Thing-Shapes

Author: Winka Dubbeldam Year: 2006 (reprint; original essay 2002) Source type: chapter Raw file: raw/chapters/dubbeldam_2006-thing-shapes.md

Summary

Winka Dubbeldam's "Thing-Shapes" (originally published in Architectural Design, vol. 72, no. 2, 2002, pp. 26–31; excerpted here at pp. 28–30) reprinted in Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader (eds. Mark Taylor & Julieanna Preston, Wiley, 2006, pp. 96–101), postulates that while materials currently "trace memories through their surface," they will become "mnemonic interactive surfaces in literal and philosophic ways." The proposition issues from a collapse of the subject–object and interior–exterior dichotomies, yielding "a set of intelligent layered responsive subjects and interiors." Drawing on Husserl's The Origin of Geometry — phoronomic shapes, "horizon-exposition," and the coinage thing-shapes (spatiotemporal shapes with "material" qualities, whose surfaces are "more or less 'smooth'") — and on Deleuze's Bergsonism (the right problems, genuine differences in kind, real time), Dubbeldam argues that in the network economy architecture must become generative: "not as a static device but as a set of inventions; not as literally moving objects but as surface registrations of force fields, smart systems and programmatic mappings." Boundaries become creases — "a hard-soft space allowing for local conditions," malleable "not unlike cartilage between spinal cord fragments" — exemplified in the essay's thought experiment of a three-layer integral motorcycle helmet (hard shell / intelligent foam / animated body) and in her built Aida Hair Salon (2000, Upper East Side, Manhattan), whose "smart wall" wrapper encapsulates all programmatic requirements so that "creases allow for local insertions." The essay closes on the thesis that "bodies are seen not as objects in themselves but as integral parts of a system of thing-shapes with layered smooth surfaces, generating and regenerating space."

