The Purpose of Architecture is to Identify Itself.
This essay determines the nature of Architecture and Architects through the etymology of the words Architecture and Architect, the process of Architecture, the limits of Architecture, the method of thinking about Architecture and the types of thinking it involves.
Finally conclusions are drawn.
Etymology
Architecture and Architect share the same etymology.
From Proto-Indo-European teḱs- “to plait, weave, fabricate, woodwork, carpenter”
Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/roots.aspx?type=Indo-European&root=teks-
From Archon “Greek: Magistrate”
‘In Classical Athens, a system of nine concurrent archons evolved, led by three respective remits over the civic, military, and religious affairs of the state: the three office holders were known as the eponymous archon, the polemarch, "war ruler", and the archon basileus "king ruler".’
From árkhō, “begin, rule” or arkhós, “leader”.
From arkhi-, “chief”.
From Ancient Greek arkhitéktōn, “master builder”.
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/architect
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CE%AD%CE%BA%CF%84%CF%89%CE%BD#Ancient_Greek
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CE%AD%CF%87%CE%BD%CE%B7
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/archon-ancient-Greek-magistrate
And
téktōn, “builder”.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekt%C5%8Dn
Latin texō “I plait, I weave, I intertwine”.
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/texo
Latin tignum. “building stuff”, “materials”, “tree trunk”, “log”, “beam”.
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tignum
Source: http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/37206/tignum-tigni
tíktō, “I bear”, “to produce”, “bear”, “be born”, “bring forth”, “be delivered”, “be in travail”
Source: http://greeklexicon.org/lexicon/strongs/5088/
"craft", "skill", "trade". "art". "cunning", "wile". "means", "craftsmanship", "craft", or "art".
Of the same origin as tékhnē.
Philosophy:’ tékhnē.
‘In the implication of knowledge of principles, although techne differs in that its intent is making or doing as opposed to disinterested understanding.’
‘As an activity, techne is concrete, variable, and context-dependent. ‘
As one observer has argued, techne was not concerned with the necessity and eternal a priori truths of the cosmos, nor with the a posteriori contingencies and exigencies of ethics and politics.’
‘knowledge associated with people who were bound to necessity. That is, techne was chiefly operative in the domestic sphere, in farming and slavery, and not in the free realm of the Greek polis.’
‘Aristotle saw it as representative of the imperfection of human imitation of nature.‘
‘For the ancient Greeks, it signified all the mechanic arts, including medicine and music.’
‘craft-like knowledge is called a technê. ‘
‘It is most useful when the knowledge is practically applied, rather than theoretically or aesthetically applied.’
‘about the interpretation of a body of evidence’
‘Techne is often used as a term to further define the process of rhetoric as an art of persuasion.’
‘Techne is also a part of communication, and affects how human cultures interact.’
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne
Process
The process of Architecture for humans is to understand the nature, context, interactions, entanglement of all things within the Universe. To adapt them to human use. To conceive, plan, communicate, and fabricate. To build for reasons of necessity. To be gatherers and interpreters of a body of evidence. To be persuaders and communicators. To be people who affect human needs, values, qualities, appreciations of beauty, culture, societies, interactions and entanglement for reasons of evolving context, necessity and human survival conditions.
Having identified the role the Limits of Architecture can now be examined.
Limits
What Architecture cannot sense it cannot theorize about, define or manipulate.
Architecture has limits.
It is limited to the volume of the Observable Universe, not the whole Universe.
This limits its application to immaterial 1e+7520 components.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-185---how-many-things-are-there-in-the-observable-universe
Architecture is limited due to the expansion of space and the speed of light in a pure vacuum. These constants cause time to vary relative to any observer.
Architecture is limited due to the nature of human beings evolving as a density of the Observable Universe. The human brain is only a density within a density of the Observable Universe. A further delaying density to the constant flow of information.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-202---the-brain-as-an-energy-delaying-mechanism
The information Architecture examines can only come from a constant density interaction and mass energy interchange. The constant flow of information once examined becomes halted, incomplete and so out of context. Information becomes artefact once examined by Architecture.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-125---architecture-as-idea
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-155---the-4d-hologram-of-reality
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-165---the-nature-of-humans-12-quantum-theatre-reality
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-182---the-architecture-of-perceived-space
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-187---the-scale-interpretation
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-188---the-nature-of-humans-16-why-humans-are-in-scale-with-the-observable-universe
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-189---the-nature-of-humans-17-why-humans-brains-are-in-scale-with-the-observable-universe
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-195---the-universe-as-an-analogy-to-a-movie
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-198-the-architecture-of-fields
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-200---an-architecture-of-multiple-space-time-density-zones
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-202---the-brain-as-an-energy-delaying-mechanism
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-205---the-architecture-of-the-universal-recycling-process
Architecture is only able to sense the past. There is no present or future. These are uncertainties governed by data collection and probability.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-136---eyes-that-see-the-past
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-201---the-architecture-of-the-already-complete-universe
Architecture is limited by the evolutionary ability of human sensory and communication systems and their interaction delay with the Observable Universe. The natural senses of a human range from taste perception of 700,000 fm; 7.3990058e-26 light years; at 0.00000000000000000233 seconds delay to the furthest object that humans can see without technology; the Andromeda Galaxy; at 2.5 million light years away at a delay of 2.5 million years into the past. All relative to the speed of light in a pure vacuum.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-140---the-scale-of-human-perception
This range of scale of sensory input equates to 1 fm, 0.000000000000001 metres, 1.057e-31 light years, of environmental input interacting and entangling with 4242 connections within the human brain.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-140---the-scale-of-human-perception
This level of interaction allows for between 2,969,400,000 and 10,605,000,000 connections effected by sensing in the human brain.
