While mathematics in architecture has historically referenced notions of order, proportion, and ideal form, the discipline of mathematics itself has shifted to encompass uncertainty, incompleteness, relativity, and chaos towards a situation in which truth itself is elusive. This move stems in part from an engagement with real phenomena, in which natural systems were shown to behave non-linearly and unpredictably. In architecture, while computational developments enabling dynamic and variable modeling have been subsumed into our culture of design and production, a new kind of idealism has emerged.  Formally prolific and inherently multiplicitous, this book proposes algorithmic truth and statistical outcomes over predetermined objectives; it signifies a retreat away from reality and back towards abstraction and simulation in the smooth space of possibility. Meanwhile, the consequences of uncertainty have pervaded our culture to its core. Recovering from the initial high of fractal and random geometrical proficiency, architecture is just beginning to re-embrace the underlying issues embedded within this contemporary mathematics: uncertainty, unpredict-ability, chance, recursion, wildness, and informality. Contributors: Cecil Balmond, Mario Carpo, Lily Chi + Adrian Lewis, Dana Cupkova + Kevin Pratt, Tom Fecht, Francois Roche, Jenny Sabin, Anthony Vidler and others.

Mathematics: From the Ideal to the Uncertain (The Cornell Journal of Architecture, No. 9)

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<p>This issue of the Cornell Journal of Architecture is about the now, the new, and the next in architecture, while simultaneously acknowledging that every possible future is intrinsically linked to the existent, to the present and its attendant past. At the heart of issue 8: RE is the understanding that the creative act itself is reiterative; that in rethinking, recombining, reshuffling, recycling, and reimagining aspects of the world around us, we produce work that both belongs to the current moment and establishes new future trajectories. The texts reflect the interconnected strands of technology, history, theory, and intuition that necessarily reinforce each other in architectural education and practice today: issues of reuse and recycling; of feedback loops and regression; of dialogue, criticism, and correspondence; and of the role that changing technologies have in restructuring the way we think, see, and remember.</p>

The Cornell Journal of Architecture 8: RE

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Mathematics: From the Ideal to the Uncertain (The Cornell Journal of Architecture, No. 9)

The Cornell Journal of Architecture 8: RE