D_046 database

Chris Sharples . Very Joycean. This project works as an installation. I applaud the programmatic critique for questioning the limitations we put on particular functions and readings.

Hani Rashid . An intelligent and fascinating work, with a number of intriguing possibilities. The use and misuse of tools,particularly those of representation for the architect can yield some important outcomes. Here the project attacks not only the tool, text, meaning but also installation and experience which all told make for an inspired architectural possibility. The project begs for further iterations, engaging other tools and a 'deeper' spatiality through the installation process.

Brian Johnson . ...Aspects of the basic idea seem interesting, but the piece doesn't go as deeply into it as I would like. However, of the student projects, I like this the best.

Mahesh Senagala . A timely discourse about the epistemology and ontology of "database". The word database is mostly a de-based and technical term in the field. The designers (critics?) call attention to what we take for granted: the physicality and boundaries of what is "read" (or under erasure) as a database. Very effective application of Heideggeran and Derridian technique of "erasure." This is one of the directions that the discourse about architectural computation should take. What if we read "architecture as a database?" What if architecture is not a simple database but has multiple components, some of which maybe virtual or physical or hybrid? How is such an architectural database "queried?" To what end? The authors would benefit from reading Derrida's "Archive Fever" which is essentiallly a deconstructive critique of the notion of "special databases" and their connection to psychoanalysis as well as email! Using the same methodology employed in this project, can architecture be "erased" after it is "read?" (Remember the film "Lisbon Story"?) Definitely worthy of inclusion in the exhibition.