In Discussion with Luis Ramirez : Points + lines

"Form matters, but not so much the form of things as the forms between things”.

In working through architecture as an internal effect of the haptic as form relating to experience, what then are the external responsibilities of architecture in a larger context?

I think that effects that architecture provokes occur at different scales, from a human scale or more individualistic, to a larger scale such affecting an entire society. Therefore, I believe that the form or façade of building also affect the mood of a certain space with larger qualities. For example, New York’s street level is controlled by the edge condition given from the multiple towers developing a faster pace within society.

Is form only related to the direct effects of its internal and external context? Or is form an effect of context?

Form should be the effect of context, but this is not always the case. I believe that when form is affected by context the architecture has a deeper connection to its spectator, making sense of the edges it develops and the reason to why it chose this certain location.

“One asserts that architecture will fade away under the advancing imperatives of technology. Under the domain of distraction, media and technology threaten architecture with its own obsolescence. This has led some architects to retrench, and insist ever more stridently on architecture's material specificity. Others submit to the imperatives of the new technologies and redefine architecture as media and image.”

If one views architecture as a technology, is architecture a type of distraction, or media?

I believe that technology does give the architect the ability to speculate and question different possibilities to architecture. I consider it as a media very similar to sketching where ideas can be vomited onto a piece a paper. This idea can then be reformed and reanalyzed through a sequence of processes.

How does architecture play a role in the image of the technological city?

Architecture becomes the product of technology because essentially this technologic city has transformed the space in which society lives through this media. Technology is just that material or detail to develop a certain experience of space to the city. 

How does architecture play a role in the integration of technology and people?

I would consider that architecture is such a broad field to deal with that technology can be part of the architecture or seen as the architecture of a certain location. The question I think should be “Is this architecture which involves the technology has connections with its surroundings”?

“From the manipulation of light and space in the work of Francesco Borromini or Guarino Guarini, to the fugitive tectonic effects of Mies van der Rohe, to the extensive spatial elaborations of Hans Scharoun, architecture's tangible presence is always informed by a corresponding virtual field. Only by creatively examining the role of the architect in these changing urban economies can architecture evolve the means to reengage the world”

How does architecture translate the virtual, into the physical?

I believe that there is always a certain loss of information when attempting to translate the virtual design to the physical simply because the advantages of the virtual world are the inconsideration of physics. As well as the manipulation of materials are much more feasible than in the physical world.