ABSTRACT
A datascape is a type of architectural landscape that reflects external demands placed on it. The Dutch firm MVRDV developed the notion of datascapes as pragmatic, yet unconventional, form responses to the myriad of data (chatter) and constraints that are imposed from without. As a reaction to the abstract and theoretical concerns of many contemporary practices, MVRDV focuses on the down-to-earth realities of a project, and in particular, the rules and regulations that supposedly limit it. It is clear that regulations impose unintended uniformities in the urbanscape. One can guess the governing development rule by observing the datascape that it has generated. The simplest is the height restriction. Because of the law that restricts the height of buildings to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet, Washington D.C. has no tall buildings, yet land is limited and costly, resulting in a uniform building datum, a “datascape.” The artificially precious town of Seaside in North Florida has a number of buildings that follow the strict rules intended to promulgate a version of a nineteenth-century New England seaside town, yet manage to subvert the intended conceit. The cottage designed by Leon Krier (Figure 42) is a good example of bucking the intended datascape (Figure 41).
