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Beautiful Apparatus: Diagrammatic

Balance of Forms and Flows
Maria Fedorchenko
Version of record first published: 04 Dec 2008.

To cite this article: Maria Fedorchenko (2008): Beautiful Apparatus: Diagrammatic Balance of
Forms and Flows, Architectural Theory Review, 13:3, 288-305

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 Fedorchenko

Beautiful Apparatus: Diagrammatic

Balance of Forms and Flows
MARIA FEDORCHENKO
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The diagrammatic methodology of ‘infrastructural formalism’ is posed as a

potential ideological corrective to exclusive functionalist management or formal
elaboration. The case study of Arnhem Central Station by UN Studio (1996-
2010) reveals how diagrams align the development of pre-functional and pre-
formal traits. The station’s infrastructure is conditioned by flow diagnostics, yet
functional diagrams are converted into spatial geometry through a non-linear
process of exchange between imported and modulated design models. Constructs
of ‘concrete / abstract machines,’ ‘natural rationality’ and ‘good / loose fit’ serve
as the theoretical basis for new modes of endogenous design consistency. The
creative exactness of the beautiful apparatus offers an alternative way to span the
divide between operation and appearance, and consequently, to balance ethical
and aesthetic aspirations.1

Infrastructural Frameworks Versus Visual Appearances in

Contemporary Practice
A number of contemporary advanced practices emphasize alignment of their projects with increasingly
dynamic urban contexts.2 The need to relate design components to multiple communication networks
and flow patterns alters the conventional understanding of architectural projects. Reflecting the
pragmatic turn in design practice, projects are treated as local parts within larger dynamic systems of
organization. Processes of flow, change and integration take priority over compositions of static objects
and staged appearances. Faced with the need to negotiate the instability of their project sites, designers
redefine the conceptual treatment of the production of space. As a support system for matter and energy
flows, architecture is associated with the general problematic of ‘infrastructural urbanism.’3 As argued
by designer / theorist Stan Allen, this approach targets new technical and social means for managing
complex systems of flow and exchange.4 Converting a static project into a dynamic system of collection
and distribution is a way to achieve maximum effect with minimum intervention. Thus, most

Corresponding author: Maria Fedorchenko, e-mail: mfedorch@ucla.edu

ISSN 1326-4826 print/ISSN 1755-0475 online

ª 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13264820802488267
 ATR 13:3/08

infrastructural designs are configured primarily as operative scaffolds for a complex series of programs
and events. As made evident by a range of constructed projects and competition entries such as
Barcelona Logistical Activities Zone by Stan Allen (1996), Downsview Park in Toronto by OMA (2000), as
well as New York’s Highline by Field Operations with Diller Scofidio þ Renfro (2004), urban projects are
increasingly conceived as operative templates or performative ‘frameworks’ that fix organizational
principles and key patterns of movement and occupation, while letting the formal structure emerge and
change over time.5

This emphasis on the instruments of operation control might be perceived as a sign of suppressed
architectural presence of a singular form. The renewed fascination with the ability to participate in the
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dynamics of organization relies on design modes that go beyond stylistic or visual concerns.
Infrastructure-oriented practice is devoted to the direction of programmatic ‘field conditions,’ rather
than to the production of autonomous objects.6 As a means of flow organization and control,
architectural form ‘‘in-between things’’ matters more for ‘‘what it can do than for what it looks like.’’7
Such considerations of economy condition the merger of project shapes with technological support
structures. Visual appearance becomes secondary to operational interfaces, filters and transfers. This shift
in priorities is reflected in design techniques. Elevating orchestration of flows over definition of forms,
infrastructural templates are defined primarily by program diagrams.

However, designers’ preference for open-ended programming contradicts the specificity of configuration,
enhanced by particular modes of visual representation. Unstable patterns of complex systems are
converted into stable indexical traces and graphic outlines. Diagrammatic frameworks are contained by
master plans of megastructural frames. Performative imaging is accompanied by perspectival
scenography.8 Such apparent gaps between operation and appearance signal a latent conflict within the
contemporary design agenda. Explicit focus on the function of controlling devices potentially obscures
the implicit connection between the operational principles and material properties of infrastructural
space. Such an artificial disconnect tends to sustain the ideological divide between formalism and
functionalism, to the detriment of methodological flexibility.

This paper argues that the underutilized potential of diagrammatic techniques is at the core of this
predicament. While the diagram has received considerable treatment as a theoretical construct, few
studies appreciate it as a polyvalent design tool. Namely, the claim that diagrammatic infrastructures
can be both abstractions of material processes and concrete spatial structures has not yet been
supported.9 Definitions of form that are independent yet consistent with the diagrams of program are
exposed as post-facto rationalizations. Furthermore, since independent formal patterns no longer
maintain ‘good fit’ with the diagrams of function, they do not qualify as efficient solutions to
programmatic problems.10 Even when such ‘loose fit’ is declared to be a deliberate strategy, the specific
techniques of mediation between form and program are obscure.11 There is a need for inherently plastic
design systems that can accommodate both functional efficiency and formal expression. In this context,
diagrammatic applications that arbitrate static structures and dynamic flows suggest a productive way to
account for recent changes in conceptual and technical design attitudes.

