[.ca] New Flatness: Surface Tension in Digital Architecture (ISBN 3764362952)

Depth is brought to the surface:
After the Moderne with its dominating theme of transparency andthe postmodern with its absolute flatness of façades to whichImperiale assigns a "lack of depth", depth is brought to thesurface. The interaction between shell and contents corresponds to thecontemporary idea of our own body. Our skin being the largest organ wepossess is experienced as a mirror of the inside and is increasinglybeing regarded as a filtering membrane between the inside and theoutside. In this small book, six chapters mention and introduce allrelevant theses. After comparisons with examples from art, the secondchapter is dedicated to architectural surfaces as successors to mediawalls. Folds, theories of Deleuze and the consequences of animationsoftware have led to topological surfaces such as the Klein bottle orthe Moebius strip. The digital technologies are explained briefly butclearly, from NURBS and hybrids to liquid-crystal surfaces. The fourthchapter is dedicated to the interface between the virtual and the realworld. The concluding remarks and outlook are brief and ask questionsconcerning representation in today's architecture...