Key Claims

Architecture is "by nature a 'slow' profession"; only avant-garde movements and technological inventions have challenged "traditional craftsmanship, proportional systems and aesthetics" (p. 96) — while industrial design "with its speed of innovation in industrial-design technologies provides for a smoother and more intereffective relationship between design and the life it houses than does architecture" (p. 98).
The computer has accelerated mass media into digital electronic communication whose "tendency towards specialisation and individualisation has fragmented the mass society of the postwar period into a society of niche cultures"; "Demassified niches, says Alvin Toffler, commandeer the space of the Internet" (p. 96).
"Increasing globalisation is transforming our cities into physical expressions of global economies in which only the traces of local cultures remain" — producing "a new hybrid condition" in which "the relationship between local and global is constantly adjusting" (p. 96).
Architecture is "situated precisely between the real and the virtual" — "challenged, yet it resists" (pp. 96–97). Via Deleuze's Bergsonism: the first challenge is "the statement and creation of problems (the right problems)," the second "the discovery of genuine differences in kind," the third "the apprehension of real time" (p. 97).
"The departure from a static perception of history (Husserl) and the proposition of a generative future (Deleuze) is where Deleuze and Husserl seem to overlap"; in the present condition "we find a collapse of the generative past and of the to-be-generated future, where the posing of probabilities and/or the right problems makes us active participants" (p. 97).
"In mathematics there is a crucial difference between the 'thing' and the mathematical model of the thing": mathematicians "study and define the state of the thing; this in turn defines the validity of the calculus applied, and thereby the definition of the thing itself" — hypotheses (e.g., the manifold, higher dimensions) researched "by using animated computer simulations"; "This overlap of the virtual and the real is where new propositions lie" (p. 97).
The corporate world has abandoned 1980s marketing for a "prognosis of probabilities: the flux and behaviour of global network economies, emerging immigration patterns and urban settlements" (p. 97).
Via Kevin Kelly, "A space, unlike a place, is now an electronically created environment, subject to a multiplicity of real and virtual pressures," possessing "a different kind of bigness, rampant clusterings, peer authority and re-intermediation" (p. 97) — a network-economy redefinition of the space/place distinction.
"In this network economy, architecture has to become generative – not unlike phoronomic shapes as discussed by Husserl which imply the existence of generative structures out of which new similarly named constructions grow" (p. 97).
Husserl's "horizon-exposition" names "departures from the historical in which the activity of free variation runs through the conceivable possibilities of the life-world, giving rise to a general set of elements that go through all the variants of spatiotemporal shapes" (p. 97).
The spatial construct is generated "not as a static device but as a set of inventions; not as literally moving objects but as surface registrations of force fields, smart systems and programmatic mappings" (p. 97).
The "organismic paradigm": "an organism is characterised by its immanent patterns of organisation" — comparable to Leibniz's monads and Hegel's Begriff; "These internal organising phenomena occur on all levels: in social interaction, in individual behavioural processes and in nature. Time and space relationships are inseparable; memory irreplaceable" (pp. 97–98).
Husserl (via The Origin of Geometry): in the world of "things" "all things necessarily [have] to have a bodily character"; pure bodies are "spatiotemporal shapes [with] 'material' qualities… related to them" — named 'thing-shapes' — whose surfaces are "more or less 'smooth,' more or less perfect," "registrations that strive for gradual perfection"; "proceeding from the factual, an essential form becomes recognisable through a method of variation" (p. 98, quoting Husserl).
"The generative aspects of integral architecture activate these surfaces into a hybrid system of layering… The politics of layering, creasing and wrapping activate zones and environments where boundaries are negotiated and distinctions are blurred" (p. 98).
The motorcycle-helmet thought experiment: a hard shiny protective shell with movable transparent visor and active sun-filter; an "informed, intelligent layer" of foam that "negotiates… the shell's hardness and the biological frailty of the body," "constantly providing and adjusting"; and "the animate body; or the animated body, the modulated void – a fragile unit… a space to be occupied, a free zone, undefined in use but specific to its environment" (p. 98). "The trace of efficiency of use, the memory of comfort allows for an organic formulation of space, thus negotiating desire with facility" (p. 98).
"Existing subject-object and interior-exterior dichotomies and hierarchies collapse, presenting us with a set of intelligent and layered objects, surfaces and skins, and a set of supple, responsive and connected subjects and interiors" (p. 99) — the essay's thesis.
Objects/subjects and exteriors/interiors are "constantly retooling and optimising each other"; "Nonhierarchical and boundaryless, it is along this labyrinthine smooth surface that we now constantly renegotiate and remake our contingent private and public architectures" (p. 99).
The crease: "Located in between at the incidence and co-incidence of modern life, we find the crease. The crease is malleable, soft, adaptable and multidimensional. Not unlike cartilage between spinal cord fragments, it allows for flexibility and precise adjustment" (p. 99); it "works between and conflates the requirements of the urban and the individual, demanding minimum space and providing maximum comfort and efficiency," conflating "mathematical behaviour with industrial precision into a set of smart layers, hybrid structures" (pp. 99–100).
Built case — Aida's Hair Salon (2000, Upper East Side, Manhattan): "the wall as a smooth wrapper enveloping all functional requirements and leaving the space free of clutter; its creases create a sculpted void to be occupied by the clientele. The wrapper starts at the facade as a folded smooth stone surface; it transforms, softens and continues as it folds inside" (p. 100). The wrapper encapsulates "storage, music, lighting, heating and cooling systems"; "All evenly distributed: a free zone" (p. 100).
Manifesto passage: "Fade out the individual. Transgress the liminal space between the private and the public. Disavow the Internet's illusory Utopias of neutrality and democracy. Inhabit the slip between former dichotomies… producing a space that is at once grotesquely beautiful, intimately public, urbanely private and tactilely cerebral" (p. 100).
Final thesis: "Bodies are seen not as objects in themselves but as integral parts of a system of thing-shapes with layered smooth surfaces, generating and regenerating space" (p. 100).

