Positive Parametricism

Speaker 1

All right, I would like to introduce our next presenter is Ralph Spencer Steamblick. Ralph is a graduate student at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and his thesis work is in neuromorphic architecture as well as compact urbanism. Thank you very much for being here.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Thanks. Appreciated the words of the last speaker. Very interesting thoughts.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Urban citizens of the 20th century were adapt at describing the In great detail, how to positively influence the progress of urban living and of the city. But it is up to the urban dwellers of the 21st century to translate these ideas into reality.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

In the closing remarks of his essay, Lightness, Italio Calvino makes an interesting point. We shall face the new millennium without hoping to find anything more than we ourselves are able to bring to it.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

This is an image of the assembly line, which is indicative of the 20th century. We got really good at creating replicas of the exact same thing. Assembly line manufacturing became a way of life for us. And today we live in that world where we can replicate anything at low cost. in mass quantities.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

But I submit that there’s a need to move beyond beyond the assembly line productivity of the 20th century into an ecosystem mentality in the 21st century.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

This is a diagram showing the power consumption of a city in Abu Dhabi, the first zero-carbon emission city in the world. Covered by the New York Times recently, they’re breaking ground on the city this year. This shows the way that the city utilizes energy, but not just utilizes it, but uses the waste product of the energy production as a resource for other systems.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

If we take these ideas and translate them into our societal norms, make them a part of who we are and what we do as a society, becomes very powerful. We talk the sustainability, the ability to minimize our carbon footprint and tread lightly on the earth. It’s not a matter of that. The more important thing to consider is making our waste products into a resource for other systems, other entities, other companies. And that’s where we become truly sustainable. We can tread as lightly as we want, but we’re still going to have a waste product. But if we can make our waste products into a resource for others, then they become highly efficient systems. That are then, like I said, truly sustainable.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So how do we accomplish this? This is an image of a swarm. And all many of you know of swarm theory, the idea of organization of Decentralized organization and spontaneous organization, as I said.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So the way that we are able to move towards a model of decentralized organization is through Our ability to act as a whole, as an entity, not as individuals, but as a conglomerate, a unit. Together.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So I submit to you, what is transhumanism? Many people would tell us that transhumanism, as some of the slides of previous presenters, a strange conglomerate of people and machine, but I submit to you that it is superorganism, the hu superorganism of the human family.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

And through organization strategies such as these we as a swarm, we are able to move towards transcending our abilities as individuals and becoming what we can as a superorganism.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So we look at these as a dynamic system. As we look at this as a dynamic system, as a way to relate to each other in flow, in motion. And I’d like I bring this these slides of atomic motion and of solar radiation. To help us understand or to bring to mind the ideas of dynamics or of motion in time and space, and then harnessing that motion for the greater good of the whole.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Let’s look at this more in depth. I would say that many of the theorists of swarm theory, of chaos theory, Tell us that we all of the things that we need in order to act in dynamic groups self-organized, decentralized groups is are in place except for one thing, and that’s a common value system.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Postmodernism broke down the hierarchies of society, made it so that we no longer have value systems in society are no longer valued, essentially. And that’s a good thing because it brings brings up the minority, brings the minority group to the center of society and gives them an equal playing field. with the majority, right? But at the same time, it destroyed all those value systems that were inherent with the hierarchy that was present.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So With that issue at hand, I’d like to move towards something that I feel Is a solution to that problem. Here you see mission control. And my solution to this problem deals with this idea. The idea is that

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

that self-organization must happen with loc localized, synergistic, value-based groups. Self-selection is key and value-based So organization is key.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So with the postmodern society and values being devalued, that becomes an issue. So there’s a necessity to reinvigorate society with value systems, to recognize the value systems that we currently have, capitalize on those systems and move forward as self selecting groups that that adhere to these value systems. So not one group is necessarily more important than the other, but but those people who have the common common value systems need need to be able to self-organize. To make these decentralized organization systems possible.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

You see this, an example of this, in chat forms, like Twitter groups and you know, all all these types of medias. But I I think that those are are um passive approaches at a pro at at s self organization.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

