1st Edition

No Matter: Theories and Practices of the Ephemeral in Architecture

By Anastasia Karandinou Copyright 1967
    254 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    How do digital media (mobile phones, GPS, iPods, portable computers, internet, virtual realities, etc.) affect the way we perceive, inhabit and design space? Why do architects traditionally design, draw and map the visual, as opposed to other types of sensations of space (the sound, the smell, the texture, etc.)? Architecture is not only about the solid, material elements of space; it is also about the invisible, immaterial, intangible elements of space. This book examines the design, representation and reception of the ephemeral in architecture. It discusses how architects map and examine the spatial qualities that these elements create and questions whether - and if so, how - they take them into account in the designing process. Karandinou argues that current interest in the ephemeral in contemporary culture and architecture is related to the evolution of digital media; and that it is related to the new ways of thinking about space and everyday situations that new media enables. With sound and video recording devices now being embedded in everyday gadgets and mobile phones, capturing sounds or ephemeral situations and events has become an everyday habit. New animation techniques allow designers to think about space through time, as they are able to design dynamic and responsive spaces, as well as static spaces explored by someone over time. Contemporary video games are no longer based on a simple visual input and a keyboard; they now involve other senses, movement, and the response of the whole body in space. This book therefore argues that the traditional binary opposition between the sensuous and the digital is currently being reversed. Subsequently, new media can also function as a new tool-to-think-with about space. Designers are now able to think through time, and design spaces accordingly. Time, temporality, ephemerality, become central issues in the designing process. The notion first claimed by Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s, that the emergence of new di

    List of Illustrations, About the Author, Notes by the Author, Preface, Acknowledgements, 1 Vaporizing Architecture, 2 Beyond the Visual versus the Non-Visual: The Sonic and Other Senses, 3 Beyond the Formal versus the Material: The Performative, 4 Beyond the Physical versus the Digital: The Hybrid, 5 Further Questions, Bibliography, Index

    Biography

    Anastasia Karandinou

    'I shall leave you with a wish, a wish to take from this few or many things but best of all take passion for questioning the limits as Karandinou so enthusiastically and enigmatically does'. Building Design online 'The range of empirical case studies used to illustrate the instability of the theoretical divisions ranges from audio projects in Edinburgh, Scotland to performative mapping in Shanghai, China. As a result of both its theoretical basis and its use of case study material, No Matter will interest anyone who wants to know more about the intersection of the built environment around us and the digital world that we use to live our lives.' New Books Network