Conclusion
Conclude: Embedded Spaces
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This doctoral dissertation began with a wish to understand how designers and architects used space as an active tool in a design process – how that space was constructed and how it influenced the final design product. I suggested that the concept of embedded spaces – of actively embedding parameters and properties in both the design space and the final product – could clarify this issue.
In the course of the dissertation, I have argued that there is a significant difference between the spaces of the design process – embedded spaces – and the produced spaces that we may occupy with our bodies and use every day – built spaces. That even though the two spaces have a never-ending exchange of senses and action, the one is more than a mere reflection of the other. The embedded spaces of the design process have constraints and opportunities of their own, which to a large extent are undiscovered, unformulated and even ignored. Embedded spaces and built spaces form the grounding understanding of space in the dissertation but was accompanied by two others concepts of space: Space as an a priori understanding, which cannot be empirically tested, first of all the understanding that space is and space as a container exists independently from what it contains as a tabula rasa or a coordinate system with structures of its own.
These four categories of space have been found and used throughout the dissertation. Embedded spaces have been defined through Stankiewicz’ concept of design spaces and used both as descriptive and prescriptive tools. Built spaces have been investigated as the product of embedded spaces, as in the realized buildings by Wright, Schindler, Eisenman, Spuybroek, Lynn and MVRDV. A priori spaces have been discussed through Baier’s categorization of space, Einstein’s definition of spatial structures and the change from absolute to relative space. Spaces as container have been described, discussed and used, as in Chu’s pure space of logarithms, Benedikt’s information space of spatiology and Fabrikant’s metaphorical space of spatialization.
A wide field has now been crossed by unfolding, investigating and constructing as I have argued that these embedded spaces really exist, that they have been used and that they are still being developed. I have shown that they both have a descriptive and prescriptive potential, by using the five components that I introduced in the very beginning – space as a phenomenological experience, space as a cultural construction, descriptive design theory, normative design methodology and synthetic spaces of digital media. All five components have together with the four categories of space been used, tested and evaluated in a variety of experimental cases and constructions.
Seen in this context I wanted to ‘enlighten’ the way designers and architects work and use space through what I have formulated and conceptualized as ‘embedded spaces’. I wanted to introduce the application of embedded spaces in the act of designing and to investigate how this use may be facilitated and influenced by the new media of information technology. While this immense array of topics have only scratched the surface of what seems to be an even wider field than expected, certain contours of a conclusion begin to appear. I will divide this in two: First, I will discuss and conclude if the initial thesis of the dissertation is valid and if it has found support in the arguments of the dissertation as a whole. Second, I will discuss and conclude what the character of an embedded space may be and how it may be used, by reflecting on my unfoldings, investigations and constructions.
Evaluation of ThesisThe thesis of this dissertation was in short form defined as: The ability to integrate a multitude of parameters and properties in a design product is closely dependent on the structure and concept of the space in which a design process takes place.
If we accept the premise and warrant that was laid out in the introduction – that a design process could be examined as discrete parts, which follow specific methodological patterns – I do believe that this thesis is valid.
The thesis can be divided into three parts or arguments as I proposed in the introduction – the parameters and properties that are being integrated, the space within which this takes place and the dependency between space and parameters.
From the thesis, it follows that parameters and properties can be integrated in a design product. To deal with this aspect, I first had to establish how we understand the phenomenon of space and how we describe such phenomena through parameters and properties. From my investigations in to the use of embedded spaces, I could see that the reduction of the real to parameters and properties had, at least as wide, an origin as Baier and Soja had proposed. Since space could be described as a cultural construction, as Kern, Crary, Comment and Bois pointed out, such a culture established certain frames for how space could be reduced and to which parameters and properties. The selection of parameters depended on the space that contained the design process and on the space in which it should eventually be embedded. In other words, they depend on the translation from the real and on the realization to the real. This was qualified by Stankiewicz’ description of design space as a constellation of operands and further by a discussion of Kuhn’s scientific structures of normal science and scholastic procedures in architecture and design.
Therefore, I will conclude that even though we may describe embedded spaces and the operands of embedded spaces as two different things, they are very much connected and interdependent. This was evident in how media was used to construct embedded spaces, as we saw in Barker’s panorama and Spuybroek’s pavilion as an interaction with the real and in the use of parametric modeling applications to construct strategies of and for the real as in the case of Lynn and MVRDV. It is therefore only in a discursive context like this dissertation that we may construct a design space before embedding it with operands and advancing it toward a design solution.
