The Philosophy of Dumbness

This is the dumbest smart book on contemporary architecture. What really is this 'technology' that we speak of? How do we define 'intelligence'? These are just two of the questions that this book attempts to answer through the unconventional (and seemingly ironic) lens of 'dumbness'. Historical examples in science, art, and architecture ground 'dumbness' as a means to convey a trajectory to practice 'smarter'. Instead of a singular authoritative vision, over 50 contributors answer the question, 'What is the dumbest, but smartest thing you've done?' These unique responses provide a vivid lens into the culture of contemporary architecture and the rigour behind it.

List of contents

008 What Is the
Question?

008 Techne Is a Possible
Answer

014 Start Simple
018 Be Irrational
020 Don't Forget to Forget
022 Notes

024 What Is the
Dumbest, but
Smartest Thing
You've Done?
024 An Anti-Manifesto
026 Exploding Dumbness:
Happy Mistakes Breaking
a Poorly Built Drawing
Machine
- Jonah Ross-Marrs

028 Modest Computation:
Programming Drawing
Assistants
- Carl Lostritto

030 Wirrwarr
- Ju¿rgen Mayer H.

032 The Not So Obvious,
Obvious
- Robert Silance

034 The Unexpected Result
- Ted Krueger

036 Low-Tech Is "a" Future Too
- Joseph Choma

038 Surviving Logic
- Mark West

040 Niche Problems for
Transformative Solutions
- M. Wesam Al Asali

042 Dumb
- Coy Howard

044 Weatherizing
- Catie Newell

046 Measuring the Intangible
Qualities of Light
- Siobhan Rockcastle

048 A Siteless Start
- Joyce Hwang

050 Selbstverständlichkeit
- Fabio Gramazio

052 Dumb Megaliths
- Brandon Clifford

054 Complex Simplicity
- Michael Ramage

056 The Power of Lo-TEK
- Julia Watson

058 Climatic Architecture,
Meteorological Urbanism
- Philippe Rahm

060 Impermanence
- Rahul Mehrotra

062 Architecture's Products
- Curtis Roth

064 "Mismatch" or Process
of Dumbness
- Stefan Behnisch

066 How I Sparked Outrage
- Winy Maas

068 Get a Job
- Marc Manack

070 The Prairie House:
Disrupting Divisions
within Space and Time
- Herb Greene

072 The Beauty of Dumbness:
Wooden Bracket System
in East Asian Timber
Structures
- Jae Kyung Kim

074 Tectonic Inversion:
"Upside Down at the
Bottom of the World"
- Nader Tehrani

076 Levels of Complexity
- Ben van Berkel

078 The Immanence of
Oscillatory Collapse:
Reflections on Tweaking
Vortical Filament
- Patrick Harrop

080 (A)Voiding
- Patrik Schumacher

082 When Philosophy
Becomes Fun
- Mark Foster Gage

084 In Part Whole
- Gilles Retsin

086 Smartly Dumb Geometry
- Masoud Akbarzadeh

088 Breaking the Box
- Cecil Balmond

090 Serendipity
- Chris Williams

092 Challengers
- Jefferson Ellinger

094 Building Blocks
- Joseph Tanney

096 Dumb(ness) Rules
- David Riebe

098 Carbon Sink Marks
- Allison Dring

100 Warped Transitions
- Bruce Danziger

102 Cardboard
- Hitoshi Abe

104 The Smartest Dumb Thing
- Marlon Blackwell

106 The Dumbest Mistake
- Sean Godsell

108 Zero Detailing
- Brian MacKay-Lyons

110 Accidental Tradition
- Roberto de Leon
- Ross Primmer

112 Dumbing Up
- Michael Boucher

114 Silent Form
- William O'Brien Jr.

116 Soft Focus
- Michelle Chang

118 Dumb Architecture
- Hilary Sample
- Michael Meredith

120 "Yes, I Will, Yes"
- Caroline O'Donnell

122 My Favorite Mistake
- Anthony Ames

124 Dumb Rules!
- Jeannette Kuo

126 The Misfit
- Kivi Sotamaa

128 How Dumb Became Smart
- Dominique Jakob
- Brendan MacFarlane

130 Seven Point Manifesto
for Explorations of In
- Steven Holl
- Dimitra Tsachrelia

132 The Scramble Manifesto
- Florian Idenburg
- Jing Liu

134 It Is What It Is
136 Acknowledgments

About the author

Joseph Choma is the Founder of the Design Topology Lab and an associate professor of architecture at Clemson University. He is the author of Morphing: A Guide to Mathematical Transformations for Architects and Designers (Laurence King Publishing, 2015) and Études for Architects (Routledge, 2018).

Summary

This is the dumbest smart book on contemporary architecture. What really is this technology that we speak of? How do we define intelligence ? These are just two of the questions that this book attempts to answer through the unconventional (and seemingly ironic) lens of 'dumbness'.

Product details

• Authors: Joseph Choma
• Publisher: Oro Editions
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.11.2020
• EAN: 9781951541378
• ISBN: 978-1-951541-37-8
• No. of pages: 140
• Dimensions: 237 mm x 183 mm x 16 mm
• Weight: 542 g
• Illustrations: 100 Illustrations, color
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Art > Architecture