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 Fedorchenko

Using the project for Arnhem Central Station by UN Studio (1996-2010) as a case study, this paper aims to
demonstrate a methodological shift enabled by the diagram. In particular, it examines the transition from
the divided patterns of program and images of form to a bi-directional relationship between various types
of operational and visual diagrams. The main objectives of this study are to address the loosened
relationship between operation and appearance and to identify particular design strategies that could mediate
between the two domains. The emphasis is on the means of transposition from one system to another:
how programmatic elements influence formal decisions and vice versa. Thus, the analysis of the UN Studio
design process focuses on disjunctions and correspondences between the systems of flow control, reflected
by the diagrams of function, and material arrangements, conveyed by the diagrams of form. Furthermore, the
study seeks to define the emerging consistency between architecture as a background support for fluid
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performance and as a foreground tool that alters and concretizes flow dynamics. Such a consistency can
serve as the foundation for a prototypical design methodology that reconciles two seemingly contradictory
pressures: how to use the instability of program for social effects and how to deploy the precision of form
for visual impact. In more general terms, it is the contention of this paper that such a versatile design
approach might resolve the opposition between ethical and aesthetic goals.

Beautiful Apparatus: Between Free Art and Urban Rules

Located at the intersection of transportation and pedestrian flows, public and commercial activities, as
well as service facilities, Arnhem Central Station is first and foremost an intricate switching mecha-
nism.12 Therefore, the expansion and reorganization proposal by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos with
their UN Studio focuses on the operational systems of this dense node. Offices, housing, shopping, bus
stations and railway platforms are all integrated into a primary system of transfer channels. Extensive
urban analysis and functional imperatives confirm that the station is developed as an infrastructural
device, conditioned by the exigencies of context. Would such emphasis also imply that the infrastructure
is meant to decrease the visual quality of the project, conceived in its narrow sense of passive scaffold
and perceived only in a ‘state of distraction?’13 Or do designers recuperate the material presence of the
station’s control system that exceeds literal representation of its mechanical parts?14 (Fig. 1).

In the case of Arnhem Central, we are faced with the peculiar coexistence of formal and infrastructural
concerns. The gradients of the circulation system are accommodated by a series of horizontal and

Figure 1 Channelling systems. Photos: Maria Fedorchenko. ª 2007 Maria Fedorchenko.

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vertical formal transitions. The dispersed transfer channels yield the continuous interfolded surface of a
streamlined object. Moreover, raised out of the perceptual background, the structural support system is
marked by visual elegance. Such a carefully constructed spectacle of an urban ‘‘nightmare turned
beautiful dream’’ is at odds with the apparent formal indifference of infrastructural urbanism.15 The
visual intricacy of the interchange device defies the presumed subordination of external expression.
Through elaboration of shape and material, the interstitial space is converted into a visual attractor.
Clearly, form matters not only for what it can do as a channelling system, but also for its perceptual
impact (Fig. 2).

As both an elaborate infrastructural knot and a seductive object, Arnhem Central raises further questions
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regarding the appropriate design strategy. In particular, could the external requirements of flow control
be balanced with the internal criteria of visual attraction? It would seem that if the design is a context-
driven translation of social demand into architectural supply, then any deviation from functional
necessity is superfluous or even detrimental to the original purpose. Alternatively, if the architectural
project is free to assert the power of beauty, then diagnostics and analysis are only impoverishing
constraints. However, the pursuit of both functional and aesthetic objectives in the design of Arnhem
Central Station is not an isolated example, but rather an illustration of the double-sided approach
promulgated by UN Studio.

On one hand, UN Studio’s work ends a prolonged period during which architects resisted assembling
various invisible systems into well-formed attractive objects. The firm’s output shows that
infrastructural projects do not have to be ugly or disappear.16 Their urban operators assert the sheer
beauty of form and material. In this regard, Arnhem Central is no exception, with its sensually
folded surfaces and carefully calibrated colours and textures. Moreover, the firm insists on making
beautiful buildings as pure works of art that could exist as ‘‘silent, abstract sculptures’’ without any
functional purpose.17 On the other hand, their artworks are not abstracted from the real
complexities of site logistics. An empirical
approach is at the core of their inductive
methodology. Case-specific design guide-
lines are derived from the particularities of
location, program and users.18 Spatial
production is closely linked to mapping,
visualization and analysis of urban dy-
namics. Through such mediating proce-
dures, UN Studio intentionally operates on
existing infrastructural systems in order to
engage the urban environment at the
level of organization. Nevertheless, this
paradoxical divergence of ideological posi-
Figure 2 ‘‘Beautiful apparatus.’’ Photos: Maria tions does not compromise the consistency
Fedorchenko. ª 2007 Maria Fedorchenko. of the firm’s design tactics.

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 Fedorchenko

For their polyvalent designs, UN Studio claims an intermediate situation between ‘‘art and airports,’’
whereas final artworks absorb organizational systems of contemporary urban reality.19 Visual impact is
not necessarily juxtaposed with functional operation. The work of art need not forfeit its subjective
qualities or compete with technological systems in order to maintain active connections with its context.
Artistic intervention could reconcile multiple patterns of organization within spatial apparatuses that
enhance both visual and operational effects. Consequently, UN Studio frames its transformative creations
as ‘public construction,’ fusing artistic and technological invention at infrastructural nodes in order to
accelerate the reorganization of urban space. Arguably, the expanded capacity of such public artworks
could also incorporate both ethical and aesthetic design priorities, suggesting a way out of the original
dilemma in contemporary practice. Reference to the mediating aspects of the UN Studio design strategies
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might enable architects to better navigate the conflicting criteria of organizational efficiency and artistic
expression.

