ABSTRACT
NT: We were part of the project, and Greg identied us with the category of “assemblage,” for which he used the Tongxian Brick project as an example. He wrote a great essay on that project, but by the time he wrote it we were already involved in a host of other things, so we could have t into other descriptive slots that were probably less convenient for his venue. I still think Greg’s argument is strong, but I think our work has taken on other conceptual categories that preoccupy me more now. e intricacy argument is unable to identify the many hurdles, stumbling blocks, and frictions that come with the architectural process. For example, one of the most easily identiable hurdles is how one introduces a threshold – like a door – into a material and geometric system that does not tolerate industry standards, on the one hand, nor the formal peculiarities of a system on the other. e door is a great issue that many people have taken on, some by transforming a system, and others by introducing an anomaly within the system. If you want to make a strong thesis, does that mean that everything should be designed, or does it mean that some objects should not be designed in order that some other architectural phenomenon can be foregrounded? ese are tactical positions that we take every day, and they suggest a dierent kind of judiciousness to what we do. e intricacy project represses these tensions in favor of a seemingly complex but nonetheless harmonious whole.
