Book 2 Cliff Notes
- Author’s note
- Preface
- 1 the principle of unfolding wholeness in nature
- The principle of unfolding wholeness in nature
- Note for the scientific reader
- The need for a general explanation of the way that living structure is created
- Creation of structure as it occurs in nature
- Appearance of the fifteen properties
- The fifteen properties emerge directly from the unfolding of the whole
- Previously offered explanations of emergence from the whole
- A principle of unfolding wholeness
- Emergence of living structure
- A final comment on architecture
- 2 structure-preserving transformations
- Structure-preserving transformations
- Structure-preserving transformations further discussion
- The objectivity of structure-preserving transformations
- Repeated application of structure-preserving transformations
- Minimum symmetry breaking
- How the fifteen properties appear in nature from the unfolding of wholeness
- Fifteen transformations
- A new view of the natural world
- In buildings, too, all living structure grows naturally from structure-preserving transformations
- 3 structure-preserving transformations in traditional society
- 4 structure-destroying transformations in modern society - the failure of unfolding
- Why all processes do not create life
- Interior structure of buildings
- The advent of structure-destroying transformations to the modern world
- Other examples of structure-destroying transformations
- Examples of structure-destroying transformations in individual buildings
- Some sympathy for the architects who made these things
- The thrall of images
- Mass-produced building and city form
- Conclusion
- 4.5 interlude
- 5 examples of living process in the modern era
- 6 generated structure
- Complexity
- The geometry of complexity
- Analysis of a few generated structures by means of examples
- Structures that have unfolded in time
- The significance of generated structure
- A thousand trillion possible mistakes in a human embryo
- One million possible mistakes in a community
- The complexity that was generated in Shilnath
- In individual buildings, too, we may ask what is the nature of a “mistake”?
- The five-thousand possible mistakes in a typical house
- How to count mistakes
- The social and monetary cost of the one million mistakes in a fabricated community
- Differentiation
- Creating highly complex objects
- The greek marble horse
- Conclusion of the discussion on generated complexity
- 7 the fundamental differentiating process
- The secret
- Differentiation
- Emergence of beautiful geometry
- The fundamental differentiating process
- Overview: The fundamental differentiating process
- A process of creating meadows
- The fundamental process
- The class of living processes
- Practical manifestations of living process
- The naturalness of living process
- Extreme generality of the concept of living process
- Necessary features of all living process
- Definition
- The hierarchy of individual and accretive processes
- Summary so far
- 8 step-by-step adaptation
- 9 the whole
- Each step is always helping to enhance the whole
- Common sense
- The whole
- To be guided by the whole, we must pay attention to the latent centers and enhance them
- The modern problem of design
- At each step decide only what you know with certainty
- The process of capturing the whole
- The whole then emerges from these transformations
- In summary
- Microcosm of a process which is guided by the whole
- 10 always making centers
- Emerging centers which help the whole
- A snow block in an igloo
- A power station made to help a valley
- An operational basis: How each center, as it is formed, may be chosen to help increase the life of the whole
- Why is it so difficult to form centers by differentiation An illustration from postmodern architecture
- The playful core of the matter
- Differentiation of an imaginary building structure-preserving creation of living centers
- The Julian street inn
- Emergence of strong centers at fine scale in the Julian street inn
- Emergence of the fifteen properties
- Successful adaptation
- The pervasive generality of the center-making process
- 11 the sequence of unfolding
- Generative sequences are the key to the success of living process whenever complex structure is being formed
- Sequences of unfolding in architecture
- Generative sequences in traditional society
- Vital importance of the “right” sequence
- Example of a larger generative sequence: a Japanese tea house
- The role of sequence in preserving structure
- The mathematical scarcity of good sequences
- A generative sequence for apartment buildings in Pasadena
- Uniqueness of different apartment buildings generated by the sequence
- The mental change needed to allow yourself the possibility of using a generative sequence while making a design
- The vital interplay of form and sequence
- Further insight into the real nature of living form
- Conclusion
- 12 every part unique
- Geometry: uniqueness, regularity, differentiation
- Every living process is — at its core — a process which is devoted, through adaptation, to making every part unique
- Uniqueness arises naturally from sequence from doing things in the proper order and from the appropriateness of repetition
- Regularity: fact and fiction
- The surprising character of what unfolds
- Respect for what exists
- 13 patterns
- Generic rules for making centers or “making life enjoyable”
- Structure-preserving transformations as the origin of function
- Pattern languages
- Patterns as generic centers and the evolution of new culture
- Human culture as a part of physics
- Discovering new pattern-languages: how to draw a vision of the future from the study of the present
- A new language for houses in Peru
- The type of observation which leads to discovery of living centers: seeking tradition and seeking the new
- The process of finding a good center
- Essential centers not gimmicks
- The system of patterns emanates as a whole
- The Eishin school pattern language
- The deep nature of patterns and pattern languages
- Looking for glimpses of eternal life
- 14 deep feeling
- The aim of every living process is, at each step, to increase the deep feeling of the whole
- Wholeness and feeling
- Deep feeling must be the core of living process
- A panel of yellow blossoms
- Grasping the feeling of a fishpond as a whole
- Choosing among doors according to degree of feeling
- The black columns
- The formless but specific feeling of the whole
- Designing a music cabinet
- Feeling as the origin of the artistic whole
- Will deep feeling really be possible In 21st-century society
- Classrooms in the rain
- A new whole emerges: life v. mechanism — the essence of unfolding wholeness
- Appendix: the hard work of creating an engine that produces genuine feeling
- 15 emergence of formal geometry
- Geometric order
- Formation of brutal and massive chunks in the visitor’s center at West Dean
- Reasons for brutal geometric order to evolve
- The aperiodic grid
- The Sapporo building
- What is really happening in such a case
- Outward simplicity of form and packing of form
- A further structural example
- A glimpse of the idea of a generating sequence for building structure
- A generative process for middle-range order in the building structure
- What seems like an imposition of geometry is necessary as a part of every living process
- 16 form language and style
- How can human beings implement a geometrical differentiating process successfully?