A theoretical parallel to UN Studio’s holistic methodology can be found in Immanuel Kant’s analogy of
natural rationality in free art. To paraphrase UN Studio’s aspirations in Kantian terms, the designers
must reconcile objective interest in ethical function with subjective interest in aesthetic pleasure. Kant’s
arguments generally set apart ethical goodness, determined by the rational judgement relative to a
concept of purpose, and aesthetic pleasure, reliant on the subjective judgement of taste.20 However, upon
taking a ‘cognitive’ turn, Kant acknowledges the influence of rational concepts on artistic production.
The beauty of nature that operates in terms of cause and effect serves as a model for the effecting
principle of man’s creations.21 Thus, beautiful art might appear natural, but this appearance is affected
by a series of rigorous rules. However, the cognitive structure borrowed from nature is not meant to be
restrictive.22 The awareness of natural laws does not necessarily lead to mechanical art, determined by
compulsory concepts. As a cognitively balanced artistic practice, design could sustain productive unity
between precise rules and free expression. Viewed through this lens, UN Studio’s ambivalent position
with regards to rational direction and irrational variation is refracted as the desire to capture hidden
principles in urban ‘‘nature,’’ without becoming constrained by them. Analysis of urban causes and
effects is a way to deploy urban rules as organizational guidelines rather than strict prescriptions. The
extracted principles allow the designers to develop the project with an internal precision that is distinct
from blind obedience to physical laws or superficial simulation of visual phenomena.23

Diagrams as Analytical and Projective Design Machines

The primary design tool allowing UN Studio to balance freedom and control is the diagram. Through
diagrammatic analysis existing rules of spatial production that affect flows on the urban site are
transposed into the project.24 Furthermore, UN Studio taps into an extensive archive of external
diagrams that encapsulate various dynamic processes and relationships in order to push the
morphological and performative boundaries of their work. The cognitive structures of both constructed
and imported diagrams provide their artistic expression with rational direction. Analogous with the form
theory in the life sciences, patterns of organization registered by diagrams serve as a means of internal
control over design logic, while producing variable formal products.25 Notably, the primary function of

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the organizational diagram is to channel the architect’s imagination, rather than fractally reproduce the
particular order of a macro-system at the micro-level of the project.

In order to simultaneously introduce and produce spatial orders within their designs, UN Studio relies
on the condensed logic of the diagram that underlies, but does not stipulate organization and form.
Related theoretical constructions by Gilles Deleuze have already influenced the conceptual frameworks of
several advanced practices. Most common is his notion of the diagram as an ‘abstract machine’ that is
conceptually abstract, yet fully functional as a concrete device for assemblage and deployment of spatial
and social effects.26 Yet UN Studio goes a step further and applies abstract diagrammatic machines as
concrete design mechanisms. The diagrams are used quite literally as both distilling and proliferating
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instruments: as schematic visual constructions that not only compress registered contextual forces but
also multiply programmatic and spatial options. Going beyond discursive reliance on the conceptual
power of diagrams, UN Studio develops a resilient relationship between several sets of analytical and
generative visual tools.

In the design process of Arnhem Central, analytical diagrams link the systems of channels and
conduits with the site dynamics. Extended analysis of Arnhem’s external forces fits into UN Studio’s
general strategy for public construction termed ‘deep planning.’ This inductive approach implies the
ability to cut through and engage all possible layers of reference ranging from movement and use
patterns to demographics and topography.27 The master-builder is coexistent with the public
scientist who collects, coordinates and transforms all the qualitative and statistical data into a
single material system. As a necessary step in such transformations, diagrams are used as reductive
machines for dissection, compression and visualization of information. Thus, the preliminary
scheme for Arnhem Central appears in the guise of a statistical image or spatial chart. Early
studies for the station design are mostly quantitative analyses of the fluctuating transfer intensities.
These are then re-presented as qualitative mappings of the relationships between key station nodes
(Fig. 3).

Figure 3 ‘‘Interrelated movements.’’ Courtesy of UN Studio. ª 1999 UN Studio.

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 Fedorchenko

UN Studio’s diagrammatic strategies for site diagnostics can be linked to a recent trend in contemporary
practice towards pseudo-scientific exploration of reality. According to Antoine Picon, experimental
designers have been appropriating scientific metaphors and procedures, driven by the desire to generate
internal necessity for projects.28 UN Studio’s use of data charts and network analysis tools is an example
of such a methodological transposition. In their literal translation of data differentials into material
structures, the Arnhem Central statistical diagrams bear affinity with the strategy of the ‘datascape’ that
has been articulated by MVRDV. However, in combining rigorous data analysis with its creative
interpretation, UN Studio’s diagnostics are closest to the practices of Rem Koolhaas / OMA. Rem
Koolhaas advances the notion of diagramming as urban ‘surfing’—producing new possibilities by
navigating conflicting waves of reality and constructing distinct architectural orders out of urban
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confusion.29 Similarly, Arnhem’s diagrams locate the project at the intersection of economic, political
and infrastructural forces that guide design decisions without scientific inevitability. Thus, diagrams as
synthetic modulating devices align extrinsic and intrinsic pressures of the design system, while avoiding
their interdependence.

