Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies

In April 2004, Wiley-Academy published a new edition of Greg Lynn’s seminal title of , Folding in Architecture. Mario Carpo, who has written a substantial article for the preface of the new edition, considers the relevance of Folding against the backdrop of the recent Non-Standard Architectures exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The exhibition on Non-Standard Architectures [Centre Pompidou, Paris, December 2003 to March 2004] was in many ways a milestone, and the chances are it will be remembered as such. It set forth some of the technical paradigms of the new digital age in unequivocal terms: computer-based manufacturing can already mass-produce series of objects that are all [within some crucial limits] visually different from each other, and economies of scale no longer require the reproduction of identical parts. This is the opposite of the technical paradigm that came with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and was sublimated by architectural Modernism in the 20th century. Assembly lines in the computer age may deliver customised products at no additional cost: translate this into the metaphor of the machine à habiter, upgrade the metaphor from mechanical to computer-based technologies, and you wilt come to the inevitable conclusion that standardised architecture ...