- The format of our art
- Historically, what kind of thing did a form language do?
- Twentieth-century struggles to invent a form-language for modern architecture
- The style needed for unfolded, living form
- Why twentieth-century form languages were not helpful
- The modern theory of language
- Building a form-language from theory
- The form of future buildings — sketches to illustrate the output from a new form-language
- Ensor’s masks: the form language of an ultramodern painting
- Possibility of a form language for all future time
- 17 simplicity
- The drive to simplicity
- What is simple?
- How is the simple to be achieved A spiritual simplicity of heart
- Doing the simplest thing: the basis of all structure-preserving transformations
- Natural symmetries
- Symmetry, simplicity, and just what is required
- The idea of a natural system of symmetries
- At each step get rid of everything that is not required — “making life” and “being simple” are the same
- Japanese asymmetries
- Final section on simplicity
- All there is
- Nothingness
- 18 encouraging freedom
- Introduction: What do processes actually look like in everyday society?
- Improving processes
- Improving zoning rules
- Improving streets to enhance neighborhoods
- Improving computer-aided design CAD processes
- The breadth of processes that can be improved
- Slow improvement of all social processes
- Morphogenetic processes
- The primary function of society
- 19 massive process difficulties
- The generation of monsters
- Long-in-tooth difficulties of insufficient freedom and appropriateness
- Excessive rigidity of rules
- Intentional rigidity of rules — the influence of Frederick Taylor
- Inappropriate sequence caused by administrative categories
- Further difficulties of inappropriate sequence: The New Jersey Wetlands
- Difficulties of sequence caused by separating design from construction
- Difficulties of sequence which originate in architectural education
- Further difficulties of sequence caused by the separation of construction from design
- The biggest source of monsters — profit-based development: lending, borrowing, and speculation
- The death of beauty: a huge system effect which destroys all feeling
- The footsteps of Thomas Kuhn — A vital need to reconsider the rules which govern social process
- Elements of society in which changes must be made
- The need for a true shift of paradigm
- 20 the spread of living processes throughout society
- Morphogenetic processes — a piecemeal approach to the problem
- Snippable genes — the optimum size of sequences for evolution
- The Grameen bank sequence: a single sniffable gene which has been having a profound effect
- Other recent steps in the evolution of society which have been taking place through the shared use of patterns
- More snippable short sequences — Construction sequences as process genes
- More on the length of sequences
- The spread of one, small, “snippable” gene which can be widely shared
- What is it that will allow this sequence to be improved morphogenetically?
- Criteria for evolution — Sequences as a medium of discussion, exchange, modification, and improvement
- The gene pool: further process of improvement and selection of the snippable genes
- The network of sequences
- Interdependence of sequences
- The linkages stimulate evolution of further snippet sequences
- The network evolves
- The emergence of sequences that consecrate our sacred human life
- Forty thousand morphogenetic processes
- 21 the role of the architect in the third millennium
- The architect
- A new definition of architecture
- A vision of the future
- My assumption about our profession
- First major problem: the very large — How to enlarge the architect’s responsibility , broader scope with larger impact
- Second major problem: the very small — How to deepen the architect’s responsibility, finer scope with more subtle detail
- Larger and deeper
- What place, then, for us architects?
- The architect’s dream
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- A radical new process
- Finding a site
- First analysis of the site with rough twisted paper and balsa models
- Full-size tests of volume and position on the site
- A first sketch
- Checking the neighbors’ views
- First emergence of an interior plan
- Extension of the lot: the little plum tree
- Deeper questions about the feeling of the plan
- A deeper conception of the living room
- Laying the house out on the land
- Starting to get a general idea of construction
- Establishing rooms
- Upstairs rooms
- Analysis of cost
- Concrete wall details
- Plasterwork experiments
- Start of construction
- The retaining wall
- Management agreement that feeling must guide even the most technical aspects of construction
- Setting the main-floor level
- Common sense: an overview of the process