Greg Lynn's Embryological House The Embryological House is a seminal work from the late 1990s by American architect

Greg Lynn. The Canadian Centre for Architecture, guardian of the physical models associated with the House, is in the process of acquiring its digital files. The purpose of this case study is to build the knowledge base and set out the strategies necessary for the long-term preservation of this archive. The study has two other general goals: to lay the groundwork for a broader strategy for acquisition and access of new media files at the CCA; and to contribute an understanding of specifically architectural preservation issues for DOCAM's broader project of the preservation and documentation of digital art.

The Embryological House is paradigmatic of this work: a born-digital project developed through the application of principles of animate form. It had several goals: _to rethink the idea of house typology beyond the modernist "kit of parts" model to an organic, flexible, genetic/generic prototype from which an infinite number of iterations can be generated. _to extend the interplay of "generic" and "variation" implied in this rethinking to notions of product "branding" and the satisfaction of individual desire through consumer-specific, unique versions of the product. _to push the capabilities of existing automated manufacturing technologies for the production of non-standard architectural forms.

Microstation drawing of "primitive" geometrical form from which the House iterations were developed

Microstation drawing of developed Embryological House

Maya model of the House, rendered

MEL script file

still from MOV animation of the House

conceptual diagram of a digital file as a contextual object. A given file often refers to other files; important parts of an AutoCAD drawing, for example, may be located outside the filein a library or a base drawing. And the given file may itself be referred to by other digital objects. These relationships are known as dependencies; one file is dependent on the other. Dependencies are diagrammed below in the horizontal planes, and are indicated by thin arrows. Files can also partake of vertical relationships: there are often several versions of a given file, as the design develops over time. These versions are connected in the diagram by thick arrows. Each of version of a given file has its own dependencies. Managing a collection of digital objects requires a knowledge of any given file's relationship to other files in the collection, in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. If these relationships are lost, parts of the file go missing, and it may become unreadable.

contour drawing of landscape thus generated; physical model of one iteration of the Embryological House.