domesticating symbols looks at the entropic dissolution of symbolic structures we are experiencing today and explores various approaches towards learning to create code. Photovoltaics and its capacity to capture energy by coding instead of exploitation of resources, and of integrating in additional or surplus quantities of energy into the ecosphere of the planet's natural balance is the central focus of this publication. Energythereby also encompasses the genuinely abstract format of electricity, which makes it possible to convert any form of energy into any other form. This is the second volume of the Applied Virtuality book series based on the Metalithicum Conferences by the Laboratory of Applied Virtuality at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich.

"SHEAVES" will not describe anything. It will not judge. It will inspire. There are no continuous texts, but a wide range of topics. How to read this book? Take the notions seriously. Search the Internet and they will lose their generalness. They will begin to speak to you vividly. Bundle these riches with the riches of other notions and they will activate each other. Also take the pictures seriously. Photograph or scan them. Use them as an index, while searching the Internet. Again, you will find rich stories. Bundle those riches, concentrate them into new identities that are interesting to you. Let yourself be inspired by the intellectual wealth of our world. You can expand it. It is an exciting adventure, demanding and optimistic.

This book shifts the frame of reference for today's network- and structure oriented discussions from the applied computational tools of the 20th century back to the abstractness of 19th century mathematics. It re-reads George Boole, Richard Dedekind, Hermann Grassmann and Bernhard Riemann in a surprising manner. EigenArchitecture argues for a literacy of the digital, displacing the role of geometrical craftsmanship. Thus, architecture can be liberated from today's economical, technocratic and bureaucratic straight jackets: from physicalistic optimization, sociological balancing, and ideological naturalizations. The book comprises a programmatic text on the role of technology in architecture, a philosophical text on the generic and on algebraic articulation, and six exemplary projects by postgraduate students in 2012 at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Treatise on digital architecture Hovestadt's treatise strictly follows the model of the famous treatises by Vitruvius (De architectura) and Alberti (De re aedificatoria), based on the supposition that we find ourselves in a comparable situation today. Vitruvius and Alberti expressed the meaning of architecture in their eras: Roman antiquity and the Renaissance. Hovestadt has done the same for the present day, incorporating considerations of physics, mathematics, technology, literature, and philosophy. Books I to III deal with the role of the architect and the objectivity of architecture. Books IV to VI address the modalities of speaking about and encoding architecture: the secret, the public, and the private. Books VII to X are dedicated to actual digital mechanisms: artificial intelligence, natural communication, gnomonics, and cultural heritage. An architectural treatise for our age in 10 books Inspired by the works of Vitruvius and Alberti Published in three volumes in the Applied Virtuality Book Series, Vol. 19, 20, and 21

In The Digital – A Continent?, the author argues in favor of a way of thinking about digital technology that draws on the new materialism. She uses photosynthesis and nuclear fission as examples of processes that are as artificial as they are natural to explain how digital technology can be viewed within the paradigm of a ‘communicative physics’ in which poetics interacts with mathematical thinking. The author concludes that we can better understand ourselves and digital technology by developing notions of the multifaceted ways energy, form, and intellect interact in global architectonics. Theoretical consideration of digital technology Visual language and science New volume in the Applied Virtuality book series

