Changes in the technologies of representation in a heterogeneous, distributed sociotechnical system, such as a large construction project, can instigate a complex pattern of innovations in ...technologies, practices, structures, and strategies. We studied the adoption of digital three-dimensional (3-D) representations in the building projects of the architect Frank O. Gehry, and observed that multiple, heterogeneous firms in those projects produced diverse innovations, each of which created a wake of innovation. Together, these multiple wakes of innovation produce a complex landscape of innovations with unpredictable peaks and valleys. Gehry's adoption of digital 3-D representations disturbed the ecology of interactions and stimulated innovations in his project networks by: providing path-creating innovation trajectories in separate communities of practice, creating trading zones where communities could create knowledge about diverse innovations, and offering a means for intercalating innovations across heterogeneous communities. Our study suggests that changes in digital representations that are central to the functioning of a distributed system can engender multiple innovations in technologies, work practices, and knowledge across multiple communities, each of which is following its own distinctive tempo and trajectory.
Taking inspiration from a Frank Gehry sketch, Belgian architect Riet Eeckhout, through her process of ‘drawing out’, has produced a series of works of considerable scale. Michael McGarry, Professor ...of Architecture at Queen's University Belfast, links her practice to the psycho‐geography of the Belgian landscape and the internal geometries of her house and street in Flanders.
This paper explores the differences in ‘affect’ between Gehry’s blossoming beacons, whose visibility in the landscape lends them the role of beckoning flowers and the comparable invisibility of ...Floriade Expo 2022, whose horizontality granted it a subtlety that has thus far failed to elicit any of the thrill associated with the 'Bilbao Effect', even though it proffers an unparalleled botanical paradise. Thus far, it seems that people find biodiverse parks less impressive than buildings, even though thousands of people have worked tirelessly to ensure its viability. One year later, however, people are revaluating flower shows' ecological costs.
The article analyses Frank Gehry’s insistence on the use of self-twisting uninterrupted line in his sketches. Its main objectives are first, to render explicit how this tendency of Gehry is related ...to how the architect conceives form-making, and second, to explain how Gehry reinvents the tension between graphic composition and the translation of spatial relations into built form. A key reference for the article is Marco Frascari’s ‘Lines as Architectural Thinking’ and, more specifically, his conceptualisation of Leon Battista Alberti’s term lineamenta in order to illuminate in which sense architectural drawings should be understood as essential architectural factures and not merely as visualisations. Frascari, in Eleven Exercises in the Art of Architectural Drawing: Slow Food for the Architects’s Imagination, after having drawn a distinction between what he calls ‘trivial’ and ‘non-trivial’ drawings—that is to say between communication drawings and conceptual drawings, or drawings serving to transmit ideas and drawings serving to their own designer to grasp ideas during the process of their genesis—unfolds his thoughts regarding the latter. The article focuses on how the ‘non-trivial’ drawings of Frank Gehry enhance a kinaesthetic relationship between action and thought. It pays special attention to the ways in which Frank Gehrys’ sketches function as instantaneous concretisations of a continuous process of transformation. Its main argument is that the affective capacity of Gehry’s ‘drawdlings’ lies in their interpretation as successive concretisations of a reiterative process. The affectivity of their abstract and single-gesture pictoriality is closely connected to their interpretation as components of a single dynamic system. As key issues of Frank Gehry’s use of uninterrupted line, the article identifies: the enhancement of a straightforward relationship between the gesture and the decision-making regarding the form of the building; its capacity to render possible the perception of the evolution of the process of form-making; and the way the use of uninterrupted line is related to the function of Gehry’s sketches as indexes referring to Charles Sanders Peirce’s conception of the notion of ‘index’.
Departing from the intention to explore Frank Gehry's drawings serving to their own designer to grasp ideas during the process of their genesis, the article examines Frank Gehry's concern about the ...revelation of the first gestural drawings and all the sketches and working models concerning the evolution of his projects, and his intention to capture the successive transformation and progressive concretisation of architectural concepts. The article also compares Gehry's design process with that of Enric Miralles, Alvar Aalto, Bernard Tschumi, and Le Corbusier. It sheds light on Miralles, Aalto, Le Corbusier and Gehry's interest in a holistic understanding of all the parts of an architectural project, which is expressed through their tendency to draw the different sketches concerning the same project on the same sheet of paper. At the core of Gehry's design approach is the osmosis of function and morphology. This aspect of his design vision could be compared to Alvar Aalto's design process. At the core of the article are the distinction between communication drawings and conceptual drawings, and Gehry's concern about achieving an osmosis between function and morphology. The article also investigates Gehry's use of uninterrupted self-twisting line in his sketches, exploring his intention to enhance a straightforward relationship between the gesture and the decision-making regarding the form of the building.
Maggie Cancer Care Centres Charles Jencks, landscape architect, critic, and author of 30 books on architectural history, who co-founded Maggie’s Centres to offer support to people with cancer, has ...died at his home in London at the age of 80. The result was the dazzlingly original Garden of Cosmic Speculation, conceived as a microcosm of the universe; it included depictions of giant black holes and DNA, aluminium sculptures, zigzagging staircases, and chequerboard patterns. Awards and publications In addition to those mentioned earlier, Jencks’s awards included the Melbourne Oration, Australia, 1974; the Bosom Lectures, Royal Society of Arts, London 1980; a RIBA gold medal, 1983; the Japanese Nara gold medal for architecture, 1992; Country Life Gardener of the Year, 1998; and an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow, 2005 Apart from his book, he contributed to magazines and journals.
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