Mapping Controversies

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Mapping Controversies
http//www.mappingcontroversies.co.uk/
Dr. Albena Yaneva
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A controversy is understood asa series of
uncertainties that a design project or an urban
plan undergoes as architecture in the making
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A part of a larger teaching platform http//www.d
emoscience.org/
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Mapping Controversies means 'analysing
controversies. It covers the research that
enables us to describe the successive stages in
the production of architectural knowledge,
buildings and urban plans. Existing
examples http//controverses.ensmp.fr/prive/prom
o04/ http//controverses.ensmp.fr/prive/promo04/C
04B11/index.html http//ionesco.sciences-po.fr/wp
/2008/04/29/studentse28099-examples-of-controve
rsy-sites/
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• Like buildings, websites are active mediators and
  modulators of experiences and practices
• Architects and web designers are both concerned
  with navigation of a conceptual space
• Above Tradiant CAD software
• Right Phaeno Science Centre, Zaha Hadid

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Two Important Steps in Controversy Presentations

• 1. Find an issue research question
• Examples
• Can scientific buildings stimulate creativity?
• Is a Panopticon-type design appropriate for the
  prisons of today?
• Is glass a synonym of political transparency in
  contemporary parliament design?
• 2. Find the suitable architecture for the
  controversy

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A set of criteria for making a good controversy
website

• Not Solid but Foam-like
• 2. Neither Lateral (causal) nor Vertical
• (hierarchical) but Transversal
• 3. Not an Archive but a Diagram
• 4. Not Static but Flexible
• 5. Not Surface but Density/Intensity

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1. Not Solid but Foam-like

• Foam points to a fragile structure that can
  easily collapse a structure that is open to some
  degree of modification and adaptation according
  to what takes place outside the membrane.
• A foam-like structure to our controversy spaces
  will ensure that each component within a space is
  seen to be itself a variably fragile or stable
  constellation of sublevel elements that may split
  or merge.

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2. Neither Lateral (causal) nor Vertical
(hierarchical) but Transversal

• Most websites are linear and sequential,
  presenting a structure framed by causality
• A transversal space implies a rhizomic structure,
  e.g. www.debategraph.org and www.silobreaker.com
• An issue-focussed space requires a transversal
  structure to explore all actants and perspectives

Debategraph Silobreaker Rhizomic Structure
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3. Not an Archive but a Diagram

• Creating ISSUE-DRIVEN, not Program-driven
  controversy spaces
• Mapping must grasps the spatio-temporal
  multiplicity of a controversy, must be dynamic
• A diagram should follow the becoming of forces,
  each reshaping the digital space of the website

Program Driven Space Issue-driven example of
student work Issue-driven
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Qui a tue le mammouth ? http//www.sciences-po.org
/projets_controverses/disparition_mammouths)
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4. Not Static but Flexible

• Three types of flexibility
• Diagrammatic and spatio-temporal flexibility
• Perspectival manoeuvrability, exploring multiple
  viewpoints from the same controversy space
• Issue flexibility, visualisation spaces that are
  adaptable to multiple types of controversies

Attempting to provide perspectival
manoeuvrability Linux open to
adaptation, proliferating versions
http//www.sciences-po.org/projets_controverses/vo
te_electronique/ http//www.cyberciti.biz/tips/wp-
content/uploads/2007/06/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-
7.2.png
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5. Not Surface but Density/Intensity

• The controversy architecture is not associated
  with horizontality, but rather with the intensity
  of time and repetition
• Each part of the issue space represents a point
  of density / intensity, reconfiguring the visual
  plane

FAS.research tools Geotime (Oculus Info)
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What does mapping mean in Architecture?

• mapping is representation
• a) mapping of existing buildings e.g. Roman
  Architecture

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b) mapping of social networks
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c) architectural concepts http//www.fivefootway
.com/2008/02/02/mapping-critical-architecture-theo
ryautonomy-in-space-time/
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Mapping means Creating
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With What Kind of Tools?

• 1. Parametric Design Tools
• Assisting in the design process through
  predefined parameters
• Architects manipulate their designs and study
  many alternative solutions including those with
  complex organic shapes by simply changing the
  variables, or parameters

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Parametric Design Tools

• It is possible to use parametric modelling to
  generate the visualisation of a complex assembly
  that may even surprise its makers
• key advantage to parametric modelling is that
  information is typically stored topologically
  rather than geometrically

Ray and Maria Stata Center, MIT
International Terminal at Waterloo Station,
London
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2. Non-parametric tools - examples

• Groboto creating complex forms based on
  repetition of basic forms
• Processing(.org) open-source design software
  enabling integration of sound and visual data
• the cosmograms and sonogram of the actors

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Conclusion and Important Dates

• Deadline for forming the teams - 10 March
• Deadline for uploading the website - 18 April
• Presentations - 23, 27 and 28 April

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• Assessment
• Develop a Website
• Presentation of the Website
• Teams of 4/5 with defined roles
• 1 Project Coordinator
• 1 Webmaster
• 1 Statistician
• 1/2 Investigators

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Project Website Planning 1. Homepage 2. First
presentation of the extent of disagreement 3. Firs
t presentation of context 4. Multiform
documentation 5. Statistical analysis 6. Chronolog
y integrated with documentation 7. List of
actors 8. An architecture for public debates
around the issue 9. Team presentation 10. Bibliogr
aphy and glossary
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www.mappingcontroversies.co.uk
http//www.mappingcontroversies.co.uk/
Dr. Albena Yaneva