Edited by Ludger Hovestadt and Vera Buhlmann Applied Virtuality is a book series which is edited by Ludger Hovestadt, ITA Institute of Technology in Architecture, ETH Zurich, Switzerland and Vera Buhlmann, Technical University Vienna, Institute for Architectural Theory. Based on the thesis that technology changes character over time, the series aims and scopes are to reflect that change by describing and analyzing the most recent explorations and innovations in technology, as well as their implications for a more philosophically comprehensive understanding of technics in our contemporary symbolical, information saturated, climatic environments. The overall interest thereby is to (1) affirm the mightiness of the generic without embracing homogeneity as a necessary consequence, (2) to affirm calculation, computation and automatization without embracing the reduction of human intellect to mechanisation without arcane esprit, and (3) to oppose in principle the contemporary attitude that tends towards a certain "intellectual chicness" that seems to rather narcissistically celebrate itself in a strangely detached competition for "critical divination" of soon-to-be-expected cultural doom and decay. With the birth of abstract/symbolic/universal algebra in the late 19th century, many scholars associate a fundamental crisis that affects human culture at large. We owe all of our contemporary electric and information-based infrastructures for living to these developments in mathematics, and it is no coincidence that we tend to find the symptoms that point to the manifestation of this crisis in the changes this new form of technics imposes on the people who begin to rely on it. This crisis is classically conceived as a crisis of intuition (Hans Hahn, Edmund Husserl et cetera). But from a more appreciative stance towards the sheer unlikeliness and fantastic power of intellection which is at work everywhere in the reality of such media-ized living environments, we might just as well see in this characterization an anxious (even if all-too understandable) misconception of the critical developments we are experiencing. From this stance, the sheer prominence of this misconception today indicates what appears like a certain fatigue of thinking, perhaps an exhaustion-through-overwhelming of our collective power to imagine. We mean no offence by saying this. Let us illustrate more concretely: John Orton maintains in his book Semiconductors and the Information Revolution: Magic Crystals That Made IT Happen, that "as a human achievement," semiconductors ought to "rank alongside the Beethoven Symphonies, Concord, Impressionism, medieval cathedrals and Burgundy wines and we should be equally proud of it" (2009, p. 2). Why is it, indeed, that this demand feels odd? Of course this lack of appreciating our current form of technics is owed partially to its abstractness and the degree of expertise it seems to demand from us. But has this not been the case for any of the abovementioned artifacts we all meanwhile hold as precious and dear? We hope to find the right dosage of irony and humor that seems so necessary for theorizing technics, arts, intellection in a manner that seeks to escape (1) the servile irresponsibility that attaches to programs of mechanization, as well as (2) the narrow-mindedness and missionary commitment that attaches to ideological doctrine and programmatic. By celebrating moments of intellectual quickness, with our interest in theory and abstraction, we pursue a genuinely comparatistic approach. We regard artifacts as theoretical objects, constituted by the intelligible codes and symbolic grammaticality that give them consistency. But we don't see the reality of artifacts in the white spectrum of these codes and symbols; rather, we see their reality in that which is enciphered thereby. The ambitions of a comparatistic approach to theory strive towards an alphabetization and literacy of these codes.

In his 1979 essay The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge philosopher Jean-François Lyotard noted that the advent of the computer opened up a stage of progress in which knowledge has become a commodity. Modernity and postmodernity appear as two stages of a process resulting from the conflict of science and narrative. As science attempts to distance itself from narrative, it must create its own legitimacy. This paper takes up this challenge with a focus on the question of imagery. The image is precisely what modern science seeks to free itself from in its quest for absolute transparency. This transparency is examined from the perspective of architecture, drawing on arguments from philosophy, quantum mechanics, theology and information theory. Natural science in the context of postmodernism Quantum mechanics and information theory New volume in the Applied Virtuality book series

In Natural Communication, the author criticizes the current paradigm of specific goal orientation in the complexity sciences and proposes an alternative that envisions a fundamental architectonics of communication. His model of "natural communication" encapsulates modern theoretical concepts from mathematics and physics, in particular category theory and quantum theory. From these fields it abstracts precise concepts such as to constitute a terminological basis for this theory which offers the opportunity to open up novel ways of thinking about complexity. The author is convinced that it is only possible to establish a continuity and coherence with contemporary thinking, especially with respect to complexity, through looking into the past.

Free thinking, unconstrained by facts The book is based on the thesis that we live in a world of abundance, full of natural riches, and cultural artifacts, full of human intellect and powerful technologies. Our thinking, however, is dominated by the opposite, the notion of scarcity. The limits of nature act as an inevitable necessity. In his book, David Schildberger adopts a novel approach to the subject of resources, with the help of intelligent instruments that introduce new foods, such as chocolate made from cocoa cell cultures, and even a fruit-bearing vine raised far from a vineyard. With his imagined scenarios, the author invites the reader to dare stretch their intellectual imaginations and ultimately presents nature as a contingent. Conceptual models on the subject of nature and alternative ways of producing food Recommended reading for architectural IT specialists New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

Treatise on digital architecture Hovestadt's treatise strictly follows the model of the famous treatises by Vitruvius (De architectura) and Alberti (De re aedificatoria), based on the supposition that we find ourselves in a comparable situation today. Vitruvius and Alberti expressed the meaning of architecture in their eras: Roman antiquity and the Renaissance. Hovestadt has done the same for the present day, incorporating considerations of physics, mathematics, technology, literature, and philosophy. Books I to III deal with the role of the architect and the objectivity of architecture. Books IV to VI address the modalities of speaking about and encoding architecture: the secret, the public, and the private. Books VII to X are dedicated to actual digital mechanisms: artificial intelligence, natural communication, gnomonics, and cultural heritage. An architectural treatise for our age in 10 books Inspired by the works of Vitruvius and Alberti Published in three volumes in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

