Anexact paths: Computation, Continuity and Tectonics in the Design Process

This chapter attempts to unfold the aspects of a design approach aimed to channel the full potential of complexity-grounded paradigms and self-organization based strategies applied through computation and algorithmic approaches, with a focus on (but not limited to) architecture. Computation is a necessary precondition to the whole discourse, not an inert tool but an integral part of the theoretical/operational apparatus, both vessel and medium of the design exploration, considering algorithms as modes of thought, logic as aesthetic operation and the implications of the inevitable limits of computability. A design process grounded in computation calls for a radical redesign of itself, a paradigm shift encompassing its full gamut, conception to fabrication. This implies an extended definition of tectonics, an intensification and redeployment of the decisional pattern scale at the metabolic level, a consequent remapping of the involved personas and a transcending of the designing- making divide.