Field Conditions (1997)

This essay written by Stan Allen describes the state of perceptual but often invisible tension created by a system of physical spatial markers within the area where they are sited, or at times, well beyond. In architecture, Allen's ‘field conditions’ are meant to favour a mode of composition that transcends the long-standing rift between classical and modern theories of form. The term ‘field conditions’ is a reassertion of architecture's contextual assignment. Field conditions moves from the one toward the many: from individuals to collectives, from objects to fields. A complete examination of the implications of field conditions in architecture would necessarily reflect the complex and dynamic behaviours of architecture's users and speculate on new methodologies to model programme and space. Field conditions and logistics of context reassert the potential of the whole, not bounded and complete, but capable of permutation.