gli scritti e le parole, edited by Pizzigoni V., Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, p. 8. 2010.Muratori S., Architettura e civiltà in crisi, Centro Studi di Storia Urbanistica, Roma, p. 11. 1963.Purini F., Comporre l'architettura, Editori Laterza, Roma-Bari, p. 93. 2000.Strappa G., Unità dell'organismo architettonico : Note sulla formazione e trasformazione dei caratteri degli edifici, Dedalo, Bari, 1995, pp. 53-64Summerson J., Il linguaggio classico dell'architettura, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, 1970, p. 32Wittkower R., Principî architettonici nell'età dell'Umanesimo, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, 1964, pp. 37-4

Theatrical Tectonics: The mediating Agent for a Contesting Practice

<p>This paper posits the idea that the theme of agency in architecture is parallactic. It discusses the tectonic as an agent through which architecture turns into a state of constant flux. The intention is to promote a discourse of criticality, the thematic of which is drawn from the symptoms that galvanise architecture’s rapport with the image-laden culture of late capitalism. In an attempt to log the thematic of a contested practice, this essay will re-map the recent history of contemporary architecture.</p><p>Exploring New Brutalism’s criticism of the established ethos of International Style architecture, the first part of this paper will highlight the movement’s tendency towards replacing the painterly with the sculptural, and this in reference to the contemporary interest in monolithic architecture. Having established the import of tectonics for the architecture of Brutalism, the paper then argues that in the present situation, when architecture – like other cultural products – is infatuated with the spectacle of late capitalism, a re-thinking of the Semperian notion of theatricality is useful. Of interest in the tectonic of theatricality is the work’s capacity to bring forth the division between intellectual and physical labours, and this in reference to architecture’s reserved acceptance of technification for which the aforementioned division is vital.</p>Particular attention will be given to two projects, Zaha Hadid’s Phaeno Center and OMA’s Casa da Musica, where architectonic aspects of New Brutalism are revisited in the light of the tectonic of theatricality

Do Unborn Hypotheses Have Rights?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138256/1/papq00039.pd