This level of interaction allows for the speed of sensory input; thought; through the whole brain to be between 0.19% and 11% of the speed of light.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-140---the-scale-of-human-perception
Allowing for the total number of neurons in the human brain to be between 86,000,000,000 to 100,000,000,000 and the total number of synapse connections in the human brain to be 100,000,000,000,000.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-140---the-scale-of-human-perception
Humans are only using 3.5% to 11% of their total brains interface potential to carry out the process of Architecture.
Given these limits a method is needed by humans to ensure that the process of Architecture remains valid in its interpretation of the Observable Universe. This method is called thinking.
Thinking
‘Thought (also called thinking) – the mental process in which beings form psychological associations and models of the world. Thinking is manipulating information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. Thought, the act of thinking, produces thoughts. A thought may be an idea, an image, a sound or even an emotional feeling that arises from the brain.’
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_thought
The Method of Thinking about Architecture.
The General Stages in the Method of thinking about Architecture are.
Communication, Definition, Briefing.
These are not the Architecture. They are the sensing of the current Observable Universe.
Concept Design
‘A concept is an abstract idea representing the fundamental characteristics of what it represents.’
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept
‘Concepts arise as abstractions or generalizations from experience or the result of a transformation of existing ideas.’
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept
‘The concept is instantiated (reified) by all of its actual or potential instances, whether these are things in the real world or other ideas.’
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept
This is the beginning of the Architecture. The thinking, the thought, the idea.
The Architect researches and analyses all parts of the sensory input.
Key nodes within the information are identified. A network of connections is conceived. The network is tested against the sensory input. The network is generated in multiple ways to test its optimization against the sensory input. An optimal solution is then generated.
This is the end of the actual Architecture.
The stages beyond this are not Architecture.
Developed Design, Technical Design, Construction, Handover, Evaluation
They are concerned with distorting and delaying the original sensory information and the pure idea into a degraded evolutionary mutation by attempting to re-create it in millions of already available products.
In relation to our current global context of climate change and depleting environment, resources and energy the production of products must be reduced to allow survival of the human species. Therefore the remaining stages are invalidated since they remove one of the original precepts of Architecture that it should always be used to enhance human survival.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-027 human manufacturing related to global warming
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-122---the-nature-of-the-manufacturing-and-construction-industry-in-the-uk
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-125---architecture-as-idea
Source: Etienne-Louis Boullée Architecture: Essay on the Art.
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article170---why-house-building-should-be-limited-or-prevented-in-the-uk-in-2016
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-173---architecture-as-idea-and-energy
Concept is therefore the method of thinking about Architecture that matches the etymology, process and limits of Architecture and the current global context.
The method of thinking about Architecture can be summarized as
Sensing, Researching, Analyzing, Conceiving, Testing, Optimizing, Repeating.
Since the human being is a density in the Observable Universe then humans are both the thing being sensed and the thing sensing. They are; in Architecture etymology; the detector that detects itself detecting.
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-048---The Chemical Bio-Synthesis of Architecture
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-125---architecture-as-idea
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-179---dysfunctional
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-182---the-architecture-of-perceived-space
Source:https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-186---the-human-response-to-the-architecture-of-the-observable-universe
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-187---the-scale-interpretation
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-194---the-fundamental-holographic-architecture
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-190---the-change-to-a-virtual-human-society
Source: https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles/home/article-201---the-architecture-of-the-already-complete-universe
Conclusions.
The purpose of Architecture; the Observable Universe, humans; is to identify itself.
Ian K Whittaker
Websites:
https://sites.google.com/site/architecturearticles
Email: iankwhittaker@gmail.com
22/06/2017
14/10/2020
1451 words over 4 pages