From the thesis, it also follows that a design process takes place in a space and that such a space has both structure and concept. In the initial discussion of the thesis, I argued that I should focus on the construction of the space in which the design process takes place. This argument has been qualified by Baier and Soja’s description of how we categorize different concepts of space and by Stephen Kern’s description of how we may understand such spaces as cultural constructions. It has also been qualified by Rajchman’s insistence upon seeing the things that we use and make as constructions, which has to be questioned. There have been numerous examples of such constructed spaces from Schindler’s Unit System and Venturi’s symbols and signs, to Benedikt’s structural information, Chu’s genetic mathematical energy-fields in space and Fabrikant’s metaphorical space. As I argued in the part Investigation, these spaces were different constructions in different places. The interior place, the exterior place and the virtual place constituted different embedded spaces.
Therefore, I will conclude that a design process does take place in a specific design space – an embedded space, which sets up certain frames, warrants, potential and constraints. The concept of embedded spaces is therefore valid, both as a descriptive and as a prescriptive tool for the act of designing.
From the thesis it finally follows that there is a dependency between the integration and the space in which that integration takes place. In other words, that the integration is more than just an ad hoc procedure – but that it is guided by rules, techniques, methods, constraints and potentials. This aspect turned out to be the largest and most profound aspect of all – how these dependencies between the design process, the embedded spaces and the content, were understood, constructed and used. This argument was qualified by the way methods of design were defined relative to the operands of embedded spaces as in the case of Wright, Schindler, Venturi, Graham, Lynn and others. I found that dependency was an aspect that was shared across the different functions, periods, media and constructions of embedded spaces that I have investigated. The aspects media, structure and model were essential to the understanding, construction and function of these dependencies, as I argued in the part construction. This was also, what I concluded from the more than twenty experiments that were carried out during the project.
Therefore, I will conclude that the design process and the embedded space are constructible dependencies. They are not just something that is out there, but very much in here, where architecture is being produced.
I will therefore conclude that the thesis is valid and that the concept of embedded spaces can be used to clarify the essence of the thesis. Even though the focus of the thesis changed in the course of the doctoral project, from the categorization of parameters to the construction of dependencies, the initial observation was correct.
Characters of Embedded SpacesAs we move on from the more general thesis, to the specific aspects of embedded spaces, we may see a pattern of three characters – a performative, a pragmatic and a rhetorical character. Together these three characters define the functions and potentials for embedded spaces and since they share the same subject matter, they are closely related.
First, we can conclude that embedded spaces are defined by their use – that they have a performative character, which is broader than just a passive container for the reduction of the real or the management of operands.
This character of the embedded space has it outset where it differs from Stankiewicz concept of design space. As argued in the introduction to the part Construction I see embedded spaces as active and productive rather than passive and analytical, which could be said to be the character of design spaces. Embedded spaces are performative as that construct a passage from a system, method or structure of design to the activity of designing – design as a verb. We may reduce the real to a format that is manageable as operands and then construct rules and structures for these as constellations. However, it is not before we actively embed such operands in a design space and carry that constellation toward a design solution by embedding it in the final product, that it has the character of embedded spaces. In other words, embedded spaces are defined by their use both as descriptive analytical tools and as prescriptive productive tools.
The performative character of embedded spaces between a system and an action has been investigated and constructed throughout the topics of this dissertation. From Schindler’s constructed passage between his Unit System and his built spaces which served as a manifestation of his Space Architecture to the recent projects by MVRDV, Spuybroek, Lynn and Chu, which are all characterized by the realization of systems or strategies through a very active use of space.
Second, we can conclude that embedded spaces have a pragmatic character as they face the reality ‘out there’ and insist on their active use as the performative character described above. This is the sense of the term that Charles Sanders Peirce has defined and which John Rajchman has later developed through his concept of constructions, which is at the very foundation of this doctoral project. This insistence on construction is both focused on the construction through action and the understanding of systems and phenomena as constructions. The pragmatic character of embedded spaces may be seen as an attempt to activate the understandings and structures of space, which we normally see as static or take for granted. This is evident, as embedded spaces have been used to question techniques, media and perception, as it was the case in the use as model and in the initial definition of space in the beginning of the dissertation. The pragmatic character has taken an ‘in-between’ position, relative to scholastics and ideologies, as it can ‘negotiate’ both symbolic and formal functions. We saw this diversity of the embedded spaces in from Venturi’s construction of a symbolic space in Las Vegas and in Chu’s creation of geometric form by mathematical structures. Further embedded spaces have a pragmatic character in their trans-historical function. They make it possible to compare the design methods of Wright from before the introduction of electric lighting in architecture to the design methods of UN-Studio based on a massive gathering of digital data being transformed through parametric strategies in advanced computer applications. In this way, embedded spaces provide a concept for the design process on its own terms rather than on the merits of stylistic expression, building technologies or of medium used in the design activity as a critique of the way architecture usually is discussed.
