Loos(en)ing in Architecture

As architects embrace the concept of complex systems and quantum territories, we slowly disintegrate into being absorbed into a no-thing zone, where traditional frameworks of its discipline become so irrelevant, everything and anything becomes legitimate to be called architecture. It is curious now, to think what it means to be "doing architecture." Architecture has always been naturally a collaborative procedure, although disguised under the mantle of the "master-architect," with recent awareness of these "schizo" spaces in other disciplines, architecture is also catching up with loosening its boundaries. It is only logical to do this, in order to be "open" and accommodate more contemporary ways of thinking our space and environment.

Like some god-given position, "creating environments" as our jobs, we tend to assume a high place in our world as space-makers and activity-enablers. However, historically speaking, architects have only helped assist politically motivated spaces, actually creating rigid boundaries and preaching solid theories that only renew each other in an arena of cock-fighting. It is hard to break this attitude down, and especially harder when a traditional architect is faced with a new non-theory that maybe to realize that all its preceding suppositions were arbitrary when put against this fluid-reality we are starting to enter. Maybe it is just a matter of deciding to enter the rabbit-hole in "Alice in Wonderlands", to another tangible parallel reality which is equally valid and plausible as an acceptable territory.

I'm not saying that all the previous advances and progress made in the world of architecture is obsolete. They are all still very valuable to our society and must not be dismissed. History is always a good advisor to our future judgments, but never the only deciding factor when envisioning a new paradigm in space thinking. It is important to understand that with advances in technology, the shape of our society is radically changing and actually gaining an entirely new "layer" in philosophizing our environment. It is a very exciting moment in history that we are witnessing, a genuine crossroad between material and immaterial, in which the choice is not to make only one, but to allow the creations of hybrid realities of organic-mechanics to come to fruition.

So we are not "loosing" but actually "loosening" our discipline to allow uncertainties and the indeterminate to design our environments. Almost doing nothing but to point the finger at what is only there. We don't live for fame nor recognition. Architects should presume a more humble position, more like ghosts, that optimize situations, spaces and minds. Architects are the psychologists of the built environment. If psychologists study the affects and behavior of the mind in a given context, architects do the same in the context of social interaction between material and site. Both of them in terms of freeing the emotions of a trapped circumstance, to liberate and release the burden of imposition.

What a fantastic idea that doesn't seem to fall under any category of recognition. It is more an attitude or spirit of something that can be plugged into any situation, body or space. Materializing ideas of our environments with this spirit of "loosened architecture" will definitely strive to create spaces of animated dynamism and emotional intelligences. Of course many of our contemporary architects have ventured into these ideas of animated forms and emotive spaces, its expressions only bounded by the limitations of technology. However, I feel like a genetic code that needs to be altered in its core, even these new breeds of architects are falling into their own trap and as failure to come to terms with the new territories they themselves have opened up. They default back into acting like the "architects" that they are, glorifying just a moment of a speckle in time from a continuously flowing state of development, into a frozen trophy they may capitalize on.

It is time to rid of this ancient attitudes. I believe SPACECOLLECTIVE, as generic as it may be, and as schizophrenic and rhizomatic as it is, is opening up to these new ways of thinking. The same way I can not let go of my personal background (as something that I can not change but born into), I am coming from the point of view as an architect, and am trying to contribute to the re-definition of the role and responsibilities of the architect. I feel like entering SPACECOLLECTIVE is a synthetic version of spiritual enlightenment, relating to artificial technologies and its repercussions. There is something to be said about being "lost" in space, detached from any preconceived notions, we are able to construct novel and productive ideas, and as long as we don't loose ourselves in it, but loosen to be more open to the new-futures.

[5.2007]

Sun, May 20, 2007  Permanent link