Who is Karl Chu?

:Karl Chu:“With the convergence of computation and genetics, he believes that we are at the threshold of a brave new world that is unfolding before us and we have yet to develop an adequate theory of architecture that engages with the deep and profound ideas inherent in these issues, which is destined to transform the world unlike anything we have seen in the history of human civilization.”

- Columbia University - School of Architecture Website

B.Arch., University of Houston, 1978

M.Arch., Cranbrook Academy of Art, 1984

:X Phylum:Karl Chu is noted for basing his Computer Renderings “on an algorithmic conception of the world.”

al·go·rithm :: (āl'gə-rĭth'əm) :: n. :: A step-by-step problem-solving procedure, especially an established, recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

:X Phylum:“Architectural design, in general, has been the outcome of a creative process ‘designed’ by an architect who invariable puts his signature into the design of buildings.”

:X Phylum:“At the present, computers are utilized mostly as a computer aided design instrument and not as a medium that has its own intrinsic dynamics and mode of information processing.”

:X Phylum:“…[X Phylum] calls into question traditional methods of architectural design and proposes a design process in which the architect becomes an inventor or constructor of formal systems as well as takes on the role of navigator of the system’s behavior over time.”

:Built Work:

:Theoretical Work:The Recursive Library :: The Library of Turing Dimension

“[Technological advancement] would require us to re-conceptualize architecture from one that depends predominantly on the construction of hardware as containers and modulators of artifacts, events and human activities to that of intelligent network systems which carry as well as engender bionic information recursively. In this regard, the conventional notion of library as a physical repository of books is called into question.”

:Theoretical Work:The Recursive Library :: The Library of Turing Dimension

“…Madonna, the material girl, long after she has departed from this material world, and after having her body and DNA patented, encrypted and transcribed into binary codes and sorted into the digital archives of the Recursive Library, will continue to sing and dance with all her provocative passion and seductive gestures augmented, no doubt, by her perpetually renewed sense of immortality.”

:Theoretical Work:The Recursive Library :: The Library of Turing Dimension

Digital Monad

“To design a new model of library that is an expression of a digital monad: a web of interconnections or an inconsistent multiplicity which grows and self-organizes itself out of random mutation of codes. As such, it will bypass conventional models of global classification systems by allowing it to develop, grow and mutate based on neighborhood relationships as well as on virtual correlations.”

mo·nad :: (mō'nād') :: n. :: An indivisible, impenetrable unit of substance viewed as the basic constituent element of physical reality

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

:Theoretical Work:The Recursive Library :: The Library of Turing Dimension

Recursion and Computation

“The studio will deploy cellular automata as a recursive engine to engender autocatalytic reactions which will be mapped to form the configuration space of the library.”

au·to·ca·tal·y·sis :: (ô'tō-kə-tāl'ĭ-sĭs) :: n.  :: Catalysis of a chemical reaction by one of the products of the reaction.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

:Theoretical Work:The Recursive Library :: The Library of Turing Dimension

Ghost of the Neuter

“As we move into the Post-human era, the library will address the digital Ghost of the Neuter, the obscure spirit of universal information processing lurking deep within the phenomenon of computation by transgressing humanist conceptions of space and thereby dive into the abyss of freedom.”

:Theoretical Work:

:Works Cited:Biographyhttp://www.arch.columbia.edu/index.php?pageData=8882/23/4/1632/

X_Phylumhttp://www.azw.at/otherprojects/soft_structures/karl_Chu/xphylum.htmhttp://www.archilab.org/public/2000/catalog/xkavya/xkavyaen.htmhttp://www.azw.at/otherprojects/soft_structures/allgemein/genetic.htm

Recursive Libraryhttp://www.arch.columbia.edu/index.php?pageData=28630

DefinitionsThe American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition