‘Architecture is different to many other design fields because 1) practically it is about the assembly of a large constellation of elements into a whole that has an interior and an exterior that are continuous in terms of design, and 2) its design history is based on the continuity and hierarchy between interior and exterior and parts and whole, thus the discourse of facades, detailing, modularity, proportion, symmetry, and so on … The relationship between parts and whole is essential to the evaluation of quality, meaning and experience of any architectural design. ‘Parametric tools – that is, tools that blend the hierarchy of parts and whole – are extremely powerful for an architect because of this. Unfortunately, the initial response to parametrics was an abdication of the problem of the design of the whole in favour of the programming of the component. The use of parametric software is all about the design task shifting from either top-down or bottom-up to the territory of parts-towhole fusion. I shy away from words like “feedback” and “synergy” between parts and whole because so far the experimental architects have just jumped from top-down determination of parts to bottom-up determination of wholes … I find this theoretically naive and it avoids the most interesting thing about parametrics, and that is the ability to fuse the hierarchy of parts and whole to produce a deeply modulated whole as well as infinitesimal variation among parts. ‘This is common from the scale of the 112 structural trusses of the Bijlmermeer facade to the 50,000 Alessi teapots, which are designed as a whole family. Parametric modelling is
used in projects such as these to make the relation between parts and whole more complexly fused while maintaining design distinction across scale and hierarchy.’ Lynn describes the Embryological House as a strategy for the invention of domestic space that engages contemporary issues of variation, customisation and continuity, flexible manufacturing and assembly. A rigorous system of geometrical limits liberates an exfoliation of endless variations. ‘I design not just one or two of the Embryological House instances. It is shocking how few architects get this, because they are so used to thinking of design as a once-and-for-all problem and not serially. Most architects want to understand the Embryological House experiment as a search for an ideal house – as if the whole collection of houses was a conceit to then select the best one. They are all equivalent. I love them all equally as if they were my children. The design problem was not the house, but the series, the entire infinitesimally extensive and intensive group.’ At the prototyping stage of the Embryological House, Lynn developed six instances exhibiting a unique range of domestic, spatial, functional, aesthetic and lifestyle constraints. In the project description he emphasises that: ‘There is no ideal or original Embryological House, as every instance is perfect in its mutations. The formal perfection does not lie in the unspecified, banal and generic primitive, but in a combination of the unique, intricate variations of each instance and the continuous similarity of its relatives. The variations in specific house designs are sponsored by the subsistence of a
Greg Lynn, Embryological House, 1999 The Embryological House is a series of one-of-a-kind houses that are customised by Greg Lynn FORM for individual clients. The houses are adaptable to a full range of sites and climates. The minimum requirement for any site is a 30.5-metre (100-foot) diameter clear area of less than 30-degree slope for the house and its surrounding gardens, designed by Jeff Kipnis.
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