Architecture addresses social structures which are a product of subjective structure; while a "common-sense", psychological interpretation might be that social structures are necessary to keep individual instincts under control, a more psychoanalytical consideration suggests that in fact social institutions and structures are created by the structure of the subject. Hence, for example, rather than the judicial system being in place to help us keep our violent urges under control, it is a product of obsessional structure and creates the illusion that all of us are animalistic creatures who would lose control were it not for the system.

The Western subject seems to have a need for an historical view, a plot-line as it were, a notion of the subject as having been caused. A perspective makes things bearable - we need to have a comfortable sense of inside versus outside. Yet, as we know from psychoanalysis, it is not that simple. We are divided, not complete, subjects and certainly not subjects with an inside and an outside. Perhaps good architecture should remind us of this, but gently, not without an element of surprise or even a degree of uncanniness, and when we are ready for it - like a good analyst. The essays collected in this volume explore the issue of psychoanalysis and architecture from varying and differing angles, attempting to shed light on the relation of the unconscious to the built environment, and vice-a-versa.

This issue brings together five essays by Philippe Morel. The first (Notes on Algorithmic Design) relates to a collaborative design work and shows the nature of the exchanges to which it led. Two of them were written for magazines or revues (Notes on Computational Architecture, N Extensions to Extension of the Grid), two for public presentations ( A Few Precisions on Architecture & Mathematics, Some Geometries). There is of course an artificial side to bringing these essays together. However, each was the sign of an interest for common contemporary questions, the relevance of which no longer needs to be demonstrated, whether it be the use of mathematics and of the algorithmic in architectural design or the implications of these same disciplines in production in the wider sense. [From the Introduction by Philippe Morel]

Pattern took place as part of Architecture & in October 2006, initiated and organized by Ana Araujo, the lead guest editor of this issue of Haecceity Papers. Araujo teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture and is currently completing her doctorate on pattern, hysteria and architecture as part of the PhD by Architectural Design. Araujo's introduction sets out a conceptual framing for understanding the interdisciplinary nature of pattern, drawing connections and making distinctions between the eight essays included here. [From the Foreword by Dr Jane Rendell]

AVATAR is fundamentally interested in research concerning the impact of advanced technology on architectural design, however it also contributes to discussion on issues such as aesthetics, philosophy and cybernetics. This guest-edited edition of Haecceity Papers showcases some of the original approaches to architecture that AVATAR has fostered in recent years. ...[From editor's introduction - more]

The texts and projects developed in the Antipodes / Measuring the World workshops and documented here all challenge, in different ways, the cartographic conventions of mapping as a static and codified form of representation, to propose a reconsideration of mapping as dynamic process. The research proposes a wider redefinition of 'mapping' as an active process of making space that employs and goes beyond cartography, and is in itself already a 'project'. It suggests that it is necessary to look away from the specifics of architecture, and focus on mapping as a process, in order to better understand the possible implications of mapping in architecture. ...[From editor's introduction - more]

With the recent deaths of first Jacques Derrida, and then Philip Johnson two figures who in different ways and with differing legacies influenced the course of architectural speculation during their respective careers in our time we wish to ferment a speculation on the present and future direction of architectural consciousness and subjectivity as it bears on critical and creative practice today, in light of their deaths, and in light of the varying stances of criticality in architecture today. ...[From editor's introduction - more]