Architecture’s Awaking from Correlationist Slumber: On Transdisciplinarity and Disciplinary Specificity

Abstract

Perception cannot be considered independently of the environment since it is defined as an evolved adaptive and constructive relation between the life-form and its milieu. Unfortunately, experimental psychology research has relied overwhelmingly on object perception, rather than environment perception, with the findings of the former providing the basis for understanding the latter.

Architectural research continues to suffer from this fallacy. Furthermore, to separate the ‘cultural’ from the ‘natural’ environment – as if there were a world of mental and a world of material products – is a fatal mistake. There is only one world. The paper explores J.J. Gibson’s unwitting affiliation with Deleuze. The most notable point of convergence between the two thinkers is their more or less overt theory of ‘passive synthesis’ of perception with which they vehemently oppose, or better yet complement, the active synthesis of representation.