Digital technology and architecture have become inseparable, with new approaches and methodologies not just affecting the workflows and practice of architects but shaping the very character of architecture. This compendious work offers a wide-ranging orientation to the new landscape with its opportunities, its challenges, and its vast potential. Contributing Editors: Ludger Hovestadt, Urs Hirschberg, Oliver Fritz Contributors: Diana Alvarez-Marin, Jakob Beetz, André Borrmann, Petra von Both, Harald Gatermann, Marco Hemmerling, Ursula Kirschner, Reinhard König, Dominik Lengyel, Bob Martens, Frank Petzold, Sven Pfeiffer, Miro Roman, Kay Römer, Hans Sachs, Philipp Schaerer, Sven Schneider, Odilo Schoch, Milena Stavric, Peter Zeile, Nikolaus Zieske Writer: Sebastian Michael atlasofdigitalarchitecture.com

Digital technology and architecture have become inseparable, with new approaches and methodologies not just affecting the workflows and practice of architects but shaping the very character of architecture. This compendious work offers a wide-ranging orientation to the new landscape with its opportunities, its challenges, and its vast potential. Contributing Editors: Ludger Hovestadt, Urs Hirschberg, Oliver Fritz Contributors: Diana Alvarez-Marin, Jakob Beetz, Andre Borrmann, Petra von Both, Harald Gatermann, Marco Hemmerling, Ursula Kirschner, Reinhard Koenig, Dominik Lengyel, Bob Martens, Frank Petzold, Sven Pfeiffer, Miro Roman, Kay Roemer, Hans Sachs, Philipp Schaerer, Sven Schneider, Odilo Schoch, Milena Stavric, Peter Zeile, Nikolaus Zieske Writer: Sebastian Michael atlasofdigitalarchitecture.com

How does coding change the way we think about architecture? This question opens up an important research perspective. In this book, Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an "infinite flow" of real books. Focusing on the intersection of information technology and architectural formulation, the authors create an evolving intellectual reflection on digital architecture and computer science.

In this anthology with contributions about architecture, media, and infrastructure technology, the authors investigate in what multifaceted way architecture and information is in tune with contemporary technology, and in what way we live with them. The book is divided into following parts: BREEDING (medialising matter), BREATHING (transcending language), and INHABITING (making things inhabitable). The compilation of various text contributions creates a lexicon of 'naturing affairs' and is written for readers who look for an inspiring overview of our medialised environments.

The Atlas of Fantastic infrastructures deals with the characterization of architecture, media and digital infrastructure. In concrete terms, it deals with the materiality of buildings and the intangibility of data. While technical or functional studies often tend to "flatten" the multiplex phenomena, the author speculatively propose four abstract prisms: 1) AFFAIR WITH PHANTOMS - who do we want to meet in a digitally mediated space, and what kind of conversation/activity will we have?; 2) PARA-DESIRE - where do our surreal desires live, and what are their strategies?; 3) MEDIATED SPACE CATALOGUE - what kinds of data, information, things, spaces and places are available in the world, and how our activities blend them?; 4) GIFTS OF THE GARDENS - how can an idea enter physical reality, and what are the pathways of such becomings? The author examines buildings and projects by Toyo Ito, Philippe Rahm, Olafur Eliasson, Greg Lynn, MVRDV, Electroland, Troika, NOX, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and others.

Professor Ludger Hovestadt's Institute for Computer-Aided Architectural Design at the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich) is widely regarded as one of the world's most important institutes currently working at the interface between architecture and information technology. The combination of these two makes it possible to see architecture no longer as a separate sphere of technological reality but rather as one element of a society based on information technology. As a universal tool, the computer encourages one to think in terms of information structures and systems that span individual fields. This "rethinking" of the nature of architecture is leading to a paradigm shift at the methodological level of design, planning, construction, and economy. After a decade of experimentation, it has now become possible to see information technology for architecture as the basis for a new and energy-saving practical approach to building. This publication presents the work of the chair for CAAD using numerous examples - from the spectacular Monte Rosa Alpine hut of Andrea Deplazes to the residential development of KCAP.

Imagine a world where the power is always on, where there is not just enough energy, but an abundance of it. Such a world is no Utopia, it is a possible reality. Using indefinitely available sources of energy - especially photovoltaic solar, in combination with others - and networking this energy, much in the way that we have networked information, we can get beyond our current energy 'crisis' and resolve it. The world we then find ourselves in is not a world without problems - we will face new challenges on the way - but in terms of energy it is a world of plenty. Rooted in sound theory and based on technology that is available now, A Genius Planet offers an accessible but detailed and insightful perspective on how we can free ourselves from our dependency on natural resources and generate, trade, and use energy in ways that open up the genuine potential that we have at our disposal today.

Symbolizing Existence deals with the current rapidly happening "deterritorialization" of everything which was once regarded stable and binding.