Abstract

A consequence of the concern for a sustainable future is that the number of experts needed to be included in the imaginative stage of architectural modeling is rising. This motivates a better understanding of the conditions for the possibility of transgressive collaborative plural imagination in architectural modeling. This dissertation is an argument for the thesis that the intermediation enacted by the materiality of the architectural representation of a project constitutes an underestimated condition for the possibility of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborative architectural modeling in complex projects. The thesis frame this as a process of mutual intermodal metaphorizing of a superimposed aggregate of ontologically incommensurable intra-representations projected on the situation by participants belonging to different practices. If the process of projective modeling is understood as mutual iterative appropriations of the aggregate that result in a sufficient set of shared material, discursive and experiential referents, the collaborative aspect of the modeling can be better understood. The thesis is grounded on a critical discussion of the ontological assumptions embedded in five previous practice theory discourses: Logical inferencing from first principles, Representation of the imaginary, Materialization of discourse, Performative materiality, and Intermediation of practices. To discloses those embodied biases those practice theory discourses are diffracted through a sustainable urban design project for a housing district. The hypothesis resulting from the critique is tested as a theorizing in the making with a practice experiment with plural imaginations for housing innovation with sharing of resources. The conclusion is that the understanding of collaborative modeling as a mutual process of intermodal metaphorizing intermediated by the architectural intra-representation can guide practice to become more transgressive.