Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design

7 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy

The title ought to be as modest as it can, since it attempts to record what possibly hap-
pens when the “virtual and topological” parameter is introduced within an experimental
educational process of architectural design to some step of its development and not to
its starting point. The question asked in the proposed paper is how, where and when the
absorption of the “virtual and topological” by this educational process of architectural
design is taking place. More clearly, this question provokes a discussion for exploring,
whether this absorption is identified as a perspective or as a technique.
The proposed discussion is based on the conceptual material of an experimental edu-
cational process of architectural design through the Platonian notion of "play" (Tentokali
2005). The theoretical perspectives of this experimental process stem from a compound,
heterogeneous, contradictory and not ideologically coherent, and therefore slippery,
Derridean and Deleuzean background: compound and heterogeneous, since it is com-
posed by more than one perspectives, different by origin ̇ contradictory and not ideo-
logically coherent, because some of its component perspectives contradict each other ̇
slippery, not only in Deleuzean terms, but also in terms of the intrinsic inconsistency
of the contradictory perspectives. The reference of the philosophical thought, classical
(Plato) or contemporary (Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari) to the content of the proposed
educational process, is not a new condition for architecture. Architectural discourse
has traditionally been interconnected with philosophy, directly or indirectly, in one or
in another way, particularly nowadays, when this interconnection became intrinsically
reciprocal. From the plethora of all the interdisciplinary branches-perspectives converg-
ing within this “colorful” and multiple background, two are going to be presented here:
The “textual” of Derrida and the “differentiating“ of Deleuze.

A “textual”perspective

Under the realm of post-structuralism and specifically of Derrida's deconstruction, in
a very schematic way, it could be assumed, that on one hand architecture adopts philo-
sophical, literary and psychoanalytical methods or concepts, while on the other philoso-
phy, literary criticism and psychoanalysis deal with the architectonics of the “text”.
Derrida’s deconstructive work arose out of a fundamental critique of humanist dis-
courses and their conceptions of subjectivity and language. The complexity of his work
has resulted in a variety of def initions and interpretations, although Derrida himself
explicitly denies any definition of his deconstructive discourse. His own words, that he
investigates “the law which governs the desire of the center in the constitution of the
structure” (Derrida 1976, 28), were defined and interpreted from many epistemological
aspects and origins, of which only one is investigated here.
The deconstructive endeavour of J.Derrida is to “decentre” discourses, such as the
three types of centering: “phonocentrism”, “logocentrism” and “phallocentrism”. These
types of centering consist of binary systems or opposing pairs such as: speech-writing,
culture-nature, mind-body, form-content, good-evil, presence-absence, man-woman,
life-death, being-nothingness, light-dark and so on. “In these traditional pairs of oppo-
sition there is no peaceful coexistence of opposing terms but a violent hierarchy. The
f irst term dominates the other (axiologically, logically, etc), and occupies the com-
manding position. To deconstruct the opposition is, above all, at a particular moment,