Dynamics & flux of the edios (εἶδος)

Many traditional boundaries are blurred through the information-technologies. Several notions like: space and time; the global and the local; the here and now; and national and international identities,... are constantly redefined through the complex, layered surface that emerges from the structure provided by telecommunications. The media technologies are producing this at such fast rate that we're almost unable to catch up with it. Media is obsessed with speed, to the point that barely ten years ago we were talking of Kilobytes, and now we're dealing with Terabytes. This speed, and blurred boundaries are developing also a contextualized consciousness about the form—form in the digital age.—

Plato wrote about how un-real are the forms that our eyes can see —the world of the changing physical objects—, because they are just a shadow of the idea(eidos)—which he described as the light of the truth... the world of unchanging ideas —. In the other hand Jean Baudrillard introduced the logic of the symbolic exchange; the simulation of the whole reality as a characteristic of the contemporary society—or maybe [the copy/paste culture], always emergent culture— this two ideas of the form have in common the comprehension that the human mind is always misunderstanding something about the relation between the container, the content, and obviously the symbol(ic) meaning of the objects. … also in architecture.

Exploring the idea of complex geometries in the digital age necessarily looks after this misunderstanding; this is just to blur the boundaries and think of the object, the shape, the content and the meaning as a unit that is in a constant flux inside, but always realizing that the architecture is for people, human beings which have needs; walk in order the move from one place to another; are affected by gravity and have two eyes palced infront of the face—the human is not a fly.—

Nevertheless, The first approach to a building must be the visual way; the skin of the buildings —sometimes misunderstood as a simply facade, the "exterior geometry of the building".— This can not be considered only as a fluid container of space and communicator of meanings. The skin as its name tells so, embraces the homeostatic function [of biological bodies] of controlling the vital interchanging links that carries dynamic energy systems throughout the building and with its environment, modifying the traditional conception of envelope into a-complex-and-living-organism. Even the idea of skin is as old as the conscience of its importance in bodies; it’s just recently that the easy access to advanced construction technology and powerful digital design methodologies allows the integration of complex geometries in building envelopes (skins).

A clear example of these notions can be seen in Toyo Ito's Sendai Mediatheque (2001). He thought of it as an extremely fluid space, in which the different levels of program may co-exist. For instance, the ground floor can be accessed from all sides, and its façade (skin), containing a double sheet of glass with computer-controlled openings to work exactly as a skin does to respond to the environment. Also, The first floor, composed of a children's library, periodicals, Internet stations and administrative offices, is divided by a simple membrane, a fluid translucent curtain (also an inside skin). Lightness and fluidity is a constant in the building, which Ito thought of it as a space without barriers that leaves plenty of room for the ephemeral, maybe a place for the virtual inhabitants of invisible cities.

[GO TO:Maite Bravo blog]
[GO TO:Javier Raya blog]
[GO TO:Luis Odiaga blog]