In a world that is missing a central theoretical voice in architecture, now more than ever it is time to solicit emergent voices on the topic of‘alternative formalisms’(Alt-Form). This issue of AD aims to reach peripheral disciplines in order to support an architecture that no longer operates as a standalone field of study, and is rather one that responds to broader, urgent and pluralistic cultural shifts.
In the existing contemporary landscape of visually oriented fields of study, casual compositions and other formless expressions have begun to re-emerge, particularly in the disciplines of art, architecture and popular image culture. In architecture, with the rise of the digital, the last two decades have witnessed a field in pursuit of novel styles through the use of the latest digital tools. More recently, however, over the last five years or so, the field has experienced a more novelty-apathetic attitude, permeated with project proposals that resist the urge to offer immediate solutions in favour of enmeshment with a contemporary condition characterised by duress, destruction, uncertainty and other formless becomings. This AD explores this new, emerging world.
Contributors: Suzanne Cotter, Andrew Culp, Jack Halberstam, Jeff Halstead, Carolyn Kane, Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, Carl Lostritto, Thom Mayne, V Mitch McEwen and Kristina Kay Robinson, Anna Neimark, Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers, Dorina Pllumbi, Faysal Tabbara, and Dalena Tran.
Featured architects: AGENCY, Architecture and Other Things, Atelier Office, Dream the Combine, First Office, MIRACLES, and Morphosis.Table of Contents
About the Guest-Editor 5
Viola Ago
Introduction 6
Embracing Uncertainty
How Policies Shape the World
Viola Ago
Chaos, Creativity, Change 14
The Cybernetic Logic of Late Capitalism
Andrew Culp
Architectonisation 22
The Spatio-Temporal Rhythms of Contemporary Sculptural Practices
Suzanne Cotter
Kombinat 30
The Unseen and Their Architectural Oddkins
Dorina Pllumbi
Painterly, Misft and Redundant 36
Challenging Precision and Optimisation with Scavenging
Faysal Tabbarah
Moving Pictures 44
Three Installations for Public Life
Jennifer Newsom
Heavyweight 52
Undermining Power Structures Through Spatial Destabilisation and Force Simulation\
Jeffrey Halstead
Rude Forms Among Us 60
Contemporary Construction of Prehistoric Ruins
Anna Neimark
‘Strange Networks’ 68
Inhabiting the Boundary Condition
A Conversation with Thom Mayne
Viola Ago
Chromophobia in the ‘Smart’ City 78
Carolyn L Kane
Images of Former 84
Futures and Reformations
Dalena Tran
Rendering 90
Representational Atmosphere
Appropriating Formalisms Around Invisible Objects in Film
Carl Lostritto
Signature Urbanism 96
Shaping Subperceptual Forms for the New Multispectral City
Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller
Rebellious Architecture 104
Bayou Reconstructed
V Mitch McEwen and Kristina Kay Robinson
An Aesthetic of Collapse 114
Alternative Form, Disorder and Indeterminacy
A Conversation with Jack Halberstam
Viola Ago
From Another Perspective 120
Sculpting the Forest of Symbols
Nick Ervinck
Neil Spiller
