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Christopher Alexander, Cedric Price, and Nicholas Negroponte & Mit’S Architecture Machine Group

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Christopher Alexander, Cedric Price, and Nicholas Negroponte & Mit’S Architecture Machine Group ARCHITECTURES OF INFORMATION: CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER, CEDRIC PRICE, AND NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE & MIT’S ARCHITECTURE MACHINE GROUP Volume 1 Molly Wright Steenson A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Adviser: M. Christine Boyer April 2014 © Copyright by Molly Wright Steenson, 2014. All rights reserved. ii Table of Contents Table of Contents ....................................................................................................... iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................ v Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 Dissecting “Architectures of Information” .......................................................... 5 Cybernetics, Heuristics, and Artificial Intelligence ............................................ 8 Precedent Use of “Architectures of Information” ............................................ 12 Anti-Architects and Anti-Architecture ............................................................... 16 Organization of the Dissertation ........................................................................ 27 Chapter 1 Christopher Alexander: Trees, Semilattices, and Networks ............ 31 Trees ....................................................................................................................... 36 Notes on the Synthesis of Form .............................................................. 41 Diagrams .................................................................................................. 49 Semilattices ........................................................................................................... 56 “A City Is Not a Tree” .............................................................................. 57 Atoms of Environmental Structure .......................................................... 63 Networks ................................................................................................................ 76 Generating Systems ................................................................................. 90 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 95 Chapter 2 Cedric Price: “Storage of Information Becomes Activity” ............... 98 Games, Intelligence, and Play ................................................................ 101 The Oxford Corner House Feasibility Study .................................................. 105 Information Processing ..................................................................................... 122 Information Storage ............................................................................... 124 Network Analysis and Probability Charts .............................................. 130 Generator ........................................................................................................... 137 Generator Genesis ................................................................................. 138 Modeling Generator .............................................................................. 143 Generator’s Computer Programs, or: Generator Gets Bored .............. 148 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 156 Chapter 3 “To the First Machine That Can Appreciate The Gesture”: Nicholas Negroponte & the Architecture Machine Group .............................................. 160 Teaching and Research .......................................................................... 173 iii Attributes of Architecture Machines ..................................................... 177 Interfaces ................................................................................................ 183 Microworlds and Blocks Worlds ..................................................................... 188 URBAN 2 and URBAN 5 ......................................................................... 191 SEEK ....................................................................................................... 204 HUNCH .................................................................................................. 212 Shortcomings in Artificial Intelligence Paradigms ................................. 218 Command and Control ..................................................................................... 222 NSF Rejection ......................................................................................... 224 “In the Interface” ................................................................................... 228 Aspen Movie Map, SDMS, and Dataland .............................................. 236 Put That There ........................................................................................ 244 “Being There” ........................................................................................ 246 Mapping by Yourself .............................................................................. 250 Conclusion: Media ............................................................................................ 259 The Wiesner Building ............................................................................. 264 Appreciating the Gesture ...................................................................... 272 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 274 Selected Bibliography ........................................................................................... 285 Images………………………………………………………………………………….………295–426 iv Abstract “Architectures of information” prioritize information processing and computation over formal representation in architecture. This dissertation centers on three case studies: Christopher Alexander, Cedric Price, and Nicholas Negroponte and MIT’s Architecture Machine Group, who applied information processes and technologies to architecture, formatted design as an architectural problem, and visualized informational paradigms in architecture. Alexander, Price, and Negroponte all promoted the emergence of generative architecture—architecture that was itself a process, which served as a critique against traditional architectural practices, resisting the development of a specific form or representation as the end goal. They drew from computational paradigms including cybernetics, heuristics, artificial intelligence, set and graph theory, cognitive psychology, and computer science. Their work makes manifest the logics of the systems that generated it, challenging mainstream notions of architectural representation. Each declared himself at some point “anti-architect” or “anti-architectural.” The oppositional stance they took gave them leeway to both push the boundaries of architecture and to exercise influence not only on their own fields but on different communities, from laypeople to technologists to the burgeoning field of digital media. v Acknowledgements The eight years I’ve spent immersed in graduate school have changed my brain and who I am as a person. Going back to school in my thirties meant leaving behind my technology and design career for an architectural, academic one, and this dissertation is the culmination of that sometimes-difficult and always-exciting journey. I have many people to thank. First, this project would not exist without the patient ear and expert guidance of my adviser, M. Christine Boyer. I greatly appreciate your willingness to listen (sometimes for hours!) as I tested hypotheses and hashed out arguments. Your expertise in the very worlds I examined shaped this dissertation, and I am deeply grateful. Axel Kilian, my reader, offered another layer of expertise in computation, modeling, and artificial intelligence, as well as firsthand knowledge of the MIT milieu. Ed Eigen helped to shape the dissertation in its early phases. Further, my project could not have come to fruition without the influence of other members of the faculty. Mario Gandelsonas generously provided many opportunities to examine contemporary digital issues through the Princeton Center for Architecture, Urbanism and Infrastructure. I took some of my favorite classes from Jean-Louis Cohen, Anson Rabinbach, Brigid Doherty, Tom Levin, and Devin Fore. I also wish to thank Beatriz Colomina, Lucia Allais, John Harwood, Spyros Papapetros, former Dean Stan Allen, and current Dean Alejandro Zaera-Polo. And my gratitude to the people who make Princeton go, who include: Hannah Butler, Daniel Claro, Rena Rigos, Jennifer Bauer, Camn Castens, Cynthia Nelson, Fran Corcione, and Rascal. This project benefited from insightful interviews: John Frazer, Barbara Jakobson, Tom Moran, Michael Naimark, Paul Pangaro, Terry Winograd, and especially Nicholas Negroponte, whom I interviewed twice. Nicholas generously gave me access to his personal papers, which vi made it possible to write about the Architecture Machine Group at all. I have also exchanged email with Dick Bowdler and with Phil Tabor, and am particularly thankful for Phil’s great insights over the last decade. Portions of this work were shared at conferences at MIT, the Canadian
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