Non-linear Exchanges within the Diagrammatic Design Process

A closer look at the design process of Arnhem Central clarifies how particular diagrams reconcile external
and internal spatial orders. Apparently, the station’s schematic design is tightly linked to the informational
diagrams derived from statistics on transportation loads, connection densities and waiting times. In order
to extract the hidden rules behind the existing transfer patterns, a vast amount of information on
circulation is compiled and visualized. Since pedestrian movement is identified as the common element of
several infrastructural nodes, a series of diagrams-maps show the direction of human flow trajectories,
their prominence in relation to other modes of transportation and their interconnections.

At this design stage, we observe how the diagrams that analyse the station’s operation begin to
influence the emergent configurations of form. The project takes shape as a landscape of interrelated
movements. Axes of varying infrastructure
potentials distribute circulation routes and
primary programs. The statistics on transfer
dynamics and waiting times prompt the
locations for secondary programmatic elements
such as ‘fun-shopping’ and ‘run-shopping’
(Fig. 4). The plot lines of transfer routes
swell into tubes and volumes according to
respective circulation quantities registered by
the flow diagrams. The overlapping areas of
shared user interests inform a system of ‘black
holes’ that punctures the concourse layers to
create shortcuts between multiple levels and Figure 4 ‘‘Program and movement.’’ Courtesy of UN
programs. Studio. ª 1999 UN Studio.

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It might appear that the network diagrams of circulation links and transfer nodes are directly converted
into transit channels and programmatic clusters around passenger halls. However, as Patrick
Schumacher has observed, it is easy to identify a series of gaps, leaps, and loops in the seemingly
straightforward design process that is based on functional determination.30 The original distributed
system diagram (network graph of transportation nodes) is actually replaced by a centralized all-line
system (the branching figure of paths, converging onto the train platforms).31 This figure is then
merged with an approximation of a functionalist bubble diagram. The resulting hybrid is transformed
once again into an array of intersecting circulation cones, irreducible to a network graph. The fused
cones represent the integration of primary infrastructural ‘layers.’ As made evident by the expanding set
of diagrams, experiments with modulated and combined channelling cones begin to dominate rigid
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adherence to data plots. The non-linear path from network analysis to formal articulation diverges into
several intertwined design tracks (Fig. 5).

Manipulated via diagrams, the data on urban systems starts to evoke new possibilities on spatial and
organizational levels. The diagram enjoys the designers’ fascination as the agent of the virtual, as the
projective design machine that ‘‘does not function to represent, even something real, but rather
constructs a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality.’’32 To be more precise, the virtual space of
Arnhem is produced with the augmented reality of networks and flows within the medium of the
diagram.

UN Studio’s direct involvement with the urban systems as a means of artistic projection blurs the
analogies with the surgical interventions of a filmmaker and the detached magic of an artist, contrasted
by Walter Benjamin.33 By making deep cuts through multiple layers of context, UN Studio operates
directly within the urban organism. Yet formally driven adjustments to the revealed anatomy signal the
designers’ desire to indirectly affect the external appearance. Besides accurately diagnosing and
alleviating existing infrastructural problems, UN Studio is interested in having mediated systems trigger
new architectural effects. Therefore at Arnhem, the analytical equipment of the diagram simultaneously

Figure 5 Schematic plan; ‘‘Infrastructural layers.’’ Courtesy of UN Studio. ª 1999 UN Studio.

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 Fedorchenko

dissects the animate system, extracts particular fragments and intensifies their arrangements into an
alternative reality.

Moreover, the operative components are turned back on themselves to produce new visual products. The
proposed architectural body incorporates the existing infrastructural organs, yet these organs are re-
arranged to serve additional purposes. While initial components of transfer halls are developed in close
observance of infrastructural operation, most of the station elements are ultimately merged or knotted.
The architects strive to integrate the heterogeneous infrastructures into a multilayered, yet uninterrupted
spectacle. The second set of diagrammatic transformations such as folding and stretching is made
conspicuously in order to smooth the transitions between numerous tubes and cones. Actively pursuing
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perceptual continuities for cinematic effects, designers further deviate from the original functional
diagrams34 (Fig. 6).

Design Models of Formal-Functional Consistency

Indirect translation of analytical diagrams into generative ones might appear to be a methodological
contradiction. Could UN Studio’s manipulation of urban material be judged as opportunistic in light of
their declared ethical aspirations? Furthermore, could the efficiency of the station’s infrastructural
performance be jeopardized by the apparent conflict of formal and programmatic demands? By
exploring the diagram’s ability to negotiate between several design regimes, the architects manage to
escape binary opposition of form and function and render their ethical responses in material terms.
These possibilities are supported by the practical application of the theoretical capacities of
diagrammatic machines that precede formal and functional definitions.35 As the diagram collects and
distributes pre-formed matter and functions, it establishes a horizontal rather than vertical mediation
between multiple constituencies. According to Sanford Kwinter, horizontal correspondence within
diagrammatic micro-regime of generative forces provides an impetus to new shapes and programs
through a series of distributed nodes of hybridization rather than through hierarchical decision trees.36

Figure 6 Smooth continuities. Photos: Maria Fedorchenko. ª 2007 Maria Fedorchenko.

