garden/notsof.md

Notsof

• [read] [notes-on-the-synthesis-of-form]
  • [go] https://anagora.org/go/notes-on-the-synthesis-of-form/hypothesis
  • old https://via.hypothes.is/stoa.anagora.org/notsof.pdf
• systems, models

Introduction

• See annotations/highlights for now

Part One

Goodness of Fit

• The ultimate object of design is form.
• form + [context] == ensemble
• It is peculiar how much of the comments on ensembles apply to systems in general. This book so far often reads like christopher alexander has independently discovered principles in use in computer science; or, of course, perhaps computer science is just one possible take on the nature of complex systems.
  • I am curious to know if people in the reading group with different backgrounds to mine, but whose primary activity is also not architecture, get similar impressions w.r.t. their disciplines.
• The rightness of form depends on the degree to which a form fits an ensemble .
• Ensembles can be decomposed into many (nested, overlapped) form-context boundaries.
  • But in any given analysis the boundary should probably be kept constant.
• p19 "The form is a part of the world over which we have control, and which we decide to shape while leaving the rest of the world as it is. The context is that part of the world which puts demands on this form; anything in the world that makes demands of the form is context. Fitness is a relation of mutual acceptability between these two. In a problem of design we want to satisfy the mutual demands which the two make on one another. We want to put the context and the form into effortless contact or frictionless coexistence."
• p20 interesting/surprising use of impossible.
• p21 negative perception of fit, in the sense that we notice misfit and see its absence as fit.
• p24 achieving good fit via neutralizing misfits
  • simonpjw comment about misfits as beautiful
• p25 an exhaustive description of requirements for good fit probably includes the universe. This problem only seems tractable usually because of shared [context].
• p27 a procedure based on listing misfits "most likely to occur". See comment.

The Source of Good Fit

• p32 Who is macbirdy? I like their reading.
• p33 A lot of this chapter feels a bit problematic, outdated in its description of "unselfconscious cultures".
• 37 macbirdy on a roll
• [meta] my reading is turning more critical/nitpicky as I go through this chapter.

Meeting with the group

• Andreas said that it was sometimes hard to remember 'design' meant architectural as the ties to graphic design were so solid
• [armengol] primes and factoring

The Unselfconscious Process

• I still find this 'unselfconscious' characterization problematic, but I'll let it go -- if I don't I won't get the point, probably.
• I liked the slovakian shawls example.
  • Recognizing and curbing bad mutations != ability to introduce good mutations.

The Selfconscious Process

• samoa
  • competition -> market dynamics -> specialization and development of individuality
• local mutations, reputation
  • parallels with the development of authorship in art?
• p62 category trees
  • We invent theories to alleviate the burden of freedom from tradition.

Part Two

The Program