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1001 Building Forms

By Lisa Smith - March 30, 2010

in Object Culture

Not new, but definitely notable: Siteless: 1001 Building Forms, by Architect François Blanciak, was released to the academic architecture community for a little while now, but, after rediscovering it this morning on Jacket Mechanical and Lined and Unlined, we realized it has wide resonance and wanted to share it here.

Though the book is meant as a catalog of siteless building forms, all hand drawn from the same perspective, this book is relevant for formal thinkers at any scale, from sculptors to industrial designers. In particular, we're wondering how this book might mix with interaction design and tangible interfaces: What would the pigtail towers do when combined with some flex sensors, for example?

If nothing else, the book sidesteps the often opaque written dialogue of architecture (just sayin') and presents itself visually, accessible to a wide audience.

Order from Amazon, or read more at the MIT Press.

Images from Jacket Mechanical

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gerrrg

14 years ago

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I take my critique back; this young French architect represents the decontextualized world of ME. In industrial design, they ask, "how does the object respond to the users?" In architecture, we now ask, "how does this design formalize ME?"
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Lisa Smith

14 years ago

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The specificity of "floor plans" changes it somewhat--but maybe only if the floor plans were clearly labeled with distinct programmatic elements.

I disagree that the book is a critique of the lack of contextual thinking, though I do understand how it might be perceived that way, depending on one's reaction to the content and design priorities.

From the MIT Press summary: "Its author, a young French architect practicing in Tokyo, admits he "didn't do this out of reverence toward architecture, but rather out of a profound boredom with the discipline, as a sort of compulsive reaction." What would happen, he asks, if architects liberated their minds from the constraints of site, program, and budget?"

Don't forms create their own context? Can't we learn something by navigating the combination of context-less forms with specific and pre-existing conditions? Or through fitting our pre-existing notions into equally willful formal types?
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gerrrg

14 years ago

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If the title had read, "1001 floor plans for Designers", would you not be amused?

There is a reason why it says, "Siteless"; it's a critique of the lack of contextual thinking.
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