Let’s tie some things together:
Data, information, and knowledge.
Three ‘things’ that seem very closely related. In fact, one might even identify a sort of hierarchy linking each to the next. Data is collected, becomes information through interpretation, and finally, knowledge arises from experiential application of the information.
But such a linear description hardly does justice to the complicated process of knowledge production. Bruno Latour describes in his article, “Visualization and Cognition” a “cascade” of inscription that reduces phenomena to numbers (data) by measurement through instruments before being interpreted (to create information) by specialists and then applied in some way (policy makers, doctors, etc.) in order to be considered knowledge. Latour argues that this cascade may be ignored with little consequence when analyzing events in daily life, but should be carefully examined when studying science and technology. I can’t say I agree. My understanding of Latour’s argument here is that knowledge is a product of understanding, and in order to understand phenomena we develop technologies and instruments to measure events. These measurements are data; they are numbers representing events, cumulatively describing a phenomenon. In order to understand the data, we apply statistics and other methods of analysis to extricate trends, patterns, etc. to create information. Later, this information is applied either to predict events of a phenomenon, or somehow create an experiential understanding of the phenomenon that can be considered knowledge. Furthermore, knowledge is disseminated through images (graphs, tables, etc.) and the phenomenon being described is further transcribed and explained in, say, journal articles and books. The ability to communicate and share new knowledge is a major factor influencing scientific knowledge production. This process of image dissemination is inextricably linked to technology. Major scientific advances are aided by the increasing ability to mobilize inscriptions, often to political ends. That is, knowledge production depends on the effective production of persuasive images, the ability to reproduce such images, and the ability to mobilize those images.
Ok, so what does all this have to do with architecture and my capstone? (I’m not entirely sure. It was headed somewhere beautiful, but then I lost it…)
First of all, writing a thesis will include collecting data of some sort. Then inscribing that data and understanding the information within the data set. Lastly, to produce any knowledge, this information will need to be applied in a relevant way. With the computers, the internet and digital photography I will be able to create images of buildings and disseminate them effectively. But this process, by default, is political. I have to ask myself, what do I want to say with my writing?
My first problem is how to collect data descriptive of Living Buildings, and not just data on energy and water consumption, but data relevant to my question of how living buildings communicate connections between users and the world, and what kind of connections these buildings convey (political, ecological, social, etc.). What ‘instruments’ can I use to gather this data? And how can I process the data to produce information? And how can this information be employed to produce knowledge or an experiential understanding of ‘the language’ of living buildings? How can I learn to speak the language of buildings, and hear what they are saying?
My worry is that buildings are very complex (you could say ‘hybrid’) objects whose study combines so many things making them hard to distill. I’m not data averse, but wary of taking something so complex and reducing it to data. No doubt data can be extremely expressive of things we cannot see nor experience due to their size (too large or too small), their number and frequency (too many or too few), their timeframe (too short or very long), and many other things. But buildings are designed precisely for human use, at a human scale and timeframe. However, these objects now exist and impact contexts beyond any individual human’s scale, as do individual humans themselves! I’m referring to the anthropocene, a new epoch in which humanity’s collective impact on planet earth rivals any other force in geological history.
The complexity of architecture has been written about (“Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” by Rovert Venturi, 1966), and architecture’s epistemology is still unsettled (the how do we know of architecture). Additionally, I’m not interested in merely describing objects of architectural production (Living Buildings), but exploring the relationship between object and subject (building and user). My inquiry is defined by my attempt to connect complicated human objects (buildings, informed by theory) to complicated phenomena (the highly theorized anthropocene and its correlated concepts). Furthermore, my goal is to understand how buildings (of a human scale) communicate connections between humans and phenomena which do not exist on a human scale in either time or space!
The ontology (what is, what they do), and the epistemology (how do we know, and how do we know that what we know is legitimately justified belief or mere opinion) of buildings is pretty mixed up. Anthropology may be able to shed light on buildings and their function in cultures, history can place their production in appropriate contexts for interpretation, and other fields can surely contribute to understanding buildings in myriad and nuanced ways. Buildings are indeed political objects, advancing beliefs or values and shaping public space. Buildings are ecological actors, impacting immediate ecological systems with parking lots and waste. Buildings are also products of complicated market trends, and economics influence everything from the availability of certain materials to site allocation, etc. The question remains, what’s the best way to understand living buildings?
Within the field of architecture itself, one way of understanding buildings has seen fluctuating popularity since its appropriation from philosophy in the ’70s. I’m referring to architectural phenomenology. The method has experienced a recent renaissance as young architects attempt to reconnect buildings to the experiences of individual users. After its rise to fame in the ’80s architectural phenomenology fell under heavy intellectual fire by emerging architectural theorists who claimed the field was “a soft type of history and theory at best, and at worst as a dangerous form of detheorized history and dehistoricized theory, which takes the critical bite out of intellectual work in order to operatively legitimate architecture’s status quo” (Architecture’s Historical Turn, Jorge Otero-Pailos, 2010). The question, “Is phenomenology legitimate intellectual work in architecture?” remains, however, and I hope to deepen my understanding of the field in order to wield the methodology effectively.
My belief is that architectural phenomenology is a viable method for understanding the relationship between buildings and users, in order to understand if/how buildings convey connections between users and global systems, because architectural phenomenology focuses on just those types of subject/object relationships. My hope is to achieve some insight into the nature of living buildings that theory alone cannot produce. Instead of a merely object-focused (formalist) inquiry or purely theoretical analysis of living buildings I would lack the substance needed to understand buildings’ ability to communicate connection.
To supplement my phenomenological observations I will complete interviews with the architects and users of the Living Buildings. By asking architects to detail their intentions behind their designs I will be able to understand if they imagined any specific aspect of the building as a communication tool to convey connections between users and things such as the carbon cycle or the water cycle. By interviewing users of Living Buildings I will be able to determine if they feel the building is interactive or is in some way able to convey to the user any sense of connection to global systems.
To found my inquiry and argument in the tradition of architectural scholarship as well as lend legitimacy to my project, I will complete a significant Literature review of work related to architecture and the Anthropocene. I will focus on architectural theory to help me understand buildings as more than formal objects and their role in information dissemination in the user/building relationship. Let me note that I do not believe this relationship to be so dichotomous. Thinking beyond the subject/object binary will help me understand the other factors and actors conditioning individuals’ experience of buildings.
I’ll begin my description of the Anthropocene by standing on the shoulders of the giants who brought the term/concept into popular discourse in the first place. I won’t list them now. Furthermore, I will lean heavily on the likes of Bruno Latour in order to extract some notion of moral imperative from the Anthropocene as a concept and also, fundamentally as a conversation about us and our ‘place’ or role on the planet.
Hopefully, by gaining insight into living buildings and their supposed ability to convey the connectedness of individuals and global systems through phenomenology and expert interviews, then by describing the importance of understanding connections in the Anthropocene, I will be able to demonstrate how architecture can be a powerful tool to help humanity learn to dwell in this tempestuous world we call home.