#contextualism

To elaborate in a semi-reductive way: imagine the brain and its functions while putting a pin in the above text. In my view, the brain acts as a reality interpreter.

Think of your eyes and vision. You might say, "I can confirm with someone else that we're seeing the same thing." (i.e; a 'red' apple)

And that's true, relatively speaking. You and an outside observer can correspond and compare truths to reach a shared truth: we both perceive the apple as being red. (This concept, generally, is known as the correspondence theory of truth)

But what happens when you look at an optical illusion? Let's say that you're on your phone and see a post regarding a dress that asks what color(s) the dress is: black and blue or gold and white?

My friend might say the dress is blue and black whilst at the same time I perceive it and whole heartedly believe that it's gold and white. Some of the more clever among you might respond to this by saying we can check the hexadecimal color value(s) of the image, which is true. But consider that hexadecimal color is based upon the visible spectrum of light that we (you, I, others) are able to perceive. Is someone who is wholly colorblind wrong if they point out that the dress is actually gray and black? Because they can't perceive the same colors that you and I can?

"Yes!" I can hear the contrarians among you say. Well, alright, let's play that game.

Hypothetically, what if everyone were varying levels of colorblind, and only you and a minuscule percentage of people could see the light spectrum that non-colorblind people can see?

What if they used your logic there and said, "Actually, a majority of people see that it's gray. If we check with hexadecimal color, we can see that it's #00FFFF; objectively extremely gray!"

I hope you see the problem here and where the correspondence theory of truth falls apart.

This line of reasoning is known as The Knowledge Argument, which is often synonymous in conversation with Mary's Room. You can read more about it here (link to Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Digressing back to my earlier point about the senses and how the brain constructs reality:

By empirical comparisons of this manner on this matter, we can come to realize that what we perceive is not how reality appears, but rather how it appears relative to us. (And our senses.)

Back to optical illusions: surely you've seen a few. Take for example The Checker Shadow illusion (Wikipedia link)

The two squares are the same color. Yes, your eyes and brain are fooling you. Why is this? Well, to put it simply, your brain (the aforementioned reality interpreter) unconsciously takes the qualia (the subjective experience/phenomenon of viewing the illusion) and fills in the gaps based upon contextual information available to you. Thus, resulting in your perception of the squares being different colors.

The brain does this constantly in our day to day lives. And it isn't limited to optical illusions. Olfactory, tactile, auditory, and gustatory illusions all exist. Getting a little spooky, isn't it?

So, we've arrived at a point where we can agree at a minimum that the brain constructs reality based upon our senses. But what about the truth? Before I open that can of worms, let me posit another question to you:

When you perceive daylight and your friend in Australia perceives nightlight, which one of you is correct? And which one of you is lying?

If you believe in an objective truth, then this question will stump you. You'll tell me that I'm being fallacious in my reasoning, but that's not the case. You're encountering a problem here where you're inducting objectivity onto a problem with no objective answer.

The truth in this case, and pertaining to the question, is both dynamic and relative. Your friend isn't lying, and neither of you are incorrect. The truth relative to you is that it's daytime. The truth relative to your friend in Australia is that it's nighttime. The truth is dynamic in that it will eventually shift; you will eventually experience nighttime after experiencing daytime, and your friend will experience daytime after nighttime. Neither of you will experience them at the same time unless one of you moves elsewhere to the same time zone.

Again, neither lying or incorrect.

This is the essence of what I'm getting at. Your reality and how you experience it is just as valid as any other person's, even if you have fundamental disagreements as to the nature of reality and your contrasting perceptions.

In closing: I believe that this posits many questions about the very nature of being and consciousness, and that the world as we experience it is not as black and white as various figures claim it to be. Your experience of the world is just as valid as anyone else's and vice versa.

"There are no facts, only interpretations" —Friedrich Nietzsche.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm going to bring up exactly what I covered on the ornamentation discussion board. Much like there, I think that contextual consideration is first and foremost to choosing a style. It is in this regard that I have to dismiss parametricism as an option, since it is too tied into iconicism. Eden wrote a blog post about iconic architecture that fairly well sums up my own opinions on the matter. 

I must make it clear here that I am dismissing parametricism as “THE particular style that we should be designing in” as the question asks. As will be covered later in my argument, it is still an option as long as it fulfils the other requirements that I am about to lay out. The student then went on to defend iconism, saying I should instead have said “spectacular architecture” which is more visually biased. My response to that is, you’re splitting hairs. They’re essentially the same thing, my take from history is that iconic and spectacular architecture are equally visually biased, iconic architecture simply has the social and cultural status attached to them. Looking back at my notes from history I wrote “An iconic building tends to be big, have a unique form, does something that can have bragging rights by having the best or most of something in the world” which I think is enough for me to be correct in using iconicism in relation to parametricism. In regards to the defending of iconic architecture, I suggest a reread of Eden’s blog post, in particular the point about the gentrification that the iconic nature of Bilbao’s Guggenheim brought to the city. My distaste for iconic architecture is in that it typically does not meet the values I will list below as necessary to good design. The student claims “Icons should challenge or push the collective identity to establish new imagery of place.” While I agree to an extent that if iconic architecture is to be designed, challenges the cities identity is an interesting way to go about it to allow for the continued exploration of architectural style, I don’t think that iconic architecture should be the ONLY option, just like I said for parametric architecture. If all designs were intended to be iconic, no designs would be iconic as we would be awash in a sea of radical buildings. The student defends both of these styles as if I am threatening to remove them as options all together, but all I am suggesting is that they be used in moderation and only where appropriate to what I am about to cover.

I am more inclined towards the vernacular in the sense that it has strong consideration of cultural context, but I don’t think that is entirely the way to progress either. 

Again here the student latched onto the idea of vernacular architecture, seeming to think that I was suggesting it as the one and only option we could possibly follow. If they had only kept reading before jumping to conclusions that (spoiler alert) I am advocating for every style where and when it is most appropriate to the given context.

However, while Schumacher makes all of his claims based on the idea that "the new diversity and intense interconnectedness of all social processes" is the most relevant issue to today's society, I instead propose the climate and our every increasing need to tread lightly on this planet as our biggest concern. While the human interaction side is obviously important, I think our approach in style should be one born from the desire to not kill Earth entirely. To me, this is the most important context that should define our architectural style. Of course, this means it will be different everywhere, which is in part the beauty of it.

International Style imposed an aesthetic worldwide that was entirely unsuited in many ways to the inhabitants or the climates it came into contact with. Plain white boxes that follow a set of arbitrary rules are of course not going to suit everyone. Taking into consideration the specific area you are designing in and allowing that to inform the style you choose is, to me, a far superior option.

I realise I'm talking around the question of whether a particular style might be preferable over others, and I have reasons for that. I think that once context has been taken into consideration in every regard - materials and where they will be sourced from, form and what is best suited not only to the climate (eg. Auckland weather), but to the specific site, and sustainable technologies available as per the budget and location, the rest of it be damned. I think that if all of those bases are covered, then it can be in any style you wish. As Zaina said in one of her posts, architecture school teaches us to have a reason for every decision we make, so as long as there is reason behind whatever madness you come up with, does it really matter if it looks like a 1920s bungalow, a decon monstrosity or a parametric swirly thing? I don't think so. This is in part why I take issue with Schumacher's slamming of pluralism. Why is it that the "pretence that all styles are equally "valid"" is a "pathetic abdication of intellectual ambition and responsibility"? What is so wrong with wanting variety in our cityscapes? This variety can include parametricism, but it doesn't have to be solely limited to it.