AI: Architecture and Ideas

Kelly Crossman.(2011). AI: Architecture and Ideas. Ai Media. 11. 4-120

www.architectureandideas.com 

'Architecture and Ideas is a magazine whose aim is the investigation, examination, illumination and criticism of contemporary architecture and its ancillary culture. It is published twice a year with articles appearing in either english or french.

The aim of Ai is to provide a forum for thinking and writing about architecture; a place where architects, planners, theorists, critics, scholars and artists can come together and, through informed discussion, advance our collective understanding of architecture and its place in the emerging world of the twenty-first century.'

en·tro·py

   [en-truh-pee]  Show IPA

noun

1.

Thermodynamics .

a.

(on a macroscopic scale) a function of thermodynamic variables, as temperature, pressure, or composition,that is a measure of the energy that is not available forwork during a thermodynamic process. A closed systemevolves toward a state of maximum entropy.

b.

(in statistical mechanics) a measure of the randomnessof the microscopic constituents of a thermodynamicsystem. Symbol:  S

The branch of physical science that deals with the relations between heat and other forms of energy such as mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy and, by extension, of the relationships between all forms of energy.

The first law of thermodynamics states the equivalence of heat and work and reaffirms the principle of conservation of energy. The second law states that heat does not of itself pass from a cooler to a hotter vody. Another, equivalent, formulation of the second law is that the entropy of a closed system can only increase. The third law states that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of a system to absolute zero in a finite number of operations. 

KEY IDEAS AND INFLUENCES
ATMOSPHERIC CONSTRUCTIONS
The perceptual psychologist Rudolf Arnheim examined the wide-reaching influence of the concept of entropy on aesthetic reflection and artistic production from the late 19th century onwards. He believed that in the 1960s entropy provided "a positive rational for minimal art and the pleasure of chaos."

'The notion of atmosphere enables us to see and understand architecture from a very different point of view, one which frees architecture from geometric space.'

'It can become detached from the ground and dissolve into invisible parameters - flying cities, anchoring.'

'Architecture that is not in space but that is space.'

'Architecture becomes the membrane of a body in motion, a migrating location.'

ATMOSPHEREIC MACHINES
'In 1950s, in France, Nicolas Schoffer imagined a Maison a cloisons invislbes(House with invisible walls)
For French artist Yves Klein, the destruction of the architecture of walls, patitions and roof would finally make it possible to free humanity. In 1957, he unleashed 1001 blue ballons into the sky - architecture of air.Architecture is space and that is all there is... Architecture must become immaterial like space. Klein.'


THE "PNEUMA"
Another atmospheric concept that merged the idea or architecture as 'pneuma' or 'breath'. In their view breathing an atmospheric dimension into architecture was tantamount to producing an almost physilogical "respiration". giving inanimate humanlike contours.

For Philippe Rahm, architecture should be considered a process for prodution of atmospheres, a non-form consisting of physical climates and psychological atmosphre. By climate, he means the management of the temperature of the air inside of a building.



POSSIBLE TEXTURE INFLUENCES

PATRICK EVANS
During the Second World War, Canada's Department of National Defense, constructed an -elaborate system of coastal fortifications along both the atlantic and Pacific coastlines.
-Over 400 heavy concrete structures were built to defend ports and protect the allied.

1. Command post, Casey Point Battery, Prince Rupert, British Columbia.
2. Command post, Barrett Point Battery, Prince Rupert, British Columbia.
3. Observation post, Red Cliff's Battery, Newfoudland.
4. Observation post, York Redoubt, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Couple of chapters of the book were printed in French and therefore I was not able to understand those parts of the book. Other than that factor, the way the book was composed and how it lead onto topics interested me. The concept of entropy and the system of heat transfer, however, confused me and was hard to understand. Yet the theme of space and how it relates in architecture was vividly discussed and studied.