read 03: architecture of emergence

In this week's reading, The Architecture of Emergence, Michael Weinstock positions the human as indistinguishable from nature. Weinstock states that all forms of human civilization and nature consist of a material arrangement in space that is reconfigured through time as energies act and react. As concentrations of culture, material, and energy, Weinstock believes cities to be the most complex assemblages created by humans. And out of many cities emerges a civilization.

Accordingly, humanity and nature both inherit civilization, which Weinstock describes as "the sum total of all the material, ecological, and social products of human activities over time." Indeed, inhabitants (both human and nonhuman) of this planet inherit each other's byproducts that shape future relationships and forms. Fundamental to this analysis is that process takes precedence over product as the primary constituent of the world. Time and space between things, accordingly, become vibrant domains for designers to explore unforeseen material arrangements.

Ultimately, Weinstock seeks to rationalize the complex relationships between humans and nonhumans by describing their unmistakable interrelationship. Many of his claims are positioned irrefutably, and no alternative considerations are given. The supposed symmetry between human and nature seeks to legitimize a set of practices that we ought to consider critically as we approach "generative design", especially through the enframed(1) view Digital Project software offers.

(1) Thomson, Iain, "Heidegger's Aesthetics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/heidegger-aesthetics/

Here, humans relate to nonhumans in a highly charged social, political, and environmental context (sulfur mining @ Ijen volcano complex, Indonesia). What would emergent architecture say about this hybridity?