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Such a-hierarchical organization allows Arnhem’s diagrams to serve not as blueprints for form, but
as internal devices that accelerate formal and programmatic transformations in parallel. So it is
no surprise that most of the infrastructural diagrams do not themselves produce form. Initial
analytical studies suggest a set of functional ‘‘traits’’ of the transfer space. However, the developed station
design is far from the literal translation of statistical data and time-based sequences into material
structures. The formulated principles of functional organization are inherently abstract and not
restricted to a particular type of geometry. Most importantly, while certain formal traits are derived from
the site analysis, the final appearance of the project is concretized with the aid of imported
diagrammatic models.
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The elastic connection between formal and functional systems allows UN Studio to introduce additional
generative diagrams, such as mathematical knots. These external systems are meant not only to resolve
the transitions between various programs, but what is more important, to provide an alternative formal
system that integrates the circulation layers and transit holes into a single surface of transference. And
despite being markedly geometric, the imported diagrams are not entirely divorced from the analysis of
transit flows. The infrastructure of Arnhem Central follows the analogy of airport space in which
‘mathematical non-orientability’ is paralleled by ‘time-based continuous difference.’37 Such an
approach to differentiation inhibits the fixed orientation of circulation and program: movement is the
program and the program is moving.38 Thus, time-based organization borrowed from topology is
deemed appropriate in this case. The topological Klein bottle is chosen as the most fitting model in both
pragmatic (inclusiveness, connectivity) and formal (smoothness, plasticity) terms. As a spatial figure
that remains continuous throughout transformation from a surface to a hole and back, the station
organization engendered by the Klein bottle diagram subsumes the oppositions of inside—outside and
surface—opening39 (Fig. 7).

Despite its generative influence at the level of organization, the isolated topological model cannot
describe all the transitions between horizontal and vertical surfaces at the concrete level of
construction. Nor can it alleviate the remain-
ing problems of disrupted vertical circulation,
which necessitate further modifications.
Although the external diagram is initially
regarded as a self-consistent geometric system,
the designers redefine its parameters based on
outstanding architectural problems. The ab-
stract organizational principles are made
spatial and editable according to a relational
approach. Furthermore, new power of repeti-
tion is found in already spatialized versions of
other abstract diagrams. In general, UN
Figure 7 Modulated Klein bottle diagram, digital Studio suggests designers focus not only on
model. Courtesy of UN Studio. ª 2006 UN Studio. idiosyncratic project diagrams developed from

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 Fedorchenko

the bottom-up, but also on shared design models that could be imposed onto the formal
development. These models serve as condensers of enduring architectural ingredients of a particular
organizational diagram that could generate a whole series of projects.40 The design model is
abstract in that it excludes site or program-specific information, yet it could be implemented
directly in concrete design situations. The models are applied by adjusting specific parameters of
the distilled organizational packages (Fig. 8).

This model-based approach to architecture is tested in the development of Arnhem Central Station.
The final version of the station space is driven by three key design models: mathematical Klein
bottle, formal ‘blob-to-box’ model and structural ‘V-model.’ Applied in combination, these models
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resolve the geometric connections between programmatic zones and produce qualitative shifts in the
station’s organization. The single uninterrupted surface becomes the most conspicuous material
system, permeating the entire structure. Rectilinear volumes of the towers and the bus shelter melt
into the curvilinear tunnels and ramps. The stacked horizontal levels are united by the vertical folds
of the ‘V-holes.’ Such seamless connections not only support absorption and ejection of circulation
flows but also establish a particular formal regime of ‘smoothness.’ Spatial fluidity of the
infrastructural scaffolding contributes to its performance as a magnetic architecture of attraction
(Fig. 9).

Figure 8 Design models. Courtesy of UN Studio. ª 2006 UN Studio.

Figure 9 Social / spatial geometries. Photos: Maria Fedorchenko. ª 2007 Maria Fedorchenko.

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The visual advantages are not gained at the expense of operational efficiency. The introduction of
seemingly formal models has a range of functional consequences. Commenting on the performative
effects of UN Studio projects, Bart Lootsma noted that spatial ‘proliferations’ of their diagrams are
inseparable from their utility as social machines.41 Arnhem’s transfer spaces put into action Gilles
Deleuze’s conception of the diagram as a schematic cartography that is coexistent and coextensive with
the larger social field.42 Through topological models, formal transitions resolve a number of
simultaneous transfer requirements posed by the original network diagrams. Formal and functional
traits combine in the smooth infrastructural geometry of transportation links, shortcut holes and
partition folds. The station emerges as a public landscape, in which function and volume, circulation
and construction are integrated into a single continuous system.43 Rigid distinctions between the
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moving and the waiting, occupation and transit, as well as inside and outside are eliminated. Evenly
distributed flow reduces intersections of different traffic systems to a minimum and optimizes pedestrian
access to all facilities. The four-dimensional topology multiplies available transfer surface while avoiding
bottlenecks and programmatic segmentation of conventional stacked spaces. This new kind of social
condenser intensifies connections between different users, programmatic zones and urban districts.

Diagrammatic Balance of Infrastructural Formalism

As demonstrated by the case of Arnhem Central Station, UN Studio manages cognitive directives for
creative production through flexible manipulation of diagrammatic machines. The process diagrams are
not reduced to typological schemes that bind program geometrically or to indexical traces that prescribe
formal evolution, but rather act as polyvalent design mechanisms that condition programs and forms.
Notably, concretization of the station structure is a very loose interpretation of the original urban
analyses. Significantly, reduction and proliferation are not performed by the same diagram, but by a
series of interceding models that remain related yet distinct design systems. The instrumentality of the
project is expanded by adaptation of external diagrams related to the original problems at the levels of
geometry and organization. Rendered in specifically architectural terms, condensed diagrammatic
models alter the procedures of the infrastructure-oriented design practice, for they propose new modes of
control over translation of operational diagrams into material form.

