Transarchitecture

Definition

Transarchitecture names the branch of digital practice that "explore[s] the relationships between virtual and physical space" (the term is Marcos Novak's, from "Transarchitectures and Hypersurfaces: Operations of Transmodernity," Architectural Design 68.5, 1998, cited in Jacobus's notes). The concept enters the wiki through Frank Jacobus's chapter as the leading case of contemporary dematerialization: "Transarchitectures, for instance, explore the relationships between virtual and physical space. Interactive surfaces are a direct and literal example of this phenomenon, wherein the wall as a static, physical artifact begins to deliver a deeper and more complex space than that of the physical interior itself. We've begun to expect more from the physical surfaces that surround us."

The paradigm's signature is the inversion of the surface's value: a static, physical artifact that delivers more space than its physics contains. Jacobus's exemplar is the energy-harvesting floor: "Floor systems, for instance, that capture and store the energy created by human movement over the surface, are yet another example of a dematerializing of interior architecture; a conversion of the tactile into the overtly intellectual. Floors can no longer simply be a place to live or stand; what they deliver physically is now a given; their new value will arise from what they deliver virtually and intellectually."

The chapter's closing placement is historical: "Transarchitectures and hypersurfaces are to be seen as continuations of the ceaseless evolution of architectural space conception and perception from the Egyptian and Greek temples to today" — transarchitecture not as a rupture but as the third register's (see cultural-registers) continuation of the built environment's oldest communicative work.

The Broader Dematerialization Field

Transarchitectures are one of four forms in Jacobus's catalogue of contemporary dematerialization (see dematerialization):

The graphic envelope — Herzog & de Meuron's Eberswalde Library, where "the physical materiality of an exterior building surface disappears through a new graphic reading that hybridizes concrete and glass into a single unified envelope… a graphic field replaces what would otherwise be read as physical (and knowable) material."
The typological symbol — VitraHaus, which "uses the typological 'knowable house form' and suspends and stacks replicas of itself at odd angles so as to reduce its physical material reading… 'House' is here being delivered as symbol; its grounding is no longer a physical or material phenomenon, but is instead purely intellectually and culturally rooted."
Forced thinning — "So even when we do not aim to dematerialize, technologies are forcing our hands in this regard. Stone… is an incredibly thin veneer supported by an often invisible building frame."

Where the graphic envelope and typological symbol dematerialize by reading, transarchitectures dematerialize by delivery: the static artifact delivering virtual and intellectual value beyond its physical interior.

Key Thinkers

Frank Jacobus — the concept's source: transarchitectures as dematerialization's leading case, the interactive surface as "a direct and literal example," the floor's value-inversion thesis, and the continuation claim ("from the Egyptian and Greek temples to today").
Marcos Novak — the term's originator: "Transarchitectures and Hypersurfaces: Operations of Transmodernity" (Architectural Design 68.5, 1998) — the founding theory text Jacobus cites but does not develop (not yet paged — see log).
Herzog & de Meuron — the chapter's exemplar practitioners: Eberswalde Library's graphic envelope and VitraHaus's stacked house-symbol (not yet paged — see log).

dematerialization — the master process: transarchitectures as its "direct and literal" architectural form.
interactive-architecture — the paradigm transarchitectures share machinery with: the responsive surface (Taylor's dynamic interior, the Aegis Hyposurface) as the actuated cousin of Jacobus's interactive surface.
augmented-reality — the designed management of the virtual/physical relation: where Qureshi's AR hybridizes digital and analog space through interior architecture's reuse operation, transarchitecture explores the same relation from the digital side.
digital-architecture — the third cultural register's production system: digital media as the tools of the virtual layer transarchitecture delivers.
boundaries — the surface the paradigm works on: "the wall as a static, physical artifact" that "begins to deliver a deeper and more complex space" — the boundary's value migrating from separation to delivery.
The wall as interface — cf. thing-shapes (Dubbeldam's "surface registrations of force fields") and interactive-architecture (Glanville's stimulus-response audit): the question whether the interactive surface's "deeper and more complex space" is interaction at all.
typology — VitraHaus's medium: the "knowable house form" delivered as symbol, grounding "purely intellectually and culturally rooted."
simulation-hyperreality — the critical counter-register: is the surface's "new depth of readability" a delivery of virtual value or a substitution of the virtual for the real?
evolutionary-architecture — the digital vanguard Goulthorpe audits, whose projects were judged "in their capacity as 'images'" — the dematerialization thesis's precedent from inside the movement.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

Toward the immaterial interior (Jacobus 2018) — the founding source: transarchitectures exploring "the relationships between virtual and physical space"; interactive surfaces where "the wall as a static, physical artifact begins to deliver a deeper and more complex space than that of the physical interior itself"; energy floors as "a conversion of the tactile into the overtly intellectual"; and the closing placement — "Transarchitectures and hypersurfaces are to be seen as continuations of the ceaseless evolution of architectural space conception and perception from the Egyptian and Greek temples to today."
Shape shifting (Taylor 2018) — the actuated sibling: the responsive environment's sensors and actuators as the interactive surface's built paradigm (complementary source; see interactive-architecture).
Spatial therapies (Qureshi 2018) — the discipline-managed version: augmented reality as "hybridized digital/analog space," the interior architect as "a bridge between these worlds" (complementary source; see augmented-reality).

Open Questions

Is the transarchitecture's virtual depth added to the physical interior or a replacement for it? Jacobus's interactive surface "deliver[s] a deeper and more complex space than that of the physical interior itself" — deeper than implies coexistence, but the graphic envelope "eliminate[s] the physical material entirely." Which is the paradigm case?
Jacobus places transarchitectures as "continuations of the ceaseless evolution of architectural space conception and perception from the Egyptian and Greek temples to today" — a normalization that conflicts with the wiki's spectacle/simulation critique. Is the virtual depth of a wall a new cultural register (cultural-registers) or an old illusion (quadrature, per La Coe) at higher amplitude?
The floor's value thesis — "what they deliver physically is now a given; their new value will arise from what they deliver virtually and intellectually" — is an economics of the surface. Who owns the delivered value (the energy the movement generates, the data the surface harvests)? Cf. communicative-capitalism, privacy.
Does transarchitecture need the interior at all? The paradigm's cases are walls and floors — surfaces, not rooms. Is transarchitecture interior architecture's dematerialized future (Taylor's "alternate… receptacles") or a different discipline wearing its surfaces?