Reconfiguring the Soft Operation Field: Architecture of Collective Metabolisms

The evolution of architecture calls for a redefinition of materialism, urging a departure from deterministic systems towards non-linear causality and systems far from equilibrium. This entails recognising the dissolution of human-inhuman boundaries and advocating for tactile and sensory bodies that initiate metabolic changes by penetrating environments. Isabelle Stengers critiques the tendency to frame thought within pre-existing planes, labelling it as stupidity, and advocates for an architecture that proliferates rather than condemns. With this article, we propose to explore architecture’s singular conditions through the concept of trans-scalability, akin to transitioning from micro-subatomic to macro scales. We look at what enables transitions between scales, agents, fields and the realms of theory and practice. Additionally, we scrutinise how spatial construction practices, influenced by non-cartographic scale considerations and engaged with micro-subatomic dimensions, can impact contemporary architectural practices. To illustrate this, we present an alternative approach to transscalability through the work of Rachel Armstrong. With this new material reading, our aim is to view architecture as an interface between the world’s multiplicities and to explore how an architectural practice more attuned to the intersecting dynamics of various fluxes can be realised. With this approach, we aim to contribute to perceiving the world through its unstable and temporary material dimensions, thereby resisting stupidity.