IAR 221: Unit I Summary

UNIT ONE: FOUNDATIONS
Week 1:  Object, space, building, place
Week 2:  Circles, groups/groves, stacks
Week 3:  Prototype, archetype, hybrid
Week 4:  Firmness, commodity, delight

     In 1970 a British mathematician named John Conway developed something called "The Game of Life."  The Game of Life is essentially a simulation, which requires only an initial input of data to operate.  From that input, four rules govern the progress of the simulation, and continue for as long as the rules allows.  The Game of Life is perhaps the most famous example of  how a simple set of rules, when applied to various situations, can create incredibly vast and complex works.

     I believe that this same idea--that simple rules can lead to complexity--applies to this first unit of the class.  Every week we were introduced to a new "set" of rules, which applied to things like scale (Week 1), organization (Week 2), development (Week 3), and perception (Week 4).  There were never more than 4 rules per set, so it is safe to say that these rules are fairly simple.  What we have seen during this unit however, in terms of architecture and various structures, has been incredibly diverse.  Underlying all this diversity has been these simple rules that we have learned during the first four weeks of the course.

     It is my opinion that the first unit in this course has introduced us to simple rules that, when applied by different people with varying ideas in unique situations, can and do result in an incredible amount of complexity in design.  Their simplicity makes them easy to remember, which in turn allows us to break down seemingly overcomplicated structures into manageable parts.  These rules allow us to analyze every single structure we have seen and will see, both over the length of the course and in our day-to-day lives.  While there are in fact other circumstances that we must consider when analyzing buildings (things such as political climate, physical environment, and values of the builders), the rules we have been introduced to in Unit I will be invaluable resources when analyzing structures on a deeper level.