deriving methodology from classics

09Jan09

transformations-method

I’ve been working for the Msc AAC on a paper which looks at the possibilities of devising a research methodology based on D’Arcy Thompson’s Cartesian Transformations Method (“On Growth and Form”, 1918), which would be relevant to the call for science of buildings expressed in Philip Steadman’s “Evolution of Designs” (1979). The above is a quick processing sketch written in order to visualize the first step of the imagined “Transformations Method”. The base drawing is a floor plan of Paris Opera House, which comes from Durand’s comparison of the forms of theaters contemporary to him, done in 1801. Steadman refers to Durand’s work when he discusses the notion of classificatory analogy in his book.

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

Filed under: 05 programming, scripting, parametric modeling, 07 texts, Msc AAC, processing | 3 Comments
Tags: Michal Piasecki

3 Responses to “deriving methodology from classics”

Feed for this Entry Trackback Address

1 sivam on January 10, 2009 said:

Michal, Why not take a look at nature, much better source of inspiration. Developing designs for over couple of billion years – evidence of good design is all around you. The way organisms are built are now reasonably understood. They are do not use Cartesian methods.

Reply
- 2 Michal Piasecki on January 10, 2009 said:
  
  Sivam, thanks for the comment. – I do think nature can be endless source of inspiration – and I would rather mean processes than forms here of course. This was however meant to specifically look into work of Thompson and Steadman, so I’ve decided to test if Thompson’s Theory of Cartesian Transformations could serve as one of the classification methodologies necessary for Steadman’s Science of Buildings to occur. This is not meant to be a design process but rather as a methodology of classification of existing designs (depending on their morphologies only).
  
  Reply
3 sivam on January 11, 2009 said:

Michal,

Thompson was a great source of inspiration. Classical Geometri has built around it some Greko Roman confusion about ideals of beauty – which I believe sent design research on the wrong track – shape grammar and other stuff that assumed on the background some vauge god set order of euclidean inspiration. Natures ways are far more sophisticated, it plays with the build sequences and processes. There is a fundamental difference of approach.

Nature is serious about building stuff. It has an inbuilt system of calcification. The problem of calcification was long argued in biology and finally the geneticist won. So classification of built sequence gave a deeper understanding than – pre-genetic classification of looking and studying external form.

Cheers

Sivam

Reply