Jose Luis Mateo, in my opinion, is a very daring individual for taking on the challenge of describing and attempting to define an architectural process. Agreeing or disagreeing with his methods and delineation was not my focus when reading this article. Instead, trying to comprehend a fellow architect's thoughts on the importance of a process is one of the most intriguing aspects of architecture.
Mateo's breakdown of the architectural process is defined through three main stages driven with a fixed direction. While I find his overall approach, that is composed from an abstracted idea to a "phantom" with a skin, fairly successful, I think Mateo has almost over-simplified the process, or perhaps intentionally left his steps open for additional stages and these act as guidelines. The most resonating part of this article for me, is his references to this idea of an "organism". Particularly his concept of a process paralleling contamination; "it is like the organic growth of cells which little by little fill the organism eventually to give it flesh and body." [1]
The architectural process thrives on growth; the most difficult part of the process is that there are so many irresolute factors [inspirations, ideas, landscapes, skins, structures, textures, etc.], especially from project to project. The thing I've found in my short architecture experience is that during a project the key is movement; trying new things, realizing when something fits and something else fails, but with this movement comes growth. The growth of knowledge, rigor, problem solving and a greater resolution.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Rachelle,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your thought that, according to his description, Mateo has left the process very ambiguous to the reader. I think this ambiguity, however, is needed when trying to describe the underlying mental process(es) in the various methods in creating a project. What I mean is that one person probably will not physically react to the problem of creating a project in the same manner of someone else; someone could start by sketching, while another could start by model building. But what they do share in the essence of their thought processes is what Mateo described - the phantom becoming an organism.
I smiled when I read the last part of your post, because I completely agree and understand how much movement is vital to the growth of a project. So many of us can get beaten down by a project that we let any progress be limited and negligible. By continually moving ahead and pushing forward on iterations and looking a various factors, I agree that growth will occur - not only for your project, but for yourself.
Ja