20 June
Encyclopedia Ichnographica
1998.06.20
Sealants [with cracks?]
1999.06.20 12:35
re-construction
1999.06.20 21:49
Re: dead languages
2002.06.20 14:06
my, what big eyes you have
2002.06.20 17:46
Re: the language of self architecture(? was democratising technology)
2002.06.20 22:08
Re: WTC & Real Estate Development
2003.06.20 11:54
tallest buildings
2003.06.20 16:15
cloning architecture - a global search
2004.06.20 06:01
single all-time favourite motion picture scene
2004.06.20 8:27
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Re: dead languages
2002.06.20 14:06
Simon asks/suggests:
Just wondering, don't you lose something in making virtual space simply visual? Isn't the liberating part of hypertext the ability to write back, to interact? Something that has been lost in most forms of the web these days.
Steve replies:
For me as an architect, the liberating part of hypertext (and here I mean specifically HTML and its application via the internet) is that I can design a virtual building with just my two hands. There are very little costs involved, and no one can stop me, nor a can anyone deny that I'm doing it. That is very liberating, especially for an architect. Furthermore, virtual architecture via hypertext has no real need for a client, thus liberating all design possibilities.
My work as a hypertextual architect/designer can be judged by anyone, just like it can be utilized by anyone. So far, the architectural 'establishment' chooses rather to pretend it's not there, or judge it something lacking or even just unimportant.
The worst possible thing that an architect or designer can do in terms of interactivity is to somehow try to control it, and that includes trying to qualify it. The second worst thing an architect or designer can do in terms of interactivity is to not recognize interactors for who they really are.
Re: WTC & Real Estate Development
2003.06.20 11:54
Brian wrote:
It seems as if a city is a process which churns this stuff to keep its growth/decay (metabolism?) in movement.
Steve adds:
Cities have always been centers/engenderers of vitality. The word vitality relates directly to life, as does (the word) metabolism. Are cities always metabolic then? To many degrees, such as the day to day goings on, the answer is yes. But what of cities and their processes in the long term? Are cities metabolic over time as well? A safe answer if that many (if not most) large cities throughout the 20th century have manifest enormous creative/destructive dualities, i.e., metabolic natures. Berlin is a perfect 20th century example, and Baghdad is well on it way to being a perfect turn-of-the-millennium example. Even (North) Philadelphia has gone from one of the largest manufacturing (creative) centers of the world in the late 19th and early 20th century to now being a large urban area where huge factory complexes are long abandoned and 'decaying' and even 'disappearing' (ultimately destroyed) month to month. Given that capitalism has itself been described as "creative destruction" (or really destructive creativity as well), any city that is likewise a center of capitalism is by default metabolic--and here the mega-cities of so-called Communist China cannot really deny their capitalist natures because of their undeniable creative/destructive natures.
All this also makes me wonder what the USA will be like when so-called 'urban sprawl' begins to age/show its ongoing metabolic nature over time. Perhaps therein lies a forthcoming perfect example of real estate development's undeniable metabolism.
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