Reconfiguring the Soft Operation Field

Architecture of Collective Metabolisms

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59490/footprint.19.1.7497

Abstract

The evolution of architecture calls for a redefinition of materialism, urging a departure from deterministic systems towards non-linear causality and systems far from equilibrium. This entails recognising the dissolution of human-inhuman boundaries and advocating for tactile and sensory bodies that initiate metabolic changes by penetrating environments. Isabelle Stengers critiques the tendency to frame thought within pre-existing planes, labelling it as stupidity, and advocates for an architecture that proliferates rather than condemns.

With this article, we propose to explore architecture’s singular conditions through the concept of trans-scalability, akin to transitioning from micro-subatomic to macro scales. We look at what enables transitions between scales, agents, fields and the realms of theory and practice. Additionally, we scrutinise how spatial construction practices, influenced by non-cartographic scale considerations and engaged with micro-subatomic dimensions, can impact contemporary architectural practices. To illustrate this, we present an alternative approach to transscalability through the work of Rachel Armstrong. With this new material reading, our aim is to view architecture as an interface between the world’s multiplicities and to explore how an architectural practice more attuned to the intersecting dynamics of various fluxes can be realised. With this approach, we aim to contribute to perceiving the world through its unstable and temporary material dimensions, thereby resisting stupidity.

Author Biographies

Eda Yeyman, Istanbul Technical University

Eda Yeyman is a PhD candidate in architectural design at Istanbul Technical University (ITU). She is also a teaching assistant at MEF University, where she teaches design studios and courses in the undergraduate architectural design programme. She graduated from ITU and completed her master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania with a Fulbright scholarship. She has worked as a teaching assistant in architectural project studios at both the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan. She has participated in several architectural design competitions and received awards, most recently with the architecture collective ‘The Unhuman’, which focuses on speculative and research-oriented architectural projects. Her PhD research explores intersections of alternative architectural practices, interscalar conditions in architecture, posthumanism and experimental architecture.

Ayse Sentürer, Istanbul Technical University

Ayse Sentürer is a professor of architecture at the Istanbul Technical University. She teaches architectural design studios and diploma projects at the undergraduate school and gives courses and supervises theses at the architectural design graduate programme.  She conducts research at the intersection of architectural theory, design and criticism, including representation and aesthetics. She has participated in numerous conferences, panels, exhibitions and received awards. Apart from ITU, she has run architectural design studios and participated in juries in various countries such as the US, the UK, Germany, France, Hong Kong and Portugal, as well as at schools including Harvard GSD, New School: Parsons School of Design, the AA, Brandenburg TU-Cottbus, and RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). She has written articles on architecture, architectural, urban and rural design, and education.

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Published

2025-06-20

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 1 (2025): Issue # 36 | Who’s Stupid Now: Architecture, Intelligence and Transdisciplinarity

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Article

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