Lecture at JWU: From Form to Formation
On 31 October 2024, Florian Busch gave a lecture as part of JWU’s “Practice” series. Titled “From Form to Formation”, the lecture discussed why architecture is not about fixed, preconceived forms but about processes of formation.
While it is easy to focus on the end-product —buildings and other structures— the essence of architecture lies in the dynamic processes that evolve throughout design and construction. These end-products are not static objects; they are snapshots of dynamic processes that unfold and transform over time, responding to ever-changing conditions.
As a discipline, architecture almost always has more than one solution. The beauty lies in embracing contradictions as a powerful way to respond to the complexities of life. What begins with a vision (itself already part of a process) is continually reshaped by forces surrounding it: site constraints, physical laws, program, budget, environmental conditions and goals, …
As the design (and construction) process unfolds, it allows for adaptation, innovation, and refinement that cannot be predicted from the outset.
The lecture started with the premise that even a discipline as rigorous as mathematics can lead to more than one solution.
In a search for the optimum among several plausible solutions, we may need to shed our bias and stick to what Edwin Jaynes called a “principle of maximum ignorance”.
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