UN Studio’s strategies for mediating between analytical and generative diagrams could be regarded as
symptomatic of a pending ideological shift to ‘infrastructural formalism.’ Their hybrid design approach
posits a methodological corrective to the function-based interpretation of infrastructural control systems,
prescribed by the diagrammatic framework. The expanded notion of infrastructure allows for the
loosened consistency between programmatic and material systems. Greg Lynn has noted that Ben van
Berkel of UN Studio is engaged in the production of infrastructural architecture both literally, in the
design of programs, and methodologically, in the orchestration of form-generating systems.44 Arnhem
Central continues this trend, for it is not simply the context and the program that define the project’s
infrastructural character, but also the ‘endogenous consistency’ of diagrammatic design.45 Such a
consistency is characterized by creative modulation of operational rules that relate the patterns of
transfer flows to the patterns of surface folds. Analytical diagrams generate external material traits with

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Figure 10 Diagrammatic balance of form and function. Scheme: Maria Fedorchenko. Photos: courtesy of UN
Studio. ª 2007 Maria Fedorchenko.

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internal exactness. However, the diagrams of form are not only conditioned by function, but also
influence infrastructural performance. Geometric transformations of the network diagrams perform as
catalysts for new relationships within the topological continuum of space-time. Acting between operative
laws and free expression, diagrammatic design allows functional constraints to trigger formal
possibilities, and vice versa. This horizontal mode of exchange is enabled by the diagrams as both proto-
functional and proto-formal design instruments.

Diagrammatic consistency of infrastructural formalism might suspend numerous disciplinary

oppositions. First, the agency of the diagram alleviates persistent tensions between operation and
appearance within contemporary practice. Since the diagram balances practical imperative and creative
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expression, it helps avoid common pitfalls of the discipline, such as extremes of pseudo-scientific
functionalism and artificially autonomous formalism. The directive logic of the diagram does not aim
for unequivocal goodness of fit between form and function.46 Diagrams should not be regarded as
vehicles for functionalist calculation, for the design process is irreducible to linear translation of
programs into formal patterns. The perceived outcome is not subservient to rigid programmatic
relationships. At the same time, form and function do not disintegrate into completely independent
design tracks. The material object is not encapsulated by abstract orders derived from self-referential
experiments, but belongs to a larger dynamic urban system.47 The exclusive dependency or disjunction
of the primary design domains could be replaced by resilient diagrammatic mediation (Fig. 10).

On a second ideological level, the inclusive logic of infrastructural formalism might eliminate a painful
choice between ethical responsibility and aesthetic desires. With the diagrammatic approach, beauty can
be reconciled with practical necessity. Diagrams allow the designer to handle infrastructural logistics
while retaining the freedom to construct powerful imagery, akin to artists or filmmakers. The resulting
‘‘beautiful apparatus’’ reclaims the status of the architectural project as not only an efficient mechanism
but also as a work of art. Moreover, crossovers between beauty and efficiency are beneficial for both. As a
scientist / artist, the designer enhances both aesthetic and ethical dimensions of the project.
Diagrammatic engagement moves incrementally from affiliation with the datascapes to projection of
alternative design visions. Social predicaments are addressed with the ultimate architectural means:
form, structure, and material. Besides aesthetic advantages, visual magnetism of the design product
promotes the background infrastructural space to an independent attractor of programmatic flows. The
maintained diagrammatic balance of infrastructural formalism increases the potential of architectural
artworks to produce a broader range of social effects.48

Endnotes
1 The author would like to thank Dana Cuff for her help with an earlier manuscript and Christopher Hennessy
for critical editing. This paper also benefited from comments provided by an anonymous referee.
2 The experimental practices that foreground infrastructural context conditions, albeit in different terms,
include Field Operations, FOA (Foreign Office Architects), MVRDV, OMA, Raoul Bunschoten / CHORA, Stan
Allen Architect, and UN Studio, among others.

