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Entelechy revisited: On the Generative Specification of John Portman’s Architectural Language
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Heather Ligler and Athanassios Economou
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Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
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John Portman, Shape grammars, Formal specification of architectural style, Isovist
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John Portman’s work attracts significant commentary, although the focus is typically on the commercial and social aspects of his work as opposed to the actual designs and their related architectural implications. The obvious place to start unpacking his contribution is in his widely recognized and published commercial portfolio, yet he maintains that his design principles are found in his personal domestic work. Here, his 1964 residence Entelechy I is analyzed to inform the development of a parametric shape grammar that generates the original design as well as a series of variations. The goal of this research is to engage Portman’s architectural philosophy and constructively assess his claims of its implicit relationship to his work to date. Key rules suggesting his principles and anticipating his ongoing architectural contribution are outlined. The structure provided by shape computation, involving both shape rules and rule schemas, is positioned as the theoretical basis for an ongoing study of transformations within Portman’s language.
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