Literal and notional force fields in architecture

The contemporary recycling of biological analogy in architecture, in tandem with computational techniques of parametric design and building information models, raise the prospect of a return to a twenty-first century version of biotechnical determinism. This current dalliance with morphology and optimisation, raises the wider issue of how architecture has typically engaged with science: is the use of metaphor or other looser translations more likely to stimulate innovative practice than literal application? This question is considered here in relation to a particular case-the notion of the field, as informed from developments in nineteenth-century physics. An episodic tracing of the influence of field concepts takes in Italian Futurism, urban morphology and the topological to suggest the potency of a multi-various interpretation of science for architecture. The essay concludes with an argument for the concurrent evaluation of the quantitative and the qualitative, through performance simulation and mixed-reality visualisation. That utilisation of a range of analogue and digital technology may enable the balanced evaluation of design quality, architecture conceived in metaphor and poised between pragmatics and poetry. © 2011 The Journal of Architecture.