Collective Lightness

Ornament as a collective system producing an effect of lightness--a resistance to gravitas and gravity, and a potential for a tragic failure.

Notes for development 02/13/08

Some very nice work on Wednesday, let’s keep moving ahead, continue to evolve the cells , and work out strong strategies for interaction within each system. By next week everyone should have at least 3 different cells with a notion of scale and architectural character. Combine geometries for greater specialization and interaction. Allow the geometry to work for you, surfaces as nurbs, solids as subdivisions and polygons. Letting the geometries work together will help to develop the cells as biological robots, with tectonic connections and physical growth. Move beyond the notion of the module, cells communicate; the greater the possibilities for communication increase the chance for survival in more complex environments. There should be a balance between optimization and excess. Along with the development of taxonomies of behaviors you should also be providing your own parameters of success.

I am pleased that most of you incorporated animation into your presentations. Please keep this going, learn from movies that you like, look at how they use the camera, timing, characters, light, intensity. When does the camera move, when does the object move, how are the two communicating. This will help to develop the character of your animations and the overall presentation. Treat the research with the same eye. Be careful and intentional with your timing, you should not have to pause and play your presentation while you talk, it is there to talk for itself. Try recording your presentation and then doing the timing to what you have to say. Keep the presentations to 4-5 minutes max. Remove the need for PDF or Powerpoint style slide shows, these often lead to very linear and dry presentations. Evolution is not understood only in one direction, we must understand the now in parallel with the past. Understand the precedence in conjunction with the new.

Many of the drawings are very intriguing, study the way that the wireframes explain geometry and density. Consider whether the generic wireframe is the best method of representation, there are many other techniques of drawing that may serve your geometry and character better. Surface and constructed of curves not polygonal meshes, subdiv provide a different structural geometry than meshes and nurbs. How can the pure representation of the geometry enhance the affect of the cell, where does density change and what does this describe in the behavior of the cell.

Carefully test scale. Within the cell, within the homogeneous cell system, within the heterogeneous cell system. What are the parameters of scale, how much can something grow or shrink, expand or contract, stretch or relax… These qualities lead to rhythm, and when combined in complex systems, melody.

Through your research of cathedrals you should find architectural shortcomings, areas of architectural speculation that your cells and systems can evolve to negotiate.

dead weight

In the Pazzi Chapel the porch acts a series of perforated screens/skins that announce and heighten the progression to the alter.
In the Medici Chapel there is a desire to explore space as a voluptuous volume. The dashed lines in plan indicate a presence of unseen bodies that are ultimately reduced to imprints on the surface of the walls and ceiling in the same way that Beyonce's paints shadows on her stomach to suggest the appearance of muscles.
Borromini plays out rule based operations in order to resolve multiple bodies (the trinity) into a singular oculus. The church appears to act as a skin containing a series of weightless bodies in an orgy of becoming.
In Sante-Genevieve space is accumulated as a series of interconnected pockets that operate within a single body. The diagonal cross section through the dome reveals cavities inside a structural casing.
In the Nortre Dame de Haut the church is dissected and reassembled without its center. The affect is one of dead weight, not only by the forces registered by the roof, and the absent center, but also in the way that the punctured wall reads as a vertical mortuary.

The Reverential Morphology

The Reverential Morphology: from geometry to morphology

Morphological differentiation is driven by the simple geometry.

The differentiations of cell contain the simplicity as well as the complexity.

The intelligent aggregation of those cells generates exquisite morphological complexity which endows a cathedral with Holiness.

The cathedral became not only the place of communication with God, but also an aura of grandeur itself.

Cell 01_from Rose window: the decoration and Tessellation
Cell 02_from Vault web: the Surface and Perforation
Cell 03_from Buttress pier: the Structure and Growth

Angels and Diseases

From angelic to demonic, ideal to grotesque, intimate to grandios cathedrals are able to achieve spaces that provoke a combination of awe inspiring kinesthetic, visual, and psychological effects. The dance of good and evil is aided by the battles of new versus old, life and death, light and shadow, releif and polished, height and weight. It is from these strange dichotomies that i have chosen to pair the angelic with the grotesque. This battle of form is played out through two types of cells both of the same origin. One heavy deformed and simple; the other light graceful, and ornate. Neither of which can over run the other, and when they do disease interveans. The final cell type is a type of infection that accompanies the unions of cells. The diseased cell type is the domain of people, a purgatory or place of constant change. These cells make up the interface between man an cathedral. Pieces such as benches, stairs etc. These are the necessary in space full of the elaborate.

