Pavillon Seroussi by Biothing (2007)
Sébastien Bourbonnais and I met after we realized through a common publication (see previous article) that we had a shared strong interest for French philosopher Gilbert Simondon (see previous articles Part 1 & Part 2). In the following essay, he uses the latter’s theory of form and information to analyze the creative logic of digitally generated architectures. Sébastien evokes the dematerialization of the line as the latter does not constitute a limit anymore but rather a force that literally informs design (one could argue that it desactivates my own interpretations of lines as the carrier of architecture’s inherent violence!) In doing so, he calls for an architecture of blurry thresholds which merges the form with its direct environment. I might object to Sébastien a certain form of optimism towards architects as the latter seem to have quite integrated the process of information that link together a set of data and a form; however the data they use seems too often inappropriate if not frankly arbitrary. Gilbert Simondon himself, in his very precise descriptions of the technical processes and tools never evacuates their raison-d’etre. We can only wish the same to architects.
Membrane Attractors: Tension between form and information in digital architecture
by Sébastien Bourbonnais
«We should say that a good form is one near the paradox, near contradiction, and also it doesn’t be contradictory in its logic terms. »
Gilbert Simondon, «Forme, information, potentiels,»