To me, this mission control situation Becomes a type because the way to get these self-organized groups is to make them mission critical. And the way that you can make a mission critical situation is through that value system. The value system drives the criticality of the mission. And therefore, these self-organized entities will then have a trajectory. So the value system is critical. Once you identify the value system, then you’re able to move forward with it.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So let’s look at something that I have coined positive parametricism. And I’m going to tear apart this term and just dissect it for a second.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Positive, coming from the prefix of positive Psychology, dealing with the move away from diagnosis or focus on the negative psychological situations in the world. We’re moving towards embracing and understanding the the positive psychological emotions that we have in our life, diagnosing those, learning how to understand them, learning how To enhance them and moving towards an assertive study instead of a regressive or a study that that’s reactive.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So and then the second term, pa uh parametricism. Okay, wait, excuse me.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So so let’s look at um Abraham Maslow, who Originally called psychology to this move of positive psychology, forgotten for many years, and then Seligman, Marty Seligman, reintroduced the idea later. Abraham Maslow said, let let us as a psycho psychological s uh group move up the the hierarchy to a self-actualization, but let’s do it within our profession. Let’s actual actualize the profession of uh psychology and move to a positive psychology. And that’s where Marty Seligman came in.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

And we see this being proliferated in business schools and all sorts of different societies and disciplines and organizations in the world, this positive adaptation to things and applying the an assertive mechanism as opposed to a regressive or a regressive situation.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Now let’s look at parametricism. It’s a really pixelated image, but um this is Patrick Schumacher on the on the left and Azaha Hadid on the right. Both architects. Uh Azaha Hadid is um is British and of Arabian royalty, and Patrick Schumacher is her lead architect. And he and they’re involved in something that I call uh they they they call parametricism.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

And parametricism is parameter-based design. So it’s looking at using the parameter or using parametric modeling to create opportunities. Five minutes.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

To create uh create different solutions for one design problem, and then taking uh the best of those solutions from their parametric modeling and then moving forward with that.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So let’s look at positive parametricism. Well, actually, so Patrick Schumacher, he states parametricism is a style. And I submit that there is deeper principles That are able to be applied than just a style. And let’s look at that.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So here is a basic breakdown of hierarchies of different of the way that people organize their belief systems. And I say that that let’s move away from the style back to the ideological level and let’s analyze that.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Here we see parametricism, positive parametricism, broken down into parametricism, which is what Patrick Schumacher Brings forward value-based spontaneous organization or positivity, which is a Maslownian principle. and we get some basic principles for positive parametricism.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Dynamics. Dynamics become key, important, fundamental. And and let’s look at some examples of that.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Here we have a di uh an example of a dynamic model. Uh this is um a model from Cohen, Peterson and Fox, where they looked at this is uh ultimately the design of a a train terminal, but they’re looking at sun patterns and using these points of reference to do dynamic modeling with it.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Here are some examples of my own, some screenshots from some particle dynamics modeling. that I used as a form finding generator for some architectural projects that I’ve been I work on.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Now let’s look at holistic the holistic nature of positive parametricism. There’s a need, well, let’s see here. Within

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Within the mind, there are four different portions. There’s memory, perception, thought, and action. these tenets of positive parametricism fall into those four categories and are holistic in that way.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

And the holistic A holistic portion of positive parametricism is the need to address memory. to look at the broader scope of things, to look at the minorities as well as the majorities, have them represented and come together in multidisciplinary groups to solve problems.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Then lastly is collaborative. Before we move on to collaborative, let’s go into holistic for a quick second.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

The title of my speech was Positive Parametricism And and phenomenology. Phenomenology is a study in architecture of the metaphysical properties of space.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

So here are some quick examples or a quick run through throughout history of this this this phenomenon. So here we have Nero with the domus aurea aurea, and he used his palace as a tool for exploring spaces, for understanding different spaces and as a laboratory for spaces.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

The humanists did the same thing. They tried to create the perfect human space. and they were fairly successful at it. Not not perfect, but fairly successful.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Next we have um the Nuremberg Rally, and they cre he uh the architect there created a virtual space with the spotlights. People said that it was a very emotionally moving event, and part of that had to do with the space that they were dwelling in.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

Richard Neutre, he would diagnose his clients and then prescribe architecture for them.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

We have Christopher Alexander getting into the dynamics of cities and how how metaphysics and the city correlate.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

And then we have dynamic modeling in today’s world through many examples.

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

And then lastly, we have collaborative. The collaborative nature of positive parametrics is

Ralph Spencer Steenblik

These three principles together applied give us the opportunity to move forward as a race, as a superorganism, becoming, transcending our abilities and our humanity towards a superhumanality or a transhumanism, as I would say. Through a a p uh positive parametricism, I feel that we’ll be able to get there and that we as As self-organizing groups, we’ll be able to better tackle the problems that face the world today. Thank you.