nine strict order strategies
‘This organizational system tends to colonize a space from the introduction of punctual elements arranged in coincidence with the intersection points of a regular grid. Its main laws, isotropy and equidistance, allow a neutral, generic and potentially infinite development, while the generated space remains open and continuous for free interpretation
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‘An opposite way of acting involves the materialization of the straight and perpendicular lines of the grid to introduce precise limits and define abstract rooms without distinctive characteristics or pre-established uses. The dual autonomous and interdependent condition of the frameworks allows for the establishment of a generic matrix of separate but interconnected equivalent spaces that finds flexibility through exchange and adaptability.
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‘A third interpretation operates neither with the dots nor with the lines but with the resulting square areas converting the ‘matrix of units’ into the back of the grid. The square is the main generative element, its contiguous repetition defines a set of autonomous units that acquire independence in their contour relating by distance and similarity.
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When the construction of the grid lines acquires thickness and specificity, they become technical and operative walls, signifying the natural evolution of the ‘non-specific frames’ by incorporating the minimum and necessary infrastructure in order to activate new uses. This strategy decides to concentrate the architecture on the perimeter expressing a special respect for the void.
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‘Columns cease to be a punctual and exclusively structural element in order to widen and acquire their own area. Little by little they are transformed into technical, service or habitable spaces, rearranging their mass to create opportunities. No matter how much their footprint increase, their orderly disposition over the cartesian space remains intact.
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‘This strategy consists in defining space not from walls but from dotted lines revaluing the column as a fundamental element. Principles such as repetition, interval and regular sequence of vertical elements arranged in rows generate an idea of rhythmic order and virtual limits with the ability to organize space from the perimeter
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‘The square seems to be the most abstract and elementary architectural form, its simplicity and clarity have the power to reorder the order of things once their limits have been defined. The implicit restriction on its fixed and unalterable edges enables working with a variable interior operating in a centripetal way through disciplinary mechanisms of pure geometry.
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‘When the grid becames a geometric support, it establishes a generic field of action through which to move according to certain rules in order to delimit an area and define elemental forms in a precise way.
Through regularity everything fits to its order principle, restricting the experimentation of soft and subjective figures, with the aim of ridding the problem of form in simple, timeless and recognizable solutions.
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‘Visible or imaginary, the grid remains expectant as a neutral background layer without hierarchies, a playing field with precise norms and rules for the proper arrangement of architectural elements. The combination of points, lines, planes and figures allows infinite compositional possibilities maintaining a logical order and rational organization between the parts of a whole.
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* Brief extract from “Supra Order” research by Iñaki Harosteguy.