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

Non-Design

“Non-Design” is a term proposed by Diana Agrest in her essay “Design versus Non-Design” to describe objects and environments that are the products of unconscious “design”, such as the vast “random” collection of the “units of meaning” or “sign-fragments”1 that constitute the urban-scale built environment. Distinct both from conscious, intentionally “Designed” objects and from products of accident or nature (Not Designed), a Non-Designed object, environment or system is one that has been built through (human) agency, but which is being studied at a scale (spatial or temporal) which removes the consciousness of any single human designer from consideration. Thus, settlements or vernacular architectural schemes (Architecture without Architects)2 may be analyzed as Non-designed products of large, long-spanning forces of climate and or social culture. In her essay, Agrest suggests that the (urban) realm of the “Non-Designed” holds potential as a site of semiotic exploration of the many different “cultural systems” (Design-culture is one such system) that go into its production. Similarly, Rem Koolhaas’ essay “Enabling Architecture” illustrates the city as a collection of buildings, yet also an entity distinct and aloof from the singular object of the (avant-garde) building which insists on its individuality.3 Culture, Agrest writes, is a mode of social discourse of signs (and meanings) directed towards the public. As a form of cultural production, Architectural design is a society’s production of meaning, and the ‘random’ aggregation of architecture that is the urban environment therefore also contains “aleatory plays of meaning” to be read. In Agrest’s model, everything of the built environment is read as a product of either “design” or “non-design”. Analysis of the built world through this binary categorization will, Agrest posits, allow for 1) the elucidation of the cultural systems which interrelate at varying intensities to produce the objects (called “texts”) of the built environment, 2) An understanding of these cultures’ relative differences; the levels of specificities of ideological code which characterize a text, 3) An understanding of the dynamic “active” relationships that operate between cultural systems; specifically the ways that metaphor and metonym are used in design culture to link cultural systems to produce meaning.

1. Diana Agrest, “Design Versus Non-Design,” in Oppositions, No.6 (Fall 1976), pp 45-67.
2. Bernard Rudofsky, “ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT ARCHITECTS A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Distributed by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1964
3. Rem Koolhaas, “Enabling Architecture,” in Robert Somol (Ed.), Autonomy and Ideology: Positioning an avant-garde in America (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1977), pp.292.