Tapping into the networks of the supernatural, places of worship enhance this experience. Innovation in the expression of light further intensifies every century, contemporary technological exaggerations have yet to reach its limits. In this example, kinetic apparatus impregnates itself with light producing modules that eventually spread and does the same.

Abra Cadaver

From skin to body, body to cavity, and cavity to cadaver; the ideological form of the cathedral undergoes a continuous process of mutation. These reemerging and familiar qualities of flesh are an underlying trait in the cathedral's physiological evolution.


The initial cellular studies look at paring an architectural effect with an architectural element, skin with decoration, body with volume, and cavity with structure; while, embedding the cell with a logic of behavior. The first study looks at how volume can be organically grown; take on characteristics of mutual reaction like two bodies spooning (or more) and continuously dilate between convex and concave forms. The next cell takes on the role of structure, but the organs as structure instead of bones as structure. This forms a continuity of malleable spatial pockets that satisfy structural needs and allow for a fluid space. Its organization mimics rococo ornament as a series of centripetally arranged elements strung together by a sticky web. The last component is the skin as decoration. It looks at ornamentation as a form of scarring that continually shifts and reconfigures itself below the surface waiting to emerge. What is lacking is how this cell can behave porously, finding moments where it can produce tears and dimples.


Affect: grandeur of scale, spatial multiplicity, methodical repetition of parts, continuity of form, an encounter with a familiar, the cathedral.

body_soft body spooning





body_growth



cavity_section



cavity_structural cells



skin_decoration through scarring

cells begin as abstractions of simple principles of cathedral/church design. through exaggerations and accelerations of certain evolutionary trajectories and material qualities, the cells aggregate and differentiate to form new relational hierarchies and affects. material and topological transformations occur at global and local scales to produce effects of hard/soft, fast/slow, thick/thin, light/heavy, light/dark, monumentality/masking, difference/repetition, life/death. contamination and conflict serve as productive forces in the morphological transformation of space that embodies both life and the afterlife.

variation of spiritual space.

variation of spiritual space.
each cell will exploit its latent potential to create an architecture that allows a transformation of effect/affect. intense moments of difference will be achieved through the manipulation of cells. embedded within each cluster is its ability to distort aperture, allowing immense light to penetrate at one moment, while simultaneously allowing no penetration at another. similarly, the structure’s magnitude will undulate – creating instances of greatness contrasted by moments of intimacy.
difference will be achieved through repetition.

A natural, engrossing, systemic lightness is the proposed effect of these ornamental cells. They are developing structural behaviors whereby they might come to support each other, linking together end to end, but must still hang as they are still too light of a system. They seek to resist gravitas by their bootstraps.

lightness becoming structure as a systemic network

Cell behavior. a small self-propelling creature

beginning to fail under their own weight

Vaulting, Symbolism, Sacrificial Action

Raina's 3 cells:

Using the actions of ball and socket found in the muscular and osteological formations, pinching, piercing, mating occurs upon incident. The vaulting structures in the typology of the cathedral express to me essence of Gothic architecture, just as the symbolic actions of salvation expresses the Christian faith.

three cells

cell 1 _structure



cell 2 _skin



cell 3 _ornament

Excising Excess

Whirling and pulsating behaviors initially generate cells with three components: thin, round, hard members (bones); flat, hard, elastic members (tendons); bulbous, soft, elastic parts (fats). As fats accumulate, excision reorients connection points among all types of members enabling new configurations.

The entry procession of a mosque similarly removes distraction through separation -- encouraging a shedding of material excess.

ICON _Yong Ju

Cathedral has been an ICON. Before Renaissance, it had only reliegious meaning. Gothic Cathedral was a representation of some sacred personage as christ or a saint or angel. After Renaissance, this meaning changed to cultural way. It bacame the object of great attention and devotion; an idol -like a pop icon. The meaning of Cathedral in these days is still close to the latter. However, this iconic aspect is sometimes understood as ignorance of the context. New Cathedral could show how these two different qualities (icon-context) meet and react each others.


Noksan Church in Busan, Korea
Cronos by Guillermo Del Toro, 1993
Videodrome by David Cronenberg, 1983