Design Ecologies - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2011

Human communication and ecological accountability are inextricably linked in architectural design; our current world ecological crisis underscores this fundamental connection. Within architectural practice the communication from architect to participant or environment is not at all straightforward. This is also true of the dyadic relation between working drawing, participant and environment through context, design and communication in architectural education and practice. 'We live in a world desperate to discover a set of rules from which we can derive principles about the environment, and relations between human activity and the environment, yet the holistic perspectives we require seem to elude us' (Harries-Jones 1995: 3).

If art, technology and landscape were thought of in the same sentence and the result of this cocktail a relationship between body and landscape, then one by-product would be 'place' becoming 'placeless'. The active agent in all of this would be complexity. Not complexity in a random sense where things come together in a dense and 'complex' way but in a coming together or pulling apart that is experienced by a collection of objects and world-views formed from the creation of artwork, architectural intervention and technological convenience. Through the following journey from city to island I give a snapshot of the sorts of complex and diverse pieces that work, at times together and at other times apart, to represent a landscape, urban and rural, that continuously reshapes itself through a response to art, commerce, science, politics and much more. The narration is shown in italics throughout. Parallel to this is a sequence of work, in its early stages, that pulls together some of these interests and observations where the liquid, the visceral, the actual and the virtual all mediate between two distinct locations one in England and one in Japan coming together in a developing photographic sequence

This article presents design thinking and practice in the shared space of architecture and video games. It argues the need for designers to think about the delivery of distributable architectures that do not replicate, construct or delay the experience of architecture as anything other than a screen event. The video game and virtual worlds offer new potentials to present space, to create architectures inhabited by globally distributed audiences. By discussing a series of design, art and educational projects, this article illustrates how these novel digital environments are precursors of emergent design ecologies where educational, cultural and commercial spheres align through new spatial interfaces.

This article speculates on the potential of multiple and synthetic approaches to architectural design. The argument is developed from current PhD research on the construction of "an architectural project". It investigates the status of instruction and construction of "project" in the context of describing the synthetic process and the speculative product of emerging design work. The article investigates the process of "constructing" architectural design (intellectually and physically) and the notion of a necessary dissolution of this construction. This dissolution is suggested as a necessary and contingent aspect of construction that facilitates a projection beyond the limitations of its initiating conception. The consequent argument is that this projection "beyond" offers the potential, through integration with lived experience and contingent actualised adjustment and evaluation, to "transcend" the problematic of a post-logical absence of architectural relevance. Post-logical is used to articulate the movement beyond singular axiomatic principles, universalising value structures and self-legitimising narratives. It is established in the article as the contemporary context of "absence" and relativity. The article proposes a projective and speculative architecture that through an intensity of synthetic designing defines the possibility of contingent value within (and despite) this context. It considers the design potential of not a singular model of instruction that is described by a static logic of theoretical construction, but proposes a multiple and involving field of instructional strategies of intervention and speculation. It proposes working severally to transcend the ungrounded legitimacy of the singular model of architectural discipline. Proposing an "opera" of synthesis rather than a singular work where intense and involving contingencies design ecologies move between positions and allow the construction of an architectural project to be "exposed". The article argues for the active practice of models for i.e. designing as interventions and synthetic operations that move between positions and become genuinely "instructional". This proposal is offered as an alternative "way of working". It is presented in contrast to the conventional model of a static representation and theoretical illustration that typically simply reinforce the contradictions of a post-logical cultural context.

Recent developments in network culture suggest a weakening of hierarchical narratives of power and representation. Online technologies of distributed authorship appear to nurture a complex, speculative, contradictory and contingent realism. Yet there is a continuing deficit where the moving image is concerned, its very form appearing resistant to the dynamic throughputs and change models of real-time interaction. If the task is not to suspend but encourage disbelief as a condition in the user, how can this be approached as a design problem? In the attempt to build a series of design projects suggesting open architectures for the moving image, might a variety of (pre-digital) precursors from the worlds of theory, art, architecture and film offer the designer models for inspiration or adaptation.

This project is a case study in the use of collaborative multi-disciplinary methodology to explore the nature of boundary within a suburban coastal site in New Zealand. The chosen site includes historic Maori settlement, private residences and public parkland. The concept of land ownership in New Zealand, especially the contrasting cultural attitudes of the indigenous people the Maori, and the European colonisers regarding territorial claim is frequently discussed, and there is a constant challenging of normative postcolonial concepts of ownership and boundary. The objective of this project was to contribute to and extend this discourse on ownership and occupation. This was undertaken by using a study of public/private boundary conditions through a series of paintings and drawings sourced from the observations and experiences of multiple site visits. The images are supported and placed into context by mapping, photography and publication design and through this process four categories of boundary type were identified within the site. The results of the study demonstrate a capability for art to not only challenge existing notions of land demarcation and categorization, but to also identify varieties of approach to the concept of boundary. The methodology was also found to be useful in revealing the subtle cues and possibilities that exist for design within everyday experiences of privacy, ownership and occupation within a landscape. The relevance of the study's conclusions is to the role of fine art in conducting site analysis of disputed and/or neglected sites, and in challenging normative approaches to mapping and boundary design analysis regarding public and private space.