Michal Piasecki’s blog

deriving methodology from classics

I’ve been working for the Msc AAC on a paper which looks at the possibilities of devising a research methodology based on D’Arcy Thompson’s Cartesian Transformations Method (”On Growth and Form”, 1918), which would be relevant to the call for science of buildings expressed in Philip Steadman’s “Evolution of Designs” (1979). The above is a quick processing sketch written in order to visualize the first step of the imagined “Transformations Method”. The base drawing is a floor plan of Paris Opera House, which comes from Durand’s comparison of the forms of theaters contemporary to him, done in 1801. Steadman refers to Durand’s work when he discusses the notion of classificatory analogy in his book.

http://michalpiasecki.com/2009/01/09/deriving-methodology-from-classics/