Impossible and Hyper-Real Elements of Architecture

Carl Lostritto is an associate professor and graduate program director at RISD Architecture. His teaching, practice, and research explores the intersections between computation and representation.  Viola Ago is an Albanian architectural designer and researcher. She directs MIRACLES Architecture and recently held the Wortham fellowship at the Rice University School of Architecture. Julie Kress is a lecturer at the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Architecture + Design. Her work straddles across realms of architecture, exhibition design, and research in digital media. Hans Tursack recently served as the MIT Pietro Belluschi research fellow. His writing and scholarly work have appeared in Perspecta, Pidgin, Thresholds, Log Dimensions, Archinect, and the Architects Newspaper.

9 Acknowledgments
11 Introduction
CHAPTER 1
19 Bits Mapped
21 The Pixel
23 Constructing Elements in Pursuit
of Impossibility
25 1988, the Year of the Pixel
31 Pixel Creating Cultures
40 Preserving the Pixel, Releasing Style
from Technology
45 The Contemporary Binary Bitmapped
Surface
48 Draw by hand within the space of
a digital image
78 Resolve to true or false with tons
of information
CHAPTER 2
83 Every Grid is Material
BY JULIE KRESS
87 Every tool is Pre-Gridded
89 Every Grid is Aesthetic
94 Every Grid is Constructed
99 Every Grid is Imposed
102 Build and Break a Scaffold
105 Every grid wants to go on infinitely
107 Every grid has mass
112 Contain a Grid
115 Every grid does not need to be
the same
118 Un-Standardized Fixtures
CHAPTER 3
123 Using a Tree to
Represent a Tree
127 Bonsai is an Action and an Element
128 Books About Bonsai are Like
This Book
129 The Tree Behind the Tree
133 Designing Tools to Control or Release
Natural Randomness
140 Random Salt Crystals
142 Who is the “User-Author”?
143 Using Software the Wrong Way
149 A Tree Yet Rendered is Three
Hundred Text Files in a Folder
150 Sometimes a Tree Looks Nothing
like a Tree
154 Everything is Bonsai when in Pursuit
of Bonsai
156 Over Time, of Time
159 The Pot is a Diorama
CHAPTER 4
165 A Room that Becomes
a Diorama; A Diorama
Afflicted with Room Envy
167 Almost but not Quite a Diorama:
The Room, its Powers, and its Limits
172 Model your space with every regard for
detail and no regard for accuracy
173 All Apertures Become Dioramas
184 The Room as a Diorama
188 Model from Memory
189 American Landscape as Diorama
196 Like (Performed) Magic
208 Can a Diorama be Separated from
Its Content?