The map is our sketchpad—this is where we let uninhibited curiosity lead the way.
Like Arthur T. Winfree’s The Geometry of Biological Time, much of this is a contemplation on temporal morphology. It’s also a contemplation on conceptual morphology—mapping the formation of new ideas, locating ideas that beg to be connected, that are required to stabilize others, that change shape in the presence of one another. It’s a map between evolved designs, the evolved structures that are processes of design, those mysteriously teleological adaptive systems that are born from the laws of physics—it’s a map between those and the design tools and methodologies we’re more familiar with. It’s a collection of taxonomies, a platform for recategorization, and an interrogation of existing or imagined categories. It's just a place for inspiration. We use it to find inspiration or to archive and connect anything we worry might be lost otherwise.
Please bear with us as we continue to build out this and other parts of nuLUCA. There’s more to come, but our intention is to keep the Map an experimental space. While working on other projects, we inevitably come across ideas we’d like to explore further but that might present more as distractions at the time. This is the place to log them and give them room to grow. Also, the Map is the added incentive, or reminder, to focus on connections—connections to different disciplines, different mediums, different conceptual models. The Map doesn’t just permit pressure-free experimentation, it requires it. There’s no defined end goal, just room to play. And, of course, sometimes the napkin sketch, or the cardboard model, or the yarned together mental map, is the most valuable part of a project to share.
