CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION 7 INTRODUCTION 9 1 FORM AND MATTER 11 The life of an atom The three states of matter-gas, fluid, solid Time and the gradual flow of all things The processes of equalization - high to the low, hot to the cold, etc. The cell - building from within Crystalline structure -building from without Dehydration, rot, erosion, wearing, oxidation Agents of wear The surface - a near and distant view Idiom of the material Grain, wood and wrought iron New materials, their manufacture and forms 2 STRUTS AND TIES -The Elements of Structure 30 The necessities of economy: getting the most from the least The forces that determine form: Tension, Compression, Bending, Shear, Torsion. Tension structures, flexible and light Compression structures, solid and heavy Animal structure The bird: a masterpiece of structural unity Man's sophisticated structural forms The triangle, the sphere and the dome The future structures, strength through flexibility 3 SIZE 54 Relative magnitude and absolute magnitude Forms of the very small Form without gravity The very big and the laws of dynamic similarity Patterns of life in the big and small Work and movement - the advantages and disadvantages of size Man's building and size 4 THE FORMS OF FUNCTION 73 Form and function, follow but never catch The selective process at the marketplace The concept of function, not an absolute but a point of view The specialized - a highly adjusted form The multi-purpose - a generalized form Tradition, a block to form function alignment Cross-functionalism - for one cause, but against another Trans-functionalism -to unite opposing causes Function, time and change - all things go through the following process: Equilibrium - remaining static within a time-frame Dynamic - the inevitable change Creative - the old gives rise to the new Form, function and economy, why some forms endure 5 THE GENERATIONS -Influences from the Past 86 The first tools The sequence of discovery, invention and influence: Primary mutation - initial discovery with alteration Free mutation - an improvement to the newly discovered Substitution - change of materials Cross-mutation - borrowing of ideas Independent discovery vs. diffusion of technology True creations, causing something to exist that has never before existed The end of diffusion and the beginning of a trans-social knowledge Inbred and out-crossed knowledge From animal to mechanical power Residual forms, the leftovers from change 6 THE ECOPHENOTYPIC EFFECT-The Form in its Environment 102 Alteration of form through its use, growth and functioning within an individual environment Artisans' manufacture product individuality The workshops and the mills - a more generalized production The factory system, mass production, division of labor, standardization and interchangeability, The manufacturing process only as the beginning, the user-generated product 7 TELEOLOGY-A World Unity 113 The holistic view of the physical world The response of all things to the same laws A visual examination of unifying principles: Fibonacci series Golden mean Symmetry Stream lines Space partition 120 degree intersection Close packing Hexagonal network 8 CHANCE AND THE IRRATIONAL 130 The dictates of chance The things that don't exist because of chance, but should exist A theoretician's landscape; a terrain of peaks and valleys through which the evolving product travels, buffeted by chance, to end upon an adaptive peak. Notes 136 Bibliography 140 Index 142