How The Author Draws Up a Project

After reading the article "How to Draw Up a Project", I find myself mainly believing that the author does all the things he states, and he states them clearly, which perhaps leads to my main reaction. That reaction being not a terribly critical one, but that simply that there was not as much passion as I would typically expect in such a writing, one exploring how an architect chooses to define themselves through their process, as so many students and practitioners do (or claim to do). It could be because his words are clear and to the point, he refuses to use hyperbole, made up words, and new definitions for basic English words that are merely confusing, and his work is under 12 pages long, which lamentably and ultimately pulls his work, in my mind, away from the more "intellectual, philosophical" crowd which we are so used to reading. Whatever it is, it took a second read through for me to truly appreciate it. And two read-throughs took less that one of anything else I've read in school - so, you know, that's cool.

Regardless, the part which I found most engaging was his stance on, ironically, how one chooses their stance, the first step - the meeting with the phantom. While the advice, or direction, or what you would call it, is never very original, the metaphor used is itself original enough and clearly enough defined. A mass - imprecise, ill-defined, open, without the boundaries of a skeleton to connect to, or a skin wrapped over it, but perhaps you could grasp its intent - a scale, a movement, an intent. The conclusion, that the process of representing this to others should retain these qualities, is equally clearly stated - at this stage, the forms taken in representation must be a result of this process and this process alone - they shall not be the end. All of the other factors - the social, economic, ecological, philosophical connections and interweaving - shall work with this first analysis for further work. Bam. Done.

Call me simple, say I took the wrong thing away from it, but I liked the clarity, and happened to agree with or take no objection to all of the author's other points - with the exception of the tree as structure metaphor - which I get in terms of branching out, but in the probably 10-15 readings I've encountered using it, none have convincingly mapped out the grow, pieces, or the skeleton in a design, and those of a tree in a comparison. Perhaps that would be too literal, and I do understand it in theory, it has only always bothered me that we get "these networks almost invariably branch off from tree structures (limited growths on a common trunk) even as our buildings become less 'tree-like' and more 'plankton-like', massive configurations of uniform growth."

Plankton-like? Perhaps, but my fundamental knowledge of sea-bacteria colonies is not advanced enough to truly appreciate this. Perhaps I want to see these issues too literally, but plankton is a literal, physical reality, and so is a tree. And so is the structure (not construction) of a building.