Having just acquired the new AD entitled Elegance, edited by Ali Rahim & Hina Jamelle of Contemporary Architecture Practice, I felt compelled to comment on the once over I gave it straight from opening the Amazon box. Besides the fact that the actual word “elegance” (or some form of it) is used with a 10:1 ratio to other words in the book, it makes some interesting provocations. It is actually one of the first instances that I have seen which begins to cite taste as critical to tactful project. One of it’s main propositions is that, simply using a new technique (digital or otherwise) to realize a design, does not make it good. In fact, it argues that the way we are moving cares less about the technique itself, but rather the methods and strokes with which it is applied. Scripting (as a technique), to the author, becomes a way to resolve complexities in context, form, space and metrics through a tightly knit group of associations that rely on one or more similar organizations. It also advances the notion that as we become more attune to the complexities produced by synergistic systems, the act of “reading” the process is of non-importance compared to the feeling evoked by the project.

MS