Floating Architecture

Matt conway

Excerpt from Issue No.7: Float:

“With the proliferation of software libraries, we are no longer subject to corporate software or limited to the ideological software binaries, as architects learned to use the compass, blue prints, and CAD, we are now learning to loop, recurse, and condition using code.

While Hara’s ARCHITECT is possible through IEEE 754 floating point arithmetic, it owes its conceptualization to another kind of floating, that of ukiyo and the concept of worldly impermanence. The impermanent ukiyo is given a place in the architect's repertoire by the unexpected agent of IEEE 754. Now the larger datasets that riddle architectural invention such as economic conflict, social unrest, stylistic decline, or international conflict can be integrated into a software’s increasingly impermanent contexts.”

Matt Conway is a lecturer at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. His research work focuses on programming literacy and exploring architectural design through contemporary digital methods such as scripting, animation, and game engines.