Appropriating an architectural design tool for musical ends

NURBS (non-uniform rational b-spline) modelling has become a ubiquitous tool within architectural design praxis. In this article I examine three projects that utilise NURBS modelling as a means for which a musical system's inherent spatiality is visualised. There are numerous precedents for which architectural form is a derivation of a musical system, or a musical system is proportionally informed by architectonic gesture. I propose in this article three NURBS modelling methodologies: for the spatial analysis of Karlheinz Stockhausen's sound projection geometries in Pole fur 2; for a spatial realisation of John Cage's indeterminate work Variations III; and for the generation of a surface manifold informed by musically derived soundscape data from the Japanese garden Kyu Furukawa Teien. Rather than seeking to translate music into inhabitable architecture, or architectonic form into music, I highlight an approach that produces an interstitial territory between discourses on architecture and music analysis.