Go Figure: Between Object and Field

This paper presents a series of drawing experiments that explore parametric approaches to constructing objects and fields. The work employs procedural design techniques, computational workflows, and conventions of architectural representation to speculate on alternate approaches to authorship, agency, and autonomy in architecture. It builds upon several years of ongoing research into parametric and robotic drawing techniques that offer new models for melding computational and intuitive decision-making in the design process. The paper argues for a synthetic approach that embraces critiques of digital formalism without discarding computational workflows altogether. It suggests a synthetic approach that leverages computation to engage in systems that accommodate both fields and figures, both contingency within relational networks and formal autonomy of the discrete object. Works from the drawing series are used to discuss questions of process, authorship, form, part-whole relationship, and visual effect in the construction of architectural form.

Volume Editors
Jasmine Benyamin, Kyle Reynolds, Mo Zell, Nikole Bouchard & Whitney Moon

ISBN
978-1-944214-28-9