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3 Stan Allen, ‘‘Infrastructural Urbanism,’’ in Point and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City, New York:
Princeton Architectural Press, 1999, pp. 46-57.
4 Allen, ‘‘Infrastructural Urbanism,’’ pp. 55-57.
5 Julia Czerniak, ‘‘Appearance, Performance: Landscape at Downsview,’’ in Julia Czerniak (ed.), Case:
Downsview Park Toronto, Munich and New York: Prestel and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Graduate
School of Design, 2001, pp. 12-23.
6 Working with performance rather than appearance, infrastructural urbanism displaces the emphasis on
visuality and formalism. Indifference to formal debates allows the organization to evolve directly from the
elaborated ‘field conditions.’ Within the field, overall shape and extent are less important than the internal
relationship between the focal points and vector lines. Form matters, ‘‘but not so much the form of things as
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the form between things.’’ The interactive and fluid condition of the field is marked by functional, but not
necessarily formal continuity: ‘‘it is an architecture that functions smoothly without necessarily looking
smooth.’’ Stan Allen, ‘‘Field Conditions,’’ in Point and Lines, pp. 90-103.
7 Allen, ‘‘Infrastructural Urbanism,’’ p. 57.
8 In place of synoptic master planning and perspectival scenography, diagrams are some of the ‘eidetic
operations’ that enable new strategies of spatial and social construction based on interaction between various
design agents. James Corner, ‘‘Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes,’’ in James Corner (ed.), Recovering
Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999,
p. 153.
9 Pier Vittorio Aureli, ‘‘Architecture after the Diagram,’’ Lotus International, 127 (2006): 96-105.
10 Key precedent for today’s dilemma is 1960-70’s research on design methods, in particular the work of
Christopher Alexander on the diagrammatic tactics for decomposing program into a set of discrete problems
and the gradual matching of programmatic sub-systems with formal patterns. Christopher Alexander, ‘‘The
Goodness of Fit,’’ in his Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, pp.
15-27.
11 Jesse Reiser, ‘‘Loose Fit,’’ in Andrew Benjamin (ed.), Reiser þ Umemoto: Recent Projects, London: Academy
Editions, 1998, pp. 31-33.
12 As the active transport hub, integrating train, bus, car and pedestrian movement, Arnhem Station is the main
flow valve for more than 65,000 people daily. Due to Arnhem’s growing regional connections, the municipal
authority and the NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) Dutch Railways commissioned UN Studio to create the
station’s expansion and re-organization.
13 This contrast refers to the common understanding of the ‘state of distraction’ that stems from Walter
Benjamin’s analogy between film and architecture. This state is initially confined to the mechanisms for
architecture’s absorption through use, by touch and by sight. Upon closer reading, once the multilayered and
confusing expression of form is seen as a means to capture viewers’ attention, the meaning of distraction is
significantly expanded. Furthermore, the space of distraction begins to figure as not only psychological, but
also material, and thus pose the question of its formal correlatives. Anthony Vidler, ‘‘Dead End Street: Walter
Benjamin and the State of Distraction,’’ in Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture,
London and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 81-97.
14 Such designers as Stan Allen already probed various modes of materializing infrastructural space. Although
effective strategies of distraction such as ‘unmasking, disavowal, or ‘‘defamiliarization’’’ can be appropriated by

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the catalogue of architectural technologies, resistance to the dematerialization of infrastructure through

resurrection of literal representation of ‘dislocated’ material objects is generally viewed as problematic. See
Stan Allen, ‘‘Contextual Tactics,’’ in Point and Lines, pp. 15-16.
15 In several publications, the distanced calculations of Arnhem Central channelling systems are accompanied by
Ben van Berkel’s dramatic photo-montage, ‘‘A Nightmare Turned into a Beautiful Dream,’’ in Ben van Berkel
and Caroline Bos, UN STUDIO UNFOLD, Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2002, p. 36.
16 Aaron Betsky, ‘‘Unfolding the Forms of UN Studio,’’ in van Berkel and Bos, UN STUDIO UNFOLD, p. 7.
17 The architects claim that to be in a building should be akin to walking through a painting, so that the ‘‘gaze
swerves and orients you through colour, shine, light, figuration and sensation.’’ See Ben van Berkel and
Caroline Bos, ‘‘Radiant Synthetic Effects,’’ in Cynthia C. Davidson (ed.), Anything, New York: Anyone
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Corporation, 2001, p. 109.

18 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, MOVE, Volume 3, Amsterdam: Goose Press, 1999, p. 138.
19 For UN Studio, airport is an accumulation of logistics that replicates the structural characteristics of many
contemporary exchange systems. To design between art and airports, the patterns of exchange are traced and
creatively modulated, even though they may not reveal all the motives triggering such patterns, or be limited
to the effects produced by such structures. Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, ‘‘Art and Airports,’’ in UN STUDIO
UNFOLD, pp. 108-109.
20 For Kant, the good pleases by means of reason, filtered by an intrinsic or extrinsic concept of purpose. By
contrast, the judgment of beauty is generally free from rational concepts. However, this distinction at the basis
of Kant’s arguments is laden with ambiguities. We find the unexpected combination of the pleasant and the
good in the notion of ‘‘adherent’’ beauty, dependent on conceptual ideal. The admitted possibility of moral
interest in aesthetic judgement reveals that the relationship between the good and the beautiful is more
complex than the initial dichotomy may suggest. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, New York: Barnes &
Noble Books, 2005.
21 The artist strives for the work of art to appear ‘natural,’ building upon the renewed vision of nature as a series
of intractable laws. John Zammito, The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 132.
22 Kant contrasts dictatorial restriction of correct canons and productive direction of exact rules. In nature, such
‘‘punctiliously observed’’, yet not ‘‘painfully apparent’’ rule could be distinguished behind an endless variation
of natural objects resulting from the same physical mechanism. Kant, Critique of Judgment, p. 109.
23 This problem of relating external and internal rules is further explored in the following discussion of imported
design models as pre-formalized diagrams.
24 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, ‘‘Diagrams—Interactive Instruments in Operation,’’ ANY, 23 (December,
1998): 22.
25 Building a parallel between the form theories in design and in the life sciences, Sanford Kwinter shows that
diagram registers invisible material logics and collects the algorithms for the organizational patterns. Such
patterns demonstrate that multiple formal instances can arise uniquely through internal controls. These
control factors take on a particular pre-determined direction or assume autonomous existence. Sanford
Kwinter, ‘‘Genealogy of Models,’’ ANY, 23 (December, 1998): p. 59.
26 Advanced design practices have been directly influenced by the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
who adopted Michel Foucault’s terms such as ‘abstract machine’ in order to demonstrate diagram’s potential

