Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

ANTI-CONTINUOUS CONSTRUCTION

In 1939, Frederick Kiesler theorized the concept of "continuous construction," a construction technique that aimed "at the reduction of joints, making for higher resistance, higher rigidity, easier maintenance, and lower costs."1 While Kiesler's goal was for the production of built forms that mimicked nature's own continuity, the result (which was never realized by Kiesler) would produce a continuous division that would intensify the division between the natural and human environments through a technological one.

This distance between nature and humankind has expanded throughout history, especially through the capitalist notions of nature as a resource or romantic attitudes of nature as beauty. This distance existed during Kiesler's time and his ignorance of the processes that would go into potential "continuous constructed" forms is natural. However, mining nature for resources often creates processes that can be called "anti-continuous construction." For instance, smelting, instead of reducing joints, takes a object from its natural landscape and melts and processes it into an infinite number of pieces that are not easily contained and inevitable are released into the continuous natural environment. In fact, most industrial processes employ some type of "anti-continuous construction" where byproducts of the processes are impossible to contain and thus infiltrate the environment in some way.

Citations
Kielser, Frederick. "On Correalism and Biotechnique: A Definition and Test of a New Approach to Building Design." 1939, Architectural Record 86. pp.60-75