Third, we can conclude that embedded spaces have a rhetorical character as they are constructed expressions in themselves. This character is related to the performative character as described above, in the way that embedded spaces are performative as they connect system and action but rhetorical as they have an expression in them selves. In a traditional view on space in architecture, space has its meaning from what it contains or what contains it. It is seen as an empty passive container or as a silent material that may be formed by the way we arrange the material objects that frame that space.
However, with the rhetorical character of embedded spaces, space has a different function. With a reference, back to the investigations above we could use the embedded spaces of Schindler to qualify this argument. The Unit System and the reference frames in space that Schindler created were independent of the objects which occupied it – they had an agenda of their own, of Space Architecture as he defined it in his manifest. By using space as a manifest Schindler created a rhetorical space which first was a manifest of modernity by its very existence and secondly a productive ‘voice’ throughout his projects. The rhetorical character may also be seen as an expansion of the metaphorical use of space that Fabrikant suggested in her concept of spatialization. As a rhetorical figure the embedded space has a meaning, influence and performance in itself and is not just a passive metaphor for something else. We saw such a metaphorical use of space in the application TOPOS, which is constructed by proxies – or links – that only have meaning if they refer to a workspace or a data object that has been embedded in the workspace by spatialization.(1)
This character is further qualified by Peter Eisenman’s suggestion, that architecture has to constantly dislocate itself without destroying its own being: “Architecture creates institutions. It is a constructive activity. Architecture, by its very creation, is institutionalizing. Therefore, for architecture to be, it must resist what it must in fact do. In order to be, it must always resist being. … This involves the dislocation of the traditional interpretation of its elements so that its figures can be read rhetorically as opposed to aesthetically or metaphorically.”(2) Therefore, behind the scene of this staging of space we find an-other space, which we can identity as a rhetorical character of the embedded space, why it is no longer defined by what it contains but rather by what it is in itself.(3)
Therefore, we can conclude that embedded spaces have a rhetorical character, which is not only defined by their performance – of what they do or are used for – but, also by how they actively influence the objects that are embedded in space.
All these three characters of embedded spaces draw a picture of a very active entity. One that constructs a passage between the imagined and the real by action, open-ended thinking and influence – in other words a picture of an active medium that is both forming and being formed through interaction.
Exit PerspectivesWhere we entered the dissertation, in the definition of the premise, is also, where we will exit. The premise was that we could take the design process out of the reality that we are placed in and study it without constraints.
Many issues has been unfolded, investigated and constructed, but just as many has been excluded. Therefore, as we now leave the dissertation, we could reposition space in the reality from where it came, and drawn a perspective of the further application of embedded spaces, in architectural practice and in further research.
It is evident that architects and designers have a long experience in reducing the real world to manageable parameters and operands, but have very limited experience when it comes to constructing an environment for interaction with the embedded space.
The three characters of embedded spaces – the performative, pragmatic and rhetorical – clearly directs our perspective toward practice and application of the methods in real life. Not only in the service of design as a tool, but also as a space for analysis, interaction and construction. The collaborative potential of embedded spaces is vital, as it can construct a shared collaborative space for designing. This aspect does call for further investigation into models of interaction or the construction of interfaces between the real and the virtual presence of embedded spaces. Such further research can be guided by both immersive and augmented media.
(1) It is striking that space is often used metaphorically by non-architects, like the computer scientists that produce TOPOS and geographers like Sarah Fabrikant and Edward Soja, which supports Eisenmans argument.
(2) Eisenman, Peter (1987), 'Architecture and the Problem of the Rhetorical Figure', in Nesbitt, Kate ed. (1996), Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995, New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, (First published in Architecture and Urbanism no. 202, July 1987).
(3) Krauss, Rosalind (1993), The Optical Unconscious, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, p. 16. This figure ground reversal is well known in architectural history and theory as space become the subject matter for a scientific description of space.
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