Connections

Concepts: thing-shapes · crease · interactive-architecture · boundaries · inside-outside-dialectic · smooth-and-striated-space (the "smooth surface" as material register, distinct from Deleuze & Guattari's spatial distinction) · life-world · thing-ontology · memory · trace · hybrids · interiority · embodiment · lived-body · flexible-interior · interior-design · interior-architecture · temporality · liminality · space and practiced-place (space/place via Kelly)

Authors: dubbeldam-winka · husserl-edmund (The Origin of Geometry: phoronomic shapes, horizon-exposition, thing-shapes) · deleuze-gilles (Bergsonism: problems, differences in kind, real time) · taylor-mark-preston-julieanna (Intimus editors, framing headnote)

Debates: static-vs-dynamic-architecture (the generative-surface antecedent: "not as a static device but as a set of inventions… surface registrations of force fields") · interior-design-vs-architecture (the speed claim: industrial design's "smoother and more intereffective relationship" against architecture's "slow" profession)

Related source notes: Shape shifting (Taylor 2018) — the responsive-environment paradigm Dubbeldam prefigures in 2002 · Proximities (Taylor & Preston 2006) — the Intimus framing · The Dialectics of Outside and Inside (Bachelard 1958/2006) — the inside/outside dialectic Dubbeldam declares collapsed · Habit and Inhabit, Stuff and Trash (Spuybroek 2025) — the thing-ontology spectrum Dubbeldam's Husserlian "thing" line joins · Technologies (Carraher 2018) — the digital-praxis strand

Direct Quotes

"Architect and academic Winka Dubbeldam postulates that while materials currently have the ability to trace memories through their surface, in the future they will have the potential to act as mnemonic interactive surfaces in literal and philosophic ways." (editors' headnote, p. 96)

"[T]his proposition emanates from a collapse of the subject-object and interior-exterior dichotomies resulting in a set of intelligent layered responsive subjects and interiors." (p. 96)

"[B]oundaries are no longer barriers but are interactive; they are creases – a hard-soft space allowing for local conditions." (p. 96)

"The smoothness of the interior registers a relationship to the human body so that they are part of a system of 'thing-shapes.'" (p. 96)

"Architecture is by nature a 'slow' profession. Only through avant-garde movements and technological inventions has it challenged notions such as traditional craftsmanship, proportional systems and aesthetics." (p. 96)

"Increasing globalisation is transforming our cities into physical expressions of global economies in which only the traces of local cultures remain." (p. 96)

"The differentiation between the 'right' and 'wrong' problem and the introduction of real time is of interest here. The departure from a static perception of history (Husserl) and the proposition of a generative future (Deleuze) is where Deleuze and Husserl seem to overlap." (p. 97)

"In our present condition we find a collapse of the generative past and of the to-be-generated future, where the posing of probabilities and/or the right problems makes us active participants." (p. 97)

"In mathematics there is a crucial difference between the 'thing' and the mathematical model of the thing. While geometry defines itself in absolute values, mathematicians study and define the state of the thing; this in turn defines the validity of the calculus applied, and thereby the definition of the thing itself." (p. 97)

"A space, unlike a place, is now an electronically created environment, subject to a multiplicity of real and virtual pressures, described by Kevin Kelly as possessing a 'different kind of bigness, rampant clusterings, peer authority and re-intermediation.'" (p. 97)

"In this network economy, architecture has to become generative – not unlike phoronomic shapes as discussed by Husserl which imply the existence of generative structures out of which new similarly named constructions grow." (p. 97)

"Husserl's notion of 'horizon-exposition' refers to departures from the historical in which the activity of free variation runs through the conceivable possibilities of the life-world, giving rise to a general set of elements that go through all the variants of spatiotemporal shapes." (p. 97)

"[T]he generation of a spatial construct not as a static device but as a set of inventions; not as literally moving objects but as surface registrations of force fields, smart systems and programmatic mappings." (p. 97)

"This generative, process-oriented approach is the basis and definition of the organismic paradigm – an organism is characterised by its immanent patterns of organisation." (p. 97)

"These internal organising phenomena occur on all levels: in social interaction, in individual behavioural processes and in nature. Time and space relationships are inseparable; memory irreplaceable." (p. 98)

"'Traditionally, we call body that part of substance that is caught in the sack of our skin' (Bernard Cache)." (p. 98)

"He describes these pure bodies as 'spatiotemporal shapes [with] "material" qualities … related to them' and names these 'thing-shapes.' Specific for these thing-shapes in their relationship to the human body are their 'surfaces – more or less "smooth," more or less perfect' – registrations that strive for gradual perfection." (p. 98, quoting Husserl)

