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Figure 7.25.
architectural communication device. source: silver et al. 2001, 911.
aesthetically potent environment for the latter. But one can also conceive of
another axis of cybernetic incursion into architecture, this time concerning
the relation between the architect and architectural design tools. The classic
design tool in architecture is the drawing board—a passive object on which
the architect inscribes his or her vision. The drawing board is thus not an
aesthetically potent environment in Pask's terms. And much of Pask's involve-
ment with architecture focused on changing that situation, via the develop-
ment of tools that could adapt to and encourage the architect—again on the
model of Musicolour. This was a topic on which he collaborated with Nicholas
Negroponte at MIT in the development of what Negroponte called the Ar-
chitecture Machine—a computerized system that could collaborate more or
less symmetrically with the architect in designing buildings—turning crude
sketches into plans, indicating problems with them, suggesting extensions,
and so on.
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