Synthetic Dissemination

Abstract

Synthetic Dissemination, within the context of architecture and information culture, offers seemingly contradictory possibilities. The ends of dissemination and synthesis are at odds. The purpose of the former being diffusion and distribution, and the byproduct of the latter being quite the opposite - namely the combination and association of information into a coherent whole. The conjoining of dissemination and synthesis implies these two contradictory operations can operate in a symbiotic or complementary manner.Relative to architecture and design the combination of dissemination and synthesis is potentially profound. The marriage of synthesis and dissemination presents a possibility that the method of distributing information could be, or have embedded within it, a synthetic process. In the simplest sense synthetic dissemination implies that the tools for design and synthesis could be the same as tools for documentation and dissemination; or more specifically that the fluidity and creativity of design software could be coupled with the practicality and meticulousness of building information modelers (BIM). More abstractly synthetic dissemination implies that the means of encoding and distributing information could propagate design. Architects have readily adopted digital tools for encoding and presenting their ideas, but have not fully recognized how the informational structures of these applications promote or hinder design. Developments in the information architecture of D software, such as the shift from geometrically based data structures to procedurally based directed action graphs (DAG) as seen in Maya and DMax, have opened up innovative methods of architectural design. Each new change in the information architecture of design software ushers in new approaches to design, raising the question - how does the production and storage of information affect design? More broadly, how can the tools of dissemination facilitate synthesis?