Diagrams: Tropes, Tools, Abstract Machines

Book excerpt: Diagrams: Tropes, Tools and Abstract Machines examines the pervasive roles of diagrams as analytical, generative, narrative and critical devices manifest in design practices by architects and non-architects that draw on thick cultural milieus and that operate at personal, architectural and urban scales. What are potentials of diagrams beyond representation, as situated cultural practices, corporeal engagement and choreographic script, as instruments of speculation and invention, as manifestation of ideas and incrimination of ideology, as abstract machines in scenarios of allopoïesis, autopoïesis and cosmopoïesis?