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as conceptually abstract, yet functional as a concrete spatial and social device. Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1987, p. 142.
27 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, ‘‘The New, New Concept of the Architect—Revised, Recharged, Now More
Hopeful than Ever,’’ A þ U, 405 (June, 2004): 99.
28 Antoine Picon, ‘‘Architecture, Science, Technology, and the Virtual Realm,’’ in Antoine Picon and Alessandra
Ponte (eds), Architecture and the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors, New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
2003, p. 306.
29 According to Rem Koolhaas, the city is akin to the ocean, full of multiple ebbs, peaks and troughs. The
architect is a surfer on the waves of urban reality. Surfing is a process of continual negotiation between the
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architect’s intentions and wave dynamics. The architect balances urban tides and undercurrents in order to
keep his board afloat. At the level of design development, the project becomes the product of many overlapping
forces. Furthermore, design as surfing suggests the possibility of navigating towards a particular architectural
goal while working with and not against the context. Rem Koolhaas ‘‘What Ever Happened to Urbanism?,’’ in
OMA, Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S, M, L, XL, New York: Monacelli Press, 1995, pp. 961-969.
30 Patrick Schumacher, ‘‘Rational in Retrospect: Reflections on the Logic of Rationality in Recent Design,’’ AA
Files, 38 (Spring, 1999): 31.
31 Schumacher, ‘‘Rational in Retrospect,’’ pp. 23-31.
32 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 142.
33 According to Walter Benjamin, the ‘surgeon’ (cameraman) cuts straight into the body as opposed to
‘magician’ (artist) who heals it from the outside by lying of hands. Upon permeating urban context with
mechanical equipment, the multiple fragments of reality become raw material to be rearranged and
reassembled into a continuous film. Yet UN Studio’s ‘surgeons’ also resort to artistic operations from outside,
in the guise of imported diagrams and sculptural manipulations. Walter Benjamin, ‘‘The Work of Art in the
Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’’ in Illuminations, New York: Schocken Books, 1986, p. 233.
34 The architects aim for the effect of ‘faciality’ or the smooth performance of integration. The diagram of
faciality originates in Gilles Deleuze’s analysis of non-linear continuity of space-time in the writings by Marcel
Proust. Berkel and Bos, ‘‘Diagrams—Interactive Instruments in Operation,’’ p. 22.
35 The abstract machine is independent of the ‘‘forms and substances, expressions and contents it will distribute.’’
At the level of diagrammatic abstraction, the functions are not yet ‘semiotically’ formed and matters are not
yet ‘physically’ formed. Thus, the diagram marks pre-formal and pre-functional design condition. Deleuze and
Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, pp. 142-143.
36 Kwinter, ‘‘Genealogy of Models,’’ p. 58.
37 Berkel and Bos, ‘‘Radiant Synthetic Effects,’’ p. 109.
38 Berkel and Bos, ‘‘Radiant Synthetic Effects,’’ p. 109.
39 As the product of two merged Mobius loops, Klein bottle is a single-sided object with no boundaries between
inside and outside. It eliminates the distinction between expansion and contraction, confluence and
separation. Klein bottle’s conceptual power also lies in its four-dimensional construction. It cannot be
constructed in a three-dimensional space without self-intersection—to complete the integration of two Mobius
strips together you need to go through a surface without a hole. Such a topological construction introduces

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temporal dimension into three-dimensional infrastructural form. See John G. Hocking and Gail S. Young,
Topology, New York: Dover Publications, 1961.
40 UN Studio, Design Models: Architecture, Urbanism, Infrastructure, New York: Rizzoli, 2006, p. 18.
41 Bart Lootsma, ‘‘Diagrams in Costumes,’’ A þ U, 3, 342 (March, 1999): 98-103.
42 Lootsma, ‘‘Diagrams in Costumes,’’ p. 103.
43 The topological construction functions as an ‘epigenetic landscape,’ where the orifices of ‘black holes’ set
off different patterns of movement, which in their turn enable surface transformations. Berkel and Bos, MOVE,
p. 137.
44 Greg Lynn, ‘‘Forms of Expression: The Proto-Functional Potential of Diagrams in Architectural Design,’’ El
Croquis, 72, 1 (1995): 24.
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45 Going beyond ‘exogenous consistency’ of the project and the site, the architect can extend infrastructural
operation into the project so that it possesses a certain endogenous consistency. Lynn, ‘‘Forms of Expression,’’
p. 25.
46 In the context of design methods, the diagram helps ensure a ‘goodness of fit’ between program and form
through hierarchical assembly of formal patterns. Furthermore, the formal excess is filed away for a tight fit
between the object and the environment. Alexander, ‘‘The Goodness of Fit,’’ pp. 15-27.
47 Ignasi di Sola-Morales, ‘‘From Autonomy to Untimeliness,’’ in Sarah Whiting (ed.), Differences: Topography
of Contemporary Architecture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 73-92.
48 Despite the noted advantages, UN Studio’s experiment also suggests that full understanding of the productive
relationship between design data compression and proliferation is yet to be achieved. Specific tactics for
separation and integration of various criteria can be developed into a standard practice, utilizing diagrams as
comprehensive design machines. Perhaps then ethically informed artistic practices would achieve the balanced
integration of functional and formal.

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