Geometries with agency: mathematics of form revisited

Journal article, 2021

Architectural production relies on form that can be drawn, quantified, and analysed through geometry. The incorporation of calculus-based form in the 1990s and the more recent incorporation of physics simulation has pushed the edge of formal and mathematical analysis, as well as of architectural production. Yet, mathematics remains largely invisible in the current landscape - rarely addressed in discourse and hidden behind software interfaces in daily practice. As Antoine Picon has noted, architecture has unprecedented access to mathematical objects, while at the same time remaining indifferent to its relation to mathematics.