| id |
ijac201715404 |
| authors |
Miranda, Pablo |
| year |
2017 |
| title |
Computer utterances: Sequence and event in digital architecture |
| source |
International Journal of Architectural Computing vol. 15 - no. 4, 268-284 |
| summary |
Barely a month before the end of World War II, a technical report begun circulating among allied scientists: the ‘First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC’, attributed to John von Neumann, described for the first time the design and implementation of the earliest stored-program computer. The ‘First Draft’ became the template followed by subsequent British and American computers, establishing the standard characteristics of most computing machines to date. This article looks at how the material and design choices described in this report influenced architecture, as it set up the technological matrix onto which a discipline relying on a tradition of drawn geometry would be eventually completely remediated. It consists of two parts: first, a theoretical section, analysing the repercussions for architecture of the type of computer laid out in the ‘First Draft’. Second, a description of a design experiment, a sort of information furniture, that tests and exemplifies some of the observations from the first section. This experiment examines the possibilities of an architecture that, moving beyond geometric representations, uses instead the programming of events as its rationale. The structure of this article reflects a methodology in which theoretical formulation and design experiments proceed in parallel. The theoretical investigation proposes concepts that can be tested and refined through design and conversely design work determines and encourages technical, critical and historical research. This relation is dialogical: theoretical investigation is not simply a rationalisation and explanation of earlier design work; inversely, the role of design is not just to illustrate previously formulated concepts. Both design and theorisation are interdependent but autonomous in their parallel development. |
| keywords |
Stored-program, Turing machine, Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, inscription/incorporation,
geometry, sequence, event, information furniture, tangible interface, calm technoloy |
| series |
journal |
| email |
|
| full text |
 file.pdf ( bytes) |
| references |
Content-type: text/plain
|
Abelson H., Sussman G.J. and Sussman J. (1985)
 Structure and interpretation of computer programs
, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 20, 542 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Ambasz E. (1972)
Italy: the new domestic landscape: achievements and problems of Italian design (Contributor: Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY))
, New York; Greenwich, CT: Distributed by New York Graphic Society, 430 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Backus J. (1978)
Can programming be liberated from the Von Neumann style? A functional style and its algebra of programs
, Commun ACM; 21: 613–641
|
|
|
|
|
Banham R. (1965)
A home is not a house
, Art Am; 2: 70–79
|
|
|
|
|
Cache B. (2009)
The tower of the winds of Andronikos of Kyrros: an inaugural and surprisingly contemporary building
, Archit Theory Rev; 14: 3–18
|
|
|
|
|
Carpo M. (2001)
Architecture in the age of printing: orality, writing, typography, and printed images in the history of architectural theory
, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 8, 246 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Carpo M. (2011)
The alphabet and the algorithm
, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 11, 169 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Carpo M. (2014)
Breaking the curve: big data and design
, Artforum Int; 52: 168–173
|
|
|
|
|
Evans R. (1995)
The projective cast: architecture and its three geometries
, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 37, 413 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Frazer J. (1995)
An evolutionary architecture
, London: Architectural Association, 127 pp. (Illustrations, 121 cm)
|
|
|
|
|
Giedion S. (1948)
Mechanization takes command: a contribution to anonymous history
, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 14, 743 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Greenlaw R., Hoover H.J. and Ruzzo W.L. (1995)
Limits to parallel computation: P-completeness theory
, New York, NY: Oxford University Press
|
|
|
|
|
Hayles K. (1999)
How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics
, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p. 14
|
|
|
|
|
Hayles K. (2002)
Writing machines
, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 14, 144 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Hayles K. (2005)
My mother was a computer: digital subjects and literary texts
, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p. 10
|
|
|
|
|
Hopcroft J.E. and Ullman J.D. (1979)
Introduction to automata theory, languages, and computation
, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, p. 10, 418 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Ishii H. and Ullmer B. (1997)
Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms
, Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, Atlanta, GA, 22–27 March 1997, pp. 234–241. New York: ACM
|
|
|
|
|
Jencks C. (2005)
The iconic building. 1st ed.
, New York: Rizzoli, 224 pp.
|
|
|
|
|
Kittler F.A. (2010)
Optical media: Berlin lectures 1999 (English edition)
, Cambridge; Malden, MA: Polity Press, p. 6
|
|
|
|
|
Knuth D.E. and Pardo L.T. (1980)
The early development of programming languages
, Metropolis N., Howlett J. and Rota G.-C. (eds) A history of computing in the twentieth century. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 197–273
|
|
|
|
| last changed |
2019/08/07 14:03 |
|
