Amor Infiniti/Horror Vacuii: Resolving Architecture Beyond the Planck Length ()

If one were to presume that every major shift in the perception and representational modes of architecture has its mirror in what is made, then we should be able to divine and critique the implications of making architecture through information technologies. We are only now beginning to enter speculations of what can possibly be made as a direct result of these systems. Already, the representation of digital space is undergoing a fundamental transition: From the highly precise facsimile of traditional Euclidean geometry, that we currently use in most CAD and modelling software to the visual interpretation of dense data arrays, as is emerging in GIS (Global Information Systems). This shift from a Vectorial world to a bitmap world is perhaps the most challenging to our historical and perhaps necessary assumption that Euclidean geometry , such as proportion and projection, is at the heart of making architecture. Does this shift imply an ultimately fatal divorce from the Vitruvian tradition of architecture through geometry or is it re-directing the interaction between computers and architecture into perhaps a more appropriate and creative realm of opportunity? This paper hopes to address these questions in the forum of a theoretical and historical discussion focused on the representation of architecture and making. Some current experimental digital work by the author will accompany this presentation and paper