"The politics of layering, creasing and wrapping activate zones and environments where boundaries are negotiated and distinctions are blurred." (p. 98)

"Industrial design with its speed of innovation in industrial-design technologies provides for a smoother and more intereffective relationship between design and the life it houses than does architecture." (p. 98)

"The second layer, an integral foam layer, negotiates between two systems: the shell's hardness and the biological frailty of the body. Its amorphic shape is configured by negotiating the imprint of these two systems. It is an informed, intelligent layer, constantly providing and adjusting, thus achieving ultimate efficiency and an optimisation of space." (p. 98)

"The third and last layer is the animate body; or the animated body, the modulated void – a fragile unit, reflective of the soft body. It creates a space to be occupied, a free zone, undefined in use but specific to its environment." (p. 98)

"The trace of efficiency of use, the memory of comfort allows for an organic formulation of space, thus negotiating desire with facility." (p. 98)

"Existing subject-object and interior-exterior dichotomies and hierarchies collapse, presenting us with a set of intelligent and layered objects, surfaces and skins, and a set of supple, responsive and connected subjects and interiors." (p. 99)

"With these sorts of collapses and inversions, we find ourselves in the midst of objects and subjects and exteriors and interiors that are constantly retooling and optimising each other. Nonhierarchical and boundaryless, it is along this labyrinthine smooth surface that we now constantly renegotiate and remake our contingent private and public architectures." (p. 99)

"Located in between at the incidence and co-incidence of modern life, we find the crease. The crease is malleable, soft, adaptable and multidimensional. Not unlike cartilage between spinal cord fragments, it allows for flexibility and precise adjustment." (p. 99)

"[T]he hard-soft space of the crease works between and conflates the requirements of the urban and the individual, demanding minimum space and providing maximum comfort and efficiency. It conflates mathematical behaviour with industrial precision into a set of smart layers, hybrid structures." (pp. 99–100)

"Fade out the individual. Transgress the liminal space between the private and the public. Disavow the Internet's illusory Utopias of neutrality and democracy. Inhabit the slip between former dichotomies." (p. 100)

"The design for this space was based on the concept of the wall as a smooth wrapper enveloping all functional requirements and leaving the space free of clutter; its creases create a sculpted void to be occupied by the clientele." (p. 100)

"Bodies are seen not as objects in themselves but as integral parts of a system of thing-shapes with layered smooth surfaces, generating and regenerating space." (p. 100)

Open Questions

Did the "mnemonic interactive surface" ever arrive — or did the smart-material programme of 2002 become the data-collecting surface of the 2010s, where the "memory" the surface registers belongs to the system rather than the body? (Cf. interactive-architecture's authorship question.)
Dubbeldam's Husserl is a generative Husserl — the Origin of Geometry's variation method as design algorithm. Does this reading honour the lifeworld's givenness (the horizon that precedes all variation), or does it instrumentalise phenomenology as a generative method in precisely the way Husserl warned against?
Can the crease scale? The essay moves from helmet (object scale) to salon (room scale) — but the crease's logic ("cartilage between spinal cord fragments") is articulated at the body's scale. Is there a building-scale or urban-scale crease, or does the concept lose its bodily definition beyond the room?
Is the "free zone, undefined in use but specific to its environment" compatible with the wrapper that "encapsulates all of the programmatic requirements"? The essay claims both programmed infrastructure and undefined freedom — is this a productive paradox (efficiency purchasing freedom) or an unresolved contradiction (cf. Croft's "control, not freedom" audit of the Schröder House)?
"Disavow the Internet's illusory Utopias of neutrality and democracy" (2002): written from inside the tech-optimist discourse it gestures against. Does this internal suspicion anticipate the critique of the responsive environment as governance (interactive-architecture, Borch's atmospheres-as-power), or is it a rhetorical flourish the design programme ignores?
What is the political subject of the collapsed dichotomy? If subject and object are "constantly retooling and optimising each other," who or what is the agent — and does the "fade out the individual" imperative dissolve the inhabitant the interior was meant to house?